5 Victims, 4 Murders, 1 Rape, and 3 Killer Brothers
By: Lisa Marie Fuqua
Tags: Teenagers, History, Culture, True Crime, Justice

A quiet night of friends hanging around a campfire turned into a bloodbath that would change the area forever.

Gitchie Manitou State Preserve | via Iowa Adventures

The Gitchie Manitou State Preserve is located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. On November 17, 1973, it was the site of a massacre.

Roger Essem, Michael Hadrath, Stewart Baade, and Dana Baade | via Newspapers.com

Local teenagers, Stewart Baade 18, his brother Dana 14, Mike Hadrath 15, Roger Essem 17, and Sandra Cheskey 13, were spending the evening around a campfire in the woods.

They shared a joint and sang along as they strummed a guitar — just a typical night for teenagers in 1973.

At the same time, a group of brothers was in the same park to poach deer. The Fryer brothers, Allen 29, David 24, and James 21, were no strangers to illegal actives.

The brothers had previously been arrested for transporting stolen vehicles across state lines and routinely robbed weapons and other items. The guns they were carrying with them that night had been stolen.

As the brothers hunted in the woods, they heard singing. They followed the sound until they discovered the teenagers around the campfire. David had been ordered to go find out what was going on. He spied on the group for a few minutes before going back to tell his brothers what he saw.

David said that there were four guys and one girl and that they were smoking marijuana. The brothers discussed what they wanted to do, then came up with the plan to pretend to be narcotic officers and kill the victims and take their stash.

During the trial, the Fryer brothers admitted that they thought narcotics agents had free range to kill anyone using drugs.

The brothers went back to their truck and got more guns and ammunition. They scaled a small ridge that overlooked the campfire and prepared for their attack.

The teenagers thought they heard noises in the woods. Thinking it might be animals, Roger Essem went to investigate.

Allen, David, and James Fryer (left-right) | via Oxygen

The Fryer brothers opened fire.

Roger Essem was instantly killed, and Steward Baade was wounded. Michael Hadrath and Sandra Cheskey were able to run and take cover behind some trees.

The brothers yelled for the two in the woods to come out. Sandra and Michael came out, and Michael asked, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Allen Fryer responded by shooting Michael in the arm. He and Sandra both fell to the ground. But the brothers forced them up, saying they were “playing dead.”

Allen and David Fryer led Michael and Sandra, along with Dana Baade, down a trail leading away from the campfire.

When the Fryers got to the teenager’s van, they tied Sandra up and placed her inside. One of the brothers then went back and brought Stewart Baade to the van since he was still alive.

Allen Fryer got behind the wheel of the van with Sandra inside, and they drove away. Sandra would tell in court she watched as brothers James and David forced Dana Baade, Michael Hadrath, and Stewart Baade to walk further up the road.

Using shotguns, James, and David Fryer executed the last three teenagers. Leaving their bodies alongside a road in the park.

Sandra Young | via TNT Crime

Allen Fryer drove Sandra around, stopping to get gas at one point. He told her that he was “The Boss,” and the other two took their orders from him. He insisted that they were narcotic agents and were within their rights to apprehend and shoot criminals.

Eventually, the other two brothers met up with Allen and Sandra. Together the four of them drove to a farm. While there, James, the youngest brother, raped Sandra.

The next day Allen told Sandra it was time to go home. Before they left, he filled up his tank with gas from a large red fuel tank on the farmhouse property.

While driving Sandra home, Allen still insisted he was a police officer and that he was letting her go because she was “too young to get busted.”

Later that day, a couple out test driving a car in the park found the bodies of Stewart, Dana, and Michael. Investigators would discover Roger’s body the following day back at the campsite.

Map of Gitchie Manitou State Preserve | via Mix 97.3

The Bloody Woods

On the first inspection of the bodies, investigators determined that the teens had been killed with shotguns, based on the gaping bullet wounds.

Shell casing found at the scene proved the weapons to be 12, 16, and 20-gauge shotguns. The multiple weapons led the detectives to believe they were looking for at least three killers.

4 Sioux Falls Youths Found Slain In Park — Newspaper Article | via Argus Leader

The Search for Psychos

Lyon County Sheriff’s office was handling the investigation. Sandra had described the farm she was taken to, including the gas tank next to the house.

Sheriff Craig Vincent thought Sandra would be able to recognize it if she saw it again. So on November 29, the two drove around the farm areas of Sioux Falls.

Eventually, they came across a farmhouse near Hartford, South Dakota. Sandra recognized it at once, and just like she said, there was a large red fuel tank next to the house.

On their way back to the police station, a bizarre event happened. Driving the other way towards them was Allen Fryer, in his blue pickup truck that Sandra had already described.

“That’s him. That’s the Boss.” Sandra cried out to Sheriff Vincent.

The truck was pulled over, and Allen Fryer was arrested. His brothers David and James were found and taken into custody shortly after.

Sandra Cheskey would be able to pick all three out of lineups. They also matched the composite sketches she had helped create.

3 Sioux Falls brothers charged in area murders — Newspaper Article | via Wikipedia

The Interrogations

After his arrest, Allen Fryer was put in the box and sweated by investigators. Allen claimed that the cops had it all wrong. The teenagers were the ones shooting at him and his brothers.

Then when evidence proved this wasn’t the case, Allen changed his story several times.

Finally, Allen admitted that they had killed the teenagers because they wanted to steal the marijuana.

David Fryer started out lying much like his brother had, but eventually told the truth too.

The youngest brother James Fryer didn’t follow suit with his brothers and admitted to it all. Then insisted that it had all been his brother’s fault.

He told the detectives that it had all started when his brother David had called the jail, impersonating his boss, saying he needed James to work another shift. The brothers had just wanted to go out and shoot something that night.

James Fryer had been convicted and sentenced to jail before the murders. He was actually still serving jail time on November 17 but was allowed to leave during the day for a work-release program. Instead, he went killing and raping with his brothers.

James’s story started similar to his brothers that they believed the teens were smoking marijuana and decided to rob them of their weed. Allen pretended to be a cop as they descended on the group.

Of course, he blames Allen for killing the first teenager at the campsite, and then his brother David for killing the other teens after Allen took the girl away.

James says that the girl was into being with both him and David, that she was laughing and having a good time.

But, who could believe anything these three brothers had to say?

The Murdered Victims: Roger Essem, Stewart Baade, Michael Hadrath, and Dana Baade | via Newspapers.com

Trial and Convictions

Sandra Cheskey took the stand and told the jury what the brothers had done to her friends and her that fateful night in November.

The brothers quickly turned on each other, all three claiming that the other two pulled the triggers, and they were innocent.

The defense tried to argue that some of the testimony and statements made by Sandra were inconsistent. They stemmed from when she had rewritten some of her earliest accounts. In the end, they proved to be minor changes and were attributed to the fact that she was a young girl, only 13, and had recently been traumatized.

Allen and James went to trial, while David pled guilty to three charges of murder and one charge of manslaughter. In the end, all three got the same sentence, life in prison without the possibility of parole.

They are spending their time behind bars in Iowa.