First Love, Then Murder

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Speaker 8 I've never spoken publicly before about any of this.

Speaker 10 I've never really fully healed from any of what happened.

Speaker 8 It's like waking up every morning and having the same phone call.

Speaker 11 911, what is the address that's your emergency?

Speaker 12 911 call came in October 2nd, 2017. It was called in as a welfare check.

Speaker 14 Something happened at my ex-husband's house over the evening and my two children came to my house this morning.

Speaker 14 Okay, and what did they tell you exactly?

Speaker 14 Their dad's gone. Their older sister's gone.

Speaker 11 Where are we, officer? Set the scene for us.

Speaker 15 This is Benson Street. And for me, this is just another welfare check.

Speaker 15 But we don't know what we're walking into.

Speaker 16 What is your ex-husband's name, Aaron Fryer?

Speaker 12 I learned that he was a good guy. He was a good dad.

Speaker 17 What is your daughter's name? My oldest daughter's name is Ellen Fryer.

Speaker 14 How old is she? She's 15.

Speaker 12 Ellie was in the marching band. Very bright, very intelligent.

Speaker 15 With the older daughter missing, it was very suspicious. We didn't really know how suspicious it was until we saw what we saw when we got here.

Speaker 18 Let for police, not just up the two engines.

Speaker 15 We clear the house and in the living room, based on the blood splatter,

Speaker 15 there was a serious assault, probable murder that occurred.

Speaker 11 So time was of the essence of the scene. Absolutely.

Speaker 12 Time is always of the essence, you know.

Speaker 12 The only information I had was from the patrol officers and what Sierra was able to tell us on scene.

Speaker 8 I remember waking up in the middle of the night.

Speaker 12 We know at around 5.30 that Sierra heard the glass breaking.

Speaker 8 I just started listening, just listening to try and understand what was happening.

Speaker 10 I was certain she had heard the assault, but she hadn't realized that.

Speaker 12 Thank God she didn't walk out and interrupt this thing.

Speaker 8 I was very terrified.

Speaker 10 Based on what she had seen at the house, she knew somebody wasn't okay.

Speaker 10 She went over to the couch. She felt something wet, and when she pulled her hand up, it was covered in blood.
I just

Speaker 8 was in like a state of shock.

Speaker 12 Sierra could not locate her father, Aaron, and her teenage sister, Ellie.

Speaker 12 We treated it as a missing person, serious assault, until we know otherwise. Everyone was out looking.

Speaker 12 There was also a potential that this was what we could refer to as a no-body homicide, and those cases are always tough to work.

Speaker 8 As of right now, in my family, there are two family members missing.

Speaker 8 It's still like an open wound every day.

Speaker 19 Natalie Morales reports.

Speaker 13 First love, then murder.

Speaker 11 The quiet city of Medford, Oregon was shaken by Maggie Fryer's desperate 911 call in the early morning hours of October 2nd, 2017.

Speaker 14 I don't know where my ex-husband or my oldest daughter is. I understand that.
Something happened at the house. Something happened over there.

Speaker 11 Maggie Fryer's ex-husband, Aaron Fryer, and their 15-year-old daughter, Ellen, nicknamed Ellie, were missing.

Speaker 14 My concern is for both of them.

Speaker 17 We don't know where they are.

Speaker 20 You can only imagine all the things that were running around in my mind. I didn't know who was dead and who was alive.

Speaker 11 When Medford Police Officer Logan Boyd arrived at Aaron's house, he found that gruesome scene.

Speaker 15 There is blood everywhere.

Speaker 11 Blood-spattered walls, shattered glass, and a trail of blood to nowhere.

Speaker 15 See, it starts from there and kind of goes all the way out in the dirt. It goes out towards the carport.

Speaker 13 Yeah, that's not good.

Speaker 11 This led investigators to notice what also was missing. Aaron Fryer's car.
Seen here on a neighbor's security camera leaving the Fryer home around 5.30 that morning.

Speaker 15 We're kind of dealing with what I would describe as like a two-headed monster.

Speaker 11 An all-hands-on-deck call went out to every Medford police detective, including Detective Bill Ford.

Speaker 12 We didn't know at that particular time whether this was a missing person case or a kidnapping. We just didn't know.

Speaker 11 Detective Shannon Reynolds, Bill Ford's colleague and wife of 20 years, had a different take.

Speaker 10 In my mind, I automatically assumed that the 15-year-old daughter was the victim of a homicide.

Speaker 11 So a case like this, where did this one sort of fit in?

Speaker 10 Probably one of the most interesting, heinous

Speaker 10 crimes I've seen in my career.

Speaker 11 Investigators hoped Ellie's younger sister, 11-year-old Sierra, might shed light on the unknown. Detective Reynolds, who specializes in crimes against children, was tasked with interviewing her.

Speaker 10 Sierra wasn't like outright crying, but you could tell she was worried.

Speaker 11 Who was she worried about?

Speaker 10 Her dad and Ellie.

Speaker 8 I try not to really think about that time a lot, but.

Speaker 11 Sierra, 18 years old at the time of this exclusive interview, still finds it difficult to speak about the day her father and sister vanished.

Speaker 8 I was, you know, just a child and um

Speaker 9 sorry.

Speaker 11 The second of three girls, Sierra says she loved being in the middle.

Speaker 8 I get to be an older sister and a younger sister, so I get like the best of both worlds.

Speaker 8 I like the connection and the bonds that we have.

Speaker 11 Sierra says her older sister Ellie loved music and could play many instruments.

Speaker 11 A skill Ellie seemed to have picked up from their father.

Speaker 8 One time he tried to teach me how to play the drums, but I wasn't very good at it.

Speaker 11 In 2016, Sierra's parents, Maggie and Erin, ended their marriage. Sierra says the divorce took a toll on her and her sisters.

Speaker 8 It affected us a lot. It was actually not a very great experience for everyone involved.

Speaker 11 Sierra says that when her parents separated, her dad moved into that small two-bedroom house. Maggie and Aaron shared custody, and the girls would stay with their dad every other weekend.

Speaker 11 In September 2017, Sierra decided to live with her dad full-time.

Speaker 8 I want to be around him and film my life with him.

Speaker 11 Then around 5.30 a.m. on October 2nd, 2017, the friar family was forever broken.

Speaker 11 Sierra was asleep in the bedroom she shared with her younger sister.

Speaker 8 I woke up and it was just pitch black.

Speaker 8 I remember waking up to like a dinging noise over and over and over again. Then I heard glass shatter and I heard the fight that occurred.

Speaker 11 The sound was coming from the living room. So then what does she hear? Because she really is sort of an earwitness to all that happened.

Speaker 10 She heard her dad yell the F-word. She heard dragging.
She heard things being moved.

Speaker 8 After that, it was completely silent.

Speaker 11 Did she have any idea what was going on at the time?

Speaker 10 No. She was frightened enough to stay in her room until she felt like it was okay to come out.

Speaker 11 When Sierra finally did come out,

Speaker 11 she found that horrific scene. It had to be so scary, though.

Speaker 10 So scary.

Speaker 11 Sierra told Detective Reynolds that before leaving her room, she had seen something out of her bedroom window.

Speaker 10 She could see people walking back and forth.

Speaker 11 Sierra saw two young men outside of her dad's house. One was a person Sierra didn't know.
The second was someone Sierra immediately recognized. It was Gavin McFarlane.

Speaker 8 He was Ellen's boyfriend at the time. This was her big love.
According to her, he was a great guy, but according to my parents, he was not a great guy.

Speaker 10 Sierra insinuated this was a little bit of a forbidden love. Dad had forbade Ellie from seeing Gavin.

Speaker 11 This was the break investigators had been hoping for.

Speaker 12 Once we have a name, Gavin McFarlane, now we got a picture. Now we know who we're looking for.

Speaker 11 The search for Aaron and Ellie Fryer, and now Gavin McFarlane was on.

Speaker 12 We probably had 70, 75 people out on the streets of Medford.

Speaker 11 Ellie and Aaron's phones were found in the house. Investigators now began tracking Gavin's phone.

Speaker 12 We started getting cell phone tower hits up in the East Medford area.

Speaker 11 Patrol officers immediately headed in that direction.

Speaker 12 A patrol sergeant locates the cart.

Speaker 12 That was huge.

Speaker 11 As the officers approached Aaron Fryer's vehicle, they realized that something wasn't right.

Speaker 12 We could see there was blood on the outside of the bumper that had been dripping down. When this trunk is opened up, there is large amounts of blood.
I mean, it is soaked into the carpet.

Speaker 11 But no Aaron and no Ellie.

Speaker 11 But the car was still warm, so the police knew they were close.

Speaker 12 We had tons of people up there driving around looking for them.

Speaker 11 And then just an hour later, investigators couldn't believe who they found next.

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Speaker 5 Their dad's gone.

Speaker 14 Their older sister's gone.

Speaker 11 Then, just four hours after that 911 call reporting reporting her missing, Medford police found Ellie Fryer.

Speaker 11 She was alive, seemingly unharmed, and had been walking down a busy street with Gavin McFarlane.

Speaker 12 They're walking down the sidewalk.

Speaker 11 In plain sight.

Speaker 12 Plain sight, so now we know Ellie's safe.

Speaker 11 Which made two things clear. Aaron Fryer was the victim.
And based on all that blood in his car and at the house, time was quickly running out to find him.

Speaker 12 We had Aaron out there either seriously injured or deceased.

Speaker 11 Walking along with Gavin and Ellie was someone investigators hadn't been looking for.

Speaker 23 Do you have ID with your name on that? No, I don't. I hardly ever carry my ID around.
Okay.

Speaker 11 He turned out to be Russell Jones. Thanks.

Speaker 23 I'm See for Frick.

Speaker 11 A friend of Gavin's.

Speaker 23 I won't make it hard on you.

Speaker 9 All right.

Speaker 11 Russell had apparently made an impression on Sierra Fryer, says Detective Shannon Reynolds. He matched the description of that second young man she saw at her father's house that morning.

Speaker 11 So she got a really good look at this person.

Speaker 11 Investigators now had a witness placing Gavin and Russell at the crime scene. Detective Ford says he wasn't sure what to make of Ellie being found with them.

Speaker 12 That doesn't mean that Ellie's involved in something.

Speaker 11 But Ford says that she, Gavin, or Russell might hold the key to finding Erin.

Speaker 22 Ellie,

Speaker 12 Gavin and Russell are separated,

Speaker 12 detained, and transported to the Medford Police Department for questioning.

Speaker 12 Hi, hello.

Speaker 11 Detective Stephanie Jackson was tasked with getting Ellie Fryers accounted the previous 24 hours.

Speaker 11 So what have you been up to today?

Speaker 24 I haven't been home, and now I'm really concerned about what's been going on.

Speaker 17 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 17 Where were you?

Speaker 17 Out.

Speaker 11 Ellie was saying everything had seemed normal when she left her father's house for a long walk.

Speaker 25 And you were walking down the street, it sounds like, today? Mm-hmm. Who were you with?

Speaker 24 I was with my friends.

Speaker 11 According to Ellie, she had run into those friends, Gavin and Russell, only by chance, not long before being spotted by police.

Speaker 25 And so everybody is really concerned because we actually don't know where your dad is right now.

Speaker 8 That's really disturbing to hear.

Speaker 26 Maybe he was looking for me.

Speaker 25 We are very worried about your dad.

Speaker 26 So am I.

Speaker 11 Ellie was saying she had no idea where her father was or what happened at the house.

Speaker 25 So where did all the blood come from in your house?

Speaker 25 I don't know.

Speaker 11 Around that time, Detective Ford was preparing to interrogate the other two detainees. Strategically, he decided to let Gavin wait in a holding cell and began interviewing Russell.

Speaker 11 Spin around in your chair barn basement so I can talk to you.

Speaker 12 He's a talker, very, very talkative. So I kind of knew he would have a hard time keeping his mouth shut.
Yeah, I have nothing to hide, so

Speaker 11 Russell was ready to talk, but he wanted something first. A cigarette.

Speaker 15 I talk better when I have a cigarette.

Speaker 11 Detective Ford took him outside.

Speaker 12 Just kind of smoking and joking is what we call it.

Speaker 11 The camera didn't record audio, but Detective Ford says Russell began telling him that he and Gavin had gone over to the friar house early that morning.

Speaker 12 He told us that he was trying to help get Ellie out of a bad situation.

Speaker 11 That bad situation, according to Russell, was Aaron Fryer.

Speaker 12 And the first thing that he tells us is, he's not a good person.

Speaker 8 Aaron Fryer's not a good person?

Speaker 9 Correct.

Speaker 11 He didn't elaborate further about Aaron, but Russell was claiming he and Gavin were only there to secretly move Ellie out.

Speaker 12 So the next thing I tell him is, look, Russell, we got detectives out there right now pulling video from every house. the alleys.
So if this ain't the truth, you need to be truthful with me right now.

Speaker 12 And he looks me square in the eyes and he says, well, 95% of it's the truth and there's 5% of it's a lie. So I'm thinking automatically, well, what's the lie here?

Speaker 11 Detective Ford decided it was time for a new tactic and tried appealing to Russell's conscience.

Speaker 12 I look at him and I'm like, you know, Russell, I don't want a child to find

Speaker 12 Aaron out there somewhere, come across something like that.

Speaker 12 I said, can you take us to Aaron?

Speaker 12 He didn't beat an eye. He's just like, yeah, I'll take you to him.

Speaker 11 The veteran detective wasted no time.

Speaker 12 We load Russell up. He's actually sitting in the seat that you're sitting in now.

Speaker 12 We got him handcuffed in front. He's basically telling us, okay, turn right, turn left.

Speaker 11 They were ascending a rural mountain pass 20 miles outside town.

Speaker 12 And all of a sudden, Russell says, stop, stop right here.

Speaker 12 Where did you stop your car back then?

Speaker 12 Probably right where that rock is.

Speaker 11 Do you see the body right away?

Speaker 12 You could see the tarp. You couldn't see any portion of the body.

Speaker 12 Right here in this green park.

Speaker 11 Detectives descended the wooded ravine and pulled back that tarp, revealing that just six hours after that 911 call, they had found Aaron Fryer.

Speaker 12 It was obvious that he was deceased.

Speaker 11 When you found out your husband was dead, what did you think?

Speaker 10 I was completely shocked.

Speaker 20 I didn't know what to think.

Speaker 11 Maggie says the police hadn't yet told her Ellie was in their custody being questioned or even that she had been found.

Speaker 21 I was very worried about the fate of my daughter. I had no idea if my daughter was even alive, too.

Speaker 11 Maggie then faced the unimaginable task of sharing the news of Aaron's death with their two younger daughters. The reality was almost too much for then 11-year-old Sierra.

Speaker 8 I just really didn't want to believe it for a really long time.

Speaker 11 While investigators began processing the scene, Detective Ford drove Russell Jones back to police headquarters. He says Russell was claiming that all he had done was help dispose of Aaron's remains.

Speaker 12 He's like, but I'm not going to be a witness against Gavin.

Speaker 11 Russell was saying Gavin was Aaron's killer, but that Gavin had been provoked.

Speaker 12 His story was that Aaron had a rifle and was pointed at Gavin.

Speaker 11 So making it seem like a self-defense. Because if he had a gun pointed at him.

Speaker 12 Exactly. And you can sit in that chair over there.

Speaker 11 Okay. Back at the station, Detective Ford returned Russell to the interrogation room while detectives gathered for a briefing.
You're listening in on my conversations, aren't you?

Speaker 11 That's when Russell began taunting them through the camera. I can still twist your little mind.

Speaker 11 Don't piss me off.

Speaker 11 This, I imagine, got everybody to stop what they were doing and gather around the monitor and watch this.

Speaker 12 That's what you do.

Speaker 12 So

Speaker 12 we can play it the easy way or the hard way.

Speaker 12 He would go into these rants and making demands and stuff.

Speaker 17 Gavin

Speaker 17 and Ellie are to be released to me.

Speaker 11 And Russell was claiming he still hadn't been totally truthful. And Mr.
Ford,

Speaker 11 you want the whole story?

Speaker 11 Because I did miss a few parts.

Speaker 11 For her part, Ellie was now saying Russell was the one responsible.

Speaker 11 I believe that Russell Born killed my father.

Speaker 11 All right. With the conflicting claims, Detective Ford decided it was finally time to interview Gavin McFarlane.

Speaker 11 I know I'm in serious trouble, Arnie. Well, we need to figure out what happened.
Gavin started by saying how volatile Aaron Fryer could be.

Speaker 17 He's threatened my life. He's lying.
No, stay away from my daughter. I'm going to kill you.

Speaker 11 One month earlier, Gavin had called the police, claiming Aaron had shown up at his house, banging on his door, threatening to kill him. I don't know what caused him to not like me anymore.

Speaker 11 Detectives discovered at least one reason, Gavin's age. He was 19 years old, dating 15-year-old Ellie.
And making things worse, Gavin was now claiming Ellie was going to have his baby.

Speaker 11 She told you she was pregnant. I've known for about two weeks.

Speaker 11 While Gavin was admitting to having a sexual relationship with a minor, itself a crime, he was accusing Aaron of being the one who had been abusive to Ellie.

Speaker 11 The anger had just been building up because of the things Ellie had been telling me.

Speaker 11 I'll try to protect Ellie.

Speaker 11 Gavin was claiming he and Russell had gone to the house that morning, but unlike what Russell said, that Aaron had not confronted him with the gun.

Speaker 11 Instead, Gavin was saying Aaron had been in the living room, asleep on the couch, and that Gavin had crept in, armed with a baseball bat.

Speaker 11 Then Gavin made a startling admission. I just acted on instinct.
Okay, tell us what happened.

Speaker 11 I just swung the bat downwards.

Speaker 17 It was dark. I couldn't see.
How many times do you think you hit him? Like five or six, maybe? Five or six times? Yeah.

Speaker 11 The physical evidence would back up Gavin's story. Aaron had died from blunt force trauma to his head.

Speaker 11 And a bat was recovered from a tree branch above where his remains had been found.

Speaker 12 So this is a luminous bat. Discoloration.
You can see it's red here. This is all blood.

Speaker 11 Testing would confirm the blood was Aaron's.

Speaker 12 And he demonstrated for us in the interview room how hard he swung it down on Aaron's head.

Speaker 12 I went over the shoulder the first time, and then I started going up over both my head.

Speaker 12 I mean, there were five distinct blows to his head.

Speaker 11 Explaining that dinging sound Sierra Fryer had heard.

Speaker 12 It fractured his skull, caved his skull into his brain.

Speaker 12 I'm really sorry.

Speaker 11 And investigators soon found evidence that Aaron's murder had been meticulously plotted for weeks. They discovered notes, some in Russell's handwriting, at Gavin's house.

Speaker 12 We found several murder plans, and they actually had plan A, plan B. There were multiple plans, and I think ultimately, they come up with the bat.

Speaker 11 And based on what you could see from the planning, Who's the mastermind of all of this?

Speaker 22 Ellie.

Speaker 12 Believe it or not.

Speaker 11 Detective Ford says he believes it was Ellie who wanted Aaron murdered, pointing to messages Ford says she sent to Gavin.

Speaker 11 In one, she says, we need to make sure he's dead by the time we leave his house. And in another, she asked, you want to kill him now, don't you?

Speaker 11 And then, you can kill him in less than a minute, right?

Speaker 12 She's pushing it all.

Speaker 12 She wants to be with Gavin. She wants to be out from underneath the authority of her father.
Ellie wanted me to kill him, but I didn't want to.

Speaker 11 Detective Ford says Ellie might have made up those abuse allegations, possibly as a way to motivate Gavin to kill her father.

Speaker 12 She is

Speaker 12 very manipulative.

Speaker 12 From me watching that entire interview, she

Speaker 22 lied.

Speaker 22 Ellie? No.

Speaker 22 Then lied.

Speaker 17 How old are you? 18.

Speaker 22 Then lied.

Speaker 25 How did Gavin get in the house this morning? He wasn't in the house.

Speaker 11 After several hours, Ellie did eventually admit some of her role, even saying that she had handed Gavin the murder weapon. And what do you say to Gavin?

Speaker 11 I said, I'm ready when you are. Okay, what did you mean by that? When you do this, we're in it together.
What did you mean when you said when you do this? Kill my dad.

Speaker 11 With evidence, they all conspired to kill Aaron.

Speaker 11 Gavin, Russell, and Ellie were charged with his murder.

Speaker 16 From the day after she was arrested,

Speaker 16 there was this narrative, and her side was never told.

Speaker 11 Until now.

Speaker 16 The story that the state has.

Speaker 11 Why is it the right one?

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Speaker 20 My daughter left to go stay at my ex-husband's house for the weekend and never came home.

Speaker 11 I imagine that moment haunts you still.

Speaker 21 Of course it does, my child. Never came home.

Speaker 11 After hours of worry, Maggie Fryer was finally told her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, had been located.

Speaker 21 I got a phone call from a police officer that they found her.

Speaker 11 But worry morphed into anger when she was then told Ellie had been arrested. for her father's murder.

Speaker 12 Go ahead and take a seat.

Speaker 21 And I said, so you've had my daughter in your custody

Speaker 21 interrogating her and you never once called me to let me know so I could maybe get her some representation.

Speaker 11 Eliza Kaplan eventually became one of Ellie's attorneys. She says the narrative about Ellie Fryer has been wrong from the very beginning.

Speaker 16 In this case, she was made out to be

Speaker 16 the mastermind or something, you know. She planned all of this when she was 15 years old and they were 19 and 22.
She was the manipulator. She was the manipulator, right?

Speaker 16 And that this was all because of her relationship with an older man.

Speaker 11 But Kaplan says this crime actually happened because of the alleged abuse Ellie suffered at the hands of her father, Aaron.

Speaker 16 She was sexually abused, emotionally abused, and physically abused.

Speaker 11 Abuse that Ellie described in her police interrogation. He used to be a good father,

Speaker 11 but he started getting abusive about three years ago.

Speaker 16 I picked out a bunch of things, but.

Speaker 11 Reading from the case file, Kaplan recounted several allegations of molestation and abuse,

Speaker 11 warning the following may be disturbing to hear.

Speaker 16 Her father would grab at her breasts. He told her to give in to him.

Speaker 16 He tried to take my clothes off,

Speaker 16 and I slapped him away.

Speaker 16 He would masturbate on top of her when he thought she was sleeping. I feel so dirty

Speaker 16 and so ashamed of myself.

Speaker 16 He pushed her downstairs, called her poor, idiot, stupid, slut-shamed her.

Speaker 16 And he would pin me up against the wall and he would call me those names. And then when he would get drunk, it would all get worse.

Speaker 11 As the police report shows, three of Ellie's friends told investigators that Ellie said her dad abuses her. Ellie shared that her dad was rough on her and emotionally and physically abused her.

Speaker 11 And Ellie said her dad mentally and verbally abused her.

Speaker 11 But Ellie admits she never told her friends about the sexual molestation. And neither Ellie nor her friends told the police about any kind of abuse before her father's murder.

Speaker 11 And as far as allegations of abuse, was there any evidence whatsoever that your detectives could find to back up what Ellen Fryer was saying happened to her?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 12 There was not.

Speaker 11 Detective Ford says with Aaron's death, the possibility of proving abuse may have died with him.

Speaker 12 We can't go to Erin and ask Erin, were you abusing your daughter?

Speaker 12 We may never know the truth. If she told her mom, did she tell her mom ahead of time?

Speaker 12 Have you thought about having a conversation with your mom about that? No.

Speaker 12 I'm horrified to even talk about it.

Speaker 12 Who have you talked to about your dad masturbating?

Speaker 12 I told Gavin about it, but that's it.

Speaker 11 Ellie told Detective Jackson that the first time she had told Gavin was two days before he bludgeoned her father to death.

Speaker 9 Because I know this is hard to talk about.

Speaker 9 I know. Why me?

Speaker 9 Why did you do it to me?

Speaker 9 I have no idea what he's done to my sisters.

Speaker 16 I see a teenager who would do anything to survive and to protect her sisters

Speaker 11 detective shannon reynolds says 11-year-old sira was asked if there were any problems at home she actually only had good things to say about her father when detective reynolds interviewed the youngest friar daughter she recalled the last conversation she had with ellie minutes after their father's murder.

Speaker 10 She had said that Ellie had woken her up and she said she was leaving and that she was leaving because mom and dad were abusive.

Speaker 11 Before Reynolds could say anything, the eight-year-old gave her opinion on the matter.

Speaker 10 And she told me, my mom and dad were not abusive.

Speaker 11 Both of Ellie's sisters told Reynolds that what Ellie had called abuse was actually their parents disciplining her for sneaking around with Gavin.

Speaker 10 Because they took her electronics away and they yelled at her.

Speaker 11 What do you say to that? Yeah.

Speaker 16 Well, they were younger, right? This is actually very common in families where there's abuse, that there's one child who takes on the majority of it

Speaker 16 and want to protect the others in the family.

Speaker 11 You know, you describe her as this protective older sister, but yet she left them there at the house. How is that protecting them?

Speaker 16 Yeah, and I think, you know, those are things that Ellen will live with for the rest of her her life. And she clearly understands how much damage she has caused her sister.

Speaker 11 Detective Ford says that with no evidence to back up Ellie's abuse claims, he remains suspicious that she may have made it all up to manipulate Gavin.

Speaker 11 See here with Ellie on a store security camera hours after the murder. And it turns out, Ellie was never pregnant.

Speaker 12 I think you got to look at it two ways. Maybe she thought she was pregnant, or maybe she's using that to influence Gavin

Speaker 12 to kill her dad.

Speaker 11 Ellie's legal team says Ellie did think she was pregnant, which is why she bought a pregnancy test while at the store.

Speaker 11 Investigators say it's clear Ellie Fryer has an issue with the truth.

Speaker 10 She lied during that interview for no reason.

Speaker 11 Kaplan says much has been made of the many lies Ellie told during her police interrogation.

Speaker 16 As a parent,

Speaker 16 we all know that our kids sometimes do that.

Speaker 11 But Kaplan says the real focus should be on the hours and hours and hours Ellie spent in that interview room. I remember right training silence.

Speaker 16 She asked to not talk. She said, I want to remain silent, right?

Speaker 16 She was there for 10 hours straight.

Speaker 25 But with your wishing to remain silent, it's really difficult to kind of get to the bottom of all of that.

Speaker 17 Good, let's talk.

Speaker 11 A minor without a guardian or attorney. Is it normal to keep a 15-year-old in an interrogation room for 10 hours like that?

Speaker 12 Yeah, I mean, there's no law against it. So we gave her breaks.
I found blankets.

Speaker 12 There was times where she laid on the floor and slept.

Speaker 11 Kaplan says that although it may have been legal in Oregon, it wasn't right.

Speaker 16 And look, police have their jobs to do. I get it.
I just think the rules are really different when you have a kid.

Speaker 16 And in that, she looks like a kid.

Speaker 16 She's acting like a kid.

Speaker 16 She's in fear like a kid would be.

Speaker 11 A kid who Kaplan says was taken advantage of by someone she calls another abuser. 19-year-old Gavin McFarlane.

Speaker 16 A grown man reaching over to a 15-year-old girl who was so vulnerable, no matter what her text messages said, no matter what her involvement was.

Speaker 16 I don't even understand how you don't look at that as him being the controller.

Speaker 11 Detective Reynolds says she saw some of that controlling behavior on display in letters Gavin wrote to Ellie after they were arrested.

Speaker 10 He was saying that she needed to be sure to say that her dad was abusing her.

Speaker 10 And he was telling her, We're going to take this to a jury and we're going to win the jury over.

Speaker 10 And the way to do that is to cry.

Speaker 10 Make sure you cry.

Speaker 10 I've given everything I can, and when this goes to court, I would like to be tried as an adult.

Speaker 11 But there would be no trial. In January of 2019, a little more than a year after her father's death, Ellie Fryer took a plea deal.
How did you feel about that decision?

Speaker 10 I didn't like it because I'm pretty sure that she did it because she was scared. scared.

Speaker 20 I don't think she wanted to go to court.

Speaker 11 Ellie Fryer pleaded guilty to an adult charge of conspiring to murder her father, Aaron.

Speaker 8 I'm the first license that I'm sorry for all the pain that I've caused to others. Couldn't just hold our deal.

Speaker 11 The deal was brokered by a different defense attorney.

Speaker 11 According to court documents, That attorney wrote that Ellie Fryer's co-defendants, Gavin McFarlane and Russell Jones, were going to be testifying against her and say that she was the mastermind behind all of this.

Speaker 11 It was her idea from the beginning. Ellie's text messages would have been used against her at trial too.

Speaker 11 Elisa Kaplan began working on Ellie Fryers' behalf in 2024.

Speaker 16 I run the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic. We are looking at Ellen's case mostly because we believe that she has an excessive sentence.

Speaker 11 And what is her sentence?

Speaker 16 25 years.

Speaker 11 McFarlane and Jones also took plea deals with Gavin McFarlane pleading guilty to murder and murder conspiracy charges. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Speaker 11 Russell Jones entered a no-contest plea to conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced to 15 years.

Speaker 11 Kaplan is fighting to reduce Ellie Fryer's sentence. She says Ellie should not have been sentenced to 10 more years than Jones for the same crime.

Speaker 16 She was 15, he was 22,

Speaker 16 and her sentence is so much bigger than his.

Speaker 11 The idea that Ellen is the master manipulator, I mean, she's a 15-year-old. I mean, don't they bear more responsibility because they're the adults?

Speaker 12 I don't, I wouldn't agree with that. Ellie is absolutely just as responsible as Gavin, except Gavin was the one that took and held the bat in his hands.

Speaker 11 Detective Shannon Reynolds isn't as certain as her husband about Ellie Fryer's role.

Speaker 10 I go back and forth.

Speaker 10 The mastermind of it, I initially thought was Ellie.

Speaker 10 Then reading the letters from Gavin that he wrote to Ellie, telling her what she needed to say, then I started to think maybe Gavin was the mastermind of all of this. I go back and forth.

Speaker 11 Ford says, regardless of who crafted the plan, all three are responsible in the eyes of the law.

Speaker 12 Because without her, this wouldn't have happened. Without Gavin, this wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 12 I doubt without Russell it could have happened.

Speaker 16 I want to be very clear. She was involved.
She participated.

Speaker 16 She was a co-conspirator. No doubt, right? She takes full accountability for her role in this crime.

Speaker 11 Ellie Fryer, now 23, has been serving her sentence in a juvenile detention center. In December of 2026, she'll be moved to an adult prison.

Speaker 11 And she recently earned two master's degrees, one in psychology and another in justice studies.

Speaker 16 Which, by the way, is not that easy to do when you're in prison. She's really incredible.

Speaker 21 I am very proud of her.

Speaker 9 I've always been proud of her after what she went through.

Speaker 12 Erin's dead. Who's going to speak out for Heron?

Speaker 11 Sierra Fryer will.

Speaker 8 My dad was a kind man who loved me and my sisters and always tried to fill my life with joy.

Speaker 8 He was a great father to me. He goes with me wherever I go.

Speaker 11 Sierra has joined the National Guard, something she says her father always wanted for her.

Speaker 10 It's mind-blowing that the little girl I interviewed is now grown up. The fact that she's joining the National Guard lets me know she didn't let this, you know, derail her life.

Speaker 11 A life Sierra has had to live without her father, whose memory has been marred by those abuse allegations. A 48 Hours producer asks Sierra about them.

Speaker 16 Ellie claims that your father abused her.

Speaker 10 What do you have to say to that?

Speaker 8 I don't really want to talk about that, just because I have my own feelings about it.

Speaker 11 Sierra is just as guarded when it comes to her thoughts about her sister Ellie, though the two have maintained a relationship over the years.

Speaker 8 It's very hard to explain because a lot of people wouldn't understand. I've got my own feelings about her.

Speaker 11 But Sierra's feelings about her father are very clear.

Speaker 8 I love him and I'm so sorry for everything that happened.

Speaker 8 I have faith and I have hope that one day, you know, we'll meet meet again.

Speaker 19 Ellie Fryer will be eligible for parole in 2032. She will be 30 years old.

Speaker 29 Join me Tuesday for post-mortem from 48 Hours, where we'll dive even deeper into today's episode and answer your questions about the case.

Speaker 18 This November, action is free on Pluto TV. Go on the run with Jack Reacher.
Every suspect was a train killer. Then buckle up for drive.
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