the vanishing of a devoted father sparks intrigue and concern especially since his young teenage daughter sits at the center of the investigation.
This is a Case filled with unanswered questions and unsettling details.
This is russell jones II or R.J. who also goes by the nickname mike.
he finds himself in police in police headquarters out in medford Oregon on october 2nd,2017.
But why is he here?
for that we need to take a step back and focus on the home of 50 year old Aaron friar and his 15 year old daughter ellen frier who also goes by the name ellie.
patrol officers were dispatched to 517 and a half benson street for a welfare check. they found out that sierra and her sister olivia,sierra was 11,olivi vas eight
had woke up that morning and their father and their teenage sister ellie were not inside the residence.
they found blood and they found evidence of acrime.
it was clear that someone had been harmed in that home.
that particular point detectives didn’t really have an idea what had occurred, a burglary
an assult robbery, they were hoping for the best to locate Aaron and ellie.
sierra had recalled about an hour prio,she had woke up and she had heard her father yell the F-WORD
and heard glass breaking.and she thought that he had dropped something and broke it .
she had actually grabbed her father Aaron’s cell phone off of the couch near where the blood was and she called her father’s girlfriend.
Ell’s parent’s were divorced. her parents lived separately , so she would go back and forth between her father and her mother.
Aaron went to church quite regularly, he was somewhat a conservative typ.e individual. he was a protective father, hehad Ellie and Sierra and Olivia to take care of.
Detective’s didn’t know what condition Aaron was in whether he was deceased or in need of medical attention .
or if Ellie had been kidnapped.
it’s an incredibly strange and chilling scene.where could this father and daughter be?
and what role do russell jones and 19 year old Gavin McFarland playing in this?
The crime scene is about to provide another clue ….
one of the things the officers had seen on scene at the residence was there were blooddrops leading from that pool of blood out the front door , out the side walk ,to a dirt area
and they had seen tire tracks
and they had quickly established that Aaron’s 1996 silver mercury marquees was missing from the residence.
Detectives did try to geolocate the phones to see where Ellie and Aaron were at that time.
Around 9.45 detectives located Aaron’s vehicle.they make sure no one’s inside the vehicle, the pop the the trunk, make sure there’s not a body in the trunk.
the mercury was parked near a residence one of the detectives recoginized that residence as the grandparents of an individual named russell .(RJ) detectives had interviewed russell jones about two weeks prior for burglarizing his grandparents residence.so detectives suspected at that point that russel might have been involved
then investigators quickly make another discovery,an hour later one of the detectives located ellie friar ,gavin mcfarland her boyfriend and russell jones walking down one of the main streets in Medford.
not far from the vehicle had b een located.
detectives really need to get to the bottom of it all….
and that begins with talking to the tree of them.
starting off with jones.
detectives have TV monitors in the division ,so there were times where they were watching russell sitting in the interview room alone.he was playing with turning on the mic, turnint it on and off. talking about going bipolar on them.
Russel jones was a little bit older, he was an outcast he had been in foster care most of his life. he also had some mental health issues.detectives thing he is a very bizarre individual.
this is just the beginning of some incredivly strange moments in that police interview room. but will the mystery ever unravel?
Detectives in MedfordOregon are investigatin the disappearanace of 50 year old Aaron friar
and the morning of October 2nd 2017, they find a bloody scene in his living room,but there ‘s no sign of Aaron.
A short time later, his 15 year old daughter Ellie is found walking down a nearby road with two young men.her boyfriend Gavin mcfarland and their friend Russel Jones ( RJ.)
detectives listen in as jones sits alone in the interrogation room.
he would talk to himself , he would talk to law enforcement and make demands almost like , allof his thoughts that were occurringin his head, hewas just verbalizing, also playing with his food, it was very inappropriate considering what he was in there for.
it’s unclear if he thinks people are there,if he’s beingdelusinal or he’s almost mocking those he believes are listening and watchinghim.
he was bipolar,high functioning autism,he was socially awkward. detectives don’t think russell jones was trying to act crazy. they think that’s just russell jones.
while detectives are about to go in and talk with jones. another investigator is hearing Elli’s side f the story. she right off the bat is telling the investigator she’s 18 and her name is rain.
she was acting not as smart as she is and she was putting on a show for the investigator but kind of, just trying to get a rise out of the investigator, trying to make the investigators patience.
Ellen friar was a very intelligent teenager,but allegationswere made that her home life was not a great home life.
Ellie ‘ s relationship with her father Aaron was beyond strained .she felt like she was missunderstood , that he treated her very poorly.Ellie told gavin and others that she was being sexually mistreated by her father . but we dont know if that information was really true..
those people who say” oh i have a daughter , she’s 15 going on 35 ” Ellie acts like that about half of the time. but five minutes later,she’s acting very young , would say naive.
detectives did not at the particular point early on know a lot about Gavin mcfarland. detectives had identified Gavin as Elli’s boyfriend, Gavin was 19 Ellie was in high school.
Gavin and Ellie were in this relationship,Elli’s dad Aaron knew about thisrelationship and had told them to knock it off. well, Ellie did not want to end her relationship with gavin.
she would pick at her self ,shewould talk in this, like high sort of a baby voice and futher in the interview when the investigator kind of got to the facts of things ,the investigator noticed that her voice changed.
on the inside the investigator really was losing her patience, she knew if she was nice to her, if she let her get her lies out then the investigators hope were going to get to the truth.
Aaron had found out about the relationship between them and new in Oregon a 19 year old cannot be with a 15 year old and be involved sexually.Detectiv smith then reveals they know more about what’s been going on between Ellie and Gavin.
Ellie had been taking her property,her clothing ,miscellaneous items and putting bags out her window over a period of time ….
slowly moving her belongings over to Gavin’s residence.
Ellie’s two little sisters were key,because they were in the house that morning ,and when Ellie left they saw her take the dog.
finally ,Ellie reveals key information
and after hours of talking , she drops a bombshell.
she wants to say that really who planned all of this was russell aka mike.He was the instigator
she really put a lot on Russell, Russell had the machete.”Russell did this to my dad”
now , Ellie’s pointed the finger at russell but what russell has to say to the investigators….
changes everything.
police are questioning Russell Jones the II over the disappearance of Aaron friar ,following the the discovery of a bloody scene at his home.
Police located jones walking with Aaron’s daughter, 15 year old ellen friar and her boyfriend gavin mc farland a short time after the chilling discovery , and they suspect the three friends have something to do with Aaron going missing.
Ellie pointing at jones and while he’s left alone in the interrogation room he makes several peculiar statements. and while he may seem unhinged as you start to listen carefully he appears to be talking about what may have happened to Aaron.
and to detectives it sounds like jones wants to talk.investigators go in and get a big break in the case
initially he told investigators that around midnight he had went over to Ellie’s residence with gavin, he told investigators that around 4 am Ellie’s dad caught Gavin inside of Ellie’s bedroom and pointed a firearm at him.
Gavin was able to knock the rifle out of Aaron’s hands, his initial statement was that he did not know where Elli’s father was or what had occured after seeing the gun get knocked out of Aaron’s hands.
from being outside smoking to getting in a vhicle with russell in the front seat , not far from where law enforcement recovered the vehicle they found the body of Aaron friar.
it was clear he hadbeen beaten to death.his face andbody were badly bruised and his head appeared to be almost indented. he had sustained at least five blunt force trauma injuries
he had a shattered skull.multiple blows to the skull and face , he had a defensive injury on his right arm, he had abroken right elbow, he had a broken rib and there was bruising to his abnomen.
Not only did they find the body of Aaron friar , they also found a bat that appeared to hanging in a tree.
they located clothing that appeared to have been discarded.
he talks a lot about his plan to get chloroform and to knock out Aaron and then to basically kidnapp him and bring him to california and tie him up to a tree.he was going to to chastise him verbally ” you should not act like this towards your daughter ” and then they were going to abandon him in the woods.
from Russell’s perspective he viewed himself as a protector and he gelt that he needed to step in to in a sense save her..there is just such a case for a diminished mental capacity in therms of the decisions that were made and in terms of his real understanding of realithy.
it’s always interesting to watch the blame game go on , particularly when you watchingall three defendants providingvasrious versions of how it was that Aaron friar was murdered.
the question becomes howdoes law enforcement determine who’s telling the truth?
But , there’s still one more side to this story Gavin mcfarlands.
comingup…can investigators ever get to the truth?
Investigators in Oregon are zeroingin on what really happened to Aaron friar ,who was bludgeon to death with a baseball bat back in 2017.
his own daughter Ellen friar her boyfriend Gavin Mcfarland and their friend Russell Jones II are all believed to be involved in this gruesome murder.
but investigators aren’t, quite sure who to believe, they’re finale interview proves to be very telling as they inch closer to the truth.
Detectives meet with Gavin, Ellie friar’s boyfriend, to see if they can figure out what’s happened here.
Ellie and Gavin certainly what would seem to be a very sexually involved type of relationship really an adult relationship, when you think of somebody only being 15.
but what you also have here is a crime it’s statutory rape .but in there mind they really fashion themselves as some sort of Romeo and Juliet type of relationship and her father was getting in the middle of that, that was the straw that broke the Camel’s back.
it¨s hard to believe anyhingthat Ellie friar says . she had claimed that her father had been abusing her, there is absolutely no evidence of any type of abuse.
finaly Gavin mcfarland tells investigators what really happened.
Gavin knew the gig was up. and basically provided a statement about his involvement. investidators knew from talking to Gavin that Ellie had handed him the bat while they had waited for Elli’s dad to fall a sleep.
and then him and Russell, with Ellie right there, removing money from her father’s wallet , loading the body into the trunk of the car and taking Aaron out and disposing him , like a piece of trash.
they drive back into medford.they go to walmart ,they go to the social security office before dunping the vehicle.
the evidence against gavin, ellie and russell is crystal clear
but even with a confession one big question still remains, who was the mastermind behind this whole thing?
during their investigation,they came upon video surveillance from a local Walmart that showed both gavin and ellie inside the walmart buying snacks.
in fact at one point ,Gavin looks up and sticks his tongue out to the camera when they’re in the cosmetics aisle purchasing the pregnancy test.
there was some talk that Ellie may be pregnant and so investigators think her motive was maintaining her relationship with Gavin who she thought and looked at as her fiance and maybe the father of her unborn child ,which ultimately she was not pregnant.
Gavin told the investigators several times during the interview , ” no i really didn’t want to kill him but i went along with the plan”
Ellie handed me the bat, ellie told me to go take him out , kill him .
Gavin eventually did confess to being the individual that actually used the bat to kill Aaron friar.
law enforcement searched the home of Gavin mcfarland.
there was a drawing, a murder plan that was drawn by Ellie.she had actually drawn out the inside of the residence, where security cameras were located in the neighborhood.identifying each room ,there was arrows basically so they could go over the planning of this particular crime
and then there was also murder plan B which was written by Russell Jones. that was an alternative plan of killing Aaron.
as disorganized as it was a lot of stages went into executing this plan .
they thought somehow they would all go to california and they would sort of escape this whole thing and get away with it.
for Russell he thought he was really doing the right thing of freeng this dam soul in distress from this horrible ogre father.
out of all three ,Gavin is really the only one that acts normal.he has that reality jolt and he cries out for his mother .
he truly didit all for Ellie, she manipulated both of of these two into feeling like they had to come to her rescue and that this was the answer.
Gavin McFarland ,Ellie Friar and Russell Jones are all charged for their involvement in Aaron friar’s murder.
there was a lot of things that really haven’t come out about this case that a lot of people don’t understand about Ellie, they want to feel sorry for her , she was really the mastermind in this case,it was her idea and her plan and she brought Gavin into it.
what happened to all three?
first. Russell Jones the II is initially deemed not competent to stand trial.he had some mental health issues.h e was autistic, he was also suffering with bipolar disorder .
despite the fact that he had these mental health issues ,he understood right and wrong at the time of the death of Aaron friar. so years later he pleads no contest to conspiracy to commit murder and is sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Russell stood right outside of the residence,he could hear what was going on inside,he heard the thud.his job was basically to come in and use the machete on Aaron as a backup.
as for Ellie friar,she pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit murder and is sentenced to 25 years in prison
Gavin mcFarland,he pleads guilty and is sentenced to 25 years to life for murder and conspiracy.