Host Anne-Marie Green and CBS News Correspondent Natalie Morales discuss the case of Aaron Friar, who was murdered by Gavin MacFarlane, the boyfriend of Aaron’s 15-year-old daughter, Ellie. They examine why police believed Ellie was the mastermind behind her father’s killing, the handwritten murder plots they found in Gavin’s house, and the video of Gavin’s friend, Russell, who was taunting police through cameras in the interrogation room. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Full Episode
Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm your host, Anne-Marie Green. And today I'm sitting down with CBS News correspondent Natalie Morales to discuss the murder of Aaron Fryer. Now, in the early morning hours of October 2nd, 2017, Aaron's ex-wife Maggie called 911 to report that both Aaron and their 15-year-old daughter, Ellen, nicknamed Ellie, were missing.
Police arrived at Aaron's home and what they found there was shocking. Blood soaked sofa, blood spatter, shattered glass. Within hours, though, police found Ellie and they found her alive and seemingly unharmed. She was walking on the street with her boyfriend, Gavin McFarlane, and his friend, Russell Jones. But Aaron Fryer was still missing. Natalie, thanks for joining us to talk about this case.
Hello again, Anne-Marie. Good to be with you. And a reminder to the listeners, like I tell you every week, if you haven't actually listened to this episode yet, you can find it in your podcast feed. It's right above this one. So go back and listen to the hour and then come on back and we can start talking about it. So, I mean, this really is one of those cases where...
A lot happened in a very short period of time. Police, they find Ellie, Gavin and Russell walking on the street not too long after they discover this bloody scene. They take them all into the Medford Police Department in Oregon. They separate them and they're hoping that they can give them some information about where
Aaron is Detective Bill Ford sits down with Russell and as he describes him he's a chatty Cathy as they say he takes him out for it do you say smoke and joke that's what they call it yeah you know I guess Russell he's a smoker and Russell asked for a cigarette and he's like right perfect opportunity let's take him outside and we'll go smoke and joke and that's how they got Russell to talk and really start to spill the beans
Right.
And sort of in no time, he offers to tell him where Aaron is, where his body is. You went out there. How difficult would it have been to find that area without Russell's help?
It was a good 20 miles or about 30 minutes drive from the Medford Police Department headquarters. So it was a difficult area to get to because it was sort of a hilly, remote, wooded area. But it wasn't really, you know, something that they thought out. Investigators said they drove around for quite some time trying to figure out what to do.
They had the, you know, Aaron's body in the back of the car wrapped up in tarp. But finally, they figured it out. Detective Ford, he says, Russell led him right there. And then he said, OK, stop. He's like, OK, he's right down there over the ravine. And sure enough, the police look down, they see a tarp. wrapped up.
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