I think what makes that video intriguing
For people to watch is what he's saying.
It's almost comical.
Some people may watch that, and think, well,
He doesn't know the difference between right and wrong.
Trust me when I tell you,
He knows the difference between right and wrong.
In the long run, this is about a murder.
This is a serious crime with someone losing their life.
It was a very violent death.
[don] he was just an all-around good guy
And he didn't deserve what happened.
I still don't know if we know
Every specific bit of god's honest truth.
What it boiled down to is a cold, calculated,
Pre-planned homicide.
It was a way for them to be together as a couple.
[music]
[muffle scream]
[gasp]
[female narrator] medford, oregon,
Is a quiet community deep in the heart
Of the rustic rogue valley.
[stephanie] medford is located in southern oregon.
We're about 30 miles from the california border.
We're close to mountains, we're close to the ocean.
Hiking, camping.
I have been a medford police officer for almost 30 years.
It's a department that really cares about their community.
[narrator] on October 2nd, 2017
The medford police department receives an alarming 911 call
From a local resident.
The call came in at 6:42.
It was from aaron friar's girlfriend.
[narrator] aaron is a 50-year-old
Medford resident and handyman.
He's also the father of three girls.
His girlfriend reports that
Aaron and his oldest daughter, ellie, are missing.
[bill] the girlfriend said aaron's younger daughters
Woke up about 6:30 in the morning,
And all of a sudden, they see blood there.
And they don't know where dad is.
And they don't know where older sister is.
His fifteen-year-old daughter, ellie friar,
Was missing from the residence.
[shannon] so, they called dad's girlfriend.
She came to the house, saw the state of the house.
And they ultimately decided
To walk to their mom's house down the street
And call for help.
Our officers were dispatched to the residence.
[shannon] the address is in west medford.
It's an older neighborhood with older homes.
[bill] patrol officers entered the residence.
At that point,
They're in a lifesaving mode to figure out what's going on.
They're checking for any place a human body can be at,
Whether they're injured or whether they're deceased.
They basically searched the house looking for the father,
Aaron friar, and his fifteen year-old daughter, ellie friar.
They found blood on the couch, inside the front room.
Based on the amount of blood that was there,
We believe that it was a possible no-body homicide.
That they had been assaulted and then
Possibly taken somewhere
Or removed from the house deceased.
[narrator] when detectives arrive at the scene,
Responding officers walk them
Through their initial discoveries.
Officer logan boyd had followed the blood path
Out of the residence.
Anyone and everyone is talked to that has knowledge or knows
The people that are involved in this case.
Our goal is to figure out what's going on
And find the people that we need to find.
[narrator] originally from california,
Aaron friar left a lasting impression on everyone he met.
[curtis] I grew up with aaron in lompoc.
He was like the best friend you could ever have.
He'd give you the shirt off his back.
That's the kind of guy he was.
Aaron was very outgoing, always wanting to make you laugh.
Wanting to be the friend that made sure you had a good time.
He's very outgoing, bubbly personality.
[narrator] in 2000, aaron moved to oregon,
Where he settled down.
Aaron met his wife, maggie, in medford.
They seemed happy.
You could tell it, you know, it was, it radiated from him.
I was happy for him.
[narrator] over the next eight years,
Aaron and his wife welcomed three daughters.
[curtis] aaron with his girls, they were his world,
And I saw it firsthand.
You know, when I went up there to visit,
He would take me to school, to go pick them up.
He loved those girls more than anything.
[narrator] the couple's oldest daughter, ellen,
Or "ellie" to her friends and family,
Shined particularly bright.
Ellie was definitely a smart girl, she--
She was in all of the, um,
Advanced placement classes with me.
[kaden] we were in band together.
She was super talented, she's good at the clarinet.
Ellie was a super friendly individual, um, very quiet,
Maybe a little socially awkward.
But always super nice, funny, you know.
Aaron was proud of her because
She did a lot of recitals in school.
Every time he come visit, he'd have those on his phone,
And he would just have to show me.
[narrator] after more than a decade of marriage,
Aaron and his wife decided to separate in 2014.
[don] when they split up, didn't move that far,
And they co-parented without really any, uh,
Agreement of who gets who when.
And that seemed to be working really well for them.
[kevin] the girls' mother, she actually lived within
A block and a half of aaron's house.
Uh so, the girls, they would go back and forth
Between his house there and their mother's house.
[shannon] when it was his turn to have them over his house,
He was all about that.
Aaron wanted to be at home with them.
He wanted to spend time with them.
Aaron would encourage ellie to play music.
They would all have jam sessions together and listen to her sing.
He loved to hear ellie sing.
He lived for them kids.
That was, that was his main concern.
[narrator] by 2017, aaron's three girls,
Ages 8, 11, and 15
Seemed to have adjusted well to their new life.
That same year, aaron was back on the dating scene.
[shannon] he started dating a woman who I became friends with
Her name was miki.
She was wonderful, very nice.
They seemed to hit it off really well.
[don] aaron, his new girlfriend, and maggie,
His ex-wife, they got along great.
She liked all the kids. The kids liked her.
It was a good dynamic.
They definitely seemed like a happy family.
[narrator] but on October 2nd,
Aaron and his eldest daughter are missing...
And medford police are searchin
For witnesses who can explain what happened to them.
[bill] there's a lot of moving pieces.
We have to start canvassing the neighborhood,
Looking for witnesses.
[narrator] detectives head to aaron's ex-wife's house
To speak with aaron's girlfriend,
Miki, who had called 911 earlier that morning.
She explains that she last saw aaron the night before,
And he and the girls were in good spirits.
[narrator] miki confirms that aaron's car,
A silver mercury marquis,
Was parked under the carport when she left.
So, once we know that aaron's vehicle
Was also missing from the residence, immediately,
We have all of our officers out looking for the car.
We don't know if they're still alive,
He's been kidnapped, she's been kidnapped.
We don't really know a lot on the front end of this
Until we can start digging and figuring out what's going on.
You're really turning it into a lifesaving situation
At that point.
[narrator] coming up...
Police learn new details as aaron friar's youngest daughter
Recount a harrowing ordeal...
She woke up to her dad yelling
And the sound of something crashing.
She's afraid to leave the room.
It was actually heartbreaking.
[narrator] and a troubling allegation
Exposes a sinister motive.
They definitely had this romeo and juliet
Kind of situation
Where they wanted to be together,
But everybody was telling them they couldn't be.
[music]
[narrator] medford police are searching for 50-year-old
Aaron friar and his 15-year-old daughter, ellie,
After his younger daughters discovered a blood bath
Inside their home.
Authorities put out an apb for aaron's missing vehicle,
While detectives canvass the neighborhood.
There is surveillance all around that neighborhood.
People these days have cameras on their houses,
And we find a surveillance vide that shows the car leaving.
[narrator] the footage captures aaron's silver mercury
Pulling away from the home at 5:39am.
While this helps establish a timeline,
Detectives are unable to identify the driver.
Fortunately for us, we have the two young daughters
That were in the house when this occurred
To tell us everything they know and walk us through stuff.
This information is key.
[narrator] detectives make arrangements
To speak with aaron's daughters
I was assigned with talking to the two young sisters,
Who were possible witnesses to what had happened at the house.
They were eleven and eight at the time.
I made contact with the mother and asked her to bring the girls
To the children's advocacy center
So that I could interview them there.
[narrator] a few hours later,
The two girls and their mother come in for an interview.
[shannon] with interviewing children,
We don't jump right into the topic of concern.
We build some rapport.
Go over some ground rules about how the interview's
Gonna happen.
The girls were obviously scared and upset.
It was actually heartbreaking.
The older sister had the most information.
She heard and saw a lot.
She knew something bad had happened.
She woke up to her dad yelling,
And the sound of something crashing
At five o'clock in the morning.
She's afraid to leave the room.
[narrator] according to aaron's middle daughter,
She and her sister eventually fell back to sleep.
Ultimately, at 6:15, she gets up
Because she needs to get up and go to school.
And she comes out into the living room
And goes to the couch and puts her hand on the couch.
And when she takes her hand away, it's bloody.
She turned on the light
And was shocked because there was blood everywhere.
She used her dad's phone next to the couch
To get the phone number for her dad's girlfriend.
And she called and asked her to come over.
[narrator] but aaron's daughter reveals
That while she was hiding out in her and her sister's room,
She recognized a familiar voice coming from the living room.
[shannon] the older sister tells me during the interview
That after the crash with her dad, she hears gavin.
[narrator] detectives learn that gavin macfarlane
Is ellie's 19-year-old ex-boyfriend.
[shannon] she's concerned because
She knows that gavin's not allowed to be at the house .
She told me that he was a, quote, "mysterious person"
And that her dad hated him.
At this point, we were trying to find
More information about gavin.
I first met gavin my freshman year of high school
At south medford.
Gavin was older than ellie and was already graduated.
I just kind of remember seeing ellie and gavin hanging out
Despite no longer being a student there.
He just kind of had a specific kind of--like, a darker vibe,
Like mystique surrounding gavin
I would see gavin, like, waiting outside the front,
Kind of where the parents, the staff parking lot,
Where parents come to pick up their kids.
He'd be hanging out there with a skateboard,
And then ellie would come out to meet him,
And they would walk off,
You know, into the town together.
They definitely seemed like a happy couple.
Ellie seemed almost head over heels for him.
[narrator] ellie's father, on the other hand,
Wasn't happy when he learned
About his daughter's relationship.
[curtis] aaron would tell me that the guy is a bad seed
And not a good influence on ellie,
Because ellie was doing very well in school.
She was doing her band and everything.
But I think gavin held her back
[shannon] ellie had recently gotten into trouble for lying
About where she was at on the weekends.
She had told her dad that she was staying with a friend,
And her dad found out that she was actually at gavin's house.
[narrator] ellie's mother tells detectives
That aaron had forbidden their daughter from dating gavin,
Leading to a tense confrontatio outside gavin's home
Only a month before aaron and ellie went missing.
[bill] about a month prior,
Gavin macfarlane calls the police department
To report that aaron friar is at his residence
Threatening to kill him.
We respond over to the residence,
An officer does, makes contact.
And aaron's saying, "yeah, I'm upset.
"he's nineteen years old, my daughter's fifteen.
"I've told him I don't want him around my daughter,
"but yet, he keeps coming around my daughter,
And he's involved in a relationship with her."
[narrator] the animosity between aaron and gavin suggests
A clear motive to detectives.
[bill] we don't even know 100% sure
Who's been injured at the residence
Because there's blood on a couch,
It's not in a bed, in a certain person's bedroom.
But we kind of figured that something had happened
To aaron and ellie
And that it, more than likely involved ellie's boyfriend.
Ellie's mom was understandably worried,
And the girls were worried and extremely tired.
After I was done, interviewing the girls,
I talked to their mom.
And I just said,
"as soon as I have updates for you, I'll let you know."
We had every patrol officer, every individual in the county,
Everyone's looking for this missing vehicle
That belonged to aaron.
Very quickly our officers find it up in east medford,
Parked on the street.
[narrator] unfortunately, there's no sign of aaron,
Ellie, or gavin...
And a sweep of the vehicle turns up no evidence.
Detectives focus all efforts on locating gavin immediately.
We began doing what's called a geofence or a geo-ping
For the location of the cellphone.
We have this phone ping going o on gavin macfarlane's phone.
That phone ping leads us to a certain area of medford.
[narrator] as officers scour the neighborhood
Where gavin's phone last pinged there is a stunning development
Detective jim williams was driving down barnett road,
Which is a major thoroughfare,
And he spots ellie friar
Just walking down the street with gavin.
[music]
[narrator] police in medford, oregon,
Have just spotted missing perso ellie friar
With her ex-boyfriend, gavin macfarlane.
To authorities' surprise, ellie appears to be unharmed.
I learned that gavin, ellie, and a third person had been located.
[narrator] officers discover that the third person
Is 22-year-old russell jones.
[bill] I had been told that russell jones, ellie friar
And gavin macfarlane were being brought
To the medford police department.
I already knew who russell was.
I had had a prior case with russell jones.
He was involved in a burglary,
In taking his grandparents' property.
Aaron's vehicle was found
Very close to russell jones' grandparents' residence.
[narrator] while ellie friar and gavin macfarlane refuse to talk
Russell causes concern for law enforcement.
He is a strange individual.
Very talkative.
Talks very fast, more than regular.
[bill] it's now around 11:30 in the morning.
All three subjects have been brought
Into the medford police department.
[bill] we separate all three of them.
[bill] they're all placed in different interview rooms.
Obviously, you don't want people talking to each other.
[narrator] while the three teenagers
Wait to speak with detectives,
Russell's behavior becomes increasingly bizarre.
[narrator] when detectives enter the interrogation room,
Russell's demeanor appears to shift,
And he's willing to cooperate.
[narrator] in an interview room down the hall,
Another detective meets with ellie friar.
[stephanie] I was assigned to interview ellie.
And she's small. She's petite.
It was important for me to let her talk.
To establish a rapport.
To ask open-ended questions.
And that's kind of what I tried to do from the beginning.
[narrator] ellie outlines that she had shared
This allegation of abuse with her boyfriend, gavin.
[bill] ellie just wanted her dad out of her life
So she could be with gavin.
And gavin gets his buddy russell involved in it,
And russell's the protector.
[stephanie] according to ellie,
She had been removing items of hers from her home,
Putting 'em outside,
And then gavin would come and pick 'em up
And take 'em to his home.
[narrator] ellie explains that the night before,
She planned to sneak out of her home.
But when gavin and russell
Arrived outside her bedroom window,
Russell was armed with a machete.
She told us that russell had went through the window
And was in ellie's bedroom.
[stephanie] ellie was putting everything on russell.
She admitted to me that he hurt her dad.
[narrator] coming up...
Authorities finally uncover the whereabouts
Of their true victim, aaron friar...
[narrator] and a chilling confession
Will leave police asking...
What really happened to aaron friar
And who is responsible?
He demonstrated for us
That he took that bat with two hands,
That he came up over the top of him,
And that he drove the bat into his head 5 to 6 times.
[music]
[narrator] less than 24 hours
After aaron friar's disappearance,
His 15-year-old daughter ellie
Has claimed that on the night she ran away from home,
Russell jones attacked her father with a machete.
Ellie, to me, was portraying herself at points as a victim.
She was acting like
She didn't know a lot about what had happened.
[narrator] detective bill ford confronts russell
With ellie's claims.
[bill] he ends up telling us that
The night prior, around midnight,
He wanted to help try to get ellie out of a bad situation
With her father.
So, he had been living with gavin at the time.
[bill] he had a machete on him outside the house
In case something bad happened.
He told us that him and gavin
Were gonna take ellie back to gavin's
And ellie was going to live with gavin.
[narrator] but what russell says happened next stands
In stark contrast to ellie's version of events.
[bill] he tells us that a bat was used,
That gavin's the one that used the bat.
That aaron was on the couch
When gavin assaulted him and killed him.
It's just, like, strangest thing ever.
He's not emotional, he's not upset.
It's all like matter of fact, like it's just another day.
He tells us his only involvement,
His only involvement was helping gavin
Remove the body out of the house,
Put him in the tarp,
Put it in the trunk of the car, of aaron's car,
And then ultimately
Taking the body out to the county
And dumping the body.
[narrator] russell agrees to take detectives to the location
Where they dumped aaron friar's body.
He directs us down highway 140.
We come back on a road called antelope road.
And he takes us about,
I think it was seven, eight miles up the road.
And he tells us, "stop here."
He tells us the body's right of the edge of the bank.
We get out, we look down the bank.
We see a green tarp rolled up,
Foot hanging out of the tarp,
About 50 feet down the embankment.
[narrator] as a team is called in to recover aaron's body,
Russell points out a key piece of evidence.
About 10 to 15 feet up in a tree,
Kind of located behind the body,
Russell says, "see the bat right there?"
And I'm looking, and I'm like,
"holy smokes, the bat did get hung up in a branch."
[bill] he had told us that ellie had thrown the bat,
And he kind of snickers and laughs
That ellie had such a good arm,
And it was kind of comical to him
That the bat had been caught up in a bare tree branch.
It was really kind of surreal.
[narrator] when police recover aaron friar's body,
A preliminary examination
Reveals that he died of blunt force trauma,
Which is consistent with russell's account.
He had sustained massive trauma to the brain and the skull.
[narrator] the discovery undermines ellie's story
That her dad was attacked with a machete.
Detectives return to the police department,
Where they confront gavin macfarlane.
[narrator] that's when gavin reveals the real reason
Why he needed to help ellie.
[narrator] according to gavin,
Ellie had confided in him about her father's alleged abus
The day before.
Gavin was loyal and kind of ride-or-die.
He would absolutely go along
With pretty much any sort of crazy plan.
[bill] he said it's very dark inside this residence.
He trips on a plastic bin.
It makes some noise.
It wakes dad up.
[bill] he demonstrated for us
That he took that bat with two hands,
That he came up over the top of him,
And that he drove the bat into his head 5 to 6 times.
He kept saying, you know, I didn't mean to kill him.
I didn't want to kill him.
Well, somebody takes a bat with two hands, an aluminum bat,
And swings it up over the top of him.
Anybody should, in their right mind,
Should know that that could cause death.
[music]
Ic]
[narrator] in medford, oregon,
Gavin macfarlane has just admitted
That his girlfriend, ellie friar,
Came up with the idea to murder her father, aaron.
[narrator] when detectives confront ellie
About gavin's claims,
She continues to play innocent.
In talking to ellie, it was super frustrating.
I knew she was lying.
There were nonverbal cues as well.
Like trying to be distracting,
Like drinking the water, like coughing.
Once she started realizing
That we were putting the pieces of the puzzle together,
Then she was becoming more truthful
About what had happened.
She was admitting at least some of her part in the homicide.
I think that was a turning point.
It was a very violent death.
I think ellie definitely knew how violent of a death it was,
And she was still blasé about the whole thing.
Like, hmm, no reaction.
[narrator] following their interviews,
Ellie, gavin, and russell are charged on multiple counts,
Including murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Despite her age, ellie is charged as an adult.
I was floored.
What happened with aaron was such a, a shock.
I believe all of medford was definitely shaken up.
[curtis] I just couldn't believe it.
You know, little girl ellie, you know, I couldn't believe it.
[narrator] as authorities continue building their case,
They learn that ellie friar is not pregnant.
They also find no evidence
That she was ever abused by her father.
During the course of the investigation,
We never found any evidence or signs of sexual,
Physical or emotional abuse by aaron friar to ellie
Or his two younger daughters.
[bill] ellie's a manipulator.
I think, even though she's 15, she's 15 going on 20.
She wanted things in her life,
And she wanted them to be a certain way.
[ellen] I think that they had, like,
This romeo and juliet situation
Where ellie and gavin wanted to be together,
But everybody was telling them they couldn't be.
[bill] ellie wanted her dad killed,
And that was a way for them to be together as a couple.
[narrator] when detectives execute
A search warrant at gavin's house,
They secure evidence proving gavin and ellie
Had planned aaron's death together.
[bill] we found letters, drawings,
Written-out documents by gavin, lots of 'em,
About planning different ways to do this.
I mean, this was a cold, calculated, preplanned homicide.
[stephanie] and also, we had a search warrant
For cell phone text conversations
That she was having with russel and gavin about killing her dad
There was talk of getting chloroform,
Putting it over aaron's face, knocking him out,
Putting him in a car, taking him to california,
Murdering him way out in the county somewhere.
Ultimately, they get a text from ellie to come over
And kill him there.
Russell has this beat-up old motor home,
And they were going to make their way to the motor home
And take off and go across the nation.
And life's going to be grand.
[narrator] facing a mountain of evidence,
Both ellie friar and gavin macfarlane
Make deals with the prosecution
[lisa] mr. Macfarlane pled guilty to murder.
Under oregon law, he received a sentence of life
With a mandatory minimum 25 years in prison.
Miss friar pled guilty to the conspiracy charges
And then was sentenced to 25 years.
[sylvia] ellie should've gotten the brunt of the guilt,
But I understand that gavin
Is still the person who murdered ellie's father,
And I think 25 years to life is the punishment for that.
[narrator] in August 2021, russell jones pleads no contest
To conspiracy to commit murder and attempted robbery.
He is sentenced to 15 years.
As far as their sentencings go,
I believe it's all fair.
I think they all need to be in there for their full term.
The saddest part is that the two little girls
No longer have their father.
And that's because their 15-year-old sister
Went to great lengths to make sure he was killed.
[music]
[curtis] I think aaron should be remembered
As the most wonderful man
And the best friend any guy could ever have.
Every year on June the 9th, we get together,
And we have a beer, and we drink one for aaron.
He touched so many people's lives.
[music]