Documentary on 1968 crimes to show at Slippery Rock University Sept. 17
Nearly 60 years ago, Slippery Rock University was the site of a crime which has been largely lost to history despite the number of lives it ultimately affected. Four students were randomly kidnapped, confined, subjected to torture and, in once case, killed.
Over the past three years, SRU associate professor Brittany Fleming and one of her former students, James Cressman, have teamed up to unearth the events in detail through their documentary, “A Murder in Mercer.”
The film premiered in early June at the McDonough Storytellers Film Festival near Atlanta.
“It is very much an emotional look at how this kind of crime impacts so many people and how it ripple effects out through generations,” Fleming said. “It’s generational trauma.”
In March 1968, two students at Slippery Rock College, now Slippery Rock University, and two other college students from Ford City were on a double date at a restaurant in Slippery Rock. They were then all abducted from the restaurant’s parking lot by a group of four men.
One of the victims, Mike Frick, a student at Virginia Military Institute who was visiting the area for spring break, was shot, killed and hastily buried in a shallow grave.
The remaining three students were taken to an abandoned barn in Mercer County where the two women were sexually assaulted numerous times.
Eventually, the three managed to escape. After a massive manhunt, all four assailants eventually surrendered to law enforcement and all received life sentences.
One of the men, Kenneth Perrine, was later crushed to death by a garbage compactor he was hiding in while attempting to escape from prison. The remaining three — Donald Hosack, Kenneth Perrine and Arthur McConnell — died in prison of natural causes.
According to Fleming, work on the documentary started in 2023. It was shortly after a book on the incident by Todd Bromley, called “Depravity in the Darkness,” was released. At the time, Cressman was a senior media major at Slippery Rock University and also served as news editor at The Rocket university newspaper, while Fleming was one of Cressman’s teachers and also involved with The Rocket.
It just so happened that both were true crime enthusiasts.
“It was a print night for The Rocket. I remember pulling James into my office, and I said, ‘I just got this email. Are you down for this?’” Fleming said. “And he of course said yes.”
Cressman and Fleming said, unlike Bromley’s book — which relied mainly on documentary evidence from the time of the crimes and court proceedings — the film features interviews from people who had firsthand experience with the incident. These include Rick Dragan, the only still-living survivor of the attack, as well as members of the Frick family.
“Our documentary is the human aspect of what goes on behind a true crime and then more importantly, what happens whenever it is brought up all these years later,” Fleming said.
According to Cressman, the documentary will mark the first time that many of them, including Dragan, have ever gone public — or have even been asked to go public — about their experience.
“It’s a very nerve-wracking call to make to somebody who went through something like that,” Cressman said. “But he was very kind on the phone; and in fact, the first thing he said to us was, ‘Nobody's ever really asked me about this in 55 years.’ Which was shocking, especially for a crime that, at the time, was the most horrific crime to take place in Mercer County up to that point.”
Although the crime received plenty of news coverage at the time, Cressman and Fleming both say that the bulk of it — aside from a newspaper op-ed written by one of the survivors — was focused primarily on the four perpetrators and not on the victims.
“No one in Mercer wanted to talk about it and no one in Ford City wanted to talk about it, and for their own separate reasons.” Fleming said. “These are neighbors of neighbors that were either kidnapped or were involved in these crimes that took place. Thinking back to 1968, this is before we are all desensitized to this kind of crime and violence.”
“We wanted to make sure that this was open and available to everybody,” Cressman said. “We wanted to make sure that anyone who wanted to be involved was involved. We wanted it to be an open door because everybody has a voice. Some people were receptive and then other people did not have an interest in participating. Not because of malice or whatever … it’s a sensitive subject.”
Although Cressman and Fleming did the vast majority of the preproduction work together, Slippery Rock University media students were brought in later to assist with the production.
“At the very beginning, it was just the two of us,” Fleming said. “Once we started to flesh the story out more and really establish ourselves … that was whenever I felt more comfortable bringing in some more of our juniors and seniors to be on camera, to work audio, lights.”
While the film has had its world premiere in Georgia and has had showings elsewhere in the region, people in Butler County will get another chances to see the documentary. The third and final showing is scheduled for 5 p.m. Sept. 17 at the Smith Student Center Ballroom at Slippery Rock University.
The documentary itself is 70 minutes long. There will be a question-and-answer session with Cressman and Fleming after the movie. A date for a home, streaming or YouTube release is still up in the air, as the filmmakers are still awaiting word on acceptance into other film festivals.
“The rules with those (film festivals) mean that we can only do local premieres outside of the area where the film festival takes place,” Fleming said. “We can’t sell DVDs yet and we can't be on YouTube.”
Proceeds made from the sale of tickets will directly benefit the Dragan family.
“The Dragan family will benefit from anything that is made off this film because it’s their story,” Fleming said. “We wanted to make sure that Rick Dragan, who has been through a lot, was able to benefit from this.”
