In 1968, four young people were kidnapped in Mercer County, Pennsylvania. Three escaped. One didn't. ​ For 55 years, the people who lived through that night stayed silent. ​ A Murder in Mercer is the story of what happens when they finally speak. On March 28, 1968, Rick Dragan and three friends were kidnapped in Mercer County, Pennsylvania. Three escaped. His friend, Mike, a Virginia Military Institute cadet, didn't. For over five decades, almost no one spoke of what happened. Not Mike's family, not his fiancée Cheryl, not Rick, who carried it quietly for the rest of his life. No one ever asked. That changed in 2023, when a local author published a book on the murder. He approached documentary filmmakers to bring it to the screen. But as the filmmakers began their own research, they found people the book never had: survivors, family members, people who'd waited decades for someone to ask what that night had cost them. A Murder in Mercer reconstructs the crime through the people who lived it — Mike's family and friends, the officer who found his body, Rick's own memory, and the confession tape of the man who turned himself in. It also finds Bob Perrine, son of one of the men responsible, who carries his father's name into a life he never chose. This is a story about what happens when the people history left out finally get to speak for themselves.