The presumed murders of two teenage girls in a small Oklahoma town plagued the community for nearly 18 years, until a break in the case tore the lid off a well-kept secret.
Lauria Jaylene Bible was born on April 18th, 1983. She was vivacious, a cheerleader in high school who loved animals.
Ashley Renae Freeman was born on December 29th, 1983. She was an athlete, who had joined the basketball team and loved hunting. She also held a part-time job at a local convenience store.
The girls met in kindergarten, and were very, very fast friends. What one was thinking, the other was sure to say it out loud. They were known to finish each others’ sentences, and were always hanging out, or talking on the phone.
On December 29th, 1999, Lauria and Ashley were hanging out, celebrating Ashley’s sixteenth birthday. They spent the day around the town of Craig, Oklahoma with Ashley’s mother, Kathy, shopping and enjoying the day. Lauria went home, and asked her parents for permission to sleep over at Ashley’s, which they allowed, so long as she was home before noon the next day.
Lauria drove her car over the Freeman home, and parked on the property. Lauria, Ashley, and her parents hung out, watching TV. Ashley’s boyfriend came over at some point, and joined them for a quite evening of television and cake.
At around 5:30 AM on December 30th, 1999, neighbours noticed flames coming from the direction of the Freeman home. They called the authorities, who were quick to the scene where the Freeman home was engulfed in flames.
After the blaze had been doused, the Sheriff’s Department had a tough decision to make.
The Freeman family had been feuding with local law enforcement. A year prior to the incident, Ashley’s brother, Shane, had been killed in the midst of a car theft. Shane had stolen a car from a neighbour, and when police tried to pull him over, he’d been shot by a patrol officer. The killing had been ruled justifiable, but the Freeman family firmly believed that Shane had been murdered, and the Sheriff’s department were covering it up.
In light of this, the Sheriff’s Department decided to turn the case over to the OSBI – the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation – in order to prevent a potential conflict of interest.
As the OSBI got on with their investigation, they realized that the blaze that took the Freeman home had been arson. They found evidence of an accelerant.
Searching through the rubble, they also found the body of Kathy Freeman. She was found lying on the floor of what once had been her bedroom. However, the fire wasn’t the cause of death. Investigators found that she’d been shot in the head, execution style.
Police searched the area, but found no other remains. Danny, Ashley’s father, Ashley herself, and Lauria were still missing. Police theorized that Danny had killed his wife, and then taken the girls hostage.
However, Lauria’s car was still on the property, with the keys in the ignition. All of the Freeman vehicles were there, as well. As the Freeman home was very rural, it would have been extremely difficult for Danny to take off with the girls in tow.
When interviewed, the Bible family informed law enforcement that they had heard rumours that Danny had been involved in drugs. However, they weren’t sure if his involvement was in the realm of partaking in, or the selling of. They believed that the Freemans may have been targeted for that reason.
A witness also called in around the same time the Bibles were being interviewed to inform them that they’d seen Danny that morning. The witness went on to say that they’d seen Danny driving a white pickup truck around 7:00 AM the morning of December 30th. The witness also claimed that Danny had the girls in the truck with him.
With this information in mind, the OSBI honed in on the theory that Danny had abducted the girls, murdered his wife, and set flame to his home. They then released the scene. The Bibles didn’t waste any time in going to take a look.
On December 31st, 1999, they walked around the burned out Freeman home. There, they discovered something. Turning over some debris, the Bibles found what they believed to be another body. They immediately called the OSBI back to the scene, absolutely horrified and incredulous that they’d missed something they’d found so obviously.
When they OSBI returned to the scene, the took the body with them for further investigation. They identified the body as that of Danny Freeman. Just as had been done to Kathy, Danny had been shot in the head, execution-style. The OSBI, not wanting to face another humiliation, were careful in their re-examination of the scene. Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible were not found at the scene.
The OSBI followed leads, and were hopeful when two convicted murderers confessed to the murders of Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible.
Tommy Lynn Sells had confessed to murdering the girls, after having been tried and convicted nearby for a similar murder. He later recanted his confession.
Jeremy Jones also confessed to the murders, claiming that he’d killed Danny and Kathy as repayment for a drug debt. He then abducted the girls, and took them to Kansas. He then stated that he shot them, and threw their bodies in an abandoned mineshaft.
Law enforcement searched the mine, and came up empty. Jones later stated that he only confessed based on what he’d read in newspapers for additional privileges and benefits in prison, using the location of the girls’ bodies as leverage.
In 2001, rumours were running rampant around the small community of Craig County, Oklahoma as Unsolved Mysteries profiled the case. The documentary program alluded to the feud between local law enforcement and the Freemans, leading many locals to believe that the Freemans, and Lauria, were murdered in a cover up operation.
The Freemans has been on a tight deadline prior to their deaths. They were trying to raise enough money in order to launch a wrongful death lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department for the death of Shane Freeman. It was speculated, for a brief moment, that the family was murdered in order to avoid this coming down on the heads of law enforcement.
All those involved in the death of Shane Freeman were questioned, investigated, and cleared of the tragedy that befell the Freeman family and Lauria Bible.
The case sat for years. Eventually, the Freeman family had Ashley declared dead. The Bibles were never quite able to do so. But they never stopped searching for both girls.
Then, the case broke wide open in 2017.
The OSBI had since taken themselves off the case, reassigning it back to the Craig County Sheriff’s Department. In 2017, they discovered a box of documents. This box, which had sat dormant for a long time, directed investigators in the direction of private detectives who had worked the case early on in the investigation.
Tom Pryor, one of the investigators whom law enforcement tracked down, no longer had his files on the case. However, he had saved one particular item.
Tom had found an insurance card at the scene of the arson. The card had belonged to a woman who had been living with Warren Phillip “Phil” Welch II. Welch was known the drive the car around the time of the Freeman murders.
Tom also informed investigators that, at the time, he found the car at a salvage lot. When he’d inspected the car, he’d found Ashley and Lauria’s clothing inside, along with receipts of a rented mobile home where Welch lived. Tom told investigators that he’d told the OSBI about the card, but they never took it as evidence, or really took him seriously. Instead, he kept the card safe, waiting for the day when investigators would come knocking.
The investigation moved forward, and in April of 2018, Ronnie Dean Busick, a 66-year-old man, was arrested in connection with the murders of Lauria Bible, Ashley Freeman, Kathy Freeman, and Danny Freeman. He was charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
Alongside him, Phil Welch and David Pennington were identified as being involved in the murders, posthumously. Welch died in 2007, and Pennington died In 2015.
Witness came forward prior to the arrest to tell law enforcement that they’d often heard all three men bragging about having kept the girls for a few days after the murders, drugging them, raping them, and taking Polaroids of them. The witnesses also stated that the Freemans were, indeed, targeted as the result of a dispute over drug money. The girls, being young and attractive, were likely taken as an afterthought before they were ultimately murdered.
The crux of the case against the man was the result of a sworn affidavit, provided to police by a woman who had lived with Welch for a time after the Freeman murders. In her affidavit, she told law enforcement that she heard conversations between Welch, Pennington, and Busick wherein they discussed how Danny Freeman owed them money.
She also swore that Welch kept a leather briefcase which contained the Polaroids. The photos showed the girls lying on a bed, bound, gagged, and lying next to Welch. Many witnesses corroborated this statement, saying they’d either seen the photos, or had heard the men bragging about the photos.
The affidavit also claimed that Welch, Pennington, and Busick had raped and tortured Ashley and Lauria prior to murdering them. They were disposed in what has been described as “a pit”, or mineshaft, in Picher, Oklahoma.
On July 15th, 2020, Ronnie Dean Busick pleaded guilty to being an accessory to first-degree murders of Danny and Kathy Freeman. He also pleaded guilty to the arson of the home, and the abduction and presumed murders of Ashley Freemand and Lauria Bible.
Ronnie Dean Busick was sentenced to 15 years, with 10 of those years to be spend in lockup.
On October 7th, 2021, law enforcement conducted a search of a root cellar in a home in which David Pennington used to reside. They were lead there by Busic allegedly repeating “the root cellar” over and over.
The search turned up nothing. The bodies of Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible have yet to be found.
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Sources:
Disappearance of two Okla. girls stumped police for 18 years. Then they learned about the Polaroids. – Kyle Swenson – The Washington Post
How an Overlooked Clue Cracked Open 1999 Murder Case More than a Decade After Teen Girls Were Killed – Christine Pelisek – People.com – People Magazine Investigates
Dark secrets of rural backwater where teen girls vanished – Candace Sutton – news.com.au
Casefile podcast – Case 03: Lauria Bible & Ashley Freeman
Murders of Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman Wikipedia page