An Update on Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman

Jay and Laurene Bible know their daughter is dead. Now, they just want to bring her home once and for all.

This case has always baffled me. In 1999, Sixteen-year-old Lauria Bible only wanted to spend the night at Ashley Freeman’s home in Welch, OK, eat cake, and celebrate her best friend’s 16th birthday. But hours later, the Freeman home burned to the ground, and as investigators sifted through the rubble, they found the bodies of Ashley’s parents, Danny and Kathy. Autopsies revealed the Freeman’s had been shot to death.

The girls were nowhere to be found. Laura’s purse was found on the property, though, with $200 cash inside along with her driver’s license. Her car was also still parked in the driveway.

When I first read about this case, I was perplexed. Had the two girls managed to escape the fire? If so, where were they? All sorts of conspiracy theories floated about. Danny Freeman had a history of being involved in drugs. Was it a drug deal gone bad? He had also been feuding the local sheriff’s department and was planning to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the county. His son Shane had stolen a pickup drug and been shot and killed during the pursuit. Or was it a murder-suicide and the girls saw what happened and fled?

Over the years, Jay and Laurene Bible tracked down every lead they could think of, only to be met with heartbreak at each turn. A death row inmate claimed to have murdered the Freemans, kidnapped the girls, murdered them and then abandoned their bodies in a mine shaft. After an exhaustive search of the mines he pinpointed, he finally admitted he had made the whole story up.

Ashley’s surviving family members moved to have her legally declared dead in 2010.

Last week, there was a huge break in the case along with an arrest. Investigators arrested a man named Ronnie Dean Busick, who they believe killed the Freemans as part of a drug dispute and then kidnapped the two girls. Two other suspects, Warren Phillip Welch and David Pennington, were also implicated but both are deceased. The arrest of Busick comes after old case notes were discovered. Apparently, over the years, different women who were involved with the three suspects claimed they knew the two girls were abducted, held captive for several days, raped, and then murdered. These witnesses were said to have been in fear for their lives, which was why they never came forward officially. One woman has claimed to have seen a briefcase full of polaroid photos of the girls, some with Busick posing with them. No actual evidence of these photos has been found.

Investigators and the Bible family are now hoping for closure and to find out where the girl’s bodies are so they can have a proper burial. So while there are answers, but closure has yet to be found.