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As we enter Case File's 10th [music] year, we've created a new run of special bonus content. Case File Archives, a
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series of releases revisiting the earliest years of the show along with previously unreleased premium episodes.
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This is completely additional content and will not replace new episodes. We'll still be back on March 7 with brand new
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cases, and we'll be releasing the same number of new episodes this year as we did last year. Case File Archives is
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simply a way to mark the 10th year, revisit some older episodes, and to offer previously subscriber exclusive
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episodes to the wider audience for the first time. For the re-release episodes, we have fully edited, polished,
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re-recorded, and freshly produced them from start to finish to match [music] our current production standards.
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They are not full rewrites. Our aim isn't to reshape the cases or alter the original storytelling, [music] but to
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preserve them as they were first told while giving them the level of production they didn't have [music] back
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in 2016. Where appropriate, updates have been added, but the core structure remains
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faithful to the originals. Because of [music] this, these episodes may sound a little different to our recent work.
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Today's re-release is Laura Bible and Ashley Freeman, [music] the third case file episode ever produced.
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On December 30, 1999, a fire tore through a home in Welch, Oklahoma. Inside, police found the body of Ashley
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Freeman's mother, Kathy. But Ashley, her best friend Laura Bible, and Ashley's father, [music] Dany, were
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nowhere to be found. Investigators soon confirmed the fire was deliberate and that Kathy hadn't
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died in the blaze. She'd been killed before the house was satellite. What followed was an investigation
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filled with missed opportunities and years of unanswered questions. Originally released in January 2016, the case has
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seen a significant development since then, which has been included in this re-release version.
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Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please
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contact your local crisis center. For suggested phone numbers, for confidential support, and for a more
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detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website.
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On Wednesday, December 29, 1999, Oklahoma teenager Ashley Freeman invited her best friend Laura Bible over for a
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sleepover to celebrate her 16th birthday. The Freemans lived in a trailer on a rural property in the small
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town of Welch in Craig County. Ashley's parents, Danny and Kathy Freeman, were also home that evening. It was a
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relatively uneventful, albeit enjoyable night. The girls ate cake and watched TV, and nothing seemed out of the
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ordinary. But just before 6:00 the next morning, a passing neighbor reported that the
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Freeman house was on fire. [music] Emergency services rushed to the scene and found one body among the ashes. But
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where were the others? [music] Laura Bible and Ashley Freeman both grew up in Venita, a town in Craig County,
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Oklahoma that had a population of around 6 and a half thousand people. They first
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met in kindergarten where they formed an instant bond and became inseparable straight away. As time went by, their
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bond only got stronger. They were best friends, about as close as friends could get. They shared the
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same thoughts and finished one another's sentences. Laura and Ashley attended the same
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schools and spent every minute of their time together. That was until 1995 when Ashley's
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parents announced that the Freemans were moving to Welch, a small town about 32 km or 20 mi north of Venita.
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Welch was a rural area with a population of about 600 people. The Freemans moved
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into a trailer on a 40 acre property in an isolated, quiet spot. It was a testing time for Laura and
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Ashley, but they remained close, speaking on the phone at least once a week and seeing each other as often as
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they could. They were typical teenage girls with a shared interest in hair, makeup, shopping, and clothes. Both were
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excellent students who were in the top 10% of their classes. Laura was a cheerleader with a deep love
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for animals, while Ashley was more of the athletic type. She played in her high school basketball team and had a
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passion for hunting, having shot her first deer around the age of 12. Ashley had a part-time job at a local
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convenience store and was trying to save up to buy a car once she turned 16. [music]
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But while Ashley succeeded in her personal life, not everything was great for her at home. [music]
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Ashley's mother, Kathy Freeman, was described as a loving and caring person. She was a hard worker and the main bread
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winner for the family. However, Ashley's father, Dany, was known to have a violent temper.
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After the family moved to Welch, there were reports that both Ashley and her older brother Shane started clashing
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with their father. In 1998, Shane ran away from home and Danny rang the local sheriff's office to
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report him missing. The police located Shane shortly after. He explained that he'd run away because his dad had
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whipped him for being disobedient. Shane's injuries were significant enough that he was bleeding through his
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underwear and Danny Freeman was subsequently charged with assault. A court date was set for the following
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year. But 4 months later, something happened that irrevocably changed the Freeman household.
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17-year-old Shane had started to develop a taste for theft. On January 8th, 1999,
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he stole his neighbor's vehicle as well as a gun. Deputy David Hayes from the Craig County Sheriff's Department later
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spotted the stolen vehicle on the side of the road. He approached the vehicle and saw Shane Freeman inside.
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According to Deputy Hayes, Shane got out and pointed a gun at him. Deputy Hayes pulled out his own firearm and screamed
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at Shane to drop the weapon. When Shane refused to do so, Deputy Hayes claimed he was forced to fire to protect
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himself. Shane Freeman died instantly. An investigation by the county district attorney found that Deputy Hayes was
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acting in self-defense and that the shooting was justified. It was a devastating blow for the
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Freeman family and Ashley struggled to come to terms with the death of her big brother.
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The Freeman's also had grave doubts about Deputy Haye's version of events. They refused to accept that he'd acted
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in self-defense, believing it was a coldblooded murder. Refusing to be quiet about it, the
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Freeman family started posting signs around town declaring justice for Shane. This started a feud between the
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Freeman's and the local sheriff's office. About a month after Shane's death, Danny
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Freeman was arrested after he was caught driving around trying to find out where
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Deputy Hayes lived. In response, [music] deputies started sitting outside of the
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Freeman house in their patrol cars. Tensions were high with Dany yet to face court on the assault charges against his
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son. Dany was ultimately acquitted of the charges, but regardless, it had been a
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tragic and stressful year for Ashley. She was supported by Laura Bible, who played a huge part in helping Ashley
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come to terms with the loss of her brother. By the time Ashley's 16th birthday rolled around on December 29,
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1999, she didn't feel like having a big celebration. Instead, she just wanted to spend the
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day with her mother, Kathy, and of course, her best friend, Laura. The three went into town and spent the
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day shopping before having dinner at a local pizzeria. Afterwards, Ashley asked Laura to sleep
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over so they could eat birthday cake and ice cream together. At around 7:00 p.m., they drove back to
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Laura's house to ask permission from her parents. Laura's parents said it was fine as long as she was back in time for
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her dentist appointment the following morning. Laura, who already had her driver's
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license and her own car, happily agreed. She took her purse with her, which contained about $200 in cash.
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It was a lowkey evening. The girls ate cake and watched a hunting show on TV with Kathy and Danny.
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Ashley's boyfriend, Jeremy, stopped by to give Ashley her birthday present and then left at around 9:30 p.m.
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He didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. [music] It was a normal, quiet night with the
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Freeman's and Laura just sitting around and chatting happily. >> [music] >> Just before 6:00 the next morning of
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Thursday, December 30, a neighbor called emergency services to report that the Freeman house was on fire.
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It was still dark at this time before sunrise. Volunteer firefighters rushed to the
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scene and found the house ablaze. Once they managed to extinguish the flames, officers from the Craig County
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Sheriff's Department determined the fire was arson and declared the area to be a
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crime scene. At around 7:30 a.m., Laura's mother, Lorine Bible, was at work when she
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received a phone call from her son saying that the Freeman's house was on fire. After Lorraine got off the phone, a
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deputy arrived almost straight away to break the news that only one body had been recovered from the fire. Beyond
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that, there wasn't much else he was able to tell her. Lorine immediately called her husband
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and they both rushed to the scene. [music] Upon their arrival, they were shocked to
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see that the area had been cordoned off, but most of the deputies on site appeared to be just standing around.
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No one was searching through the debris or looked like they were doing much of anything.
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The Bibles questioned the deputies about this and they explained that they were waiting for an agent from the Oklahoma
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State Bureau of Investigation, known as the OSBI, to arrive before the investigation could begin.
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The OSBI is the State Law Enforcement Agency for Oklahoma, which acts independently of the local county
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departments. Because of everything that had happened between the Freeman family following
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Shane's death, the Craig County Sheriff's Department had deemed that investigating the fire themselves would
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be a conflict of interest. Agent Steve Nutter from the OSBI eventually arrived at the scene and took
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over the investigation. By 5:30 p.m., the officers had collected all of the evidence and concluded their
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investigation of the crime scene. The body that had already been located was identified as Kathy Freeman. Yet,
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strangely, the police had been unable to find the remains [music] of Danny, Ashley, or Laura.
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They told the Bibles they were [music] 100% certain that there were no other bodies in the house.
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The Bibles were concerned. As far as they could see, the search had concentrated entirely on the house
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itself. No one had searched the rest of the Freeman's [music] 40 acre property. Laura's father organized a few of the
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local rangers who searched the property on horseback, but there was no trace of Danny [music]
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or the girls. This raised some serious alarm bells. Four people had gone to sleep in the
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Freeman house the night before, but only one was accounted for. So, where were Danny, Laura, [music] and
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Ashley? Laura Bible's parents were taken back to the police station where they were
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interviewed extensively by OSBI agents. A million things were running through their minds as they considered all the
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possible scenarios. The prevailing theory was that Dany had killed his wife and then abducted Ashley
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and Laura. It seemed to be the only thing that made sense. Otherwise, what else could it be?
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But there was a problem with this theory. Both Danny and Kathy's cars were still parked in the driveway, and the
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Freeman's didn't own any other vehicles. Laura's car was there as well, with the
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keys still in the ignition. Given the remote location, this raised the question of how Dany could have
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gotten away with the two teenagers, if he was indeed the perpetrator. Lorine Bible informed the OSBI agents
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that Dany had a history of drug use and had perhaps been involved in some smalltime drug dealing.
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This presented another possible scenario. Could it have been a drug deal gone bad?
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This would explain why all three vehicles were still there. The police didn't think it had been a
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random attack. The location was too remote, making it highly unlikely that someone would stumble across the
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Freeman's trailer by accident. The possibility that Laura and Ashley could be responsible was quickly deemed
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unimaginable. There was simply no way they could have [music] done it. Early the next morning of December 31,
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Agent Steve Nutter received some shocking news. Kathy Freeman didn't die from the fire.
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She died from a shotgun blast to the head. Her time of death was estimated to have
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been around 5:00 a.m. on Thursday, December 30. It was also confirmed that the fire had been deliberately lit as an
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accelerant had been used. Not long after receiving this information, the police received their
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first tip off. Someone called in to report that they had seen Danny Freeman in a white Ford
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truck with Laura and Ashley at around 7 a.m. This supported the initial theory that
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Dany had murdered Kathy before abducting the two teenagers, but it didn't explain
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why all the cars were still in the driveway. Furthermore, it was also revealed that
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through Ashley's job at the convenience store, she had managed to save $4,000 for a car she hoped to buy.
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She kept the cash hidden in a Tupperware container in the freezer of her house, but a search revealed that the money was
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gone. While this pointed to a potential robbery, Laura's purse was still at the scene with $200 cash inside.
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Whichever way you looked at it, nothing seemed to add up. Early on the morning of December 31, the
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Bibles returned to the Freeman property [music] under the assumption that Dany had fled
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with the girls. The police had cleared the crime scene and released it to the Freeman family, leaving them free to
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look around. Laura's parents were desperate for answers and hoped that by revisiting the
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scene, they might notice something the police had missed. They needed to know where their daughter
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was and were convinced the scene would hold some answers. They found an answer. All right. A very
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big answer. Not long after arriving at the Freeman property and sifting through the
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wreckage of the burnt trailer, the Bibles found the burnt [music] body of Danny Freeman.
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This was a major problem. There was already friction between the Freeman family and the local sheriff's
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department. Enough [music] so that the sheriff's department had deemed investigating the crime a conflict of
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interest and called in the OSBI. Somehow though, both organizations [music] had managed to miss Danny's
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body, which took the Bibles all of about 5 [music] minutes to find upon sifting through the scene.
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Somebody [music] had failed miserably. [music] The Bibles called the sheriffs again and
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they returned to establish another crime scene. The OSBI was also called back. The Bibles were told to leave because it
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was an active crime scene, but they refused. Lorine raised a good point when she said, "We let you do your job
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yesterday, and look how well you did." Knowing that their daughter's body could very well be there as well, the Bibles
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weren't going anywhere. It was determined that Danny Freeman had also been killed with a shotgun blast to
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the head. His charred body was found in the bedroom near where Kathy was found, but there was no shotgun in the room,
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ruling out the possibility of a murder suicide. The Bibles were frantic. If the police had missed Danny's body,
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there was every chance they had missed Laura and Ashley as well. An extensive search was carried out of
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the scene, but investigators were absolutely certain there were no other bodies on site, and there was still no
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trace of the two teenagers. The Bible's grizzly discovery put an end to the theory that Dany had murdered his
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wife and abducted the girls. And obviously, the tip off the police received earlier was a false lead. But
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it did raise the question, could Laura and Ashley be responsible? After all, it seemed impossible. These were two
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loving, caring girls who were good at school and had no history of violence. Nevertheless, it was a possibility the
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police had to consider. But if there was any truth to it, it still didn't explain how the pair had
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got away. With all the cars in the driveway and Laura's purse found at the scene with
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her money and ID inside, nothing added up. It seemed highly unlikely that the two teenagers would murder Danny and
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Kathy and then run off into the woods. Unless, of course, they had acted in self-defense.
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It was theorized that Dany and Kathy could have gotten into an argument and Dany had shot Kathy. Ashley could have
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then stepped in to defend her mother by shooting Dany. After all, she was an avid hunter who
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owned her own guns. Ashley was also one of the very few people who knew about the $4,000 cash in
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the freezer. As crazy as it seemed, it had to be considered. And if Ashley hadn't taken the money,
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then who did? Whoever it was, they had to know it was there in the first place. As the investigation continued, police
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learned that Danny had a large collection of rifles and shotguns. Around 14 firearms were recovered at the
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scene, but police wouldn't say whether or not the murder weapon was among them. Meanwhile, [music] some members of the
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Freeman family had a theory of their own. They were convinced [music] that the local sheriff's department was
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responsible, finally putting an end to the bitter feud they'd been having with the Freeman's [music] since Shane's
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death. According to one of Danyy's relatives, he'd had a conversation with Dany shortly before his death, [music]
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in which Dany had said, "If anything ever happens to me, look at the sheriff's department."
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He'd been completely serious at the time, pointing a finger in his relative's face.
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While it was entirely possible that Dany had just been letting off steam during a
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heated discussion when he made this remark, it emerged [music] that the Freeman's were actually trying to save
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enough money to file a wrongful death suit in relation to Shane's shooting. wrongful death suits had to be filed
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within a year of the event occurring. With the one-year anniversary of Shane's death fast approaching, at the time of
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their deaths, [music] Kathy and Dany had just one week to come up with the money
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before they'd been eligible to file the suit. Denny's relatives said that local deputies were trying to threaten and
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intimidate Denny from going ahead with the case. It was his belief that local deputies
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had killed Danny and Kathy and buried the girls somewhere. It was a pretty far reach. Wrongful
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death suits are nothing new to police departments, and Shane's death had already been ruled justifiable by the
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district attorney. But with members of the Freeman family refusing to let this theory go, the OSBI
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stepped in and subjected local deputies to a lie detector test. [music] All of them passed.
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Agent Steve Nutter stated, "All cleared themselves as a result of those examinations."
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The overall conclusion of our efforts was that the sheriff's office had nothing to do with the murders of Danny
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and Kathy [music] and did not know the whereabouts of the two missing girls. But the information that Danny Freeman
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was trying to come up with money fast did raise some eyebrows. An autopsy was performed on Danny
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Freeman and it was revealed that he had a fracture on his right collarbone, indicating there could have been a
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fierce struggle before he was killed. As mentioned earlier, Dany was believed to be involved in drugs and maybe a
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little dealing. Could he have gotten in over his head looking for a big payday to get enough money together for the
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lawsuit only to have the big deal go horribly wrong? [clears throat] [music] The OSBI didn't think so.
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According to Agent Nutter, nothing suggested a drugrelated crime. [music] And if it had been drugrelated, he
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thought the very last thing anyone would want to do was abduct the two teenagers.
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While investigators are privy to information that we aren't, it was a pretty incredible comment to make. If it
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was a drug deal gone wrong, why wouldn't the person or persons responsible for shooting two people in the head and
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burning their house down be capable of abducting Laura and Ashley? There could be several reasons why the
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perpetrator might want to take the 16-year-old girls. [music] On New Year's Day of 2000, the local
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community banded together and over 500 people performed a large search of the Freeman property. But the search turned
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up nothing. It was as though Laura and Ashley had disappeared off the face of the earth.
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On Friday, January 7, a memorial service was held for Danny and Kathy Freeman with over 400 people in attendance.
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The investigation continued, but the police had nothing. [music] No witnesses, no leads, and no real
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suspects. 18 months went by before they got their first solid lead. A couple of inmates at the local county
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jail reported that they had seen Ashley Freeman and Dora Bible at a farmhouse in
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Ottawa County on New Year's Eve of 1999, the day after they went missing. And it wasn't any old house. It was a
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house well known to police. It belonged to a family who were known manufacturers of methamphetamine.
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According to the inmates, Ashley and Laura were drugged, raped, and tortured at the house. And apparently someone had
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filmed it. One of the inmates said he saw the tape. Police immediately applied for a search
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warrant and on July 26th, 2001, they raided the house. The only thing they found was evidence of drug manufacturer,
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but they did also find a spot of blood. A sample was taken to the lab, but the lab was busy, and the Bible family were
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told they wouldn't have the results back for a year. As if Laura and Ashley's loved ones
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hadn't suffered enough, they now had to wait for a whole year to discover if the
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story the inmates had [music] given was true. The results finally came back. It wasn't
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a match to Ashley or Laura's blood. No trace of the girls was found in the house, sending the police straight back
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to square one. Like a lot of cases that garner significant media attention, the investigation into the Freeman Bible
00:27:39
case was hindered by bogus tip offs and unsubstantiated sightings. These calls only got worse after a
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$50,000 reward was offered in exchange for information leading to an arrest. Police even received calls placing
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Ashley and Laura on opposite sides of the country on the same day. Investigators decided to look into other
00:28:04
crimes that had been committed around the same time [music] as the Freeman Bible case, both in Oklahoma and in
00:28:10
neighboring states, [music] to see if any similar offenses were committed. And they found one case that stuck out.
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In the early morning hours of December 31, 1999, a 35-year-old man broke into a trailer in Del Rio, Texas after being
00:28:32
kicked out of a bar. He launched a brutal attack on two young girls, 13-year-old Caen Harris and her
00:28:40
friend, 10-year-old Crystal SS. Caen was sexually assaulted and stabbed 16 times while Crystal had her throat
00:28:49
slit. Caen died from her injuries, but miraculously Crystal survived. She managed to go to a neighbor's house
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and call for help, and her attacker was arrested soon after. The man was identified as Tommy Lynn
00:29:07
Cells, a drifter who was ultimately suspected of being involved in upwards of 20 murders across the United States.
00:29:15
He was sentenced to death for Caen's murder [music] and put on death row in Texas.
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The attack on Caen and Crystal had occurred the morning after the Freeman murders, 716 mi away, roughly a 10 and a
00:29:29
half hour drive. Agent Nutter and the new Craig County Sheriff Jimmy Suda made their way to
00:29:37
Texas to interview cells. At first, he gave them nothing, but after about 6 hours of interrogation,
00:29:45
Cells confessed to having killed Laura Bible and Ashley Freeman. He claimed [music] he'd buried them at
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Red River on the border of Oklahoma and Texas. Police took Cells to the site and he
00:29:59
pointed out where he thought the bodies were buried. But there was a problem. The site looked
00:30:06
completely different to what Cells had described, and no remains were found. Cells also lacked any intimate knowledge
00:30:15
of the case and only repeated what had already been published in the paper. Cells had a bit of a habit of confessing
00:30:23
to murders. While on death row, he [music] confessed to over 70. Despite conclusively linking him to at
00:30:32
least 20 cases, the police thought he was playing the system by confessing to a whole heap of crimes that he didn't
00:30:39
commit. It could have been that he was trying to gain notoriety. Or perhaps he just liked
00:30:46
the attention. There wasn't much else to do on death row after all, and confessing to killing
00:30:53
Ashley and Laura did get him a day out of his cell. As crazy as it sounds, there are a
00:30:59
number of reasons why people make false confessions. And given Tommy Lynn Cells was already
00:31:06
on death row, he really had nothing to lose. It became pretty clear to the police
00:31:13
that Cells had nothing to do with the Freeman Bible case, and he was executed on April 3, 2014 without ever being
00:31:21
charged in relation to the crime. But SS wasn't the only one who confessed. [music]
00:31:32
Back in December 2000, 26-year-old Jeremy Brian Jones was wanted on two separate rape charges in Oklahoma.
00:31:40
He fled to Alabama where he managed to steal the identity of a man named John Paul Chapman.
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Not long after this, Jones got himself into trouble again and was arrested and fingerprinted.
00:31:54
The prince was sent to the OSBI and incredibly their [music] system failed to match Jones's prince to his real
00:32:01
identity. A new profile was created for him under his new Chapman identity [music] and he
00:32:07
was never extradited back to Oklahoma to face the rape charges. On September 18, 2004, a 43-year-old
00:32:16
woman named Lisa Nichols was raped and shot dead inside her trailer in Turnerville, Alabama.
00:32:23
Her trailer was then set on fire. Jeremy Jones was arrested after it was revealed that his vehicle was seen at
00:32:32
the front of Lisa's trailer on the night she was murdered. Jones admitted to killing Lisa. But that
00:32:39
wasn't all. He also [music] confessed to 13 other murders committed across six states.
00:32:47
Police could only find enough evidence to charge [music] Jones with three of those crimes, and he was subsequently
00:32:53
sentenced to death. While on death row in July 2005, Jones [music] confessed to four more murders,
00:33:02
those of Laura Bible and Danny, Kathy, and Ashley Freeman. What interested police was [music] that
00:33:10
on the night Danny and Kathy were killed, Jeremy Jones had been arrested for public intoxication only 16 km or 10
00:33:18
mi from the Freeman home. Agent Nutter and Sheriff Suda interviewed Jones. At first, he denied any knowledge of the
00:33:27
crime, [music] even though he had already confessed to it. But as time went on, [music] he started to admit
00:33:34
involvement. Jones claimed that Danny Freeman owed him money for drugs, so he shot him
00:33:41
before shooting Kathy and setting their house on fire. He said he didn't realized that Ashley
00:33:47
and Laura were there until they ran out of the house upon hearing the gunshots. According to Jones, the girls asked him
00:33:56
for help, so he told them to get in his truck. From there, he tied them up, killed
00:34:02
them, and dumped [music] their bodies in a Kansas minehaft. Unlike Tommy Lin Selza's confession,
00:34:10
Jones knew some things about the case that got investigators attention. He knew the exact accelerant that was
00:34:17
used to start the fire, as well as the type of shotgun that was used to commit the murders, [music] information that
00:34:24
had never been released to the public. Police immediately set up a search of the Kansas mine where Jones claimed to
00:34:32
have dumped the girl's bodies, but there were issues. There were over 100 underground mines in
00:34:40
the area, as well as water tunnels, and anything that got dumped in would float away.
00:34:46
Regardless, the area was searched extensively over several days, including the use of underwater camera equipment,
00:34:54
but no trace of Laura or Ashley was found. When Jones found out the police had come
00:35:01
up empty in the search, he retracted his confession. He said he made it all up in order to
00:35:08
get special privileges, including extra phone calls, visitations, [music] and special meals.
00:35:15
Police had another look at Jones's arrest for public intoxication. It turned out he was arrested at 4:00
00:35:23
a.m. on December 30, 1999. Kathy and Danny Freeman [music] had been killed at 5:00 a.m., meaning Jones was
00:35:31
already in custody at the time. 10 years after the murders in 2010, the OSBI released a new piece of information
00:35:43
to the public for the first time. They revealed that on the day of the crime, two suspicious vehicles were seen
00:35:51
in the area. The first was a dark four-door sedan which was seen traveling east on a rural
00:35:58
road towards Welch between 5:30 and 6 a.m. The OSBI explained they hadn't released this detail at the time because
00:36:07
it was only a vague description and they decided to keep the information within law enforcement circles.
00:36:15
This was a potentially detrimental decision. Had they released it earlier, someone
00:36:21
might have seen it or known someone who drove a similar car. After 10 years, it seemed highly
00:36:28
unlikely that anyone would remember anything about that car. The second vehicle seen leaving the area
00:36:36
around the time of the crime was a dark-coled heavyduty pickup truck heading north towards Kansas.
00:36:43
The OSBI said this information had only come about recently as the result of an interview.
00:36:50
How reliable that information was 10 years after the fact [music] was anyone's guess.
00:36:58
The case remained open and leads continued to be followed up all over the country, [music] but still there was no
00:37:04
trace of Laura and Ashley. Whatever had happened to them, it seemed highly unlikely that two well- behaved
00:37:12
teenagers would be able to commit such a horrible crime and then vanish without a
00:37:16
trace, [music] taking none of their belongings with them. It's far more likely they were also
00:37:23
victims of whoever killed Danny and Kathy. But if that was the case, then why weren't they shot dead and left in the
00:37:32
house, too? Why were they taken? Who took the $4,000 that Ashley had hidden in the freezer? And how did they
00:37:41
know it was there? In the decade since Ashley and Laura vanished, Ashley's relatives had her
00:37:48
declared legally dead. That was a step the Bible family wouldn't take, refusing to give up hope
00:37:56
that Laura might still be alive. Every night, Lorine Bible left the back porch light on [music] just in case
00:38:05
Laura came home. Back when Case File first covered the Freeman Bible case in 2016, our episode
00:38:15
ended there. But it turned out the story [music] was far from over. In 2017, the newly appointed Craig
00:38:29
County Sheriff Heath Winfrey came across a box of notes and documents related to
00:38:33
the Freeman Bible case that had been pushed aside by the previous administration.
00:38:38
Inside, he found something that immediately caught his attention. In the days following the fire at the
00:38:46
Freeman home, two private investigators had combed the property at the request of the Freeman family and found a car
00:38:53
insurance verification card in the driveway that belonged to a woman named Susan Bailey, not her real name.
00:39:01
The private investigators told the police about the card, and although they never took it as evidence, OSBI agents
00:39:08
did go to interview Susan. Susan claimed to have no idea why her insurance card was found at the crime
00:39:16
scene. She said she'd never met Danny or Kathy Freeman, nor had she ever been anywhere near their home.
00:39:24
At the time, [music] Susan had a boyfriend named Philip Welch, a known manufacturer and dealer
00:39:30
of methamphetamine. He sometimes used Susan's car. Susan said that Welch knew of Danny
00:39:38
Freeman but did not associate with him. Further documents inside the evidence box revealed that a year after the
00:39:46
murders in January 2001, OSBI agent Steve Nutter interviewed a woman named Tracy Ford, not her real name.
00:39:56
Tracy told police that just months after the Freemans were killed, Philip Welch broke up with Susan and began a
00:40:03
relationship with her instead. The two lived together in a trailer in Pitcher, a small town roughly 25 mi
00:40:12
northeast of the Freemans. There, Walsh ofen spent time with two of his associates, David Pennington and
00:40:20
Ronny Buk. According to Tracy, the three men said they had killed Danny [music] and Kathy Freeman because Dany owed
00:40:28
money for drugs and they had abducted and killed the two girls. Philip Welch even kept one of the reward
00:40:35
posters on the wall in their house. Later on, Tracy said she found a leather briefcase belonging to Welch, which
00:40:44
contained several Polaroid photographs of two teenage girls lying on Welch's bed.
00:40:50
She recognized it from his old bedspread. The girls were both bound and gagged with duct tape, and it was clear they
00:40:58
were being held against their will. In one photo, Philip Walch was lying alongside them. In another, the girls
00:41:07
were duct taped to chairs. Tracy recognized the girls from the missing person poster in their house,
00:41:15
Laura Bible and Ashley Freeman. Tracy said she confronted Walch about the Polaroids and he warned that if she
00:41:24
ever told anyone, she would end up in a pit in Pitcher like those two girls. Philip Welch was interviewed 2 years
00:41:36
after Tracy's claims, but why nothing further came of this line of inquiry is unknown.
00:41:43
The box of documents found in 2017 was handed over to an investigator for the district attorney and an OSBI agent who
00:41:51
were now jointly leading the investigation into the Freeman Bible case. They began speaking to various
00:41:58
associates of Philip Welch, David Pennington, and Ronnie Buick. At least 12 witnesses backed up the
00:42:05
claims made by Tracy Ford, saying they too had seen the Polaroids of Laura and Ashley. One witness described the girls
00:42:14
as looking emaciated. Another said Ronnie Buick admitted that the trio had taken the girls to a
00:42:20
trailer in picture where they had tortured and raped them for several days. Tracy's son said that Philip Walch and
00:42:29
David Pennington had shown him the photos and said they had strangled the two girls to death.
00:42:35
At one point, Tracy and her son had gone to live with a friend to escape Welch's
00:42:40
physical abuse. The friend told the police that Walsh had called constantly, saying he was
00:42:47
involved with the Freeman case and threatening to kill her and her children and throw them into the pit with the
00:42:53
missing girls. According to Tracy's friend, it was Welch who had pulled the trigger on
00:42:59
Danny and Kathy before instructing Pennington and Buick to start the fire. a claim that was backed by several
00:43:06
others. Multiple people said that Welch was the mastermind behind the crimes, while
00:43:13
Pennington and Buick had been involved to varying levels. Witnesses either hadn't come forward out
00:43:20
of fear or because they thought it was such common knowledge that police already knew.
00:43:27
An ex-girlfriend of Pennington's named Leanne, not her real name, said that during the course of their relationship,
00:43:34
Pennington had often bragged that he and at least two other men had killed the Freemans over a bad drug deal. [music]
00:43:41
He allegedly told Leanne that Laura and Ashley had walked into the room at the time and that the men had decided to
00:43:47
[music] quote, "take the girls and have fun with them." Leanne said that Pennington had talked
00:43:55
about Laura and Ashley all the time. He said their bodies were in a pit somewhere and warned Leanne that if she
00:44:02
ever told anyone or tried to leave him, she would end up in the pit, [music] too.
00:44:08
She eventually became so terrified of him that she'd gone into hiding. It turned out that the two private
00:44:16
investigators who had initially found Susan Baileyy's insurance card at the crime scene just days after the murders
00:44:22
had interviewed a number of these witnesses in the early days of the investigation, [music] including Philip
00:44:28
Welch. They'd even later tracked down Susan Bailey's car at a salvage yard and found
00:44:34
documents inside that linked the car to Welch. They had tried to hand over the information they'd uncovered to the
00:44:42
Craig [music] County Sheriff's Department, but the office had refused to take it.
00:44:48
One of the private investigators had since passed away, and the information he'd gathered had subsequently been
00:44:54
destroyed. However, the other PI still had a copy of Susan Bailey's insurance card and
00:45:00
handed it over to the new investigation team. He said he'd stopped looking into the
00:45:06
case years ago after a member of law enforcement told him he was interfering and had threatened to cancel his private
00:45:13
investigator license if [music] he didn't stop. For the current investigators, there was
00:45:19
only one thing left to do, and that was to interview the three men in question, Phil Welch, David Pennington, [music]
00:45:26
and Ronnie Buk. But there was a big problem. Phil Welch died in 2007 and [music]
00:45:38
David Pennington died in 2015. Ronnie Buick was the only surviving member of the trio.
00:45:46
The 65year-old was called in for questioning three times throughout 2017. While he admitted to knowing Pennington,
00:45:55
he initially denied having any association with Philip Welch. That was until police revealed that witnesses had
00:46:02
linked the three of them to the Freeman Bible case. Busker then admitted that the three men
00:46:08
were pretty tight back in those days, although he said he never liked Welch as he was shady and had a bad temper.
00:46:18
Buy initially said he only knew about the murders from the news, but when pushed, he conceded that Philip Welch
00:46:25
was likely responsible because he was quote coldblooded and [music] mean enough to do it. He also admitted that
00:46:34
David Pennington might have been involved, saying he had been acting suspicious and sheepish around the time.
00:46:42
Guuss knew that Susan Bailey's insurance card had been found at the scene. He claimed Pennington had told him about it
00:46:49
and that this had added to his suspicions against the two men. At first, Buk said nothing when the
00:46:57
investigators accused him of being at the Freeman's on the night of the crimes. Then he [music] switched back and forth
00:47:05
between outright denying his involvement and claiming he couldn't remember anything.
00:47:11
He said witnesses were lying about his involvement, but offered no explanation as to why they would be motivated to do
00:47:18
so. [music] During his third interrogation, one of the agents asked Buk what was keeping
00:47:24
him from telling the truth. Surely, they said, this whole situation must have been eating at him for the past 17
00:47:32
years. You're scared of what your sister would think about you if you told the truth.
00:47:38
That's what it is, right? the agent posited. Buy's response was simple. Well, yeah.
00:47:48
Although he nodded along when the agent said it would be a relief to get it off his chest, [music] he stopped short of
00:47:54
admitting to anything. On April 23, 2018, almost 18 and 1/2 years after the crimes, Ronnie [music]
00:48:04
Buick was arrested and charged with four counts of firstdegree murder, two [music] counts of kidnapping, and one
00:48:10
count of first-degree arson. Upon his arrest, he said he was willing to talk to Laura and Ashel's families.
00:48:19
Laura's mother, Lorine, went to meet with Buick one on one. She told him that she didn't come to
00:48:25
harass or upset [music] him, but as a mother trying to find her child. Buick replied, "I wish I could tell you.
00:48:35
I wish I could tell you where your daughter is. I don't know. I don't know anything."
00:48:43
[music] He said something similar to Ashley's uncle when he asked where his niece was.
00:48:49
"I wish I could," Buy replied. I don't have a clue. In 2019, a jury found Ronnie Buick
00:49:01
competent to stand trial, but in July 2020, [music] he accepted a plea deal. In exchange for just 10 years behind
00:49:10
bars, Buk pleaded guilty to the lesser crimes of being an accessory to first-degree murder in the deaths of
00:49:17
Danny and Kathy Freeman, [music] the arson of their home, and the abduction and presumed murders of Laura and
00:49:23
Ashley. As part of the plea deal, he agreed to assist investigators in finding the
00:49:29
girl's remains. If the recovery was successful, Buick's sentence would be reduced to just 5
00:49:37
years. According to Buick, Welch and Pennington had held Laura and Ashley captive
00:49:44
[music] for about 2 weeks, during which they were raped and tortured before eventually being killed.
00:49:50
He claimed not to know how they were killed or where their remains were disposed of.
00:49:56
Around the time of the murders, Buk said that Pennington had mentioned something
00:50:01
about filling in an old root cellar at his former property in Pitcher. In [music] August 2020, searches were
00:50:08
conducted of the property in question, but no sign of Laura or Ashley's remains were found.
00:50:15
Those on site described Buick as looking genuinely surprised. His lawyer said that Welch and
00:50:22
Pennington had never told Buk what they did with the girls, and any information he had provided was merely a guess.
00:50:31
In the leadup to Busk sentencing, Lorine Bible provided an emotional victim impact statement that spoke of the pain
00:50:38
her family had endured for the past two decades. 20 years, 8 months, [music] and one day
00:50:46
ago, on December 30, 1999, you made [music] a choice. Loren wrote, "You chose to go with two other men and
00:50:55
changed the course of so many lives, including your own. You are one of three men responsible for
00:51:02
taking two innocent [music] girls' lives. You could have done something to stop it. You could have called and reported
00:51:09
that you were a part of something awful, but you did not. Instead, you continued to be a part of
00:51:16
the unthinkable [music] things our girls endured before you were a part of ending their lives.
00:51:23
You had a choice. They were young and beautiful, but you know that they were innocent, [music]
00:51:31
but you and your other buddies took that from them. They did nothing to you. They
00:51:37
did not owe you or anyone else anything. [music] Their lives were only just about to
00:51:43
begin. You took that. They didn't have a choice. Our lives changed. The pain you [music]
00:51:52
have brought to us is indescribable. It's unfair because of your choices. We don't sleep.
00:52:00
We don't have a single day that we aren't searching. We don't walk into a crowd first [music] without looking for
00:52:07
her and then wondering if every person in the crowd could cause us more harm. We don't allow our other children to go
00:52:15
to sleepovers, have [music] playdates, or trust anyone to be near them. We have nightmares. We mourn every single day
00:52:24
and will continue to do so until the day we can bring the girls home and then we
00:52:30
will mourn in another way. We don't have a choice. Ronnie Buick was subsequently sentenced
00:52:39
to 10 years [music] in prison followed by 5 years probation with credit for time already served.
00:52:46
Further searches were conducted [music] but all were fruitless. In May 2023, after serving just 38
00:52:55
months of his sentence, it was announced [music] that Ronnie Buick was being released early for good behavior.
00:53:02
Laura and Ashley's loved ones were furious. Had they known [music] this was possible, they never would have agreed
00:53:09
to the plea deal. The decision caused such an uproar that in May 2025, the governor of Oklahoma
00:53:17
passed a new bill requiring felons convicted [music] of accessory to murder to serve at least 85% of their sentence
00:53:24
before being eligible for parole. This legislation is known as Laura and Ashley's law.
00:53:32
As of January 2026, [music] the remains of Laura Bible and Ashley Freeman have never been recovered, nor
00:53:39
have the Polaroids depicting their torture. Laura's mother, Lorine Bible, continues
00:53:45
to advocate for further searches. Like many others, she [music] believes Ronnie Buk knows where the remains of
00:53:52
her daughter are located. When Buick was released from prison, [music] Lorine stood outside waiting for
00:53:59
him. While she didn't wish him any harm and forgave him on a fundamental level, she
00:54:06
wanted him to know that she would always be watching [music] and questioning his
00:54:10
every move. "I want him to know that I'm here," she told reporters. And [music] I'm not going anywhere.