Lauria Bible was sleeping over at Danny and Kathy Freeman's mobile home that evening to help celebrate the 16th birthday of her best friend, Ashley. Sometime in the middle of the night a nightmare happened and they both disappeared into the darkness as the place was burned to the ground.
The investigation was botched from the beginning. Of course it didn't help that Ashley's father, had a serious ongoing beef with the Craig County, Oklahoma sheriff's department. That would be very people who were the primary investigators looking into the brutal murder of his wife and the disappearance of his daughter and her friend.
When deputies arrived at the smoking ruins of the Freeman home in Welch, OK, located in the northeastern corner of the state, they found Kathy Freeman dead in the ashes. She had been shot in the head prior to the fire. Feelings on the law enforcement side toward the missing Danny were so antagonistic, he was immediately and publicly blamed for his wife's murder and the kidnapping of his daughter and friend.
The cops had a problem though. The next day, Lauria Bible's family arrived at the mobile home to poke around themselves. Since the crime scene wasn't particularly important to the Sheriff's Department they waded right into the wreckage. Within minutes they found the body of Danny Freeman buried in the debris. Later it was determined he had also been shot in the head before the fire was set.
Since their only suspect had been cleared of any wrong doing, because even the Craig County Sheriff in all his angry might couldn't pin a kidnapping on a dead man, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation was called in. These monstrous events occurred during the last two days of 1999.
Publicly, the case quickly went cold. In reality two private investigators, Tom Pryor and Joe Dugan were digging up some evidence on their own, not that any of the authorities cared. According to Pryor they discovered an automobile insurance verification card in the drive leading to the Freeman place within a couple of days of the murders. Shortly afterward they managed to locate the vehicle. It belonged to the girlfriend of a guy named Warren Philip Welch, a known connoisseur and purveyor of meth.
Pryor claims they notified the OSBI of their discoveries, but the agent in charge of the case immediately dismissed their findings and refused to follow up on either the card, or the automobile. Later, after Dugan died his family offered to hand over a box full of evidence gathered by the PIs to the Craig County Sheriff's office. Pryor maintains the Sheriff declined the offer and after a while Dugan's family threw the box and the evidence out, although he might be wrong about that.
Whatever the case Tom Pryor insists the OSBI told him to drop the private investigation and went so far as to threaten to revoke his law enforcement certification if he didn't.
The disappearances of Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible and the murders remained unsolved for nearly two decades, despite a couple of confessions which proved to be hoaxes.
In 2017, the new Craig County Sheriff, Heath Winfrey discovered a box of evidence stashed away in the office of the previous Sheriff, Jimmie Sooter. Whether it came from Dugan or not remains unknown, although it did contain the insurance verification card. Winfrey only described it as having, "some information pertaining to Phil Welch, David Pennington, and Ronnie Busick as being involved in the murders and missing girls." He added it also held, "names of individuals that may possess information."
Busick has a list of drug related convictions running back to the 1980's. Welch, a Vietnam vet, had done time for burglary, assault and making a terrorist threat. Pennington was allegedly the sous chef in the meth kitchen.
In April 2018, Busick was arrested and charged with four counts of first degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of arson. His lawyer went with a Tommy Chong defense. He claims that because of his habitual drug use his client has no memory of anything during the time frame of the crime. Welch, who later became an ordained minister died in 2007. Pennington, who went on to work at various jobs, including a welder, passed away in 2015.
After interviewing some of the, "individuals," who might have information about the horror which occurred on December 30, 1999, it turned out a dozen of them had either dated, or lived with the three men. They all said Welch, Pennington, and Busick talked about the murders, but had threatened to kill them and their family members if they ever went to the cops with the information.
More than one of the witnesses said they had seen photographs of the girls which were taken as gruesome mementos, or even worse, as an inspiration to whack off. They were either duct taped to chairs, or bound and gagged lying next to each other on what one witness described as Welch's bed. Another said she saw a picture which showed Welch on the bed with the two bound teens. All of them, she claimed, were taken at Welch's place in Picher, Oklahoma which is now a ghost town in neighboring Ottawa County, OK.
One of the witnesses told police when she confronted the future Reverend Welch about the photos she had accidentally found, he said, "Don't you ever tell anybody, or you will end up in a pit in Picher like those two girls."
To this day the location of the damning images and the remains of the victims are a mystery.
The latest working theory is, Welch masterminded the attack because the Freemans owed him money for drugs. He was the trigger man the tale goes. The girls, who were witnesses, were taken to silence them, not to mention all three of those wild and crazy guys had a twisted taste for rape and torture. It is unknown how long they were kept alive before they were killed and their bodies disposed of. Busick and Pennington torched the mobile home after the murders and yes, the car used during the horror show was the same one owned by Welch's girl friend at the time, just like Pryor and Dugan suspected.
This week authorities from as far away as Tulsa have descended on Picher to search for the bodies of the two girls. It won't be easy. Beneath the town is a labyrinth of old zinc and lead mine shafts and pits. They have weakened the foundations of every building there. In addition there are small mountains of toxic waste from those mines piled high all around the burg.
It's uncertain, after all this time and the size of the area, if they will be found. All we do know for sure is Welch and Pennington died peacefully and were buried in their home towns. And, Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman, with cruel savagery, weren't afforded the same opportunity.
sic vita est
7-30-19
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