PICHER, Okla. (AP) — Authorities have announced a new search for the bodies of two northeast Oklahoma girls missing since 1999. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and Craig County District Attorney Investigator Gary Stansill say investigators will search a cellar Friday on vacant land in the former town of Picher where a suspect in the girls' disappearance lived at the time.
The search is for the remains of Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible, who were 16 when they disappeared from Freeman's home near Welch on Dec. 30, 1999.
Freeman's parents were found dead in the burned rubble of the home and Ronnie Busick of Wichita, Kansas, pleaded guilty to an accessory to murder charge in the case in August.
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VINITA, Okla. (AP) — A Kansas man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in connection with the deaths of two people and the disappearance of two teenage girls more than 20 years ago.
Ronnie Busick, 69, Wichita, was sentenced Monday in Craig County on one count of accessory to murder, said Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman.
Busick, who pleaded guilty in July, could have earned a reduction in his sentence by showing authorities where the bodies of Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman were located, but several searches have not recovered the teens’ remains, Arbeitman said.
Bible and Freeman, who were both 16, haven’t been seen since Dec. 30. 1999, after Freeman’s parents, Danny and Kathy Freeman, were found slain in their burned mobile home in Welch about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Tulsa.
Busick, of Wichita, Kansas, was arrested and charged in 2018, and investigators say two other suspects are now dead.