What Happened to the Teens Who Vanished in a Fire | Forensic Files

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

Oklahoma teenager Ashley Freeman celebrated her sixteenth birthday by inviting her best friend, Lauria Bible, over for a sleepover. It was a pleasant yet uneventful evening, until the following morning of December 30 1999, when neighbours noticed that the Freemans’ house was engulfed in flames.

Emergency services quickly arrived at the scene, where they found the charred remains of Ashley’s mother, Kathy. She had also been shot in the head. The fire was ruled to be arson, but where were Lauria, Ashley or Ashley’s father, Danny?

---

Casefile Archives is a series of special bonus releases revisiting the earliest years of the show. The re-run episodes have been completely edited, polished, re-recorded and freshly produced from start to finish to match our current production standards. They are not complete rewrites - our goal wasn’t to alter the cases or reshape the writing, but to preserve the original storytelling while giving the production the refinement it didn’t have when we started the show back in 2016.

Where appropriate, updates have been added, but the core structure and storytelling remain faithful to the originals. Because of this, these re-releases may sound a little different to our recent episodes, but they allow us to bring some of the earliest episodes up to the technical quality listeners expect today.

CREDITS Narration – Anonymous Host Research & writing – Anonymous Host Additional writing – Elsha McGill Production & music – Mike Migas Audio editing – Anthony Telfer

SOCIAL LINKS

Website https://www.casefilepodcast.com Facebook https://www.facebook.com/casefile Twitter https://twitter.com/case_file Instagram https://www.instagram.com/casefilepodcast Patreon https://www.patreon.com/casefile Casefile Presents https://casefilepresents.com

RESOURCES

Brief Summary

The episode covers the 1999 disappearance of Laura Bible and Ashley Freeman after a fire, detailing the investigation and multiple suspects involved.

Key points

Case File Archives Launch. Celebrating 10 years with special bonus content and re-releases of classic episodes.
The Fire Incident. A fire destroys the Freeman home, leading to a shocking discovery.
Shocking Discovery. The Bibles find Danny Freeman's body, raising serious questions about the investigation.
The Search for Laura and Ashley. Over 500 people searched for the missing girls, but found nothing.
Confessions and False Leads. Multiple confessions arise, but many lead to dead ends and false hopes.
New Evidence Emerges. In 2017, new evidence surfaces that reignites the investigation into the Freeman Bible case.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Where were Danny, Laura, and Ashley?

The mysterious disappearance of three individuals after a fire.

13:42WatchFeb 7, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from Casefile

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.