Posted on 05/21/2018 2:35:16 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
VINITA — Eighteen years after two teenagers from Welch disappeared, police have arrested one of three men they say tortured and held the girls for days before strangling them to death.
The killers bragged that the bodies of Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible, both 16, are “in a pit in Picher,” according to an affidavit released at a news conference Monday.
Ronnie Dean Busick, 66, of Wichita, Kansas, faces a host of charges in the 1999 deaths of the girls and Freeman’s parents, Kathy and Danny Freeman. He is in custody at the Harvey County, Kansas, jail.
Two other suspects — Warren Philip Welch II, 61, and David A. Pennington, 56 — are now dead. Welch died in 2007; Pennington died in 2015.
Kathy and Danny Freeman’s remains were found in their burned mobile home. “The girls were kept alive for an unknown number of days following the fire,” and “Polaroid photographs of the girls in their final days were seen by multiple people,” said Matt Ballard, district attorney for Craig, Mayes and Rogers counties.
The teenagers were kidnapped, tied up, raped and held in a mobile home at 412 S. College St. in Picher for a “matter of days” before being strangled, according to the affidavit. Photos of the girls bound and gagged and lying on a bed with Welch, one of the suspects, are described in the affidavit.
“They’ve (the Freeman and Bible families) learned these young ladies’ final days were certainly horrific, and today’s announcement no doubt comes as little solace to their grief,” said Ballard, who did not take questions during the news conference.
“There are several someones out there that can bring the girls home,” Lorene Bible said of finding the girls’ bodies. “It’s time to bring the girls home.”
(Excerpt) Read more at tulsaworld.com ...
“Thank God”
For what?
I thought this was Wales as in England. I hope they fry.
They cut to the chase, for people who want to know who, what, how, and so on. Then they fill in the details for readers who haven’t tuned out.
Welch?
I guess the local LEOs did not want to look bad. Now they do.
Thanks for clearing that up.
I thought it was odd that a Founding Freeper would treat the rape, torture, and murder of two teenage girls as an opportunity for a humorous pun.
this is not justice....justice delayed is justice denied....
its unbelievable isn’t it....
Article shows how incompetent the sheriff’s office really was and the reason it took so long to solve. They were literally walking over a dead body in the fire remains for days, etc. With all the bragging and talk from those killers, it should have been easy to catch them a lot earlier.
“Article shows how incompetent the sheriff’s office really was and the reason it took so long to solve.”
There was a lot of bad history between the family and the Sheriff’s office if I remember correctly.
I got the impression that the dead parents were involved in the drug trade. Maybe the sheriff thought it was no big deal because it was an intramural dispute between drug dealers.
Per the article it sounds like the Freeman girl’s family was bad news. Still no excuse though for what happened to the girls and a possible bungling by the local LEOs.
That's what.
“2018-1999 = 19...............”
= 18.4
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