The disappearance and murder of two Oklahoma teenagers in 1999 remained unsolved for nearly two decades before a partial conviction in 2020.
Key Facts
- Date of disappearance
- Night of December 29–30, 1999
- Victims
- Lauria Bible, Ashley Freeman, Danny Freeman, Kathy Freeman
- Cause of adult deaths
- Both parents shot to death at close range
- Conviction year
- 2020
- Sentence (Busick)
- 10 years prison plus 5 years probation
- Time served by Busick
- 38 months, released May 19, 2023
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
On the night of December 29, 1999, Ashley Freeman was celebrating her sixteenth birthday at her family home in Welch, Oklahoma, with friend Lauria Bible. The Freeman household had been the subject of prior law enforcement attention, and the circumstances that brought violence to the home that night were not fully established until years later through witness testimony and a guilty plea.
In the early morning hours of December 30, 1999, a fire was reported at the Freeman residence. Firefighters discovered the bodies of Danny and Kathy Freeman, both shot at close range. Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible were missing and never found alive. The case went cold for years; in 2018, Ronnie Dean Busick was charged with four counts of first-degree murder in connection with all four deaths.
Busick pleaded guilty in 2020 to accessory to murder and received a ten-year prison sentence, but was released after only 38 months. The bodies of the two teenagers were never recovered. A 2021 search of a root cellar linked to a deceased suspect yielded no evidence, leaving the full circumstances of the girls' fates unresolved and their remains undiscovered.