BUMPING this one, and thanks to Oriah for bringing this case to life again. The thread's been on WS since August 2004 - the crimes were committed on 30 December 1999, less than five years earlier - and, in total, up to this point, we've had only 29 posts. The two girls named below need your help.
The case involves the disappearance from rural Welch OK of those two girls, both sixteen years old: Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman. Ashley had just turned 16 on 29 December, the day before she was kidnapped. Both girls were almost certainly murdered a short time after their kidnapping. Ashley's mom and stepdad - Kathy and Danny Freeman - were killed that night, shot dead in their trailer home, which was then burned to the ground.
This case has a bit of everything. Danny Freeman was initially suspected of the murders - until his body was found in the burned home, not by LE but by Lauria's father. Ashley's brother, Shane, had, the year before, been shot and killed by OK LE under circumstances which remain unclear. Many in the area feel that that death may have set into motion the events of the night of 30 December 1999, as do members and friends of the Freeman family. Some members of Lauria Bible's family, however, feel that Danny Freeman's alleged marijuana dealing was the root cause of the crimes.
In addition, a convicted felon (and a suspected serial killer), Jeremy Jones, in effect admitted to having participated in the Freeman/Bible crime after his capture for a murder committed in Alabama, for which he has been convicted. He lived not far from Welch when these crimes occurred, and had been born and raised in NE OK. Though he had an intimate knowledge of the region and was involved in drugs, Jones has never given convincing evidence of his involvement in the Freeman/Bible case, and the timeline for that fatal night all but eliminates him as a suspect. Another convicted killer, Tommy Lynn Sells, has admitted involvement, though again without providing unique evidence to support his claim.
DeAnna Dorsey, who assisted the Freeman family the night of the crime and whose daughter was a friend of Ashley, appeared on the pilot of a television show about the case in 2001 and, a short time later, was shot to death by a patient in Vinita OK, at her job at Eastern State Hospital, which housed convicted Oklahoma felons with severe mental impairments. Many in the area feel that Ms. Dorsey's death was tied to the Freeman/Bible case.
There are many angles to work on here and more than enough to set one's hinky-meter on high alert. It's a case both fascinating and macabre. We need sleuthers! For over ten years, this crime has gone unsolved. Those of us who know the case dread that the next time we read of it in the press will be on the 20th anniversary of a cold case, still unsolved - but not unsolvable. Two girls - Lauria and Ashley - have never been seen since a cold winter's night over ten years ago. We need to bring them home.[/QUOTE]
I agree- and thank you for your background info on this case, wfgdot.
All info from locals welcome, please! We're very, very interested in finding Lauria and Ashley...as well as solving a decade old mystery. It takes alot of effort to have one person simply vanish- not to mention two. The case may be cold, but the scent may not.
Let's do some sleuthing, some mapping, and some searching... and bring these girls home where they belong.
Oriah
