On April 26, 2018, it was reported that Ronnie Dean Busick was being charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the killings of Bible and the Freeman family.
[10] On October 7, 2021, a new search was conducted in the root cellar of a home formerly occupied by David Pennington, one of the deceased suspects accused by the convicted Busick.
[8] Initially, no other remains were located, leading local law enforcement to extrapolate that Ashley's father, Danny Freeman, had slain his wife and fled with both girls.
[14] On December 31, 1999, Bible's parents, Lorene and Jay, returned to the scene, hoping to find any additional clues that law enforcement may have missed.
[8] Jones had claimed that he murdered Freeman's parents as a favor for a friend over a drug debt, then took the girls to Kansas, where he shot them and threw their bodies into an abandoned mine.
[7] In a 2001 profile on Unsolved Mysteries, it was mentioned that rumors had circulated among locals that the Craig County Police Department had been feuding with the Freemans at the time over the death of their son, Shane, who was shot by a deputy after stealing a car.
[7] In April 2018, it was reported that Ronnie Dean Busick, then aged 66, had been arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Bible and the Freeman family.
[16] Several witnesses alleged that the three men killed the Freemans over drug money,[16] and that the girls were held captive in Welch's trailer for several days before being murdered.
[16] According to the affidavit, Welch, Pennington, and Busick had claimed to have raped and tortured the girls before disposing of their remains "in a pit" or mine shaft in Picher, Oklahoma.
"[18] In a public address, the Bible family issued a statement in which they stated they had been aware of the alleged photographs "for years," and that "At this time all focus is on finding Lauria and Ashley.
[20] Busick pleaded guilty July 15, 2020 to being an accessory to first-degree murder in the deaths of Danny and Kathy Freeman, the torching of their home near Welch, Oklahoma, and the abduction and presumed slayings of the two girls.
[23] The case was featured in a new four-part series on HLN titled Hell In The Heartland starting June 2, 2019, which hoped to shed more light on the disappearances of the girls and the main suspects.