Hell in the Heartland

by Jax Miller

  “Who is that?” Lorene demanded in reference to the body inside.

  Warren swallowed and leaned into Lorene’s ear. “It’s a woman who’s bore children. And there’s a wedding ring on her finger.”

  This confirmed for Lorene that the body in the house in fact did belong to Kathy Freeman.

  “And you’re sure that there’s no one else in there?” Lorene searched for confirmation.

  “That’s what they’re saying.”

  It should have offered relief, but it instilled in Lorene only a sense of panic she’d never let show.

  Shortly after four o’clock, as dusk began to encroach, the burned body of Kathy Freeman was driven away from the premises and headed west with the sun toward Tulsa. Agent Steve Nutter wrapped up the investigation and called it to an end. He released the scene to Danny’s stepbrother, Dwayne Vancil, and handed him a search warrant for the residence at around five o’clock, signed by Judge H. M. “Bud” Wyatt. The property, described in the search warrant as the “charred remains of a mobile home,” was now out of the hands of the investigating officers and in the hands of the Freemans’ next of kin. The warrant had been signed at 2:06, an hour and a half before the medical examiner even arrived at the crime scene and two hours before Kathy’s body was removed.

  “We’re done,” Nutter said to Dwayne as he started to leave.

  “What do you mean, you’re done?” Dwayne demanded.

  “There’s nothing else that can be done here,” continued Nutter. “Listen, some neighbor reported Danny driving through a gate with the girls in his white pickup truck over where the pond’s at.”

  Dwayne was surprised—that was where Danny and he had been raised, but Danny’s vehicle had been accounted for. “Well, then, I’ll go up there and look for him,” Dwayne suggested. “Won’t do him any good if I have authorities with me. I’ll be able to talk to him if he has the girls.”

  “No, no, it’s dark,” answered Nutter. “We’re liable to get someone hurt tonight. Why don’t you run up there in the morning and see if he’s there, and then you can call me if he is?” Agent Nutter went on his way.

  It was interesting to me that based on what the OSBI knew at the time, they’d be so quick, not just to wrap up the investigation, but to hand it over to someone who could potentially have been a suspect.

  Seeing that Nutter was on his way out that night, the Bibles approached him. “What about the girls? Aren’t you going to search for them?”

  “If Danny’s got the girls, then it’s just best that we let him cool off,” Nutter told them. “It’s getting late. We’ll look for them tomorrow.”

  One of my sources in law enforcement tells me that at the time, he feared Danny was actually hiding out there in the shadows or the trees, watching it all unfold with a high-powered rifle. This transpires as a common thread: a number of police officers believed that Danny was more than capable of an ambush on authorities, and it clearly unnerved them, this image of Danny, bitter in the shadows, white-knuckling a firearm with each one of them in his sights. Even before the events of that night, they all knew he wasn’t a man you wanted to be up against.

  Dwayne turned to Sheriff George Vaughn, Undersheriff Mark Hayes, and ADA Clint Ward with tears of indignation in his eyes and said, “If in fact you think that Danny did this and you think he’s up there waiting on you with the girls, holding them captive, you all better get yourselves locked up on the top floor of the courthouse, because as sure as anything, Danny will be coming to kill you. If he did all this, there is no doubt in my mind.” Anger coiled around Dwayne’s sternum. After all, it was no secret that his stepbrother had long taken issue with the authorities and how they’d handled his son’s death and the subsequent investigation that past year.

  The officers exhaled and began to recede, and the gold of the sun darkened to its last spit, like a flame cut off from oxygen. Winter squeezed what was left of the day from December 30, and still, no first attempts had been made to find the girls, beyond a brief check of the stream out back by Dwayne and Jay Bible. After the cops disappeared into the night, several men brought their geldings and began to comb the property via horseback. The lone headlights of several four-wheelers swept the dark undulating pastures in the distance, the echoes of men calling for Danny and the girls emanating from the shadows.

  Fear could have paralyzed any parent at this point, shrouded by night without an inkling of where to look—the sudden hollowing of a person’s soul brought on by helplessness and shock and grief and fear. But not them. Not the Bibles.

  The OSBI made appointments to meet with Lorene and Jay that evening, penciling them in to reconvene at the sheriff’s office in Vinita between six thirty and seven thirty.

  But unbeknownst to the Bibles, as they stayed behind and formed their own search with what little light was left, was the tip that had been called in. It was the first viable lead and the only one for authorities to go on. The man who called it in was an acquaintance to most in the area. He called the law and claimed that he had seen Danny Freeman at a gas station, filling up a white Ford pickup with the two girls in the truck. “Danny isn’t going to give the girls back,” the man told dispatchers. “He won’t give them back until you give him the man who killed his son.”

  It was the only lead they had—but the OSBI insisted they wait until morning to pursue it.

  Darkness fell too fast for the families, leaving the hills of the prairie black and blind. The smell of the smoke chained itself to the night, and nothing much could be done until the first, agonizing break of day. It felt far. So, acting on what he learned from Nutter, Dwayne Vancil went to the old cabin where he and his siblings were raised, hoping to spot Danny, knowing that if anyone could calm him down, it was he. Jay and Lorene went to their scheduled interviews.

  The lobby of the sheriff’s office in Vinita was full of people, the smell of fire stuck in their flannel and their eyes open but tired. Authorities split them up into groups before interviewing them individually, questions aimed at Danny’s affairs. Who have you seen come in and out of there? Did you ever witness Danny doing drugs? Did you ever see Mr. Freeman with large amounts of cash on hand?

  “Our hands were tied,” Lorene says to me. “They questioned all of us individually. They asked us about Danny’s dealings, what kind of stuff he was into, and that’s it. All we could ask was, ‘What are you doing to find the girls?’ They said they were working on it, that they were making plans to, but they didn’t. Nobody was searching for the girls but my family. The authorities were done with the case.” According to Jay and Lorene Bible, Agent Nutter later informed them that he was in the process of entering the girls’ information into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).

  Years later, Nutter would tell me, “I believe the sheriff’s office put out a missing-persons report immediately.”

  It was here that authorities told the Bibles that their prime suspect was Danny Freeman, informing them that it was their belief that Danny kidnapped the girls and was now holding them hostage. Of course, this notion had stirred in all their minds throughout the day.

  The night ended with more questions than answers. Imagine the shock for a family without any information. The sickness in their stomachs swirling and sleep an impossibility without knowing what had happened to their daughter and her best friend. Each minute that passed was an unbearable strain, their faces numb with distress. It was a wonder a person could muster the strength to breathe, let alone take over the investigation—but that’s exactly what Lorene Bible was about to do.

  8

  * * *

  THE PRIME SUSPECT

  * * *

  December 31, 1999

  The Morning After the Fire

  It was the last day of the millennium. The pink morning light appeared to create a film upon the cold creek, while roosters perched themselves on the Kansas state line, announcing the new day. But for Lorene and Jay Bible, daybreak came like the pains of childbirth. Their skin still t
ingled with shock after a night of being relentlessly interrogated by OSBI agents in Vinita and fighting with them to get out there and look for the girls. And now it had been over twenty-four hours since Danny, Ashley, and Lauria had vanished, and still, not a single attempt had been made by authorities to search for them.

  The married couple made their way up the driveway toward what little was left of the Freeman home, shaky arm in shaky arm, with sunrise to their right. They were intent on sifting through the earth for their daughter one grain at a time. Sleep was far from them; steadfastness took the wheel. A dutiful wife, a father in mourning, a sporty girl doing her best, and a playful friend who loved life, all gone, with nothing to show for it but a blister in the earth.

  Lorene and Jay reached the top of the driveway, where the now open crime scene climbed into view. There wasn’t a marker or a streamer of yellow left behind. “Where the hell is the crime scene tape?” Lorene wondered out loud.

  Looking around, Jay answered, astonished, “They left this all wide open.” All remnants of law enforcement had disappeared, a lull in the hottest stage of an investigation. All the while, it was assumed, Danny—a man who’d lost his grip on reality—was out there with Lauria and Ashley, his hostages, bunkered in the wooded area, waiting for the police to hand over the man who’d killed his boy in exchange for the girls. The familiar rafter of turkeys arose, hungry without Danny to feed them.

  While Lorene retained her stone composure, Jay handled himself differently. Over the years, he’d bubble over at the seams, eyes spilling every time he talked about his little girl. Where his wife always had her footing and found her place in the investigation, Jay felt at sea from the beginning.

  “Come daylight, we’re figuring there’s going to be a SWAT team going up here,” Jay tells me of that second morning. “That we’re going to find out where this cabin is and see whether Danny’s got the girls or not. And that didn’t happen.” Hopes for action were replaced with the singing prairie wind and the smell of fire.

  Up the road, Dwayne Vancil had waited all through the night at the cabin where he and Danny were raised. It was being used as a hunting cabin, where a man and his two young sons were up early to hunt deer. To Dwayne’s disappointment, there was no sign of his stepbrother or the girls. Compared with Lorene’s self-control and Jay’s grief, Dwayne expressed his urgency in the form of rage. Getting back in his car to meet the sunrise at Welch, he huffed hard from his nostrils. “Where the hell are you, Danny?”

  Back at the scene, Jay walked carefully around the yard, where the barn cats played with a part of an unrecognizable something. The feral mixed breeds added a little life to the property, which was otherwise still in the frostbite of morning, hungover from the events of the day before. When he heard Ashley’s Rottweiler, Sissy, whimper from where the house once stood, Jay turned to her. “I know, girl. I know.” Upon inspection, there was a large, fresh knot above Sissy’s brow, stained with dried blood. Jay wished then that Sissy could talk, could point them in the right direction. The dog let out a low cry, standing now in the same spot where the master bedroom had stood, where the body of Kathy Freeman had been removed in a black plastic body bag less than a day before. (Eventually, Sissy would be adopted by distant friends, only to be put down after attacking and killing their chickens.)

  The Freeman trailer stood on axles and wheels, and most of the flooring had fallen through to the ground, except for the master bedroom. There, the flooring was mostly intact. “That waterbed had burst and soaked all the carpet and stuff there,” explains Jay. As a result, the master bedroom was more preserved than the other rooms, and Jay tiptoed around the debris, “looking for any pile of ashes big enough to be a human body folded up in a fetal position.” A brown rug lay in tatters in the corner, and the air was cold and damp.

  Lorene squatted down at a separate part of the trailer, overturning pieces of wood and other debris. The smell of death still lingered, and the cold found its way to the roots of her hair. Into Lorene’s ears, the gentle sound of the creek water ran slow, unsuitably calming. In the ashes, a framed wedding photo of Danny and Kathy.

  With Sissy at his leg, Jay surveyed the unburned floor of the master bedroom. He found what he described as something that looked like a bowl of hamburger meat. “I thought, Wait a minute.” He hesitated, squinting down at it. “Lorene?” he called out.

  Lorene rose from the broken glass and soot, ashes wet from the fire hoses. She commanded her knees not to buckle as she reached her husband. Following his gaze, her whole body braced for impact as her eyes alighted on a second body. The sight took their breath away.

  At about this time, the sun made its first appearance, still cold on their faces as they peered down. They then stared at each other, dumbstruck. “How the hell did the police miss this?” Lorene breathed. It had taken them less than a minute to stumble across a second body. Every theory about how Kathy had died, and every theory about why Danny took the girls, faded for a moment. Shocked by the sight of the burned body, Jay turned away and stared into the rising sun. “We have to call the sheriff’s office,” he said, unaware that he was crying until his words hit the air. By his feet, the barnyard cats continued to play with what he saw, bringing his gaze back to the ground, was in fact a human nasal bone.

  The feet of the second corpse were almost under the corner of the waterbed, partly concealed by the deflated mattress, and the upper body was partially covered by a carpet. While the cause of Kathy’s death remained unknown, and was still generally thought to have been a brick or bricks, the cause of this person’s death was evident to Jay and Lorene. “We knew right away that they were shot in the head, so we figured Kathy must have died this way too.” Years later, Lorene says to me, “Nothing from the jaw up. It was all gone.” What was left of the head was in the doorway, faceup, an arm propped up in the doorframe, and cowboy boot prints largely believed by both the Bible and Freeman families to be those of OSBI agent Steve Nutter were clear on the torso (the families assert that Nutter was the only person on the scene wearing cowboy boots). The fire had burned much of the charred body’s clothes right off to expose the genitalia, so they were immediately able to tell it was the body of a man. On top of that, the metal wiring used to reconstruct the sinus cavities sprouted from what remained of the face and skull.

  Within moments of arriving on the scene, Lorene and Jay Bible discovered what authorities had managed to miss the day before: the body of their prime suspect, Danny Freeman.

  9

  * * *

  DAY TWO AND THE BBI

  * * *

  December 31, 1999

  The Morning After the Fire

  I have hung the autopsy reports of Danny and Kathy on a nerve in my brain that acts as a clothesline; I can mentally see the outlines of the ME’s body diagrams like paper dolls. The diagrams are scribbled on with the examiner’s pen, representative of where charring was present all over the bodies, tighter ink lines at the heads, where the skulls were destroyed and mostly gone. Because she died in 2004 of cancer, I would be unable to interview Medical Examiner Donna Warren about her examination and findings. But I sleep through mornings and spend rainy afternoons reading over the external examination of Danny Freeman, which would be written days after the fire. Based on the ME’s evidence, it was deemed that just prior to his death, Danny’s right collarbone was broken, and the shotgun blast entered under the left side of his jaw by the third molar.

  Also telling was evidence brought in with Danny on a separate cart that included pieces of men’s brief underpants, portions of the waistband of sweatpants, a shirt, some remnants of sneakers, and part of his upper jaw.

  It was soon learned that Kathy had been shot in the head from behind, while Danny was believed to have been shot while facing his killer. Both were dead before the fire started. This is precisely what Jay and Lorene Bible came across when showing up at the Freemans’ burned trailer to look for clues about their daughter’s whereabouts.

  Lorene
and Jay raced up the road, incapable of finding a signal on their cell phone near the trailer (few in 1999 even had cell phones, though Lorene had bought one the evening before in light of the events, a phone whose number hasn’t changed in twenty years). After driving one mile south, they made it through to 911. From there, they waited for the CCSO to arrive, and this time, the Bibles decided they were taking control. No more waiting for authorities to search for the girls. No more standing back behind the yellow tape while deputies sat there and watched the home cool off. No more trust.

  “There’s a body here,” Lorene said to dispatchers.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, there’s a body.”

  “You’re at the Freemans’?”

  “Yes. We’re at the Freemans’.”

  This is the part where I can safely say that the shit hit the fan.

  Deputy Troy Messick, who’d delivered the news of the fire to Lorene the day before, was already at the office in Vinita, and he’d be the first to arrive back at the crime scene. He left his coffee and sped over to the Freemans’. Once there, in reference to the OSBI, he commented the same thing to Lorene and Jay that was already on their mind. “How the hell did they miss this? I thought they were supposed to be the experts.”

  Wary of locals listening over their police scanners, and they surely did, Messick spoke carefully into his radio when he called in to confirm the body, nearly dumbstruck with disbelief. “What I was sent out to do is confirmed.”

  “Can you repeat that?”

  “What I was sent out here to do is confirmed.”

  Back at the property, as Deputy Messick called in for backup, Jay found Danny’s two front teeth still attached to the gum but detached from the jaw in the grass of the front yard, where the outdoor cats continued to chew at his bones. “Animals had been eating on his body. That’s how gruesome it was, you know,” says Jay. “But that started day two for us.”