Hell in the Heartland

by Jax Miller

  Lorene’s call comes soon after my questioning a man who, unbeknownst to me, is in the scopes of the newly formed team assigned to the Freeman-Bible case (consisting of OSBI agent Ferrari and DA investigator Stansill). I ask her why. Then she tells me, on behalf of DA investigator Gary Stansill, to stop my current line of inquiry so as not to impede the investigation.

  “They made an arrest,” she tells me.

  I gasp at the same time a fish jumps from the water. In my silence, Lorene states that authorities have been working closely with counterparts in Kansas to build a case against the man in question during the short time they had him incarcerated for unrelated drug charges. Lorene’s silence, and now mine, is essential in the state’s early stages of making a case. Along with a few others, Lorene slowly started to let me into the BBI.

  I duly stay silent for the next seven months until an explosive break in April of 2018, when authorities announced that they’ve made their first arrest in relation to the murders in Welch.

  SECTION 5

  * * *

  THE ARRESTS

  * * *

  28

  * * *

  THE ARREST

  * * *

  The days around the public announcement of the arrest are rugged for the Bibles and the Freemans, two families scarred over the years by enough dead ends to drive an average person insane. They’d walked through fire, and raced from one end of the earth to the other. At any given moment, you can ask Lorene Bible how long it’s been since she last saw Lauria, and her answer will always be in terms of days.

  Three months after I learn about the man they arrested and are covertly investigating up in Wichita, a discovery is made with promises of progress in the case. On December 29, 2017, exactly eighteen years from the day that Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible were last seen, the Tulsa World published an article detailing how newly elected Craig County sheriff Heath Winfrey discovered a box containing old case notes while moving into his office earlier in the year. As quoted in the newspaper, DA investigator Stansill told reporters, “Winfrey has provided investigators previously unknown notes and documents he discovered referencing the Freeman/Bible case that was left from the previous sheriff administration.”

  As in the alleged cover-up of Shane Freeman, the current Craig County Sheriff’s Office seems eager to place the blame on its predecessors. And while I speak with former sheriff Sooter several times after this discovery, he refuses to speak publicly about his thoughts regarding the box and doesn’t return a comment for the record. Although I’ve never adhered to Sooter’s belief that Jeremy Jones was responsible for the Freeman murders, I’ve long felt his heart was in the right place, that his choices didn’t stem from corruption or selfish need, but perhaps he lacked the proficiency needed for such a high-profile case in a system where the role of sheriff came down to nothing more than a popularity contest. Nevertheless, this box is an uncomfortable footnote to his time in office.

  “These notes and documents have proven to be extremely valuable,” continued Stansill, though the contents remain unknown. “This information has produced leads that have produced additional leads.” Naturally, I wonder how such crucial information could have sat in an office through one to two sheriff administrations and nearly two decades unnoticed. Without knowing who authored these mysterious documents, it is impossible to place the blame where it belongs, but perhaps that is the point.

  While remaining silent on whom they’d arrested, Stansill does admit that he and another investigator have “interviewed several people who have knowledge about the shooting deaths of Danny and Kathy Freeman and the disappearance of the girls.”

  Devotees of the case become elated at the news of a potential breakthrough, but Lorene Bible refers to the timing of the announcement as a “ploy” designed to be publicized on the anniversary of the girls’ disappearance. “Winfrey found the box in February, but they didn’t release the info until December, ten months later.”

  According to Sheriff Winfrey, it was just after taking office at the beginning of the year that he stumbled upon the box while moving his stuff in. “It was just sitting on the shelf,” he tells the Tulsa World. “We weren’t digging for it—we just found it.” Together, Winfrey and Stansill share their optimism and hopefulness over the publicly unknown contents of the notes, claiming that the information helped move the case forward.

  “It wasn’t anything new,” Lorene Bible disagrees, maintaining that it was the tips that arrived through social media leading back to Chetopa that really put the investigation back on track. “It was just a smoke screen to get the girls’ faces out there and get people talking.” It seems to be the administration’s hope that it could encourage people to come forward with information that would help authorities with the case they were trying to build against the criminal they’d arrested. “If it were something of real value, they wouldn’t have sat on it for a year.” Lorene contends that the contents of the box are information she’d long known about, tips she’d personally submitted. But it is her goal to keep the story thriving so she goes along.

  Others think of it as a gambit: local-boy politics and shifting blame. Lauria’s cousin Lisa perceives it as a way for current investigators to get credit for doing the hard work that had really been conducted by relatives. “I thought it was tacky, even the timing,” she says. “The box didn’t have anything to do with the direction the case was going in, but they sure wanted to look good.” In fact, the Bibles frown on the way the CCSO has approached the case as of late, sharing their disappointment that the new sheriff, Winfrey, took over a year to mention the case publicly or attempt to speak with the Bibles. The family found this especially disheartening not only because they had known Winfrey since they were all kids in Bluejacket (Winfrey was between Lisa and Lauria in age), but because the Freeman-Bible case was, and is, one of the more notorious horrors to happen in Craig County’s history.

  Heath Winfrey is a stocky, dark-haired man with a high-arched brow and a goatee. While new to the position of CCSO sheriff, he has a sturdy background in law enforcement and a strong understanding of the drug problem in the area from working with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control. Although his career only began in the early 2000s, he was a new graduate from Bluejacket High when he first heard about the fire. He and his buddies were hunting west of Welch on the morning Kathy’s body was discovered. “We had heard that they were hunting for Danny, and he’d ran off with a girl,” he tells me.

  “I could understand how he was busy, how budgeting was an issue. These were things he told me down the line,” says Lorene. “But he could have explained this earlier; he could have approached me earlier. The Bibles and the Winfreys have known each other since we were kids.” But Lorene also seems to suspect he knows that if the case is solved all these years later “that it’s coming back on the door of the Craig County Sheriff.” In all my time with her, Lorene keeps her focus resolutely on moving forward to find the girls, but in moments like now, I see glimpses of her anger over the way the case had been handled, and I can’t help but wonder how much she blames law enforcement for failing her family. “After we find the girls, everyone knows this is going back to them.”

  The case is a test in patience, and above all, I have learned that nothing comes quickly. The harder I work, the longer the days sprawl; I’m living in a perpetual state of “We’re about to”s and “Any day now”s, waiting for impending searches and press releases. “You learn not to get your hopes up,” repeats Lorene.

  There are days when I swear we’re right there, days when I’ll bet a hundred bucks on a suspect. There are hunches and instincts and dreams and nightmares that I believe are worth betting my life on. And then nothing. So when the discovery of the crate of notes in the sheriff’s office is announced to great public excitement, I find myself pausing, cautious, waiting for more news. I learn why Lorene doesn’t buckle up for the emotional roller coasters.

  By April 2018, four months
have dragged since authorities rekindled the hopes of the community with their news of the mystery box. It’s been seven months of sitting on the secret of the criminal they arrested in Wichita and held on drug charges; the suspect’s identity remains unknown to the public, as authorities continue to build a case against him (“They’re going to announce him any day,” I hear consistently throughout those seven months).

  Between Ireland and Oklahoma, I am with my family in New York, eating ice cream and about to sit and watch a movie when out of the blue, Glen Freeman calls me. “Something isn’t right, Jack,” he says, regarding an unusually large amount of rumors clouding about. Within moments, I begin to hear the same thing from several people, leaks: that after the weekend, authorities plan to release the names of three men in connection with the murders of not just Kathy and Danny but of Lauria and Ashley as well.

  On the morning of the press release, I sit at my sister’s kitchen table with every nerve in my body hardening to electrical wire. God curse the day when I thought I’d ever drink decaf. I stay in constant touch with Lisa and Lorene. I text a dozen people at once, making calls, getting calls, inundated with requests for updates. I relay messages between so many people that I eventually shut everything off and leave open on my computer only the tab for the live press release, as media outlets set up their equipment in a room at the Vinita fairgrounds, where Lauria and Ashley had hoped to present their show animals at the county fair in the new millennium.

  Beside me is a familiar shadow called anxiety. A killer who smacks his teeth over my shoulder.

  While the general public doesn’t know the details of what’s about to be announced, everyone knows they’re about to learn something of game-changing significance about the Freeman-Bible case. Livestreaming, I see some of the reporters I’ve gotten to know over the years as they set up their cameras and microphones; everyone knows they’re here for more than your garden-variety rumor. “Check one, two”s and feedback, and the room fills with static and whispers, which I can hear clearly, even from my sister’s kitchen table.

  Inhale for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for eight. Accept. Let the storm rage. Breathe. The killer fades.

  But as the journalists set up, the families are being prepped at the courthouse only a couple miles away in Vinita: there were Lorene and Jay; Kathy’s parents, Celesta and Bill Chandler; Dwayne Vancil and his father, Glen Freeman; current district attorney Matt Ballard; Investigator Stansill; OSBI agent Tammy Ferrari; Craig County sheriff Winfrey; and several more members of law enforcement and Bible relatives, including Lauria’s cousins Lisa and Missy. There, before they leave for the fairgrounds to brave the lights and reporters, authorities explain exactly what they are going to announce, what they aren’t, and make sure everyone is on the same page. In the private room reserved for the meeting, verbal spats erupt between the families, filling the hallways of the courthouse. Everyone is at their boiling point.

  About fifteen minutes before the announcement, as the families are en route from the courthouse to the fairgrounds, I receive an out-of-the-blue Facebook message from “Mrs. Jones,” the woman who claims to be the wife of Jeremy Jones on Alabama’s death row (he still does not admit that this was ever him). “Hi, Ann,” says Mrs. Jones, using my real first name. “I am in a restaurant in Miami, OK and somebody told us the news in regard to the Bible-Freeman case. Just wanna leave you a quick ‘Thank you.’ If it wasn’t for you, this wouldn’t have happened.” (It’s worth noting, I take zero credit in any of this.)

  I call Mrs. Jones’s bluff and tell her that I too am in Miami, but she declines to meet. I wonder how in the hell he got ahold of this information before the rest of the world. I suspect it’s Jeremy’s vague way of expressing gratitude.

  From New York, I watch the press conference begin. Spokeswoman Michelle Lowry of the district attorney’s office prefaces the announcement with some housekeeping rules and asks that the focus be only on the case, essentially requesting that audiences avoid asking questions pertaining to the errors of previous authorities. She then introduces District Attorney Matt Ballard, a finely dressed and surprisingly young man in patriotic red, white, and blue who delivers the statement.

  “For eighteen years, the community in Craig County and many members of the media have followed the case of the deaths of Kathy and Danny Freeman, the mysterious disappearances of their sixteen-year-old daughter, Ashley Freeman, and Ashley’s friend sixteen-year-old Lauria Bible, and the arson of the Freeman family home,” Ballard begins. “Yesterday, there was an arrest in the case. OSBI investigator Tammy Ferrari and my SVU investigator Gary Stansill, through incredible police work, identified three perpetrators.”

  Cameras flash as he goes on, his face inscrutable, the pinstripes of his suit ramrod straight. “Today, charges were filed against Ronnie Dean Busick, who by law is presumed innocent of the charges. Mr. Busick is charged with acting in concert with two other men as follows: four counts of first-degree murder for killing Kathy Freeman, Danny Freeman, Ashley Freeman, and Lauria Bible, two counts of kidnapping for the abductions of Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible, and a final count of first-degree arson for setting fire to the Freeman home.”

  This announcement marks the first official report that the girls are dead.

  “The other two perpetrators as named in the most recent course of the investigation are Warren Phillip Welch II, more commonly known as Phil Welch, and David A. Pennington.” It is learned that both men died, in 2007 and 2015, respectively.

  Ballard confirms that both families were briefed on the details uncovered by Ferrari and Stansill, that both the Bibles and Freemans have “learned these young ladies’ final days were certainly horrific.” Ballard also expresses his hope that this new information will help people finally come forward, the general belief being that others in the community know where the girls’ bodies might be found. He cites an affidavit that will be made available after the press conference, “revealing the girls were kept alive for an unknown number of days following the fire.”

  After the OSBI assistant special agent in charge, Aungela Spurlock, makes a statement commending the OSBI’s work and their varying methods of investigation, and acknowledging the families’ hard work and perseverance, the floor opens up for Craig County sheriff Heath Winfrey.

  “Since taking office fifteen months ago, there’s been the goal in our administration to help bring those involved in these crimes to justice and locate Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman,” he says, dressed in a gray police uniform accented with gold pins and black trim. “We will not stop working until bringing Lauria and Ashley home.”

  For the authorities making these statements, it has been eighteen years since the girls were abducted from the scene of a violent crime. For Lorene, it has been 6,690 grueling days of not knowing where her flesh and blood went.

  I knew this was the only likely outcome, but confirmation of the girls’ deaths falls like a hammer’s blow. One of the more gut-wrenching aspects of the conference is the multiple references to Polaroids. “There was physical evidence in the form of photos,” says Heath Winfrey.

  It was something that was also raised by DA Ballard, who claimed that “Polaroid photographs of the girls and their final days were seen by multiple people, and Welch, Pennington, and Busick made many statements to many people over the course of their lives.”

  Before I can read the twenty-nine-page affidavit, sure to describe in detail what led to the naming of these three men, I watch Jay and Lorene approach the microphones. They look older than when I last saw them only weeks before, the way men look after long stretches of battle. But in them is a unity rare to see in a couple that has suffered so deeply and consistently, who have lost a child under the worst imaginable circumstances. They look tired, and tearful too, but they are unbreakable.

  For the first time since I met her, Lorene softly cries as she begins to speak. “This does not stop until we bring the girls home,” she starts. “I do believe there are people out the
re still afraid to talk because they’re fearful for their life.” Lorene pays tribute to a new generation coming forward, the sons and daughters of killers and witnesses, many of whom live or have lived in Chetopa, Kansas, and the now ghost town of Picher, Oklahoma.

  Jay is dressed in denim, and his face is already wet with tears as he takes the podium. “The Lord has answered a lot of prayers for us,” says Lauria’s father as his voice begins to break. “We’ve missed her for a long time, but we’re going to bring her home.”

  Lorene steps forward again, allowing herself to show some of the emotion she typically saves for private moments. “I was told earlier today that sometimes I seem kind of hard,” she admits, pointing to Jay beside her and acknowledging how it’s usually Jay who is perceived to be demonstrative. As her voice begins to waver under the strain of holding back tears, she manages to stop herself. “I fight. That tearful mom will be there when I find my daughter. But until then, how hard? How hard do I have to fight? I need to know—because it’s been a fight.” No one in the audience speaks a word. There is no rush of reporters asking questions, no clearing of a throat, not even the sound of a deep breath. When Lorene speaks, the world listens, and after a moment of silence, Lorene gestures wordlessly to open the floor.

  Every subsequent answer is delivered with control and resolve; Lorene doesn’t play the part of the grieving parent some commentators expect to see, but she is a source of empowerment and determination with a single mission in mind. I once told her that I could never cope the way she did, had that been me, but she looked at me and told me that anyone will do anything to get their child home. “I’m a storm to be reckoned with,” she continues to reporters. “You can come with me or I’m going on my own … Lauria turned thirty-five on the eighteenth. So she’s been gone more than half her life. I need a place where I can say, ‘That’s where my daughter is.’ I used to go to the Freemans’ driveway and put out wreaths, but it’s just a driveway. When you lose a loved one, you could go to a cemetery. I don’t have that. And that’s what I want.”