Green Country Mother Meets Suspect In Daughter's Death

A Green Country mother talked face-to-face with a suspect in her daughter's death.

Ronnie Busick is in the Craig County Jail right now facing four counts of first-degree murder in the 1999 Freeman and Bible murders and kidnappings. 

4/25/2018 Related Story: Man Accused Of Kidnapping Welch Girls Extradited To Oklahoma

Lorene Bible prayed for answers before she walked into the Craig County jail Thursday to finally confront the man charged with killing her daughter.
       
She left the jail feeling the conversation was productive but still needing answers.

Lorene Bible said after 18 years, three months and 28 days, she sat down to look Ronnie Busick in the eye and tried to get any information she could from him.
 
"He knew my name was Lorene and he told me 'I don't know anything.'," Bible said. 
 
She said she didn't visit him to accuse him or harass him but to ask him what he knows about where investigators can find the bodies of her daughter Lauria and her friend Ashley.

"I think he may know. But he may not know. It's kinda like people do stuff when they're young and dumb and you take enough of that meth and it fries brain cells," Bible said.  

Busick hasn't said much to investigators either.

They said in their interview with Busick last July, he spent much of the time staring at a reward poster with Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman's pictures on it.
 
His arrest affidavit said during most of the interview, Busick did not make denials or even respond when accused of being involved in their deaths.
 
DA investigator Gary Stansill told Busick, "I know you were there. I know you were involved in it."

Busick said, "I didn't kill anybody."

Stansill responded, saying, "You were there."
 
Later in the interview, Busick said "I don't remember having anything to do with it. To be truthful." He also said he didn't know the Freemans. Stansill responded, saying, "you might not have known them, but you were there that night."
 
A month later, Busick again denied any involvement in the murders with investigators.

He did admit he used to "run around" with David Pennington and Phil Welch, two other suspects who died during the investigation.
 
In November, during the third and final interview, Busick told investigators that he does not know where the girls are other than he heard they may be in a mine shaft in Picher, a statement he echoed when he returned to Craig County.
 
Busick also told investigators he was scared of what his sister would think if he told the truth.

News On 6 was told that Busick's sister is in hospice care.

Busick's arrest affidavit also mentions an insurance card left behind at the scene.

The card belonged to suspect Phil Welch's girlfriend.

A private investigator team said they told law enforcement about the card early on in the case, but investigators didn't take it. 

An OSBI agent eventually collected the insurance card as evidence last fall, when one of the private investigators was interviewed.