The Freeman-Bible Murder Case

I usually don't write about incidents that happened in the past 25 or 30 years, but when you're writing about Murder and Mayhem in Northeast Oklahoma (https://amzn.to/3Q1Tt7i), it's hard to ignore the Freeman-Bible murder case from 25 years ago, one of the most publicized criminal cases in the history of the region.

In the early morning of December 30, 1999, a woman's body was found in the burning rubble of a mobile home near Welch, Oklahoma. She was identified as Cathy Freeman, and the body of her husband, Danny, was soon discovered in the debris as well. There was no sign, however, of the Freemans' 16-year-old daughter Ashley or Ashley's best friend, Lauria Bible, who'd spent the night with the Freemans.

Arson was suspected, and authorities announced a couple of days later that the victims had been shot prior to the fire. Whoever had killed the Freemans had apparently also abducted the girls.

A region-wide search for the girls was launched, and numerous tips were investigated, but no sign of them was found. One of the few good leads, an automobile insurance card found near the murder scene, was ignored.

The case was highlighted on America’s Most Wanted, but none of the tips generated by the show panned out. But the Bible and Freeman families, especially Lauria's mother, Lorene, did all they could to prevent the case from going cold. Despite their efforts, the investigation gradually came almost to a standstill.

After 18 years of chasing tips that led nowhere, authorities finally got a break in the case in 2017 when the Craig County sheriff found some long-overlooked materials left by a previous sheriff's administration. The following year, authorities announced during a news conference that 66-year-old Ronald Dean Busick had been arrested and charged in the murders of Danny and Cathy Freeman and the abduction and subsequent murders of Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible. Two other suspects in the case, Warren Philip Welch II and David A. Pennington, had died in 2007 and 2015 respectively.

According to authorities, the three men had gone to the Freeman home around midnight December 30, 1999, to collect a drug-related debt when the girls walked in unexpectedly. Welch was thought to be the leader of the gang and the trigger man who killed Danny and Cathy Freeman, while the other two men set fire to their trailer.

The three men abducted the girls and took them to Welch’s trailer home in Picher, where they tortured and raped them over a period of days before strangling them to death and dumping their bodies in a local mine pit. It was revealed at the time of the news conference that the case could have been solved very early on if authorities had followed up on the auto insurance card found by private investigators just a day or two after the murder of the Freemans, because it would have led them to Welch.

Although Busick got off with a light sentence in a plea deal in which he promised to help find the bodies of the missing girls, they have never been found, and the quest to bring the girls home continues to this day. New searches are undertaken as new leads come to light. Anyone with information that might be relevant to the girls’ whereabouts can contact authorities or contact the Bible family through a Facebook page entitled Find Lauria Bible-BBI.

The Girl Scout Murders

Another chapter in my Murder and Mayhem in Northeast Oklahoma book https://amzn.to/3Cp6apB concerns the infamous murders at the Camp Scott Girl Scout camp near Locust Grove in 1977. On Monday morning, June 13, three little girls, ages 8 to 10, were discovered dead near or inside their tent. They had been bludgeoned, and at least two of them had been sexually molested. 

The remaining girls at the camp were sent home, as an investigation into the murders was launched. No suspects were identified in the immediate aftermath of the crime, although authorities were working from the theory that one person, a man, committed the heinous deed. An official who was not directly involved in the investigation further revealed that lawmen had their eye on a man with a history of child molestation, but he would not name the person.

Investigators theorized that the killer had entered the campground on foot and that he was familiar with the area and the layout of the camp. However, no solid leads were developed during the first week or so after the killings. Lawmen then released for publication two tattered pictures, containing the images of three women, which had been found near the site of the murders, and they asked for the public’s help in identifying the women in the hope that the pictures might have been left by the killer.

One day after the photos were published, three women from southwestern Oklahoma were identified as the women in the pictures. The photos had been taken at a wedding in the Mangum-Granite area in 1968. How did such photos turn up 300 miles away nine years later near the site of a brutal crime? 

The answer came when it was learned on June 23 that Locust Grove native Gene Leroy Hart had developed the photos while incarcerated at the Granite Reformatory almost ten years earlier. Hart, a convicted rapist who’d been at large ever since his escape from the Mayes County Jail in 1973, was promptly named as the prime suspect in the murder of the three Girl Scouts. Authorities speculated that he might have been hiding out in the rugged hills surrounding the Girl Scout camp ever since his escape because he knew the countryside well, was considered a “real backwoodsman, and had friends in the area who might have sheltered him. A thirty-three-year-old “huskily built Cherokee Indian,” Hart was described as a “seven-time loser” whose run-ins with the law dated to his youth.

Hart continued to elude lawmen until he was finally captured on April 6, 1978, near Bunch, Oklahoma. At his trial in March of 1979, the prosecution called an Oklahoma state chemist who testified that hair taken from the body of one of the dead girls microscopically matched hair samples taken from Hart after his arrest. Another expert witness said that sperm samples taken from Hart’s underwear after his arrest were very similar to swabs taken from the bodies of the murder victim. Also, items taken from the tent of a counselor at the Girl Scout campground about the time of the murders were later found in the cabin where Hart was arrested. The defense countered that law officers made up their minds early on that Hart was guilty, that they never adequately investigated other possibilities, and that they might even have planted evidence against the defendant.

The jury returned a quick verdict of not guilty, and the courtroom erupted into pandemonium as Hart’s many family members and other supporters jumped up shouting and applauding. Officers involved in the investigation, on the other hand, were shocked and dismayed by the verdict. The county sheriff, for instance, said he did not intend to re-open the investigation because “we had the right man.”

Although he’d been acquitted of the Girl Scout murders, Hart was transported to the state prison at McAlester to resume serving sentences totaling 145 to 305 years for rape, kidnapping, and burglary that he faced at the time of his escape from the Mayes County Jail.

On June 4, 1979, barely over two months after his acquittal, Hart collapsed and died from a massive heart attack after exercising in the prison yard.

Despite Hart’s acquittal, most, if not all, law enforcement officials associated with the case remained convinced that Hart was guilty, and years later, DNA forensics strongly suggested that authorities did, indeed, have “the right man.”

This is a greatly condensed version of the chapter in my book. 

The Murder of Prosecutor Jack Burris

Another chapter in my Murder and Mayhem in Northeast Oklahoma book (https://amzn.to/3CrArEa is about the murder of Mayes County prosecutor Jack Burris at his home near Locust Grove on Saturday night, June 7, 1952. Using headlights from a utility tractor to see by, the thirty-five-year-old Burris was working on an air conditioner beside the house when someone who'd been lurking in the darkness fired a shotgun blast that struck him and killed him instantly. 

His wife, Melba, heard the blast, discovered the body, and hysterically telephoned for help. Lawmen arrived to investigate, and they found a spent shotgun shell about 13 feet from the body near a corner of the house. The only theory anyone could offer as a motive for the crime was that Burris had prosecuted someone "too hard," because he was well liked by everybody else.  

Investigators found a spent twelve-gauge shotgun shell about twelve or thirteen feet from the body near the southeast corner of the house, which was thought to be the spot from where the assassin fired the gun. The ejector markings on the brass casing of the shell were considered an important clue that might help authorities identify the murder weapon.[v] (Insert Images 042 & 043)

A dragnet was launched in the vicinity of the crime, and bloodhounds were brought in, but these efforts yielded no suspects and few clues. The Oklahoma State Crime Bureau soon entered the investigation. Burris's office safe at the county courthouse was opened, but the papers and other items found offered no definite leads as to who might have wanted the prosecutor killed.

The idea that the murder might have been a vengeance killing was more than idle speculation, because Burris had received threats in recent months related to his duties as prosecutor. 

The investigation eventually focused on illegal liquor and gambling activities in the Grand Lake resort area that Burris had been trying to clamp down on in the months prior to his death. On the night of June 26, agents seized a pickup in Miami, Oklahoma, that matched the description of one seen in the Burris neighborhood on the night of the murder. Immediately afterward, they raided seven businesses in the Afton area searching for contraband and possible evidence in the murder case. One of the places raided was owned by T. H. Bluejacket, who also owned another night spot that had been blown to bits four nights earlier, and lawmen thought there might be a connection between the explosion and the murder of Burris. The raiding officers confiscated a number of slot machines and other gambling devices and arrested a few suspects but turned up no solid evidence to point them toward Burris's killer

The crime bureau chief said C. E. Dawson, an Afton man known as “the kingpin slot machine operator in the Grand Lake area,” was the owner of the suspect pickup at the time of Burris’s murder. Dawson also owned at least one of the raided nightclubs, but curiously enough, Dawson was not among the men arrested in the sting as possible suspects in the Burris murder

All the men who were arrested in the sting were soon released, and investigators were left floundering for leads in the case. They were still operating under the assumption that the killing was related to gambling and other illegal activities in the Grand Lake region and that it was likely a murder for hire, but they had "no real suspect in the case.” Even the supposed link between the pickup seen at the scene of the crime and the one confiscated in Miami “fizzled” as a lead. In mid-July, the state crime bureau closed the temporary office it had set up in Pryor, the Mayes County seat, shortly after the murder.

A Tulsa newspaper published multiple articles complaining about the lack of progress in the Burris case and questioning why certain angles of investigation had been dropped. Why, for instance, had C. E. Dawson, the "slot machine king" who had been linked to the pickup seen in the Burris neighborhood, not been more vigorously pursued as a suspect?

The case stalled but was a revived in 1953. Dawson was questioned again at that time, but he denied involvement in the Burris murder and was soon released.  

Even though investigators with the crime bureau virtually admitted that they knew who had killed Burris, the case gradually went cold for lack of solid evidence, and it officially remains one of Oklahoma's biggest unsolved murder cases, even to this day. 

This is a greatly condensed version of the chapter in my M&M in NE OK book.

Bonnie and Clyde and the Murder of Commerce Constable Cal Campbell

Another chapter in my Murder and Mayhem in Northeast Oklahoma book https://amzn.to/4a3huUU concerns Bonnie and Clyde's gunfight with law officers in Commerce, Oklahoma, in April 1934. Although less known than the desperate pair's April 1933 shootout with officers just across the state line in Joplin, Missouri, the Commerce incident was almost equally horrific.

About 9:30 a.m. on Friday, April 6, 1934, Commerce police chief Percy Boyd and constable Cal Campbell, acting on a tip, went to investigate a suspicious vehicle at the side of a road on the southwest edge of town. The driver of the suspect automobile, later identified as Clyde Barrow, rammed his car into reverse and started back down the road “wide open,” but the new Ford V-8 veered into a ditch and got stuck in the mud.

Campbell and Boyd got out of their car and started toward the stranded vehicle. When Campbell noticed that the occupants of the car were brandishing weapons, he drew his pistol and opened fire. Barrow and another man, later identified as Henry Methvin, leaped out of the stranded Ford carrying automatic rifles and started running toward the lawmen, firing as they came. Campbell got off three shots before he was killed in the hail of bullets. Boyd, who managed to fire his weapon four times, was also knocked off his feet but received only a flesh wound. 

After the shooting stopped, Barrow ran toward a nearby farmhouse, while Methvin walked toward Boyd and ordered him to get up. The chief made a joke as he got to his feet, which seemed to put the gunman in a good mood.

Barrow and his sidekicks forced Boyd and three other men who happened by to try to get their vehicle unstuck, but it remained mired in the mud, Finally, a man in a truck came and pulled the Barrow vehicle out of the mud. Barrow forced Boyd into the back seat of the car beside Methvin, then took the wheel and sped away to the west, with Bonnie Parker in the passenger's seat cradling a shotgun. 

Upon learning of the shooting, lawmen hurried to the scene of the incident, where they found Campbell already dead. A posse quickly formed and gave chase after the outlaw vehicle. Authorities tentatively identified the villains as the Barrow gang, and a manhunt throughout the entire region, with officers from several different agencies participating, was soon launched. 

Meanwhile, Clyde took Chief Boyd on a pell-mell flight toward Chetopa, Kansas, and along the back roads of southern Kansas until they finally reached Fort Scott in the early to mid-afternoon. During his captive ride, Boyd noticed a whole cache of automatic rifles and other weapons in the vehicle. 

In Fort Scott, the fugitives first learned that the 60-year-old Campbell had died when they bought a newspaper with headlines about the shooting. At first Clyde said he was sorry “the old man” was killed but that he “had to do it.” Later, though, he and the other gang members laughed about the shooting.

During Boyd's unwelcome tour of southeast Kansas, Bonnie told him that the photo showing her smoking a cigar, which had been reprinted in newspapers across the country in recent months, was taken purely as a joke. She had borrowed the cigar from Clyde just for the photograph, and all the publicity about her smoking cigars was “bunk.” She wanted Boyd to let it be known that she was not “a cigar addict.”

About ten o’clock Friday night, Barrow drove around Fort Scott looking for a car to steal but failed to find one that suited him. Shortly afterward, the gang drove southeast of town about nine miles and let Boyd out unharmed in the wee hours of Saturday morning, April 7. After enlisting help, Boyd was taken back to Fort Scott, where he was treated at a hospital for his minor injuries and released. The next day, he told the story of his misadventures with the Barrow gang to newspapers. Boyd said the gangsters “treated [him] fine," and he thought his and Campbell’s shootout with the Barrow gang probably would not have happened if the constable hadn’t fired first.

Meanwhile, Bonne and Clyde wound their way through the dragnet and escaped to Texas. They were killed the next month in Louisiana.

The Severs Hotel Murders

Another chapter in my Murder and Mayhem in NE OK book https://amzn.to/3BIKAw0 concerns the Severs Hotel Murders in Muskogee. What follows is a greatly condensed version of that chapter.

About 8:30 on the evening of Saturday, April 26, 1930, the telephone operator at the elegant Severs Hotel in Muskogee received a call from a guest in Room 817 saying that his friends had been robbed and killed. The assistant hotel manager called police, and he and the hotel engineer hurried to the eighth floor to investigate. 

They opened the door to Room 187 and found an elderly man in the room with shaving cream on his face, a second man lying nearby on the floor with his hands bound, and two other men lying lifeless on the floor across the room near the door of adjoining Room 819.

The man with his hands bound and the elderly man identified themselves as John L. Wike and P. G. Seeley respectively, and the two dead men were brothers David and George Smith. The four men had traveled together on business from Connecticut. Wike said that two men had forced their way into the adjoining room, attacked and killed the Smith brothers after a furious struggle, and left him tied up. Seeley said he was in the bathroom at the time and didn't hear the sounds of a struggle but did hear four gunshots. 

Police tentatively accepted their story but grew skeptical as they began investigating the crime. The first question that arose was the mystery of why, if robbery were the motive, the bandits took only a small portion of the money and valuables the four men had in their possession. Why did Seeley not hear the commotion, and why did he not untie Wike? Why was the room relatively undisturbed if there was a violent struggle as Wike said. 

Seeley calmly explained that he was hard of hearing, and Wike said the reason he was still bound when help arrived was that he wanted authorities to see the scene exactly as it was after the crime was committed.

Calls to Connecticut confirmed that the four men from that state were prominent and trustworthy citizens. Arguing in their favor, also, was the fact that neither the murder weapon nor the room key had been found. If Wike and Seeley murdered the Smith brothers, how did they dispose of those items? 

Wike and Seeley were arrested and held for intense questioning for a couple of days before most of the lawmen involved in the case came to believe that they were not implicated in the murders, and they were released with an understanding that they stay in Muskogee and cooperate with officers in the investigation.

Later, officers found a diamond in Seeley's luggage that Wike had previously reported as having been taken by the killers. Seeley swore he knew nothing about the ring or how it got in his luggage, but he and Wike were re-arrested. Authorities still felt the two were probably not guilty, but the prosecutor thought indicting them would be the best path to move the investigation forward. 

At a preliminary hearing for the two men in the district courtroom at Muskogee before an overflow crowd, the prosecutor focused much attention on the fact that the missing ring was found in Seeley’s luggage, but he had little solid evidence to present. The defense, on the other hand, suggested that some “suspicious characters” who had been seen loitering around the hotel shortly before the murders might well have committed the crime. The sheriff said he was sure the defendants were not guilty, and Wike and Seeley, testifying in their own defense, calmly told their stories very much as they had told them from the outset. By the end of the hearing, even the prosecutor was won over. In his closing argument, he admitted there was not enough probable cause to hold the two men. When the judge announced that the charges against the Connecticut men were dismissed, the courtroom erupted into applause.

The Severs Hotel murders remained a mystery until early June when R. L. Benton, an alleged member of a holdup gang that was known to be in the Muskogee vicinity on the night of the murders, was arrested in Miami, Oklahoma, in connection with a series of robberies in southwest Missouri and northwest Oklahoma. Wike journeyed back to Oklahoma from Connecticut and identified Benton as one of the men who attacked and killed the Smith brothers. Held on charges of robbery and suspicion of murder at the Muskogee County Jail, Benton escaped in August.

In mid-November, a gunman shot and killed a police officer in Kirksville, Missouri, and the killer was later identified as veteran criminal Lawrence Devol (alias R. L. Benton), the same man wanted in connection with the Smith murders. A large manhunt for Devol, a known associate of notorious criminals like Harvey Bailey and Alvin Karpis, was launched throughout the Midwest, but nothing was heard from Devol until about a year later when he joined the infamous Barker gang. In late 1932, Devol killed two policemen outside a Minnesota bank during the gang’s robbery of the place. Devol was captured, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane in June 1936. Later the same month, he and a companion, Albert “Scarface” Soroko, tried to hold up a café in Oklahoma City, and Soroko was killed in a police shootout. The following month, Devol killed a policeman and seriously wounded a second one in Enid, Oklahoma, when two officers tried to question him. Devol was then killed in a second gun battle with police just moments later.

Gangster Jimmy Creighton was eventually identified as the other prime suspect besides Devol in the Severs Hotel murders, but he was already serving a life sentence in the Missouri penitentiary. Since no one was ever tried or convicted for the murders of David and George Smith, the crime officially remains an unsolved mystery.