OK OK - Lauria Bible, 16, & Ashley Freeman, 16, Welch, 30 December 1999 *ARREST*

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OK I guess that answers the question of why they didn't start speaking after the two died!
 
Sources confirmed that someone fired shots outside the home of one of the witnesses in the case Monday.
FOX23 has also confirmed that the witness received several threats online in the days before the shots rang out. The threats were reportedly in connection to the girls’ disappearance.
Bible’s family members talked to FOX23 about the threats in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
They said people who have information concerning the missing girls are still scared, and they believe some people do not want any potential witnesses to come forward, even though one suspect is in custody and two others are dead.
They also said the possible connection between the girls' disappearance and drugs could contribute to witness' fear.
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https://www.fox23.com/news/exclusiv...1999-case-of-missing-oklahoma-girls/742163656
 
Is there any way we can find out where the police officers are now that botched this so badly? Threats do not always come from known criminals.
 
Memo30 said:
Sheriff says report witness was threatened is false

http://ktul.com/news/local/sheriff-no-witnesses-in-welch-girls-disappearance-have-been-threatened
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Thanks for that. The sheriff shot that report right down, no pun intended. No credible witness intimidation and no shots fired. The more interesting part is the sheriff indicates that this false release could be to dissuade other people coming forward who were involved after the fact. Very pertinent when we consider the girls were held for multiple days.

Regarding why so many witnesses did not come forward, even a decade after the act, perhaps it is something to do with the Kitty Genovese effect?..Or bystander effect to be more precise.
 
Hahaha! word. but in this case I believe the reporter ...simply because of the blatant mishandling!
 
Affidavit yields possible clue in hunt for girls' remains
Bible, Freeman families continue to search for answers in 18-year-old case

"PICHER, Okla. — A second reading of an affidavit filed in the Freeman-Bible murders case opened a fresh line of thought in Ed Keheley’s mind about where the remains of the two missing girls could be.

Keheley, a leading expert on the Picher Mining Field, admits he got a little excited when he read again this past week how a witness reported hearing David Pennington, Ronnie Busick and a third man talking about the murders while drinking beers around a bonfire about six or seven years ago.

Pennington died in 2015. But Busick was charged April 23 with four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping and arson in the 18-year-old crime.

The woman told investigators that she overheard the men say that the bodies of Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman were “dumped” in “a mine shaft” or “a cellar that was later covered in concrete” in Picher, Oklahoma..."

http://www.joplinglobe.com/news/loc...cle_7aad0846-3da6-5c95-b106-05f95dfe87ac.html
 
Memo30 said:
Miami News-Record:

Picher ‘sites of opportunity’ in Freeman/Bible case
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[FONT=&amp] And making the search for the girls’ bodies even more difficult, Keheley said, is the fact that “there are 1,203 mine shafts in the Picher area.”
[/FONT][FONT=&amp]
“By 2006, 450 of those mineshafts remained open, and of those numbers, 186 mineshafts are located within Picher’s city limits,” Keheley said. “Some of those mineshafts close to the Welch home were closed in 1986. Others were open in 1999 and have since closed.”

[/FONT]Also in the mining field are hundreds of old cellars, many of which have collapsed, Keheley said. Those cellars were 5-by-7-foot structures with wooden roofs, roughly the size of an open mine shaft.
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[FONT=&amp]"NE OK: Mid-America's Favorite Dumping Ground."[/FONT][FONT=&amp]


[/FONT]
 
I drove through Picher yesterday. I lived there until I was 20 and moved away. I can barely point out where I lived and where my grandma's house was as well. Most side streets are blocked off and to be honest, it's just as well. The trailer where Welch would have been is visible but one couldn't drive up the side road or the road directly behind, all of those areas are underwater. Honestly, if what they said was true I think they wouldn't even really have to drive to chat pile and find a mine shaft, that's how close the trailer was to the chat piles, maybe a block and a half. When you read about it being a swamp area, that's not a lie, where houses were are now small ponds.
 
Unless there is a very specific tip, is it possible there can be a search for the girls? It sounds like a very dangerous place to be poking around.
 
Fairy1 said:
Unless there is a very specific tip, is it possible there can be a search for the girls? It sounds like a very dangerous place to be poking around.
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I honestly believe they would have to know exactly the location. There isn't just a possibility to gather a search party and walk around Picher. What land is in the area is now mostly swamp, and who knows if the places covered with water is a cave in or not. Very dangerous!
 
missworld12308 said:
I honestly believe they would have to know exactly the location. There isn't just a possibility to gather a search party and walk around Picher. What land is in the area is now mostly swamp, and who knows if the places covered with water is a cave in or not. Very dangerous!
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Why is it now covered by swamp? Is it covered by water from the tailing ponds? Don't mining companies have to restore the land?
 
Jennifer17 said:
Why is it now covered by swamp? Is it covered by water from the tailing ponds? Don't mining companies have to restore the land?
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I don't really know if it's actual swamps but it looks like it to me. I know where there was land now it looks like ponds. I mean just a couple of years ago it wasn't like that. Now random small ponds are where land was.
Sadly no, the mining companies do not have to pay now. The TarCreek Superfund after 20 years or so stalling allowing every citizen to inhale and drink lead finally attempted to dig up the toxic land, then to find out that all the toxic lead from the mines would eventually come right back to the top of the soil. So yes, people were paid but it was the EPA not the actual mining companies.
 
missworld12308 said:
I find your questions are a lot like mine and others who are following this case. I have never heard names being said about the two men who showed up earlier to the Freeman's house. I am anticipating if LE will release how exactly the 3 POI knew the Freemans in the first place. I have heard Danny grew weed, but I don't know for sure if it was a booming business that brought in money or if it was a hobby. Nothing was ever said about how many plants were on the property after the fire and if he was a business grower we would've heard all about it. I am really confused on all parts of their stories about the night of the murders and fire. We have heard different scenarios, I don't think that the parents would do a drug deal with their daughter's best friend there. I just don't see that happening. Especially, since the family had CPS called in the past. Then one story is that 2 of the POI were only the look out while Welch killed the Freemans and took the girls, and they set the fire. I wonder why different witnesses have different stories that were told to them. I think given the fact that the witnesses were so scared of them to believe the story that they would remember every detail that was told to them. It's the varying of the facts that happened that night could be answered away in a trail. Any good defense lawyer could poke holes in the people who came forward stories. I am sure there is other evidence that they are holding on to that connects the 3 to the scene besides Welch's girlfriends insurance card.

My theory is Welch might've been one of the guys who visited the home days before. One of the three has to be connected to the Freemans at some point. They didn't just drive up on the house. I think they intended to rob them and then something went wrong.
Maybe someone went for a gun or one of the 3 just flipped out. I don't see why they would all have to die because the girls walked in on a drug deal. Maybe Danny did owe them money and they came to collect and things just got out of hand.
I just would like to know how the POI knew the Freemans.
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Having lived rough, and knowing adult addicts, I can think of no reason why Danny wouldn’t have continued a normal drug deal just because a teenaged girl was spending the night. Dealing is usually discrete unless it’s a huge quantity.

Pot dealing is not normally seen as a moral failings when you live on the edges (from all accounts the Freeman were alternative thinkers)...so there’d really not be a reason to hide pot dealings from their daughter OR her friend, in general.

Meth dealing the item will be smaller, more condensed and less smelly then the weed.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Jennifer17 said:
Why is it now covered by swamp? Is it covered by water from the tailing ponds? Don't mining companies have to restore the land?
Click to expand...

Theoretically, they should. I *believe* the government took over the responsibility when it was declared a superfund site.

Companies allegedly covered up the data about lead poisoning, etc. For all intents and purposes, mining ended in the 60s. It was declared a superfund site about 1980. The government didn’t do much until the 90s, when it tried to remediate the land by removing topsoil. ... Finally started offering to buy land from residents to get them to move out in the in the early 2000s. By then, generations had been sickened or had died.

And then, in 2011, the US government “sold it back” to the tribe it was originally taken from. The land is useless.

Here’s an interesting story from 2017.

https://timeline.com/picher-oklahoma-lead-toxic-186e5595232b

The Oklahoma town that produced most of WWI’s bullets is now a poison graveyard

Picnicking on mountains of lead byproduct

“An estimated 30 million cubic yards of chat still remain in Picher today. On windy days, the fine dust swirls high into the air.”
 
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