Kansas Man Gets 10 years in Oklahoma Cold Case

VINITA, Okla. (AP) — A Kansas man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in connection with the deaths of two people and the disappearance of two teenage girls more than 20 years ago.

Ronnie Busick, 69, was sentenced Monday in Craig County on one count of accessory to murder, said Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman.

Busick, who has been jailed since April 2018, was given credit for time served.

Busick, who pleaded guilty in July, could have earned a reduction in his sentence by showing authorities where the bodies of Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman were located, but several searches have not recovered the teens’ remains, Arbeitman said.

Bible and Freeman, who were both 16, haven’t been seen since Dec. 30. 1999, after Freeman’s parents, Danny and Kathy Freeman, were found slain in their burned mobile home in Welch about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Tulsa.

Busick, of Wichita, Kansas, was arrested and charged in 2018, and investigators say two other suspects are now dead.