EDITORIAL: Support Lauria's and Ashley's Law
Feb. 19—We're not one to urge lawmakers to charge headlong into legislation, but in the case of a bill by Oklahoma state Rep. Steve Bashore, we say "Damn the torpedoes."
Full speed ahead.
Bashore is leading the charge for Lauria and Ashley's Law, named for the two 16-year-old girls, Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman who were kidnapped, tortured, raped and killed in 1999. Also killed were the Freeman girl's parents, and their home near Welch, Oklahoma, was torched.
Two lead suspects in the crime, Warren "Phil" Welch and David Pennington, died before charges were ever brought against them, and a third person, Ronnie Busick, was unable to provide information to help the long-suffering survivors find the bodies of the two girls. So to this day, their remains have never been found.
This is a case where tragedy has piled on tragedy.
Because of a loophole in Oklahoma law, Busick was released after just 2 1/2 years in state prison following the imposition of a 10-year sentence. He was given credit for time served in a county jail and subsequent "good days" earned while in state incarceration.
Lorene Bible said the Bible and Freeman families were never told when the plea deal was reached in July 2020 that Busick would be permitted to serve anything less than 85% of his sentence on a conviction for accessory to murder.
"We should have been told that," Lorene previously told the Globe.
Bashore has introduced a bill that would add accessory to murder in the first or second degree to those crimes that require an offender serve 85% of their prison sentence before being eligible for parole. Those convicted would not be eligible to earn any type of credits that would reduce the sentence to below 85% of what was imposed.
We applaud him for introducing and driving the bill, which has made it through committee and is slated for floor debate this week.
It is too late for the Bible and Freeman families, but not for others.
Lisa Bible Broadrick, a cousin of Lauria Bible, told us: "We've been 23 years with continuously bad things happening to our family and no one helping us, and if we don't do something to help look out for the next family, then we're sitting here watching it happen to someone else. That's basically what it boils down to. There's nothing anyone's ever done to help our situation, but if we can help someone else's situation then at some point that gives us a little bit of vindication, I guess."
All Oklahoma lawmakers need to make this happen this session.
Full speed ahead.
