Hell in the Heartland

05/27/19 • 60 min

Coroner Talk™ | Death Investigation Training | Police and Law Enforcement

On December 29, 1999, high school friends Lauria Jaylene Bible and Ashley Renae Freeman spent the evening together celebrating Freeman's sixteenth birthday. Bible received permission from her parents to spend the night at Freeman's home. Earlier that day, the girls had spent time at a local pizza restaurant with Kathy Freeman.

At approximately 5:30 am on December 30, 1999, a passerby called 911 reporting that the Freeman home was engulfed in flames. Law enforcement determined the fire had been arson. Inside the home, the charred remains of Kathy Freeman were discovered lying on the floor of her bedroom; she had been shot in the head. Initially, no other remains were relocated, leading local law enforcement to believe Dan Freeman had killed his wife and fled with both teenage girls. Lauria's parked car was in the driveway of the home with the keys in the ignition.

On December 31, Lauria's parents Lorene and Jay Bible returned to the scene, hoping to find additional clues law enforcement may have missed. While walking through the rubble, they discovered what appeared to be another body, and called police. The second body was determined to be that of Dan Freeman, Ashley's father; like his wife, he had also been shot in the head. After this discovery, the scene was reexamined, but no sign of Lauria Bible or Ashley Freeman was found. In 2010, the Freeman family initiated court proceedings to have Ashley declared legally dead

Suspects and confessions

In the decade following the disappearance of Bible of Freeman, two convicted killer—Tommy Lynn Sells and Jeremy Jones—confessed to murdering them, but subsequently recanted their admissions. Jones had claimed that he murdered Dan and Kathy Freeman as a favor for a friend over drug debt, then took the girls to Kansas, where he sot them and threw their bodies into an abandoned mine. Searches of the mine Jones identified proved unfruitful, however, and Jones subsequently admitted he had fabricated the story in order to get better food and additional phone privileges in prison

In a 2001 profile on Unsolved Mysteries, it was mentioned that rumors had circulated among locals that the Craig County Police Department had been feuding with the Freemans at the time over the death of their son, Shane, who was shot by a deputy after stealing a car. While his death was ruled justifiable, the Freemans had threatened to file a wrongful death lawsuit. Dan Freeman's brother, Dwayne, claimed that Dan had confided that deputies had tried to intimidate him.

Article/Info Credit: Wikipedia

This Episode

In this episode, I talk with Jax Miller and Sarah Cailean as to their involvement in this ongoing investigation and how Jax, as a true crime writer, and Sarah, as a police investigator, team up to uncover new clues and sparked the attention of Law Enforcement which moves this case forward.

Suspects and confessions

Article/Info Credit: Wikipedia

This Episode

Previous Episode

Every Scene - Every Time

The term every scene every time is certainly not new and is not unique to me. This term is credited to Steven C. Clark, Ph.D. of Occupational Research and Assessment, Inc. The term was first used in a 1999 NIJ research study setting out guidelines for death scene investigation and has since been updated to a 2011 revision.

However, regardless of who first said it, the term is reelevate today as any time and needs to be explored regularly. Many agencies have checklist and guidelines to help investigators properly complete an investigation and some are very detailed in their approach. The NIJ guidelines are a bit broader and are meant to establish investigative tasks that should be performed at every death. The direct quote from the publication is:

The principal purpose of the study, initiated in June 1996, was to identify, delineate, and assemble a set of investigative tasks that should and could be performed at every death scene. These tasks would serve as the foundation of the guide for death scene investigators........

In this podcast, I break down the areas outlined by the NIJ publication. Each section has several points and will establish a path of investigation for every death scene. With these basic foundations, an investigator can insert their local policies and ensure a complete and appropriate investigation every time.

Next Episode

Fingerprinting Mummified Remains

Postmortem fingerprint collection is a routine part of many forensic death investigations. Although the production of postmortem prints is usually straight forward, several obstacles and scenarios can make the collection difficult. A common challenge occurs when finger pads are mummified. Several current techniques allow for softening and rehydration of mummified finger pads; however, despite the employment of such techniques, the production of adequate postmortem fingerprints can remain difficult.

The Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner has earned national recognition for breakthrough work with fingerprinting unidentified bodies of people, including border crossers, who have died in the desert.

In arid conditions such as Southern Arizona’s desert, it doesn't take long to run out of water. This, as well as sickness, injuries and other accidents, can lead to fatalities and the dehydration process doesn’t stop after death. Many of the bodies brought to the PCOME’s well lit, tiled hallways have begun to mummify.

When nobody knows who the person was, mummification makes identification an even greater challenge.

It's possible to rehydrate the tissue using sodium hydroxide. The process can take up to 72 hours and requires a mixture of attention and patience.

If printing is attempted too soon, the prints are still distorted — but waiting too long can mean permanently losing the fingerprints.

“The risk again is always you can dissolve the tissue if your solution's the wrong concentration or you leave the tissue in the solution for too long and that kind of thing,” Hess said. “So we have a fairly rigid process.”

It was a process that Hernandez began helping to develop after he started working at the PCOME in 2000.

This article was an excerpt from a full article by the Tucson Sentinel January 2014, read the full article HERE

To hear the full story with Gene Hernandez with Pima County Arizona on how this process works listen to this episode.