OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — An Oklahoma State Representative filed a bill he's calling "Lauria and Ashley's Law" this week.
Filed by Rep. Steve Bashore, the law would add accessory to murder in the first or second degree to the list of crimes that would require an offender to serve 85% of their prison sentence before being eligible for consideration for parole. It would also exclude the prisoner from earning any type of credit that would reduce the sentence to below 85% of what was imposed.
The bill is named after two girls who were brutally raped and murdered in 1999 — 16-year-olds Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman.
The only living man convicted in the case of the missing girls is Ronnie Busick, who was just released from prison after serving roughly three years of a 10-year sentence.
He was arrested in 2018 and pleaded guilty to being an accessory in July 2020 to torching the Freeman home, killing Ashely, Freeman's parents, and abducting the girls, including withholding information.
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Rep. Brashore says it was reported Busick received a lower sentence in exchange for information to help investigators locate the bodies of the teens, but the bodies have yet to be recovered.
According to the Department of Corrections, Busick was credited with three years of time served and subsequent good days earned while in jail.
"This case has been a travesty of justice from the beginning," Bashore said. "The families of these girls are horrified that a person so closely involved with this heinous crime not only was sentenced to such a low number of years in prison but now is free to move about in their community after so short a time served. I have vowed to work to ensure something like this will never happen again for anyone else's loved ones."
House Bill 2946 will be eligible for consideration during the Second Session of the 59th Legislature, which starts in February. If enacted, it would go into effect Nov. 1, 2024.
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