The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Hell in the Heartland: Murder, Meth, and the Case of Two Missing Girls by Jax Miller

Episode Date: October 24, 2020

Hell in the Heartland: Murder, Meth, and the Case of Two Missing Girls by Jax Miller On December 30, 1999, in rural Oklahoma, sixteen-year-old Ashley Freeman and her best friend, Lauria Bible, were having a sleepover. The next morning, the Freeman family trailer was in flames and both girls were missing. While rumors of drug debts, revenge, and police corruption abounded in the years that followed, the case remained unsolved and the girls were never found. In 2015, crime writer Jax Miller--who had been haunted by the case--decided to travel to Oklahoma to find out what really happened on that winter night in 1999, and why the story was still simmering more than fifteen years later. What she found was more than she could have ever bargained for: evidence of jaw-dropping levels of police negligence, entire communities ravaged by methamphetamine addiction, and a series of interconnected murders with an ominously familiar pattern. These forgotten towns were wild, lawless, and home to some very dark secrets. About Jax Miller Jax Miller is an American author. She wrote her first novel, Freedom's Child, in her twenties while hitchhiking across America, winning the 2016 Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle and earning several CWA Dagger nominations. She has received acclaim from the New York Times, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, and many more. She now works in the true-crime genre, having penned her much-anticipated book and acting as creator, host, and executive producer on the true-crime documentary series Hell in the Heartland on CNN's HLN network. Jax is a lover of film and music, and has a passion for writing screenplays and rock 'n' roll.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks this is voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming here with another great podcast oh my god another one chris out of all the hundreds of podcasts you actually decided to do another one we did them just for you guys because we love you guys so much tuning in listening uh and today we

have the most amazing author we always have amazing authors i don't know why we just never have bad authors on the show just amazing and that's why you should refer the show to your friends neighbors relatives go to the cvpn.com i'm really proud of that segue the chris voss podcast network.com and uh tell your friends neighbors relatives say hey you want to listen to some brilliant authors you listen to chris voss show and there's other cool stuff too as well uh anyway uh also if you want to watch the video version of this you can go to youtube.com for chris Voss, hit that bell notification button and join. There's a plethora of Facebook groups for the Chris Voss show. Now there's a whole mess of them. So just search on Facebook for myself or Chris Voss. You can join some of the book clubs that we got going on there and everything else. This author is a pretty amazing.

She's written several books. Her name is Jax Miller. She's written their most recent book that just barely came out, Hell in the Heartland, Murder, Meth, and the Case of Two Missing Girls. So this is pretty interesting. And she is an American author. She wrote her first novel, Freedom's Child, in her 20s, while hitchhiking across America, winning the 2016 Grand Prix des Le Chardes de L'Elle. And you can see the award because I'm butchering this because clearly I'm not French. But she won several awards and nominations with the book.

She has received acclaim from the New York Times, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, and many more. She now works in the true crime genre, having penned her much anticipated book and acting as a creator, host, and executive producer on the true crime documentary series Hell in the Heartland on CNN's HLN network. She's a lover of film and music and has a passion for writing screenplays and rock and roll. Welcome to the show, Jax. How are you? Thank you so much for having me. I'm good. How are you? It's wonderful. That's a hell of a resume. I guess I'm going to need to go learn some French though, so I can pronounce the places where you got the award.

Grand Prix de l'Extréhé de l'El. I think it is, but I might be butchering it as well. There you go. Well, you know, the French hate us anyway. So that's, that's how it goes. Uh, so you've written this book and, uh, Oh, what motivated you want to write this book? I know it's a real true crime story. You know, I don't have a good answer from, from where I first heard this story. It was something that, that kind of always haunted me. And I decided to look it up on Google one day, see if there was any progress with the case. And I only did a search of like the basics, you know, trailer, fire, Oklahoma, best friends. And it turned out that that very week, and this is 15 years after the murders, they were actually looking for the girls remains in a well of a convicted murderer up in Kansas. And I says, wow, this story is so active still. And that's because of the mother Lorraine Bible. Um, so I, I call the ring Bible up. I says, Hey, you know, I'm thinking about

writing a book about this. I think this is a fascinating story and the rest is history. She said, come on out to Oklahoma. And that's what I did. There you go. And, and, uh, was there, was there a point of the story that captured it? Was was it the two girls was there an aspect of it that grabbed you i think i think at first the most jaw-dropping thing was that it was laureen bible and her husband who are the parents of missing child lore bible who actually found the prime suspect's body after he'd been shot to death uh you know, with a shotgun. He was the prime suspect those first 24 hours and this poor family finding his body. And it was a gory scene. And I'm like, how did this happen? How did, how did police miss this body? And from then on, we see a whole sequence of, of mishandling the case and just a lot of, you know, screw ups. And I just thought

it was so fascinating. And at first I came to it from a storytelling point of view, you know screw-ups and I just thought it was so fascinating and at first I came to it from a storytelling point of view you know this is a story that's rich in character and setting it has plot twists but it didn't take long for me to really become immersed and really start to just fall in love with these people and this story and the missing girls so it became quite a like a life mission for me if you will and so for people who aren't aware of the story because i wasn't until i started doing the research on it this is about a crime that happened in 1999 and do you want to elaborate a bit on that sure so on the early morning hours of december 30th 1999 tucked away in the prairies of northeastern oklahoma neighbors found a trailer on fire uh they called the police and upon um the initial investigation

they found the body of 38 year old kathy freeman they didn't know it then but uh it would transpire that she was shot in the head at even the back of the head execution style with a shotgun um it was assumed that her husband danny freeman age 40 had shot her and then had kidnapped their 16 year old daughter ash Ashley Freeman, as well as Ashley's best friend, Laura Bible, who was sleeping over that night. So Danny's missing with these two girls and not a lot's done about it. Um, 24 hours later, and this is way after the, uh, the, the police and the agents have, have cleared the scene and, and, uh, released the property back to family members.

Jay and Lorene Bible, the parents of Laura Bible, the friend who was sleeping over, they come to the crime scene hoping to find any clues about where Danny could have taken the girls. And within moments, they find Danny Freeman's dead body. He was in the rubble. He was very clear that they found him within moments. And he was shot at point blank range in the head with a shotgun as well so you have these two dead parents and these two missing girls they were not in the fire um over the years there have been many theories uh a lot of suspects and um you know we saw in 2018 the very first arrests in this case wow so it took him 18 years to even get close huh yeah and and they're

still looking for the girls. I know that that's everyone's main priority is to find the girls. So a hell of a story and, and it goes on. Uh, and I, my understanding is you become close with some of the subjects of the book. Is that true? Yeah. I mean, I think they've pretty much adopted me. I go out to Oklahoma, you know, and it's not just work. You know, I just spent Christmas with them because I wanted to. They've come out to see me on the East Coast. I talk to them almost every day. We're like family at this point. And I'm so grateful because that was something I really didn't foresee. I didn't anticipate that, you know, when I first started this story. So I feel very fortunate to be in their lives. I'm both with both families. I'm, I just feel very blessed. Is that kind of, uh, is that kind of an interesting position to be in where you're a little bit, uh, where you're like, okay. I mean, you're, you're friends with yourself. Like, uh, like, uh, there's some political books that i know that i'm pretty sure

people aren't friends with the people they wrote about you know what i mean carl bernstein stuff well you know i i i think it's safe to keep a professional distance i think that's a safe route and i didn't want that i says there's so many sterile true crime books out there and i didn't want to be a reporter that bought the story to people. I wanted to be the novelist that I am and bring readers into the story. And to do that, I had to be in Oklahoma. I had to be one of them. I took that one in Rome approach. I even tried cow testicles because that's what they do out there. you know? So I, I, you know, this is what I did and I loved it. I really grew to love these people. I found that they were the kindest people

I'd ever known. And I just, I love the way that they handle themselves. And I love the food, except for the cow testicles. I love the food. I, I, I just really love the, uh, the culture out there. I thought it was really rich and I thought it was very beautiful. So you probably say that contributed better to your writing in the book and maybe some of what you brought as a novelist and being able to tell a better story? Absolutely. I feel like I, you know, I knew from the get-go I wasn't going to write this story from a desk. I knew I, again, I wanted to bring readers in and the only way to do that was to write it from the inside out. And, you know, I think, I think it's, it also goes with my personality. I happen to be a very passionate person, a little bit obsessive. I joke in the book that I take some features from my on

the spectrum father. I just, I become fixated on things and, you know, that's a blessing and a curse. And in this case, I really think that that helped me understand the girls it helped me make them relatable for the book because i didn't want to paint them as victims of these horrible crimes i wanted to show you the wholesome 16 you know these wholesome 16 year old beautiful girls that they were and what they meant to so many people um so yeah i mean i i don't regret it one bit will i do that that again? Probably not. I want to do true crime, but I became so immersed. It did take a toll on me emotionally, but I think it was worth it. Do you think they'll ever find the girls? I am cautiously optimistic.

And to be honest, I think it really depends on my mood. I have days where I feel like they're so close and then I have days where I feel like it's hopeless. But something that can be learned from the families, especially Lorene Bible is don't get on those emotional roller coasters. Take it as it comes, because I think it's very easy to do that. And I had done that in the beginning. I would get on these emotional roller coasters. And when they didn't find the girls, I would get so depressed.

I would just kind of crash. So I've learned in time to take everything in stride, take it as it comes. In that area, I guess a lot of people are familiar with this story. It's one of those Midwest stories in a, in a town. And, and, and I guess drugs are a part of this. And, and a lot of, you know, we've, we've all heard about small towns in middle America getting lost in the opioid edemics edemics, pandemics or epidemics. Actually, I got my pandemics and my epidemics screwed up here these days. Recently Purdue, I think it's Purdue. Was it Purdue? The people who makes oxytocin,

they've had to fold up that company and turn over the government basically. And so I guess some of that is ingrained in the story with meth and drugs and stuff yeah so so the two biggest theories both are which are i examined in hell in the heartland um is that was this a murder perpetrated by corrupt law enforcement or was this a drug deal or gone bad slash drug debt? And those have always been the two biggest theories. And the Freemans believe it was law enforcement and the Bibles believe that it was a drug debt or drug deal gone bad.

I should probably preface by saying that less than a year before these murders, yeah, it was less than a year before, Kathy and Danny's 17-year-old son, Shane Freeman, was less than a year before kathy and danny's 17 year old son shane freeman was killed by a craig county deputy um they believe that it was that it was not a justifiable shooting and they were making plans to file a wrongful uh a wrongful death suit against the county several days before that window expired or when they believe that that window expired, they were murdered. So I don't think it was a huge, you know, far reaching

theory to assume that law enforcement might've had something to do with this. You know, I don't think it came from a place of grief where people are just trying to come to terms with it and making up these outlandish things. I think that, you know, there was reason behind it. After Shane's death, the Freeman family was kind of at war with the Craig County Sheriff's Office. They were going back and forth with harassing each other and things like this. On the other hand, the Bibles really point to the drug theories. And we know that Danny Freeman was really into marijuana.

He grew it. How much he sold, that's not made clear. But meth stuff definitely comes up. And while there's been no direct connection between Danny Freeman and methamphetamines, almost every suspect ever since in the past 20 years has been very deep in the methamphetamine world. So investigators, even myself, you know know with the research it takes you into that underbelly involving methamphetamine so it's a huge aspect but we still don't know why we don't know why they died still and and you talk about in the book i guess the law enforcement either had some muck-ups or you know you're dealing with this i suppose smaller town law enforcement so there is

there isn't usually you know what you would see in a big city. I don't know. Yeah, and I have to walk a fine line between calling them corrupt and calling them negligent because we know that there was negligence. On top of missing Danny Freeman's body, we learned in 2018 that they had access to an insurance car that would have led them directly to the killer. Had they followed up on it, they would have found the girls alive. They also found the killer's car, but they refused to process it, saying that it went through too many hands. After the one private investigator died, the family bought a box of notes relating to the case to the sheriff's office and they denied it. So there was so many mishaps over the years. That's undeniable. Whether or not it was corruption versus a department that

was in over their head, we're not sure. The Craig County Sheriff's Office did hand it over to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the OSBI, and they were the lead agents in charge. But, you know, we saw all this mishandling on their end, too. So while these things happen and it's very easy to get fixated on this, I do want to add that the current agents are doing a fabulous job. Both sides of the families are very happy with with the progression, with the current line of agents right now. Interesting. And this is so compelling and interesting as a story that it's been on some sort of media production on TV or film or something? Yeah. So it was based off a book pitch. I was living in Ireland at the time, and I came across this story, and I created a book pitch. And my agent at the time out in London says, wow, this should be a TV series. And I agreed. I thought it would make a fabulous series.

So I was very fortunate that HLN picked it up. It was a four-part series that aired in June of 2019. And it covers the case, but not like the book. The book is much more in-depth, of course. But I think it's so important that the attention is is there because every time there's attention on the case the tips come the people are coming forward with information and that's what these families need yeah it's just uh it's really sad they can't find the two young girls and stuff and it's really hard to get rid of somebody i mean i remember

the case and i think it was the guy in color killed his wife and kids and hit him in the oil things. Yes, I just watched that the other day. You know, I think it's important to put into context, too, in this area, the killers lived in a place called Pitcher, Oklahoma, which is a former lead mining town. And all it is is sinkholes and thousands of square miles of mines filled with lead poison water there they they flush underneath the ground and i'm not talking about like little mine shafts i'm talking about underground cities underground interstates for 18 wheelers i mean huge huge huge that just flush underneath um that's one of the biggest areas where they look, but it's worse than finding a needle in a haystack because it's just so vast and it's a maze

and they're largely inaccessible. Note to self, if you kill anyone, take them to Oklahoma. I'd be lying if I said that there have been bodies found there i'm sure there are other bodies down there to be found for sure what is interesting too about the story is there is there at least one person was killed execution style which indicates some sort of thing uh i mean you could either go with drugs and some sort of gang or some sort of drug dealing thing or you could go with maybe a serpico maybe with the police you never know it could be we're you know as far as the killers go we're largely

dealing with small backwoods kind of people um we're not dealing with cartel we're not dealing with organized crime but we are dealing with a sadistic evil man and his two cronies um phil welch who we now know is the killer he died in 2007 from complications of als and in 2015 his partner uh not partner partner but his friend um um david pennington died in 2015 and then there's one sole surviving man who was just sentenced to 10 years minus two years served. He pled guilty to accessory to murder. So Phil Welch was a very evil man. And he was torturous. He treated people horribly. People are still afraid to talk to him. Even all these years after his death, people are still scared to talk about him. He was, that's the biggest question I always get asked out in Oklahoma is, you know, when talking about Phil Welch, people ask me all the time, have you seen the devil? And they're referring to Phil Welch.

Are you serious? Wow. That's quite a reputation. People are very scared of him. He's very, and I've learned learned i've learned a lot about him even after the book and um he's he's a terrifying man sounds like the type of monster that would have something happened so the two of these three guys basically were never prosecuted and and got away with it and technically correct yes wow so this is a hell of a story, man. This has got all the multi layers and everything else.

So definitely an interesting book. What do you think readers will really take away from it? Or what did you take away from it? Or what were some things that really stuck about that blew your mind when you researched the book? I think for me, it was very much a learning process. I really learned who I wanted to be and how I wanted to write through this process. At the time when entering this story, I was kind of at a crossroads in my life. And I meet people like Lorene, who was so strong and so composed. And still, she's not a sobbing mother you know who feels hopeless she's such a powerful woman and i just i think she's just so inspirational and i learned

so much from her what readers will take away i'm not sure i'm not sure what they're going to take away but i it doesn't really matter to me what matters to me is that people are having a conversation about the girls these girls need the spotlight on them and that's all i care about is keep talking about the girls um and yeah i mean i think there were a lot of surprising things in this story but um i i just i just want people to talk about the girls i think yeah get the word out because and hopefully they can be found someday other other than that, just a, just a sad, but crazy story of an interesting life. Anything more we need to know about the book before we go out, Jax? No, I, I, I mean, again, I feel very fortunate, you know, to, to have kind of seen us through,

through the family's eyes. When I came to the story, there were no suspects there, you know, it was that kind of at a big lull and to see it evolve through the family's eyes with the arrest. And now through the trial, I was even sitting with the families for sentencing just last month in Oklahoma. It's been so powerful. It's been surreal. And I just want people to keep talking about it. I do believe there are people out there with more information. I think there are people out there who do know where the girls are. And I think, you know, just keeping these girls faces out there,

keeping the story alive is what it takes to make people come forward. And I do think we will see more, whether it's more arrests or the girls being found, you know, God willing. I do think that there's more to come. There you go. Maybe it will, this book will end up being your Truman Capote sort of moment. He's my spirit animal. He's my spirit animal. Only I don't drink.

Well, it's been wonderful to have you on the show, Jax. Thanks for coming on. Tell us about your book. We certainly appreciate it. Thank you so much. Can I just plug in the Bible's Facebook page real quick? Is that okay? Go ahead. Yeah. Give us your plugs, please. So the Bibles, they run the Find Laura Bible page on Facebook. Laura spelled L-A-U-R-I-A. The I is silent. So Find Laura Bible is on Facebook. They are constantly updating the page with sentiments, updates on the case, things like this. So I really encourage you to check out their page. Definitely, definitely. And you want to give us your other plugs for your website and where people can order the book?

Yeah, I'm a bit of a loser. I don't have a website. That's okay. A lot of authors I talk to don't because, you know, got the penguin or you know yeah whoever the whoever the people are and a lot of them are journalists so they're you know the journal the newspaper or whatever agency's like no you should just have ours um so that's cool but we can always find you on uh any local bookstore of course right now the book's just out it's running hot uh you can find on amazon.com you can find our shop amazon.com for a shop find it on our shop, Amazon.com, 4sysshop, 4syschrissvoss, and all that good stuff.

So be sure to look at the video at YouTube.com, 4syschrissvoss, hit the bell notification, go to thecbpn.com, follow me on Goodreads, 4syschrissvoss, and also follow our Facebook groups on Facebook.com. Check it out, guys. Hell in the Heartland, Murder, murder meth and the case of two missing girls definitely you're gonna want to get into this i think it's going to be really interesting

uh thanks for tuning into my audience be safe register to vote get out and vote care about your country and we'll see you next time