A murder conviction without a body is an instance of a person being convicted of murder despite the absence of the victim's body. Circumstantial and forensic evidence are prominent in such convictions. Hundreds of such convictions have occurred in the past, some of which have been overturned.
In all cases, unless otherwise noted, the remains of the victims were never recovered. Conviction overturned due to the supposed victim being found alive after the conviction Conviction overturned for other reasons Partial remains recovered, or body was located after a conviction. In , her remains were found buried in a back garden in Dorset, England. The 42 years that passed between the crime and the conviction is the longest such interval in an American bodyless murder case.
In April , Ronnie Busick was arrested and charged with four accounts of first-degree homicide for the deaths of Bible and the Freeman family. It was reported that "at least a dozen" witnesses claimed all three men bragged about raping and murdering Bible and Freeman and having taken Polaroid photographs of them. An affidavit made by a female witness who had lived with Welch for a brief time asserts that "she heard conversations between the three men where they disclosed that the murder victims had owed them money".
According to the affidavit, Welch, Pennington, and Busick had claimed to have raped and tortured the two friends before disposing of their remains "in a pit" or mine shaft in Picher, Oklahoma.
In , Busick pleaded guilty to being an accessory to first-degree homicide in the deaths of Ashley's parents, arson of the Freemans' home, and the abduction and presumed slayings of the two teenagers. Cal was tried four times after being indicted in The first ended in a conviction but was set aside when new witnesses emerged who claimed to have seen Michele the morning after she had last been seen; the second also resulted in a conviction that was reversed on appeal.
