Magnet fisherman stumbles across 'vital' new clue in killing of couple (2024)

A man using a magnet to fish has unearthed crucial new evidence in the'Craiglist Killing' case nine years after a beloved charity worker couple were murdered.

Elrey 'Bud', 69, and June, 66, Runion had driven 200 miles to buy their dream car when they disappeared in January 2015. Their bodies were later discovered at the side of a country road after they had been robbed and fatally shot.

Earlier this year, an unnamed individual was magnet fishing in a Georgia creek when he unwittingly discovered evidence linked to the murder case.

The fisherman first pulled up a .22-caliber rifle from a creek nearby the crime scene on April 14.

Two days later, he found a bag containing the couple's drivers' licenses and credit cards as well as what authorities believe to be their cellphones.

Murder suspect, Ronnie 'Jay' Towns, is set to face trial as soon as August - though no date has been determined, according to District Attorney Tim Vaughn.

Vaughn said the newly discovered evidence - that was dragged from Horse Creek in rural Telfair County - should prove vital.

He said the rifle from the creek is the same caliber as the gun that killed the Runions, though investigators are still working to determine if it is the weapon used in the crime.

'It was a good case already,' Vaughn said Tuesday, 'but this makes it an even better case.'

Towns was indicted in the murders of the elderly couple who believed they were meeting him to buy their dream car in 2015. He was 28-years-old at the time.

Towns was arrested on January 26, 2015, and formally charged with multiple counts, including malice murder, felony murder and armed robbery, in Telfair County, Georgia.

According to the indictment, Towns lured the couple to Telfair County by replying to an online ad that Bud had posted seeking a classic car, even though Towns didn't own such a vehicle.

Bud had been looking for someone willing to sell their 1966 Ford Mustang convertible as he had bought the same model after returning from the Vietnam War decades ago.

After receiving a response from a potential seller, the couple from Marietta, north of Atlanta, made the three-hour drive to Telfair Countyto check out the car. They were last seen on January 22.

He then allegedly met the couple and brandished a weapon before he stole their phones, Mr Runion's wallet, his wife's purse and the couple's SUV, the Macon Telegraph reported at the time.

Their SUV was found submerged in a pond near Towns' home several days later, and the couple's bodies were found along a nearby dirt road. They had been shot in their heads.

Telfair County Sheriff Chris Steverson has previously said that robbery appears to be the motive for the killings. He said investigators found no evidence he had the sort of car the couple had been seeking.

Georgia courts threw out Towns' first indictment over problems with how the grand jury was selected — a prolonged legal battle that concluded in 2019.

Towns was indicted for a second time in the killings in 2020, and the case was delayed again by the COVID-19 pandemic. He pleaded not guilty.

Court proceedings have also likely been slowed by prosecutors' decision to seek the death penalty, which requires extra pretrial legal steps.

The items found in the creek also led investigators to obtain warrants to search a Telfair County home where they recovered additional evidence.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation's statement gave no further details.

The retired couple found dead were well known for their charitable efforts all over the South.

Bud and his wife, June, ran a charity called Bud's Bicycles which helped people in need from storm-damaged Alabama towns and impoverished pockets of West Virginia to their hometown in suburban Atlanta.

'He said, 'You can't take money with you when you're gone,'' said the couple's daughter, Brittany Patterson. 'You might as well spend and enjoy it.'

Years prior, driving through Marietta before Christmas Eve, Runion saw two young girls sorting through a Dumpster, his daughter said. He fixed up two bicycles belonging to his own girls and delivered them as gifts.

It was the beginning of 'Bud's Bicycles,' a charity run loosely out of Mount Paran Church of God in Marietta. Runion met his wife, a teacher, at the church in the 1970s.

Neighbors said the Runions built a shed in their backyard to house the bikes. Their donations eventually expanded to include food, household and school supplies, coats, blankets — even Thanksgiving turkeys.

'Basically, he had a food pantry in the basem*nt of their house,' Patterson said.

Charity came in ways big and small. Patterson remembered as a child going to a doughnut shop with her father on Saturdays.

They would often be joined by a man she did not know, and her father would pay the tab. Later in life she realized the man was homeless.

'If someone lives their life like this and this happens, it really tests your faith,' said their neighbor, Tom Murphy at the time.