John Jefferson
Left: Bud and June Runion (Facebook). Right: Ronnie “Jay” Towns (Towns: WAGA/YouTube).
Prosecutors in Georgia scored a murder conviction thanks in part to a magnet fisherman’s discovery of a gun and victim IDs in a river nearly a decade after a double homicide.
Ronnie “Jay” Towns, 38, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder on Monday, and a judge sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences in prison, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. In January 2015, he tricked 69-year-old Bud Runion and his 66-year-old wife, June Runion, into making the three-hour drive from their Cobb County home to Telfair County to buy a 1966 Ford Mustang after seeing an ad on Craig’s List. But there was no car, and it was just a ruse to rob and murder them.
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During Monday’s sentencing hearing, one of Runions’ daughters made a victim impact statement. She spoke of her parents’ generosity: They gave away scores of bicycles to children at Christmas time and during a winter storm not long before their deaths, they picked up stranded strangers and drove them home, the AJC reported.
“That’s who my parents were,” Brittany Patterson reportedly said. “That’s who we lost. My parents were not random people from Cobb County. They proudly served God and the community.”
Towns hardly acknowledged the victims’ family and did not address the court, per the AJC.
Law&Crime previously reported that on April 14, a magnet fisherman was searching for items in Horse Creek on Old Prison Camp Road in McRae-Helena when he reeled in a .22 caliber rifle, the GBI said in a press release. Two days later, the same person continued to magnet fish in the same area and found a bag containing driver’s licenses, credit cards belonging to the Runions and their phone.
The discoveries led to GBI executing a search warrant at a home about 4 miles away on Webb Cemetery Road on April 17 and a second one two days later. Agents reportedly recovered evidence from both searches, which will be submitted to the crime lab for further analysis. The press release did not say how the discoveries by the magnet fisherman led them to the house.
Atlanta’s WSB-TV reported that family members of the Runions first became concerned about the couple’s safety when they didn’t show up to babysit their grandchildren. The family reported them missing, and four days later, cops found their SUV and their bodies in a pond in Telfair County. Detectives learned the couple and Towns talked on the phone before their disappearance.
While cops arrested Towns not long after the murders, the case took so long because the original indictment was tossed, which led to appeals and another indictment in 2020, Macon CBS affiliate WMAZ reported. Then, the pandemic hit, causing more delays.
According to their obituaries, the Runions were married for 38 years. Bud Runion founded Forever Grateful Ministries.
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