Vinita, Okla. ? Kansas authorities want to delay a search planned next week for the remains of two Welch teenagers, the Craig County sheriff said Friday.

The search near Galena, Kan., had been tentatively scheduled for Monday but will be delayed a couple weeks to allow for better coordination of equipment and law officers by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Sheriff Jimmie Sooter said.

Authorities plan to search four trash-filled mining pits for the remains of Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible, 16-year-old friends who disappeared in December 1999.

The alleged confession of a former Miami man, who is being held in Alabama, prompted the search plans.

Sooter said Jeremy Jones told him that he killed Freeman’s parents, torched their trailer home, then posed as a rescuer to the two girls as they fled the flames. Jones allegedly told the sheriff he took the girls to the former Kansas mining region, shot them and threw the bodies in a pit.

Jones faces murder charges in slayings in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana but has not been charged in Oklahoma.

Cadaver dogs and earth-penetrating radar will be used to help authorities narrow the search, which has been delayed for months because of manpower and equipment issues.

No new date has been set, but “I am very confident it’s going to happen soon,” Sooter said.