GALENA ? Acting on the word of a suspected killer, law officers used a camera Tuesday to begin searching a water-filled mine shaft for the remains of two missing Oklahoma teens.

The long-delayed search began in the scorching afternoon heat and included the threat of collapse in an undermined half-mile-square search area, said Kyle Smith, director of public and governmental affairs for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Investigators even had doubts about the credibility of information provided by Jeremy Bryan Jones, a former northeastern Oklahoman now facing murder charges in three other states.

“If there’s a chance of recovering those girls, we’re going to do it,” Smith said. The special agent said the search would last two to three days.

Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible, both 16, vanished in December 1999, when Freeman’s parents were found murdered in the smoldering ruins of their Welch trailer home.

Craig County, Okla., law officers have tried and failed on more than a half-dozen previous searches to solve the mystery.

They acted on tips from truckers, psychics, even a Texas death row inmate. But this time, Sheriff Jimmie Sooter said the tipster provided details – and a confession.

Sooter said Jones, who is from nearby Miami, Okla., told investigators in a jailhouse interview that he killed Danny and Kathy Freeman, set their home on fire and then posed as a rescuer to the fleeing girls. The sheriff said Jones told him he took the girls just across the state line, shot them and dumped their bodies outside this town, which proclaims itself the oldest mining town in southeast Kansas.

But Jones, 32, told The Joplin (Mo.) Globe that the search was a waste of time and that he hadn’t confessed to any killings.

“He was believable,” Sooter said. “He knew some things about the crime scene that people shouldn’t have known. We just have to go look and see if he’s telling us the truth.”

Lauria Bible’s mother, Lorene, said she is glad that the search has started. She hopes it has the potential to end the speculation about what happened to her daughter.

“If Lauria were alive in the last five years and six months, she would have gotten to a phone,” Bible said. “That part of wondering where she is – you will know where she is,” if the bodies are found.

The KBI is leading the search, which involves 35 officers from the bureau and nine other agencies.

Investigators started the search at 2 p.m. Tuesday by lowering a camera on a cable into an abandoned water-filled mineshaft. Cadaver dogs were expected to begin searching the area this morning.

Smith said searchers would not be using ground-penetrating radar provided by a Colorado group that specializes in finding buried bodies because the site has been used as a trash dump.

The search had been delayed because investigators were trying to verify Jones’ information through other sources and also had difficulty coordinating resources for the search, Smith said.