GALENA ? Law enforcement officers plan to begin searching areas south of Galena on Tuesday for the bodies of two missing Oklahoma teenagers.

Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible, both 16, disappeared Dec. 30, 1999, when Freeman’s parents, Danny and Kathy Freeman, were shot to death in their home outside of Welch, Okla. The mobile home was then set on fire.

Authorities say Jeremy Jones, a man formerly of Miami, Okla., in jail in Alabama on separate slaying charges, has confessed to killing the Freemans and then acting as a concerned passer-by and picking up the girls as they escaped from the burning house. Craig County, Okla., Sheriff Jimmie Sooter said Jones told him that he took the girls to southern Kansas, killed them and dumped their bodies in a mine pit.

Jones told The Joplin (Mo.) Globe that he hasn’t confessed to any killings and that law enforcement would be wasting its time searching the area. He said he told Sooter only about areas in southern Kansas that he was familiar with and nothing about the girls.

Jones also is charged with killing a teenage girl in Georgia and a woman in New Orleans.

The search will be conducted by members of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, the Craig County, Okla., Sheriff’s Department, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and the FBI. In addition, the KBI has hired NecroSearch International, a Colorado group that specializes in finding hidden bodies.

Cherokee County Undersheriff Kent Soucy said he expected the search to be completed by midday Wednesday unless investigators find something.