After a magnet fisher reeled in a rifle from a creek, a Georgia couple’s cold case murder ends with a guilty plea

A man has pleaded guilty in the killings of a Georgia couple who were lured to their deaths nearly a decade ago, authorities say, after someone magnet fishing in a creek reeled in a rifle and other evidence linked to the cold case.

Ronnie Jay Towns pleaded guilty to the 2015 murders of Bud and June Runion and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Telfair County Sheriff Sim Davidson said in a statement Monday. 

The conclusion to the case came just months after someone using a magnet to fish in a Georgia creek pulled up a rifle as well as some of the Runions’ belongings in the same area where the couple was found murdered. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in April that driver’s licenses, credit cards and other items pulled from Horse Creek were “new evidence” in the murder case.

Officials said then that the magnet fisher had discovered a .22-caliber rifle — the same caliber as the gun used to kill the Runions. When the magnet fisher returned to the same spot two days later, they found a bag containing a cellphone, driver’s licenses and credit cards, which investigators said had belonged to Bud and June Runion.

The couple’s bodies were discovered off a county road in January 2015 and authorities said they had been robbed. Investigators said at the time that their bodies and their car had been found in three different locations, CBS affiliate WMAZ-TV reported.

Investigators said Towns lured the couple by replying to an online ad posted by 69-year-old Bud Runion seeking a classic car, though Towns didn’t actually own the car. Authorities said the couple drove three hours from their home in Marietta to Telfair County to look at the vehicle. They never returned.

Towns was eventually charged in the killings but his trial was delayed multiple times — once because too few jurors reported for jury duty when prosecutors took it to a grand jury, WMAZ-TV reported. He was indicted again in 2020, but the case was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, after the new evidence was pulled from the creek, Towns pleaded guilty and is now set to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

“We are thankful to have closure in this case, and our prayers are with both families,” Sheriff Davidson said Monday.

People magnet fishing have pulled in other unexpected items in recent months. In June, a New York City couple said they used a magnet to reel in a safe containing two stacks of waterlogged $100 bills. The month before that, a magnet fisher reeled in a human skull padlocked to an exercise dumbbell from a New Orleans waterway.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.