Magnet fisherman stumbles across ‘vital’ new clue in killing of charity worker couple who’d driven 200 miles to buy their dream car off Craigslist

A man who uses a magnet for fishing has unearthed crucial new evidence in the ‘Craiglist Killing’ case, nine years after a beloved couple of charity workers were murdered.

Elrey “Bud,” 69, and June, 66. Runion had driven 200 miles to buy their dream car when they disappeared in January 2015. Their bodies were later discovered on the side of a country road after they had been robbed and fatally shot.

Earlier this year, an unnamed individual was magnet fishing in a Georgia creek when he unknowingly discovered evidence linked to the murder case.

The fisherman first retrieved a .22-caliber rifle from a creek near the crime scene on April 14.

Two days later, he found a bag containing the couple’s driver’s licenses and credit cards, as well as what authorities said were their cellphones.

Murder suspect Ronnie “Jay” Towns will appear in court in August, although no date has been set, according to District Attorney Tim Vaughn.

Vaughn said the newly discovered evidence — which was dragged from Horse Creek in rural Telfair County — should be critical.

He said the rifle from the creek is the same caliber as the weapon used to kill the Runions, although investigators are still working to determine if it is the weapon used in the crime.

“It was already a good thing,” Vaughn said Tuesday, “but this makes it an even better thing.”

Towns was charged with murdering the elderly couple who thought they were meeting him in 2015 to buy their dream car. He was 28 years old at the time.

Towns was arrested on January 26, 2015 and formally charged with multiple charges, including malice murder, felony murder and armed robbery, in Telfair County, Georgia.

According to the criminal complaint, Towns lured the couple to Telfair County by responding to an online advertisement Bud placed looking for a classic car, even though Towns did not own such a vehicle.

Bud was looking for someone to sell his 1966 Ford Mustang convertible, as he had purchased the same model decades ago after returning from the Vietnam War.

After receiving a response from a potential seller, the couple from Marietta, north of Atlanta, made the three-hour drive to Telfair County to view the car. They were last seen on January 22.

He then allegedly encountered the couple and brandished a gun before stealing their phones, Mr. Runion’s wallet, his wife’s purse and the couple’s SUV, the Macon Telegraph reported at the time.

Their SUV was found several days later submerged in a pond near Towns’ home, and the couple’s bodies were found along a nearby dirt road. They had been shot in the head.

Telfair County Sheriff Chris Steverson has previously said that robbery appears to be the motive for the killings. He said investigators found no evidence he had the type of car the couple was looking for.

Georgia courts dismissed Towns’ first indictment due to issues with grand jury selection — a protracted legal battle that ended in 2019.

Towns was charged a second time in the murders in 2020, and the case was postponed again by the COVID-19 pandemic. He pleaded not guilty.

Legal proceedings are also likely to have been delayed by prosecutors’ decision to seek the death penalty, which would require additional legal steps in the pretrial phase.

The items found in the creek also led investigators to obtain warrants to search a home in Telfair County, where they found additional evidence.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation statement provided no further details.

The retired couple found dead were known for their charitable efforts throughout the South.

Bud and his wife June ran a charity called Bud’s Bicycles, which helped people in need from storm-damaged cities in Alabama and impoverished parts of West Virginia to their hometown in suburban Atlanta.

“He said, ‘You can’t take any money with you when you’re gone,'” said the couple’s daughter, Brittany Patterson. “You might as well spend it and enjoy it.”

Years ago, while driving through Marietta before Christmas Eve, Runion saw two young girls searching through a dumpster, his daughter said. He repaired two of his own girls’ bicycles and gave them as gifts.

It was the beginning of “Bud’s Bicycles,” a charity run loosely from the Mount Paran Church of God in Marietta. Runion met his wife, a teacher, at church in the 1970s.

Neighbors said the Runions built a shed in their backyard to store the bikes. Their donations eventually expanded to food, household and school supplies, coats, blankets – even Thanksgiving turkeys.

“Basically he had a food stash in the basement of their house,” Patterson said.

Charity came in large and small forms. As a child, Patterson remembered going to a donut shop with her father on Saturdays.

They were often joined by a man she didn’t know, and her father paid the bill. Later in life she realized the man was homeless.

“When someone lives their life like this and this happens, it really tests your faith,” their neighbor, Tom Murphy, said at the time.