COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – In May of 2018, a Middle Tennessee couple vanished without a trace. It would be years later when the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) found their bodies and uncovered the heinous crime in the process.

Now, the two men charged in their deaths have been found guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

Long-time couple Kristie and Henry Wilson, who were not married but had the same last name, were last seen at a gas station in Putnam County before they disappeared.

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“Exhausting. Exhausting,” said Kristie’s sister Kimberly Rediker describing the last several years.

The feelings can often become overwhelming.

“She was a part of our family. She’s a part that’s now missing,” said Bridget Murphy, Kristie’s cousin. “They were more than just flesh and bones; they were somebody’s family; they were loved; they were cared for.”

On the night of May 9, 2018, Rediker said Kristie, 39 at the time, was at their aunt’s house in Monterey when she was picked up by her longtime boyfriend, Henry. The couple stopped at a nearby BP gas station for gas and cigarettes.

That was the last known sighting of the pair.

The family would launch into a constant search after their disappearance.

“Every single day, the first year my sister went missing, every single day we would be out with binoculars. We would follow up every tip. We were literally just driving slow down the roads and getting out of our cars and looking with binoculars,” Rediker and Murphy remembered.

Four months after the couple went missing, the TBI announced in September that law enforcement found Kristie’s car down an embankment in Fentress County, breaking open the case.

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“Before the car was found, there was maybe, you know, that one little 1% chance that maybe she was just being held up somewhere, but as soon as they found the car, I knew that they were dead,” said Rediker.

Then in October of 2021, the TBI found the couple’s remains in Overton County. Soon after, agents arrested Ryan ‘Bo’ Cravens and his father, Robert Cravens, in connection with the deaths of Kristie and Henry.

In January 2024, the case finally went before a judge and jury. The victim’s families sat and listened as the gruesome details were revealed. Rediker and Murphy described how the victim’s bodies were burned.

“More information about how my sister suffered came out than we originally believed. We believed that by the time she got to the burn pile she was pretty much unconscious and incoherent, but it turns out that wasn’t true. She had to live through finding out that Henry was dead under the woodpile and they forced her to her knees as they watched them put Henry on the fire, and she knew her fate at that time,” they explained.

Each day, the two attended every day of court, listening eagerly to what the jury would decide.

“My sister doesn’t have a voice, and I know if my sister were here and I was the one missing and I was the one who got murdered, that she would do everything that she could, and so that kept me continuing to show up,” Rediker said.

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News 2 learned the Cravens were found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence. Although the family was hoping for a first-degree murder verdict, they are happy to be a step closer to justice in their eyes.

“We feel like the jury did everything they possibly could; they did their very best to give us some sort of justice; they were as heartbroken as we were that it couldn’t be more, but we’re hoping with everything else that they will never see the light of day,” Murphy said.

Sentencing is scheduled for Monday, May 13. Rediker and Murphy said they plan to see the court process through and ask the judge to hand down maximum sentences.

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