TEXAS COUNTY, Okla. (TCD) — Court documents are revealing additional information about the two Kansas women who were killed in rural Oklahoma while picking up one of the victim’s children.
Jilian Kelley and Veronica Butler were reported missing under suspicious circumstances on March 30 when their car was found abandoned on the side of the highway. The women were “traveling together to pick up children,” but they never made it to their intended destination.
Their bodies were discovered in Texas County on April 14, one day after the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) arrested Tifany Adams, Tad Cullum, Cole Twombly, and Cora Twombly. All are charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
On April 24, the OSBI announced investigators arrested a fifth suspect, Paul Grice, on the same charges.
The suspects are reportedly part of an anti-government religious group called God’s Misfits.
According to a search warrant cited by USA Today, investigators located Kelley and Butler’s bodies while excavating part of a cow pasture. They were reportedly placed in a chest freezer with “personal items” that weren’t their own, including jeans, a bloody knife, saw handle, Taser, electrical cord, tape, gloves, and other items.
Adams’ son is the father of Butler’s children, and Butler and Adams were reportedly in the midst of a “problematic custody battle.” Butler had supervised visitation with her kids every Sunday, and Kelley was her appointed supervisor the day they went missing.
An affidavit alleges Butler and Adams planned to meet at an intersection where Butler would pick up her daughter and take her to a birthday party. Butler’s family members began searching for her when she and her daughter did not show up, and they called law enforcement after finding her car. Deputies reportedly “found evidence of severe injury” at the scene, including blood on the road, a broken hammer, a pistol magazine, and Kelley’s glasses.
The suspects reportedly tried to kill Butler in February and planned to “throw an anvil through Butler’s windshield while driving, making it look like an accident because anvils regularly fall off work vehicles.”
Butler and Kelley’s causes of death have not been released.
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