Veronica Butler, left, and Jilian Kelley were reported missing March 30 in Texas County, Oklahoma, when they were on their way to pick up Butler’s kids. Four people are facing murder and kidnapping charges. (Texas County Sheriff’s Office)
Arrest affidavits released Monday lay out the elaborate plot a desperate grandmother and three others concocted to kill the mother of her grandchildren and another woman who just happened to be along for the ride.
Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, left southern Kansas the morning of March 30 and traveled to Texas County, Oklahoma, to pick up Butler’s kids for a birthday party. Butler had court-ordered visitation with her children each Saturday and Kelley was one of the people selected the court approved to supervise the visit. Kelley stepped in after the regular supervisor was unavailable, investigators say. The two set out around 9 a.m. to pick up the kids but the pair never made it to their destination.
Butler’s family members searched for her vehicle and found it abandoned shortly after noon March 30 along Highway 95 and Road L in Texas County near the border with Kansas. According to the affidavit, cops found “evidence of severe injury,” including blood surrounding the vehicle. Officers also recovered Butler’s sunglasses, a broken hammer and a pistol magazine without a pistol in Kelley’s purse.
Investigators with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation quickly learned that Butler was in the midst of a bitter custody dispute with the paternal grandmother of her two children, 54-year-old Tifany Adams. The affidavit says Adams’ son, the children’s father, had full custody of the kids but she often took care of them.
“I think from the get go once we arrived on scene and gained a little bit of information started coming in we felt that this wasn’t a random deal,” said Texas County Sheriff Matt Boley at a press conference. “We felt that it was more targeted and we started to look in those areas that we were pointed to.”
Boley said his agency allowed the OSBI to take the lead on the case. Detectives spoke with Adams who claimed she had spoken with Butler around 9 a.m. the day of the disappearance. She allegedly said Butler told her that her plans had changed and she would not be picking up the kids. But cops determined that was not true because they knew Butler and Kelley were en route to the kids.
Clockwise from top left: Tad Bert Cullum, Tifany Machel Adams, Cora Twombly, Cole Earl Twombly. The four are facing murder and kidnapping charges in the disappearance of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley in rural Oklahoma. (Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation)
Agents also talked with Butler’s attorney who said a judge was about to issue extended visitation to Butler. This apparently didn’t set well with Adams. Cops found recordings of Adams and her boyfriend, 43-year-old Tad Bert Cullum, allegedly making death threats toward Butler. Adams allegedly told family members that the custody battle wouldn’t last much longer because she “had it under control” and knew “the path the judge walked to work.” She also is accused of saying “we will take out Veronica at drop off.”
A search of Adams’ phone showed she made web searches for “taser pain level, gun shops, prepaid cellular phones and how to get someone out of their house,” the affidavit said. They also discovered she bought five Tasers and prepaid cellphones.
Detectives on April 3 interviewed a teenage family member of 44-year-old Cora Twombly and her husband 50-year-old Cole Earl Twombly who were friends with Adams. The girl said Cora Twombly told her that she, her husband, Adams and Cullum, plus another man yet to be arrested, were involved in the murders. She said Adams had provided her co-conspirators with the burner phones to communicate without using their own phones, the affidavit said.
The teenager described to detectives how the suspects say they are part of an anti-government group dubbed “God’s Misfits” and meet weekly at each other’s homes. The Twomblys allegedly told the girl on the day of the murders that they were going on a “mission,” the affidavit said. The pair returned home around noon on March 30 and told the girl “things did not go as planned, but that they would not have to worry” about Butler again, investigators wrote.
Cora Twombly allegedly told the teenager how the plan was for her and her husband to block the road and throw an anvil through Butler’s windshield to divert them to where Adams, Cullum and the man who has not been charged were waiting. They allegedly wanted to make it “look like an accident” because anvils fall onto the highway all the time. The teenager asked Cora Twombly why Kelley had to die and she replied that Kelley “wasn’t innocent” because she “had supported Butler,” the affidavit said. According to the affidavit, the suspects had tried to kill Butler outside her home in February but she refused to come out which explains the “how to get someone out of their house” search.
Investigators say data from the burner phones showed were in the location of where Butler and Kelley went missing. The phones also show they then traveled about eight miles to another area of rural Texas County. Agents found a freshly dug hole near a dam. The affidavit does not describe the discovery of the bodies, but OSBI said agents found the bodies Sunday. The bodies were taken to the Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner’s Office for positive identification as well as cause and manner of death.
Adams, Cullum and the Twomblys were arrested Saturday. They are all facing two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of conspiracy to commit murder in the first-degree, authorities said.
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