The final, violent moments of two women whose bodies were discovered buried in an underground freezer in Oklahoma are described in an autopsy. The case involved a strange child custody dispute.
According to Law&Crime, Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, were discovered dead in April, over two weeks after going missing after leaving southern Kansas to pick up Butler’s children for a birthday celebration in Texas County, Oklahoma.
In connection with the killings, five people are charged. First-degree murder, kidnapping, and one count of conspiracy to commit murder are the charges against Tifany Adams, 54; her boyfriend, Tad Bert Cullum, 43; Cora Twombly, 44; and her husband, Cole Earl Twombly, 50. Paul Grice, 31, is the sixth individual accused of the same offenses.
According to Law & Crime, Adams is the paternal grandmother of Butler’s two children, and the two were involved in a custody battle. On March 30, Butler’s family reported her and Kelley missing after they did not come back to pick up the children following a meeting with Adams.
According to the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s postmortem report, which Law & Crime was able to obtain, Butler sustained 30 head and neck injuries from sharp objects.
According to the report, she also suffered a single blunt force injury to the top of the back of her head, along with potential stun gun marks on her upper back and lower neck.
According to the investigation, Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley’s bodies were purposefully hidden inside a sealed freezer after they were fatally attacked.
According to the investigation, the freezer was then covered with a big slab of concrete and buried 4 to 8 feet below the ground. According to the complaint, police discovered a knife, a roll of tape, a stun pistol, and clothing beneath the freezer.
Given the extent of Ms. Butler s injuries, including defects to both of her internal jugular veins with resultant exsanguination, it is my opinion that her death was very quick and likely occurred before she was placed inside the freezer and buried, the report said. The fact that her body seemed to have stayed in the freezer exactly how it was placed lends further credence to this view.
According to warrants received by Law & Crime, on April 13, agents of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) searched a farm located in rural Texas County, Oklahoma. According to the warrant, agents had followed the suspects’ burner phones from the scene of the alleged killings to a farm Cullum rented for cattle rearing. Agents discovered a potential graveyard there. After excavating the chest freezer, investigators discovered the two mothers’ deaths the following day. According to reports, detectives also found the suspects’ belongings.
Cops interviewed the property owner who said he saw Cullum digging on the farm with a skid steer on March 29 and in the early morning of March 30. The property owner told agents that on March 28 or 29 Cullum and Adams asked if they could cut down a tree, remove the stump and complete some dirt work near a concrete pile. The owner agreed to let them do the work and the skid steer was gone by noon on March 30, the warrant said.
On March 31, Cullum came to the property owner s house and said people were looking at him for the disappearance of Butler and Kelley, according to the warrant. Cullum reportedly told the property owner it looked bad that there were all the skid steer tracks but no skid steer. Cullum told the property owner that if anyone asked to say that Cullum had done the tree and dirt work for the property owner, the warrant said.
Butler had court-ordered visitation with her children each Saturday and Kelley was one of the people 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 on March 30 along Highway 95 and Road L in Texas County near the border with Kansas. According to a probable cause affidavit, cops found evidence of severe injury, including blood surrounding the vehicle. Officers also recovered Butler s sunglasses and a broken hammer on the road, and a pistol magazine without a pistol in Kelley s purse.
Investigators with the OSBI quickly zeroed in on Adams after learning of the custody dispute, according to the affidavit. Adams son, the kids father, had full custody of the kids but she often took care of them.
In an April interview with detectives, a teenage family member of the Twomblys described to detectives how the suspects allegedly said they are part of a religious and anti-government group dubbed God s Misfits and revealed other alleged details of the bizarre plot.
Law&Crime s David Harris contributed to this report.
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