Investigators say they were deliberately killed by Adams, Cullum and the Twomblys.
She also looked up taser pain level, gun shops and prepaid cell phones, investigators said.
At the time Butler and Kelley went missing, Rickman was confirmed to be in a rehabilitation facility in Oklahoma City, officials said.
Adams told officers she had called Butler to check if she was coming for the usual Saturday visit.
She said Butler told her that something had come up and she could not make it.
Brune, however, told investigators she had been available, but was told by Adams to take a couple of weeks off.
And she said her mother told her the two couples were involved in the killings.
The owner agreed and told investigators that Cullum brought his equipment and did the work on Friday, March 29, possibly into the early hours.
Tifany Machel Adams wished for nothing more to be seen of their mother among her grandchildren. But Veronica Butler, the mother of the children, desired more time with her children than the Saturday visits under supervision that were permitted by the court.
It represented the most recent turning point in a five-year-old custody dispute.
In probable cause affidavits filed with requests for warrants for the arrest of Adams, her boyfriend Tad Cullum, and married couple Cole and Cora Twombly, investigators provided some of the following details. In relation to the deaths of Jilian Kelley and Butler, who had children with Adams’ son, each person is accused of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of conspiring to commit murder. This narrative dissects the murders’ purported chronology using statements from affidavits and other official documents.
On Wednesday, the four suspects were led separately into the Texas County Courthouse while wearing protective vests and striped jail jumpsuits. They were all shackled.
The court docket indicates that during their initial court appearance, all four defendants were denied bond. According to Charles Laughlin, executive director of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, they were assigned court-appointed attorneys. According to Laughlin’s email to CNN, the agency’s policy is not to discuss ongoing cases with the press.
While traveling from Kansas to pick up Butler’s children from Adams late last month, the two victims, Kelley and Butler, vanished in the desolate, open panhandle of Oklahoma.
According to investigators, Adams, Cullum, and the Twomblys killed them on purpose. Butler had also been targeted by them previously.
Anvil as a possible tool for murder.
According to what a witness told investigators, Butler’s boyfriend, Adams, and the couple went to her house near Hugoton, Kansas, in February with the intention of killing her.
As anvils frequently fall off work vehicles, the witness continued, they planned to toss one through Butler’s windshield while she was driving, thinking it would appear to be an accident.
Butler, however, stayed inside her house.
That’s when Adams looked up how to get someone out of their house on the internet. Investigators said that she also searched for gun stores, prepaid cell phones, and the pain threshold of tasers.
In February, she purchased three burner phones—prepaid and unregistered—from the closest Walmart. At a nearby gun store, Adams purchased five stun guns a few days after Butler requested additional visitation rights with her kids in March.
The woman in charge of overseeing Butler’s visits with her kids was then granted time off by Adams over Easter weekend. The young ones made plans to stay the night with some friends.
According to the charging documents, their mother was murdered the following day, Saturday, March 30.
A murderous surprise attack.
While Wrangler Rickman, Adams’ son, is the grandchildren’s legal guardian and father, it appears that Adams, 54, has frequently had physical custody of them. Officials stated that Rickman was confirmed to be in a Oklahoma City rehabilitation center at the time Butler and Kelley vanished.
According to the court documents, Adams occasionally forbade her son from having his children. Law enforcement was called when that occurred once.
Additionally, investigators think Adams was Butler’s final contact.
Adams informed the police that she had called Butler to see if she would be making her customary Saturday visit. Butler reportedly informed her that she was unable to attend due to an unforeseen circumstance.
The call was made at nine in the morning, according to phone records. M. not to mention that Butler was already in Hugoton at the time to pick up Kelley, a pastor’s wife who had consented to watch over Butler and her kids.
Adams preferred Cheryl Brune, the regular supervisor, but Brune was not available that day, so Kelley filled in for her. However, Brune told investigators that she had been available and that Adams had instructed her to take a few weeks off.
Butler informed family members that she would pick up her kids at the Four Corners cross-state intersection of US-64 and State Route 95 in Oklahoma before attending a birthday celebration with her extended family. Merely five miles north of the scheduled meeting place, her vehicle was abandoned when her relatives Melissa and Joey Padilla went in search of her after she failed to show up for the celebration. They then called the police.
The junction of Oklahoma State Highway 95 and Road L is one of those lonely spots where it seems like there is nothing but flat land stretching out in all directions. In addition to the lack of nearby houses or traffic cameras that could aid in an investigation, the Great Plains are devoid of trees to mitigate the wind and dust.
However, as Texas County Sheriff Matt Boley told reporters, officers realized right away that something wasn’t right. He stated, “They discovered certain things that just didn’t add up.”. We didn’t think this was a chance encounter. “.
After arriving at the scene at roughly 9:40 a.m., investigators believe Butler and Kelley were lured there. M. They claim that the women were imprisoned in another vehicle after being forced inside.
Blood was discovered by the police on the side of the road and on the pavement. Butler’s glasses were lying there next to a shattered hammer. Kelley’s purse contained a pistol magazine but no gun.
At 9:42 a.m., both of their phones stopped generating signals. M.
The purpose.
A key witness for the investigators compiling the probable cause affidavit was Cora Twombly’s sixteen-year-old daughter.
She claimed to have been informed that when she woke up that Saturday, her mother, 44, and her mother’s husband, 50-year-old Cole Twombly, would be gone because they were going on a “mission.”. “.
She said that Adams and her boyfriend Cullum, along with her mother and stepfather, belonged to a religiously affiliated anti-government group. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) claimed the group was known as God’s Misfits and that they met once a week at either the Twombly residence or another couple’s house.
Each of the four defendants resided in a different small town scattered widely across the Oklahoma Panhandle, roughly halfway between Texas and Kansas and Colorado. Long, straight roads that pass through cattle ranches and farmland separate them. You may have to drive at highway speed for fifteen minutes after leaving one town to get to the next. On the single track along US-64, freight trains carrying cargo from El Paso to Kansas City seem to go on forever.
The adolescent reported overhearing discussions in groups regarding Adams’ grandchildren being in danger if they encountered Butler. She informed the investigators that she had observed two of the burner phones charging on her mother’s nightstand and that Adams had given the other accused phones so they wouldn’t have to use their own devices to communicate.
She added that the two couples were responsible for the killings, according to what her mother told her.
The teenager woke up at around ten in the morning. me. The Twomblys were out on Saturday as promised. Driving a blue and gray Chevrolet pickup that they owned and a blue flatbed pickup that belonged to a relative, they returned around midday.
The daughter was given the task of cleaning the Chevrolet pickup’s interior. When she inquired about the situation, she was informed that although things had not gone according to plan, Butler would not be a concern going forward.
According to what she learned, Butler and Kelley were stopped by her mother and stepfather, who then blocked the road to direct them to where the others were waiting. She gave the name of another individual she claimed was involved, but the police have stated they are not looking for any more suspects.
She claimed to have enquired about Kelley’s death and why the woman Butler had asked to go with her in order to oversee the visit. Her mother retorted that because Kelley had backed Butler, she wasn’t innocent. The Christian Post said that Kelley was the wife of pastor Heath Kelley of Hugoton First Christian Church. It also stated that they planned to relocate to Nebraska in June.
The child finally asked Cora Twombly if the bodies had been placed in a well. Someone said to her, “Something like that.”. “.
A gap in the middle of the livestock.
According to the affidavit, Adams went to the other couple’s house where God’s Misfits meetings were held, where her grandchildren had spent the night, and picked them up around the time the Twomblys got home.
Cullum, 43, who is Adams’ boyfriend, had been working on a property where he rented a pasture for cattle grazing the night before. The landowner said that Cullum had inquired about using his skid steer, a type of bulldozer, for some work there. The landowner’s conversations with officials revealed that he had expressed a desire to remove a stump, cut down a tree, and bury some concrete.
The proprietor concurred and informed the detectives that Cullum arrived with his tools and completed the work on Friday, March 29, possibly into the wee hours of the morning.
He claimed that when he awoke at around noon on Saturday, the skid steer that had been left on his property that evening had vanished.
Investigators were able to trace all three of the burner phones to the location where Butler and Kelley vanished, as well as the time they vanished. Two of the phones were found near Cullum’s pasture, which was beneath a dam. A hole had been excavated, refilled, and covered with hay.
Butler’s car was discovered empty approximately 8.5 miles away from the pasture, according to the affidavit. It said that the drive time between the two locations was “well within” the 34-minute window that separated the moment the victims’ phones stopped working and the burner phones arrived at the pasture.
The Twomblys’ house or the rented pastureland was where all of the prepaid burners lost transmission early on March 30.
Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, were identified on Tuesday night by comparison of two sets of remains found in Texas County, Oklahoma.
Following their attendance at the suspects’ initial appearance on Wednesday, Butler’s family broke down in tears outside the Texas County Courthouse.
Her aunt sobbed and said to CNN affiliate KFDA, “How can you hate the mother of your grandchildren so much that you would end her life?”.
Butler’s younger siblings spoke of the “beautiful soul” that was taken from them far too soon, fighting back tears.
“She resembles a sunflower, a lovely sunflower gazing at the sun. Junia Butler, Veronica’s younger sister, told KFDA, “She’s amazing, an amazing mom.”.
The previous date of the hearing in the ongoing custody dispute between Adams and Butler was set for Wednesday. Butler’s lawyer informed the OSBI that Butler would probably be allowed unsupervised time with her kids that day. Rather, it turned into the first court appearance for the people who are charged with her homicide.
