Court documents unsealed Monday shed new light on the disappearance of two women and the arrest of four people accused of their slayings in rural Oklahoma.
Tad Bert Cullum, 43; Tifany Machel Adams, 54; Cole Earl Twombly, 50; and Cora Gayle Twombly, 44, each have been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder “by arranging and planning, the deliberate, intentional, and unlawful taking away of the life of Veronica Butler and/or (Jilian) Kelley,” the charging documents state.
The missing women, 27-year-old Veronica Butler and 39-year-old Jilian Kelley, were driving together to pick up Butler’s children when they disappeared, the Texas County Sheriff’s Office said in an “endangered missing advisory” posted March 30.
This weekend, two bodies were recovered in Texas County, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Hunter McKee said. The identities of the two individuals have not been determined, McKee said during a news conference Monday.
But the nearly identical charging and probable cause documents of the four defendants in custody clearly state they are accused of killing Butler and Kelley.
CNN has made attempts to determine whether the defendants have legal representation. Records do not indicate counsel has been obtained.
Butler was in a custody battle with Adams, who is the grandmother of Butler’s children, according to the probable cause documents.
Cullum is Adam’s boyfriend, according to the probable cause documents. The two other defendants, the Twomblys, are married, the probable cause documents show.
On March 30, the day Butler and Kelley disappeared, they were scheduled to pick up the children from Adams at about 10 a.m. CT and attend a birthday party, but they never made it to the event, according to the probable cause documents. That’s when Butler’s family located Butler’s abandoned vehicle in a rural area of Texas County near the Kansas and Oklahoma border and called police, the same documents show.
“An examination of the vehicle and area surrounding the vehicle found evidence of a severe injury. Blood was found on the roadway and edge of the roadway. Butler’s glasses were also found in the roadway south of the vehicle, near a broken hammer. A pistol magazine was found inside Kelley’s purse at the scene, but no pistol was found,” the probable cause documents state.
Butler and Kelley’s phones were actively sending signals to their carriers until about 9:42 a.m. and then stopped transmitting, the probable cause documents state. The phones have not been recovered, according to the documents.
State investigators extracted information from Adams’ phone that showed web searches for “taser pain level, gun shops, prepaid cellular phones and how to get someone out of their house,” the probable cause documents show. Adams also purchased five stun guns and three pre-paid cellular phones in the months and days leading to the disappearance of Butler and Kelley, according to the documents.
Some details missing in the probable cause documents are whether the bodies of Butler and Kelley have been recovered and how they were allegedly killed.
All four defendants are described as being part of “an anti-government group that had a religious affiliation” called “God’s Misfits” that met weekly, sometimes at the Twomblys’ residence, according to statements made to investigators by Cora Gayle Twombly’s teenage daughter and recorded in the probable cause documents.
The daughter told investigators the defendants made “other attempts to kill Butler” in February, the probable cause documents stated.
The FBI Oklahoma City Field Office is assisting in the investigation with a “dedicated team of agents, analysts, task force officers, evidence response personnel and tactical” teams, according to a statement from the agency.
The defendants are scheduled to make their first court appearances Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. ET, per court documents.
