Police Off The Cuff/Real Crime Stories
Will the Oklahoma murder moms defendants turn on each other?
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Two Kansas women who vanished as they tried to pick up children for a birthday party two weeks ago were killed over a custody dispute involving a group of anti-government Oklahomans calling themselves “God’s Misfits,” authorities said Monday.
Their vehicle was found March 30 along a rural Oklahoma highway with ample evidence of a bloody confrontation, setting off a multi-agency effort to secure the children’s safety while searching for the women and avoiding more violence.
Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, of Hugoton, Kansas, had arranged with the grandmother of Butler’s two children to meet at a highway intersection on the morning of March 30 and pick up the 6- and 8-year-old.
“This case did not end the way we had hoped. It’s certainly been a tragedy for everyone involved,” Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Director Aungela Spurlock said.
The four people arrested Saturday on charges of kidnapping and first-degree murder are the grandmother, Tifany Adams, 54; her boyfriend Tad Cullum, 43; Cora Twombly, 44; and her husband Cole Twombly, 50. All meet regularly with several others in a group they call “God’s Misfits,” their arrest affidavits said. Relatives of Tad Cullum and the Twomblys did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment. Tifany Adams’ stepmother, Elise Adams, said she had no information on the case.
Butler’s family found the vehicle just a few miles from the meet-up spot after the women missed the party in Kansas. It was a gruesome scene.
“Blood was found on the roadway and the 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 affidavits said.
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