The fifth suspect arrested in the death of two Kansas women who disappeared in the Oklahoma panhandle on March 30 admitted that he was involved in planning their murders.
According to an affidavit, Paul Grice also admitted during a police interview on Tuesday “that he participated in the killing of [Veronica] Butler and [Jilian] Kelley and their subsequent burial,” The Oklahoman reported.
Butler, 27, and Kelley, 39, were headed to Texas County, Oklahoma, on the morning of March 30 to pick up Butler’s children for a scheduled visitation from their grandmother, Tifany Adams, the mother of the children’s father. Adams was involved in a nasty custody dispute with Butler that sometimes included preventing her son, Wrangler Rickman, from seeing the children as well.
Adams, her boyfriend Tad Cullum, and married couple Cole and Cora Twombly were arrested over the weekend and charged with two counts of murder, two counts of kidnapping, and conspiracy in the women’s deaths. Their bodies were found the next day, buried on property Cullum leased for pasture.
According to her affidavit, Adams also “did provide a recorded statement to law enforcement indicating her responsibility for the death of the deceased,” as CrimeOnline reported. That affidavit also said that Cora Twombly’s 16-year-old daughter provided much of the information about the planning of the murders — which began at least as far back as February — and named all five of the now arrested suspects as participants in the planning and murder.
The daughter said that her mother and stepfather blocked the road and forced Butler and Kelley to the nearby spot where the others were waiting. When the Twomblys returned home, Cora reportedly told her daughter that “things did not go as planned, but that they did not have to worry about her (Butler) again.”
The teen also said that the five were members of a anti-government, religious group called “God’s Misfits” that met weekly at either the Twomblys’ home or another couple’s home.
It’s not clear why Grice was not arrested at the time the other four were arrested. He faces the same charges — two each of murder and kidnapping, along with conspiracy.
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[Featured image: Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley/Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation]
