Paul Grice is facing charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39. Grice allegedly helped Tifany Adams, the paternal grandmother of Butler’s children, kidnap and kill Butler and Kelley. (Texas County Sheriff’s Department)
Cops in Oklahoma have made a fifth arrest in the case of two women who went missing and were later found dead in what authorities have described as a bitter child custody battle that turned violent.
Paul Grice, 31, is facing two counts each of first-degree murder and kidnapping and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. He joins four other defendants facing the same charges: Tifany Adams, 54, her boyfriend, Tad Bert Cullum, 43, along with Cora Twombly, 44, and her husband, Cole Earl Twombly, 50. They are accused of killing Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39.
Adams is the paternal grandmother of Butler’s two children and the two were in the midst of a custody dispute.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Butler and Kelley were traveling from their homes in southern Kansas to meet Adams to pick up the two kids on March 30. Butler had court-ordered visitation with her children each Saturday and Kelley was one of the people selected 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 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.
Veronica Butler, left, and Jilian Kelley were reported missing March 30 in Texas County, Oklahoma, when they were on their way to pick up Butler’s kids. Four people are facing murder and kidnapping charges. (Texas County Sheriff’s Office)
Investigators with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) quickly zeroed in on Adams after learning of the custody dispute, according to the affidavit. Adams’ son, the children’s father, had full custody of the kids but she often took care of them.
“I think from the get-go once we arrived on scene and gained a little bit of information started coming in we felt that this wasn’t a random deal,” Texas County Sheriff Matt Boley previously said. “We felt that it was more targeted and we started to look in those areas that we were pointed to.”
Boley said his agency allowed the OSBI to take the lead on the case. Detectives interviewed Adams who claimed she had spoken with Butler the morning of the disappearance. Adams allegedly said Butler told her that her plans had changed and she would not be picking up the kids. But cops determined that was not true because they knew Butler and Kelley were en route to meet Adams.
Agents also talked with Butler’s attorney who said a judge was about to issue extended visitation to Butler. This apparently didn’t set well with Adams. Cops found recordings of Adams and Cullum allegedly making death threats toward Butler. Adams allegedly told family members that the custody battle wouldn’t last much longer because she “had it under control” and knew “the path the judge walked to work.” She also is accused of saying “we will take out Veronica at drop off.”
Detectives on April 3 interviewed a teenage family member of the Twomblys. The girl allegedly said Cora Twombly told her that she, her husband, Adams, Cullum and Grice were involved in the murders. She said Adams had provided her co-conspirators with the burner phones to communicate without using their own phones, the affidavit said. Adams also allegedly bought five stun guns at a local store.
The Twomblys allegedly told the girl on the day of the murders that they were going on a “mission,” the affidavit said. The pair returned home around noon on March 30 and told the girl “things did not go as planned, but that they would not have to worry” about Butler again, investigators wrote.
Cora Twombly allegedly told the teenager how the plan was for her and her husband to block the road and throw an anvil through Butler’s windshield to divert them off the road to where Adams, Cullum and Grice were waiting. They allegedly wanted to make it “look like an accident” because anvils fall onto the highway all the time.
The teenager asked Cora Twombly why Kelley had to die and she replied that Kelley “wasn’t innocent” because she “had supported Butler,” the affidavit said. According to the affidavit, the suspects had tried to kill Butler outside her home in February but she refused to come out which explains the “how to get someone out of their house” search.
Top: Tad Bert Cullum and Tifany Machel Adams; Bottom: Cole Earl Twombly and Cora Twombly. The four are facing murder and kidnapping charges in the disappearance of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley in rural Oklahoma. (Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation)
Investigators say data from the burner phones showed the suspects were in the location of where Butler and Kelley went missing. The phones also show they then traveled about eight miles to another area of rural Texas County. Agents found a freshly dug hole near a dam. The affidavit does not describe the discovery of the bodies, but OSBI said agents found the bodies April 14. The Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner’s Office positively identified the women and will determine a cause and manner of death.
Adams, Cullum and the Twomblys were arrested April 13. Adams also was previously elected by a “handful” of people as the Republican Party chair of Cimarron County, a small county in the far western part of Oklahoma’s panhandle.
Leanne Webb, who met Adams last year at a political event, told the New York Post that Adams was “unhinged.”
“She has a lot of weird beliefs, and thinks that the rest of the world is corrupt,” Webb told the Post. “It was all conspiracy theories and stuff that didn’t make any sense.”
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