Clockwise from top left: Tad Bert Cullum, Tifany Machel Adams, Cora Twombly, Cole Earl Twombly. (Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation)
The group of people who dubbed themselves “God’s Misfits” murdered two moms on a rural Oklahoma highway and drove them to a cattle farm where they dug a hole with a skid steer and buried the bodies inside a chest freezer, according to warrants.
Tifany Adams, 54, her boyfriend, Tad Bert Cullum, 43, along with Cora Twombly, 44, and her husband, Cole Earl Twombly, 50, are charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. A fifth person, 31-year-old Paul Grice, is facing the same charges. 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 bitter custody dispute. Butler’s family reported her and Kelley missing on March 30 after they failed to return from a meeting with Adams to pick up the kids.
The warrants obtained by Law&Crime say Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) agents searched a property in rural Texas County, Oklahoma, on April 13. Agents had tracked burner phones used by the suspects from the site of the alleged murders to a farm Cullum rented to raise cattle, according to the warrant. There, agents found a possible burial site. Investigators found the bodies of the two moms the next day after digging up the chest freezer. Detectives also reportedly recovered items belonging to the suspects.
Cops interviewed the property owner who said he saw Cullum digging on the farm with a skid steer on March 29 and in the early morning hours of March 30. The property owner told agents that on March 28 or 29 Cullum and Adams asked if they could cut down a tree, remove the stump and complete some “dirt work” near a concrete pile. The owner agreed to let them do the work and the skid steer was gone by noon on March 30, the warrant said.
On March 31, Cullum came to the property owner’s house and said people were “looking at him for the disappearance of Butler and Kelley,” according to the warrant. Cullum reportedly told the property owner it “looked bad” that there were all the skid steer tracks but no skid steer. Cullum told the property owner that if anyone asked to say that Cullum had done the tree and dirt work for the property owner, the warrant said.
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 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 OSBI quickly zeroed in on Adams after learning of the custody dispute, according to the affidavit. Adams’ son, the kids’ 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, 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.
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)
The teenager described to detectives how the suspects say they are part of a religious and anti-government group dubbed “God’s Misfits” and meet weekly at each other’s homes. 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.
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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