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Bodies of Kansas moms found in freezer: court documents

(NewsNation) — The bodies of two Kansas moms who disappeared while on a trip to Oklahoma were found in a freezer, according to newly filed court documents.

Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley disappeared on March 30, 2024, while on a trip to visit Butler’s children. The car they were in was found abandoned and investigators eventually arrested five people in connection with the two women’s deaths, which they said were related to a child custody fight.

Documents filed in Texas County, Oklahoma, revealed that after spending two days excavating a burial site in a cow pasture, investigators found the women’s bodies in a chest freezer. The filing does not say how the women were killed.

Warrants stated that several items of note were found at the burial site, some of them possibly having blood on them. Those include jeans, sweatshirts, tee shirts, a black jacket, cloth gloves, ball caps, duct tape and a sheathed black knife.

In April, Tifany Adams, Tad Cullum, Cole Twombly, Cora Twombly and Paul Grice were arrested in connection with the crime. Adams is the paternal grandmother of Butler’s children.

The new documents also describe how Grice, who was arrested later, reacted to the initial arrest of the other four suspects.

Investigators say he asked a witness how long DNA would last on clothing in a dirt hole that was 15 feet deep as well as asking if the witness knew “how to get a guy and his family” to Mexico.

Court documents also reveal data was seized from the suspects’ devices that could link them to the crime, including cellphones that both Cole and Cora Twombly had in a truck that they were driving when they were arrested.

According to the filing, Adams purchased those cellphones and another device in February at a Walmart.