Editor’s note: Judge talks about his firing after the NewsNation interview on Kansas moms
(NewsNation) — A friend of one of the suspects charged with the murder of the missing Kansas moms has been forced to resign since telling NewsNation he was shocked by the killings.
Vincent Forbes, a local municipal court judge who says he’s a friend of suspect Tad Cullum, revealed that he had been in regular contact with Cullum and was even present at the residence during the police raid.
The judge’s decision to speak out about the case appears to have angered local officials, with the mayor who appointed him demanding his resignation.
“I’m blown away that this even happened,” Forbes said, referring to the arrest of his friend. “Tad was a very good friend of mine. I’m not gonna say he was a very good friend of mine. He is a good friend of mine.”
Forbes, who is also Cullum’s business partner, said he never got a “bad vibe,” describing him as “one of the nicest, funniest” people he knew. However, Forbes acknowledged that Cullum’s partner and alleged accomplice, Tifany Adams, seemed “a little bit out of left field.”
Adams, her boyfriend Cullum, Cora Twombly, and her husband Cole Twombly are each charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley, who vanished March 30 while traveling to pick up Butler’s children for a supervised visit.
The quartet, allegedly part of an anti-government religious group called “God’s Misfits,” have become central figures in the investigation.
“The way I understand it is they got God behind them, and they make their own laws. But now, again, that’s hearsay. I never knew about them,” Forbes said.
The four suspects lived in the Oklahoma Panhandle, a thin strip of land with a history of lawlessness and criminality in the 1800s. The Oklahoma Panhandle, where the suspects lived and where the two bodies were found, had historically been known as “No Man’s Land.”
NewsNation learned that the property owner, who had leased the land to Cullum, was in disbelief when investigators showed up at his property and started digging.
Authorities have revealed that the disappearance is believed to be linked to a violent escalation in a custody dispute between Butler and Adams.
The investigation remains ongoing, with lingering questions about the role of a fifth suspect, Paul Grice, who was allegedly involved in a previous murder plot but not arrested along with the others.