TEXAS COUNTY, Okla. (NewsNation) — The four suspects arrested in connection to the killings of two Kansas mothers were officially arraigned in an Oklahoma court Wednesday where a judge denied each of them bond.
Paternal grandmother Tifany Adams, 54; her boyfriend Tad Cullum, 43; Cora Twombly, 44; and her husband Cole Twombly, 50, have each been charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder of Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39.
Butler and Kelley vanished on March 30 while en route to pick up Butler’s children for a supervised visit.
The victims’ families attended the arraignment, filling the first three rows of the courtroom. Family members heckled the suspects, shouting expletives at them.
During the extremely emotional hearing, victims family members had to be held back as suspects were brought into court. Family called grandma Tiffany Adams a “f***ing b****” as she entered and the others “sorry pieces of s***.”
NewsNation’s Brian Entin spoke with Butler’s aunt Ladonna Thompson as she left the courtroom. Thompson told Entin that Butler and Kelley didn’t deserve to be killed, nor did the family deserve to have to endure the grief of such a loss.
“There’s just too many emotions, so much anger,” Thompson said. “I don’t understand how somebody can hate somebody so much that you want to kill them. My niece did not deserve that and neither did the young lady with her. She was just there to help her.”
All four suspects are expected back in court sometime next month.
Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley’s bodies found
Butler and Kelley’s bodies were discovered by authorities in Texas County on Sunday during a police search for their remains just over two weeks after their disappearance, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday.
Their bodies were found about 8 1/2 miles away from where their vehicle was discovered abandoned off of Oklahoma State Highway 95 in a hole covered with hay on a property Cullum was renting for cattle grazing.
The cause of death for both women is still pending from the medical examiner’s office.
Veronica Butler and Tifany Adams’ custody battle
Butler was reportedly in the middle of a nasty custody battle with Adams at the time of her death.
Wrangler Rickman, the father of the two children, had legal custody but was in a rehabilitation facility, so the children were living with Adams at the time of the disappearance.
Kelley was the supervisor of the child visits for Butler, court papers stated. The visit was a designated, court-approved visitation that takes place every Saturday.
On the day Butler went missing, Adams asked her preferred court-approved supervisor to “take a couple weeks off” and then told Butler to find someone else to supervise her visitation with her children that day, court papers revealed. Butler then asked Kelley to go with her.
Probable cause affidavits showed that just 10 days before the women went missing, Butler had filed a petition in court for more visitation with her children and was seeking full custody.
Investigators referred to the legal back and forth as a “problematic” custody battle between Adams and Butler, which had been ongoing since February 2019.
Garrett Oates, Butler‘s attorney, said the custody dispute was “contentious from the beginning.” Oates told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo that Butler was an “organized and diligent” client.
Arrest records revealed that Wednesday was the day Butler was scheduled to go to court and receive more visitation rights from Adams, the grandmother who had custody of Butler’s two young children.
Investigators believe the custody battle was a driving motive of the killings.
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.”
The quartet, allegedly part of an anti-government religious group called “God’s Misfits,” has become a central figure in the investigation. The group allegedly met at the Twombly’s residence weekly, court documents revealed.
Police say a fifth person who attended those meetings was not arrested.
Investigation remains ongoing
On Tuesday, police towed away a white trailer from a property Cullum allegedly has ties to. Witnesses say they saw the trailer in the area where the women were killed.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Adams’ cellphone searches include web searches for taser pain level, gun shops, prepaid cell phones and how to get someone out of their house, in the weeks leading up to the disappearance.
The Twombly’s teen daughter told investigators that her mother spoke with her about a previous attempt to kill Butler in February, but that it failed because she didn’t leave her house. That plan was to throw an anvil through Butler’s window, court papers stated.
The daughter also told police that the four told her they were going on a “mission” the day of the women’s disappearance.
When they returned, they told their daughter “things didn’t go as planned” but they wouldn’t have to worry about Butler again, and that Kelley also had to die because she supported Butler.
When she asked her mother if the bodies were put in a well, she replied “something like that.”
‘A tragedy close to home’
Vincent Forbes, a local municipal court judge who says he’s a friend of Cullums, told NewsNation’s Brian Entin Tuesday that he had been in regular contact with Cullum and was even present at the residence during the police raid.
“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 Adams seemed “a little bit out of left field.”
“It’s such a tragedy close to home. You hear about these things on the news. You see all this stuff, but when you’re this close to the fire, it’s a whole different story,” Forbes said.
Forbes has been forced to resign since telling NewsNation he was shocked by the killings. 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.
NewsNation’s Damita Menezes, Katie Smith, Safia Samee Ali and Liz Jassin contributed to this report.