A 54-year-old grandmother from Oklahoma reportedly confessed to being involved in the surprise killings of her former daughter-in-law and another woman who was with her when she was picking up her children last month.
“Tifany Adams, did give a recorded statement to law enforcement indicating her involvement in the death of the victims,” Texas County District Attorney George H. Leach III wrote in his request to refuse bail for Adams, who was arrested along with her boyfriend, Tad Cullum, and a married couple, Cole and Cora Twombly, for the killings of 27-year-old Veronica Butler and 39-year-old Jilian Kelley.
Leach did not provide any specifics about what Adams said about the killings, but details about the surprise attack that the four defendants and another man, who was named but not arrested, planned for Butler and Kelley on March 30 are laid out in a probable cause affidavit that was included in his request.
The court refused bail to all four defendants last week in a Texas County court, as CrimeOnline previously stated.
Leach further clarified that the killings were carried out “in order to prevent Veronica Butler from regaining custody and/or unsupervised supervision with her children.”
Critical information about the killings came from Cora Twombly’s 16-year-old daughter with a previous husband, identified as CW in the probable cause affidavit. The girl told investigators that her mother, Cole Twombly, Adams, Cullum, and the fifth man were all “involved in the deaths of Butler and Kelley.”
The day of the disappearance
According to the terms of the custody of Butler’s two children, she had supervised visitation with them every Saturday but had recently filed for extended and unsupervised visits. A hearing was scheduled for April 17, and her attorney told investigators that the court was expected to grant unsupervised visits at that time.
But on March 30, a supervisor was required. There were four people approved to supervise the visits, and Adams, who was the primary caretaker of the children although her son had legal custody, was partial one particular woman. But prior to March 30, she told Butler that woman wasn’t available, telling her to choose someone else. That woman later told investigators she was available on March 30.
Butler picked Kelley, a Kansas pastor’s wife, from the remaining three, and on that Saturday, she and Kelley headed to the Oklahoma panhandle from their Kansas home to get the kids and take them to a birthday party.
724732666-T-Adams-CF-24-72-Mtn-to-Hold by kc wildmoon on Scribd
While Butler was picking up Kelley for the trip to Texas County, Adams called her. The actual contents of that call aren’t known, but Adams later told investigators that Butler had said something came up and she wouldn’t be picking up the children.
Meanwhile, in Cimarron County at the Twombleys’ home, they told CW on March 29 they wouldn’t be home the next morning when she woke up because they “were going on a ‘mission,'” the affidavit says. Sure enough, the girl told detectives, the Twombleys had left in a blue and grey Chevy pickup truck, taking with them a blue flatbed truck owned by a relative.
Butler planned to pick up the children from Adams at a particular intersection called Four Corners at 10 a.m. Cell phone data showed that Butler and Kelley only made it as far as Highway 95 and Road L at about 9:40 p.m. At that point, their cell phones could no longer be tracked.
CW was told that Cora and Cole blocked the road to stop Butler and Kelley and divert them to where Adams, Cullum, and the fifth man were.
The suspects, armed with guns and five tasers Adams had researched online and bought, killed the two women and took them to a property Cullum was leasing for pasture, where they buried the bodies. Cullum used a skid steer to clear the way, then put concrete and hay over the bodies and took the skid steer away.
When Butler and Kelley didn’t make it to the birthday party, family members began worrying and found Butler’s car about 1,000 feet down a dirt track off Highway 95 and called police. Investigators found blood on the road and beside the road, Butler’s eyeglasses on the roadway, and Kelley’s purse with an ammunition clip inside but no gun. The search for the two women began.
The Twomblys returned to their home at about noon.
CW asked Cora about what had happened and was told that things did not go as planned, but they would not have to worry about her (Butler) again.
CW also asked her mother why Kelley “had to die and was told by Cora that she wasn’t innocent either, as she had supported Butler.”
CW asked Cora if their bodies were put in a well, and Cora replied, ‘something like that.'
The teen further told investigators it wasn’t the first time the group had tried to kill Butler. In February, they went to her Kansas home with a plan to lure her out of the house and drop an anvil through her car windshield while she was driving, “making it look like an accident because anvils regularly fall off of work vehicles,” the affidavit said.
Investigators interviewed CW in Texas on April 3, apparently at her father’s home, and while the detectives were there, Cole and Cora Twombly arrived.
“Cora was verbally aggressive and was very upset with your affiant that she was not granted access to CW and her brother,” the officer wrote in the affidavit. “Cole exited the vehicle armed with a handgun in a holster on his belt.”
Search warrants
Investigators learned that in addition to stun guns, Adams had bought three burner phones from a Walmart in Guyton in February. They obtained search warrants for those phones and found that all three had been in the area where Butler’s vehicle was found on the morning of March 30 as well as the spot where her phone last pinged. Two of those phones ad also been in the pasture area, where the bodies were later found, about 8 1/2 miles from where the car was located, about 30 minutes later.
The owner of the property, Jamie Beasley, said to investigators that Cullum had used a skid steer for some earth-moving work on March 29, left the skid steer on the property overnight, and may have finished the work the next morning, when the skid steer was no longer there. On the following day, March 31, Cullum returned to the homeowner and told him that people were suspecting him for the disappearance of Butler and Kelley.
Cullum told Beasley that he didn't want the police or people to cause problems for Beasley and said that the skid steer tracks on his property without a skid steer looked bad. Beasley said that if anyone asked, he would tell them that Cullum had done tree and dirt work for him.
Investigators carried out a search warrant at the property on April 13 — the same day Adams, Cullum, and the Twomblys were arrested — where they found the bodies in an area of disturbed dirt. They also found a stun gun at the site.
During Adams' arrest, she informed law enforcement that she was responsible for the deaths of Butler and Kelley, according to the affidavit.
Further investigations of Adams' phone revealed her searches for taser pain level, gun shops, prepaid cellular phones and how to get someone out of their house. The gun shop search included the one in Guyton where she bought the stun guns on March 23.
The investigators also uncovered information about the child custody case, including recordings made by Rickman discussing death threats by Adams and Adams' boyfriend, Tad Cullum. Rickman also mentioned that his mother occasionally refused to let him have the children, and that on at least one occasion police were called — and the officer told Rickman he believed the children were better off in Adams' care.
Rickman's grandmother, Debi Knox-Davis, told investigators that Rickman had informed her in February they wouldn't have to worry about the custody fight much longer. He reportedly said that Adams had it under control and they will take out Veronica at drop off, although when questioned, he denied making the statements.
Rickman, who was in a rehabilitation facility in Oklahoma City at the time of the murders, has not been charged in the case. He was not the fifth man listed in the affidavit.
God's Misfits
Adams, Cullum, and the Twomblys were arrested on April 13. Investigators said they found a rifle, ammunition, body armor, and a go bag at Cullum's home when he was arrested.
Adams and Culum have a history of violent interactions, including death threats and intimidation against individuals who disagree with their ideas, the affidavit said. Members of the conspiracy participated in multiple attempts to murder Butler in the States of Oklahoma and Kansas. They abide by their own philosophy and have no regard for the sanctity of human life.
CW, Cora Twombly's daughter, also told investigators that the four suspects were part of an anti-government group that had a religious affiliation, and that state investigators later learned that group called itself God's Misfits and had weekly meetings at the home of members, including the Twomblys.
Officials said multiple times in the document that the group posed a serious threat.
The document stated, “Adams, Cullum, Cora, and Cole have enough resources to plan and carry out a complicated murder. Therefore, they also have the resources to escape if given the chance.”
The people accused are facing charges of murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy. They are scheduled to appear in court again on May 15.
[Featured image: Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley/Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation]