Missing women confirmed dead, kids safe, authorities say; 4 charged with kidnapping and murder

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH/Gray News/AP) - The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, FBI, Texas County Sheriff’s Department and the Office of the Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner said they recovered two bodies in rural Texas County on Sunday amid a search for two missing Kansas women.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation on Monday described an intense effort to find the women, protect the children and arrest suspects without violence.

Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, of Hugoton, Kansas, were driving through the Oklahoma panhandle to pick up Butler’s children for a March 30 birthday party in Kansas but never showed up, the Associated Press reported. Their vehicle was later found abandoned on a rural highway in Texas County, Oklahoma, about 11 miles south of Elkhart, Kansas, on the Oklahoma-Kansas state line.

Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokesman Hunter McKee said Butler and Kelley are dead, and that the four defendants were responsible for the women going missing, but would not confirm that the bodies found were identified as the missing Kansas women, pending a report from Medical Examiner’s Office.

Oklahoma authorities said 43-year-old Tad Bert Cullum, 54-year-old Tifany Machel Adams, 50-year-old Cole Earl Twombly and 44-year-old Cora Twombly were arrested in Texas and Cimarron Counties in Oklahoma on Saturday.

All four individuals were booked into the Texas County Jail on two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy to commit murder in the first-degree.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol canceled their Endangered Missing Advisory for Butler and Kelley Saturday night.

Copyright 2024 KWCH via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.