Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Stun Gun Subdues 2 Kansas Moms: BURIED IN ICE CHEST, COW PASTURE, BLOOD, DUCT TAPE

Transcript

Stun Gun Subdues 2 Kansas Moms: BURIED IN ICE CHEST, COW PASTURE, BLOOD, DUCT TAPE · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A stun gun used to
0:10
Speaker 1: subdue two unarmed Kansas moms on their way to pick
0:15
Speaker 1: up children for a birthday party. Stun guns in the
0:20
Speaker 1: last hours. We also learn their cause of death. These
0:24
Speaker 1: two ladies mothers stuffed in an ice chest, buried out
0:32
Speaker 1: in a cow pasture with chunks of hay on top.
0:36
Speaker 1: Now we hear about bloody clothes, stun guns, and duck tape.
0:43
Speaker 1: Good evening, a Nancy Grace. This is crime Stories. Thank
0:47
Speaker 1: you for being with us. What in the world the
0:50
Speaker 1: stun guns, bloody clothes, duct tape, ice chests buried in
0:55
Speaker 1: a cow pasture have to do with these two beautiful
0:58
Speaker 1: moms picking up children all the way to a kids
1:01
Speaker 1: birthday party? How could that go so wrong?
1:06
Speaker 2: Listen when Butler and Kelly are nowhere to be seen.
1:09
Speaker 2: When they are due to arrive back in Hugoton, Pastor
1:12
Speaker 2: Heath Kelly and Pastor Tim Singer drive in the direction
1:15
Speaker 2: they believe the women went south of Elkhark, Kansas, just
1:19
Speaker 2: three miles from the women's destination in Eva, Oklahoma. The
1:22
Speaker 2: men see law enforcement surrounding Butler's blue Kia on the
1:25
Speaker 2: side of the road. They learned that Texas County Sheriff's
1:28
Speaker 2: found the car abandoned with no trace of Kelly or Butler.
1:32
Speaker 3: That evidence was a small amount of blood inside the vehicle.
1:35
Speaker 3: The vehicle was found on a dirt path one thousand
1:38
Speaker 3: feet off Oklahoma State Highway ninety five, and near the car,
1:42
Speaker 3: police find multiple puddles of blood, leading investigators to conclude
1:47
Speaker 3: the women were shot before they were abducted.
1:50
Speaker 1: Multiple puddles of blood. I've got an all star panel,
1:54
Speaker 1: but straight out to doctor Kendall Crown's, chief medical examiner,
1:58
Speaker 1: Terrant County, that's fort Worth. Never a lack of business
2:02
Speaker 1: in the morgue there, esteemed lecturer at Burnett School of
2:05
Speaker 1: Medicine at TCU, Doctor Kendall Crowns, I want you to
2:08
Speaker 1: just think back on a couple of cases such as
2:11
Speaker 1: let me just go with Jennifer Dulo's. That's a good example.
2:14
Speaker 1: Jennifer Dulos's body has never been found, but based on
2:18
Speaker 1: the copious amount of blood found in her garage, the
2:23
Speaker 1: menu right then she was dead. So here we come
2:27
Speaker 1: upon the blue vehicle left abandoned on a dirt road
2:31
Speaker 1: and authorities fine copious amounts of blood. It can only
2:35
Speaker 1: mean one thing, Doctor Kendall Crown's how much blood do
2:38
Speaker 1: you have to lose for when you don't have a body,
2:41
Speaker 1: but you know they're dead.
2:43
Speaker 4: So usually when you're looking at large pools of blood,
2:47
Speaker 4: anything that starts to look like a gallon or over
2:52
Speaker 4: a pint, I'd say, once you get near a gallon,
2:55
Speaker 4: you know that person is probably dead because you don't
2:58
Speaker 4: have that much circulating blood in your body. So anytime
3:01
Speaker 4: a large amount is seen, you start assuming that the
3:04
Speaker 4: individual has been murdered. We often will see it in
3:07
Speaker 4: car seats too, because the car seats will soak in
3:10
Speaker 4: a lot of blood with the foam. And again, once
3:17
Speaker 4: you see a lot over a gallon, they're dead.
3:21
Speaker 1: Just looking at these two moms and just exacerbate what
3:27
Speaker 1: I believe a jury is going to hear. The car
3:31
Speaker 1: is found by a couple of preachers. Yes, that's right,
3:36
Speaker 1: one of these ladies is a preacher's wife. Okay, let
3:40
Speaker 1: me understand this. Joining me a net lawless investigative reporter,
3:43
Speaker 1: and thank you for being with us. So I've got
3:46
Speaker 1: two ladies. They don't have guns on them, they don't
3:52
Speaker 1: have knives on them. They're on the way to pick
3:55
Speaker 1: up children to a children's birthday party and one of
4:00
Speaker 1: them is a preacher's wife. Yeah, and they get stun
4:03
Speaker 1: gunned and murdered. How do we know they were stun gunned?
4:10
Speaker 5: Well, we didn't know immediately. I will say that this
4:13
Speaker 5: story when it was initially shared with us by police,
4:17
Speaker 5: the initial message was just these two ladies are missing
4:20
Speaker 5: and we're looking for them. We didn't know that the
4:21
Speaker 5: vehicle was abandoned in this rural part of Oklahoma. We
4:25
Speaker 5: didn't know of the violent crime that had happened. We
4:29
Speaker 5: just knew they were missing, and it was something that really,
4:32
Speaker 5: I mean, it gripped us so hard. But then as
4:36
Speaker 5: we've learned through these different court documents, through the weeks
4:39
Speaker 5: that have passed, every little piece of information is just
4:43
Speaker 5: absolutely shocking.
4:45
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think people understand. Let me go
4:48
Speaker 1: to Chris mcdonna. I mean, I would have no reason
4:51
Speaker 1: to understand if I hadn't been there when it happened,
4:54
Speaker 1: what a stun gun really does to you. Chris mcgunna
4:58
Speaker 1: joining me, director a cold case foundation and former homicide
5:01
Speaker 1: detective before that, vice detective now starves own a YouTube channel,
5:07
Speaker 1: The Interview Room. Chris mcdunn explain what a stun gun does.
5:12
Speaker 1: It's bad enough that they're dead, but to think they
5:17
Speaker 1: were tortured before they were killed on the way to
5:20
Speaker 1: a kid's birthday party. What does a stun gun do
5:24
Speaker 1: to a person.
5:25
Speaker 6: You'll initially nancy. What it will do will incapacitate them
5:30
Speaker 6: with a large amount of electricity going through their body,
5:34
Speaker 6: so their muscles, you know, lock up. It Also, individuals
5:41
Speaker 6: aren't able to think appropriately or properly for a brief time,
5:45
Speaker 6: and it gives a perpetrator the opportunity to make their
5:49
Speaker 6: move if in fact they're going to try to control
5:51
Speaker 6: them in any way, shape or form.
5:53
Speaker 1: So the stun gun we now know, causing electrical burns
5:59
Speaker 1: and pain on its victims, incapacitates them. They can't think.
6:06
Speaker 1: It hijacks the communication link between the body and the brain,
6:11
Speaker 1: making it difficult to think or move. Stand up, Sit up.
6:16
Speaker 1: You're totally incapacitated. The working theory is these two ladies
6:21
Speaker 1: were stun gunned and then murdered.
6:24
Speaker 2: Listen documents reveal what investigators did to find the bodies
6:27
Speaker 2: of Veronica Butler and Jillian Kelly after they go missing
6:30
Speaker 2: en route to a child's birthday party. Questioning relatives and friends.
6:33
Speaker 2: Investigators isolate a burial site about eight miles from where
6:37
Speaker 2: Veronica Butler's car is found abandoned. After two long days
6:40
Speaker 2: of digging, Veronica and Jillian are found dead, buried fifteen
6:44
Speaker 2: feet underground inside a freezer chest. Cause of death not revealed.
6:48
Speaker 2: Oklahoma law enforcement says the women's murders were absolutely brutal.
6:53
Speaker 1: I just wonder how a jury is going to react
6:55
Speaker 1: when they find out these two moms, one of them
6:58
Speaker 1: a preacher's wife. And listen, I don't care if you
7:01
Speaker 1: are an escort. I don't care if you're a dope dealer.
7:06
Speaker 1: I don't care if your mother Teresa. What I care
7:10
Speaker 1: about is proving a case where a crime victim has
7:15
Speaker 1: been mistreated. Who the victim is doesn't matter. Lady Justice
7:21
Speaker 1: is wearing a blindfold for a reason. And yes, she
7:24
Speaker 1: has the scales of justice in one hand, but a
7:27
Speaker 1: sword in the other. So when I keep saying preacher's wife,
7:32
Speaker 1: preacher's wife, preacher's wife, I mean doctor Bethany Marshall, renounced
7:36
Speaker 1: psycho analyst joining us from Beverly Hills, author of deal Breaker.
7:40
Speaker 1: You can see her now on Peacock Doctor Bethany, I
7:44
Speaker 1: hope you agree with me. It doesn't matter that she's
7:47
Speaker 1: a preacher's wife or that they were on their way
7:50
Speaker 1: to a children's birthday party. The point I'm making with
7:53
Speaker 1: that is, these aren't two dope dealers who have a
7:56
Speaker 1: turf battle. These aren't two women that have been engaged
8:03
Speaker 1: in felonious activity that somehow got caught up in crossfire.
8:09
Speaker 1: I'm saying these are innocents, and they are stun gunned
8:15
Speaker 1: and murdered and stuffed in ice chests and buried out
8:20
Speaker 1: in a cow passer. You had to have a fore
8:23
Speaker 1: lift a big farm machinery to dig that hole. I mean,
8:31
Speaker 1: these two ladies, what did they ever do wrong? Don't
8:34
Speaker 1: you see the dichotomy here?
8:35
Speaker 7: You know, Nancy, not only are there innocence, but between
8:39
Speaker 7: the two of them, they have six children dependent on them.
8:43
Speaker 7: One of them had four children, the other had two.
8:45
Speaker 7: So this has a ripple effect into their families. Nancy,
8:49
Speaker 7: I don't think those stun guns were just to subdue them.
8:52
Speaker 7: They were to round them up like cattle. This has
8:56
Speaker 7: a feeling like somebody came the whole villagers came after
8:59
Speaker 7: them with pitchfork. Whoever did This had horrendous hatred for one,
9:04
Speaker 7: if not both of these women. And really they had
9:07
Speaker 7: worked themselves to some kind of a frenzy because they
9:11
Speaker 7: could have, you know, subdued and killed them in sort
9:14
Speaker 7: of a soft killed kind of way, but they chose
9:17
Speaker 7: the most difficult route stopping them in their car, hitting
9:21
Speaker 7: them was done, guns knifing them, putting them in a freezer.
9:25
Speaker 7: This was a gruesome scene. This was a mob who
9:28
Speaker 7: really wanted to inflict as much pain as possible on
9:32
Speaker 7: these beautiful innocent women.
9:34
Speaker 1: Joining me renowned trial lawyer defense journey with the Tate
9:38
Speaker 1: group who is located in Savannah, Mark Tate, No offense,
9:45
Speaker 1: But can I ask you something? Mark Tate? Are you
9:48
Speaker 1: with me? Tate?
9:49
Speaker 8: Yeah, no offense, Mark.
9:51
Speaker 1: Tate, But how do you do it? How do you
9:55
Speaker 1: stand up in front of a jury and argue innocence
9:59
Speaker 1: or or ask a judge for a lenient sentence when
10:03
Speaker 1: you've got two mothers stun gun?
10:06
Speaker 9: Yeah?
10:07
Speaker 1: Nice, it's stuffed in a freezer and ice chest and
10:10
Speaker 1: buried in a cow pasture.
10:12
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's disgusting. The facts that they're going to hear
10:14
Speaker 9: about how these people died are disgusting, and so when
10:18
Speaker 9: you're a trial lawyer and you agree to take someone's case,
10:21
Speaker 9: you have to understand that in this country, which has
10:25
Speaker 9: the greatest criminal justice system on earth, the best one
10:27
Speaker 9: ever designed, that you're presumed innocent and the state has
10:30
Speaker 9: the burden of proof to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
10:33
Speaker 9: that those people who are accused actually did the crime
10:37
Speaker 9: of which they are accused. And so really a trial
10:39
Speaker 9: lawyer can only stand up and hold the state to
10:43
Speaker 9: that level of proof, and that's really all you can do,
10:47
Speaker 9: and you have to take.
10:49
Speaker 1: I didn't ask you to give me a tutorial on cost.
10:53
Speaker 6: Well, sometimes it seems like you might have.
10:55
Speaker 1: You got that at NYU. I'm asking you, how do
10:57
Speaker 1: you do it?
10:58
Speaker 9: Oh, you didn't go to ny you for constitutional law?
11:01
Speaker 1: Makes take a big slug of whatever's in that cup.
11:04
Speaker 9: I didn't ask you about your stainless steel mug. But
11:07
Speaker 9: I'm gonna tell you how do I defend this case?
11:09
Speaker 9: Only on procedural grounds at this point, And what I
11:12
Speaker 9: would say is that these.
11:14
Speaker 1: Women has a bag yours doesn't.
11:18
Speaker 9: Well, I've got to come on a shoe in nantsy
11:21
Speaker 9: grace mine's coffee.
11:24
Speaker 1: So I think that's how they do it. They dance
11:27
Speaker 1: around it. But you know what, let's get back to
11:28
Speaker 1: the facts. Listen.
11:29
Speaker 2: Investigators execute a search warrant at an Oklahoma cow pasture.
11:33
Speaker 2: Gillian and Veronica's bodies are placed inside a freezer with
11:36
Speaker 2: personal items that do not belong to Butler or Kelly.
11:39
Speaker 2: Investigators find bloody clothes, the handle of his saw, as
11:42
Speaker 2: well as a taser. Some appear to have blood on them,
11:45
Speaker 2: like a pair of Wrangler blue jeans with a black belt,
11:48
Speaker 2: a brown sweatshirt, a black hooded sweatshirt, and a second
11:51
Speaker 2: pair of Wrangler blue jeans. Other items found at the
11:54
Speaker 2: burial site include duct tape with possible blood, black taser, flashlight,
11:59
Speaker 2: electrical cord, and small black tape, two ragets, drabs, black
12:03
Speaker 2: handle of a saw, and possible blood also found on
12:06
Speaker 2: a black k bar knife in sheet.
12:08
Speaker 1: You know what I love, Chris mcdona, I love duck tape.
12:13
Speaker 1: Do you feel the same way, Chris when you find
12:16
Speaker 1: out there's duck tape at a murder? Saying? I just
12:19
Speaker 1: wonder if we are simpatico?
12:22
Speaker 6: You know, Nancy, this is right. We talk about Lady
12:25
Speaker 6: Justice and the sword. That sword is in place specifically
12:31
Speaker 6: for this type of case. I mean, this is an egregious, horrible,
12:36
Speaker 6: horrific homicide. You have five defendants, and I've never had
12:42
Speaker 6: a five defendant homicide case. I've had three, but number five,
12:46
Speaker 6: So that means you had five people all in sync
12:50
Speaker 6: thinking about how we're going to take out a mother
12:54
Speaker 6: and a preacher's wife and then somehow cover their tracks
12:59
Speaker 6: by leaving all of this evidence on the scene. I
13:02
Speaker 6: either clothing, the knives, all of this other stuff. But
13:06
Speaker 6: think about this, when somebody has murdered this brutally and
13:10
Speaker 6: stuffed into a freezer. A lot of the time, the
13:14
Speaker 6: suspects don't think it's going to go exactly the way
13:17
Speaker 6: it's going to go, and it doesn't. So I'm wondering
13:21
Speaker 6: if they were going to mutilate these bodies. You know,
13:24
Speaker 6: why bring a saw to a crime scene where you're
13:28
Speaker 6: going to bury somebody? Why bring a huge k bar
13:32
Speaker 6: knife to a crime scene where you're going to bury them?
13:36
Speaker 6: So this could have gone as bad as it did,
13:41
Speaker 6: but I think they probably have a lot more on
13:44
Speaker 6: their minds and they just they ran out of time
13:46
Speaker 6: or something happening, you know.
13:47
Speaker 1: Martin Tate, I'm going to speak on McDonald's behalf. I
13:50
Speaker 1: agree with everything he just said. Mark Tate, veteran defense
13:53
Speaker 1: attorney practicing with the Tate Law Group out of Savannah. Tate,
13:58
Speaker 1: I imagine that you duct tape as much as I
14:01
Speaker 1: love it for the very same reason. It's the perfect
14:04
Speaker 1: conduit for fingerprints.
14:05
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's an evidence magnet, it's a DNA magnet, it's
14:09
Speaker 9: a hair follicle magnet. But I think that all of
14:11
Speaker 9: those things go to show that these are not professional killers.
14:16
Speaker 9: And I think that when you talk about trying to
14:18
Speaker 9: ameliorate sentences or make them less severe than what they
14:22
Speaker 9: should be. I mean, this is not the you know,
14:24
Speaker 9: this is not Manson murders. These are not those kinds
14:26
Speaker 9: of people. Arguably they're worst, but they're controlled by a
14:29
Speaker 9: similar kind of cult.
14:32
Speaker 1: Quote those kind of people.
14:35
Speaker 2: No, it's not the same thing as different people.
14:37
Speaker 1: It's a different kind of Californians.
14:39
Speaker 9: Yeah, Californians.
14:40
Speaker 8: It's a different kind of cult.
14:41
Speaker 9: I think that motivated all of these people to go
14:44
Speaker 9: after these people.
14:45
Speaker 1: They are a bunch of anti government gun nuts or
14:48
Speaker 1: in the Charles Manson cult. Well, I think you're still butchered.
14:53
Speaker 8: Yeah, they're butchered.
14:54
Speaker 9: It's a horrible case, which you have to take those
14:56
Speaker 9: facts and get the best sentence or a deal you
14:58
Speaker 9: can for your clients. And so if that includes showing
15:01
Speaker 9: that their ability to think rationally had been impaired by
15:05
Speaker 9: their occult memberships with this bizarre religious God's Misfits thing,
15:09
Speaker 9: then a trial lawyer, a defense lawyer has to argue
15:12
Speaker 9: those types of things, and we have to do things
15:15
Speaker 9: like have the trials separated, because you're right, the facts
15:18
Speaker 9: of these murders and the evidence against these people, including
15:22
Speaker 9: the young sixteen year old girl that basically provided the
15:25
Speaker 9: basis of the probable cause, Affidavid, the evidence is really difficult,
15:29
Speaker 9: and the facts of these murders is really hard. And
15:32
Speaker 9: when a jury hears that and they have five people
15:34
Speaker 9: in front of them, they're going to want to convict
15:36
Speaker 9: every single one of them. And so a defense lawyer
15:38
Speaker 9: has to try to separate out these defendants.
15:48
Speaker 1: Crime stories. With Nancy Grace, these two moms want a
15:55
Speaker 1: preacher's wife picking up children on the way to a
15:57
Speaker 1: kid's birthday party or stuff, and then knife dead to
16:03
Speaker 1: doctor Bethany Marshall joining us for renounced psychoanalyst out of
16:06
Speaker 1: LA She's on Peacock now, doctor Bethany, I'm just a
16:12
Speaker 1: trial lawyer. You are the renowned psychoanalyst. I can't verbalize it.
16:18
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I have the vocab to do it,
16:20
Speaker 1: do it justice. But I'm telling you, Bethany, that there
16:24
Speaker 1: is a different mindset. It takes a different kind of
16:28
Speaker 1: killer to knife someone, to stab them dead, much less
16:33
Speaker 1: stab than repeatedly, which we've seen over and over. In fact,
16:37
Speaker 1: think about it, Dr Bethany, that's another thought for you
16:39
Speaker 1: and I to explore on our spare time. Very often
16:42
Speaker 1: in knife in cases we see multiple stabs and there's
16:45
Speaker 1: got to be a reason for that. But right now
16:47
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about the mindset of
16:50
Speaker 1: a stabber versus a shooter. There's a definite difference in the.
16:57
Speaker 7: Psyche, definitely, Nancy. These perpetrators were boiling over with rage.
17:04
Speaker 7: They did not want to stand on the side of
17:06
Speaker 7: the road and shoot the victims because they wanted to
17:09
Speaker 7: get up close and personal. They wanted to see the
17:13
Speaker 7: fear in these women's eyes. They wanted to inflict as
17:16
Speaker 7: much pain as possible. They wanted to do it practically
17:20
Speaker 7: with their bare hands. In fact, one of the perpetrators
17:24
Speaker 7: actually sliced his hand. He stabbed the victims so many times.
17:29
Speaker 1: You had two.
17:30
Speaker 7: Purpse stabbing two innocent women who were members of their
17:35
Speaker 7: local congregation, one who was married to a pastor, six
17:38
Speaker 7: children between the two of them, And I think the
17:42
Speaker 7: psychology of the knifing is that it is intimate intimate rage.
17:48
Speaker 7: In the intimate rage is that this ragtag homicidal group
17:53
Speaker 7: had been scheming and plotting and just boiling over with
17:57
Speaker 7: hostility towards these two women. These people all had homicidal
18:01
Speaker 7: impulses all of their own, and they banded together.
18:05
Speaker 1: You know, you're seeing a glam shot right there of
18:07
Speaker 1: one of the killers. That's not one of the moms.
18:10
Speaker 1: That is one of the alleged killers. Of course, they're
18:14
Speaker 1: presumed innocent in our country until proven otherwise in court.
18:18
Speaker 1: But I've just got to tell you about how the
18:22
Speaker 1: evidence is stacking up. Listen.
18:24
Speaker 10: Prosecutors now alleged that Paul Grice stabbed Butler to death,
18:27
Speaker 10: slicing his hand in the attack, and Tad Cullums stabbed Kelly.
18:31
Speaker 10: Investigators have not revealed if the women were killed at
18:33
Speaker 10: the same time or one after the other, but only
18:36
Speaker 10: one knife was recovered from the burial site the accessories
18:39
Speaker 10: for that k bar knife found at Tad Cullum's home.
18:41
Speaker 1: A K bar knife. We've heard about that and the
18:44
Speaker 1: Brian Coburger case. It is a fixed handle knife like
18:47
Speaker 1: a pocket knife that you can fold over, and very
18:51
Speaker 1: awful when you use a k bar or a knife
18:53
Speaker 1: in general, the killer's hand will actually slide down the
18:57
Speaker 1: knife over, they cross and they will cut themselves. Listen.
19:06
Speaker 11: According to court documents, the day Tiffany Adams boyfriend Tad
19:10
Speaker 11: Cullum is arrested at his home for the murders of
19:13
Speaker 11: Iroonica Butler and Jillian Kelly, Paul Grise is present and
19:17
Speaker 11: FBI agents notice a bandage on his right pinky finger.
19:21
Speaker 11: Gris tells the agents he cut it while working on
19:24
Speaker 11: his truck. Days later, Caleb Roberts tells police he saw
19:28
Speaker 11: Grice March thirty and thirty one with a bandage on
19:32
Speaker 11: his right hand. Gris tells Roberts he cut his hand
19:35
Speaker 11: while cutting fencing.
19:36
Speaker 1: Joining me an all star panel, but right now out
19:39
Speaker 1: to Annette Lawless joining us on the case from the
19:42
Speaker 1: very beginning, investigative reporter. So they cut their hands and
19:47
Speaker 1: then during the stabbings.
19:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's really amazing to see all the evidence that's
19:53
Speaker 5: come forward, you know, and I've looked at everything from
19:55
Speaker 5: all the court documents, and to hear of how violent
19:59
Speaker 5: everything wast I got, the people accused here had hurt themselves.
20:03
Speaker 5: It's just it's really incredible. I will say, Like, like
20:06
Speaker 5: I mentioned before, when we initially heard about everything in
20:09
Speaker 5: this community, we didn't know a whole lot. But as
20:12
Speaker 5: these documents have come out and revealed, I mean, it
20:14
Speaker 5: just gets grimmer and grimmer.
20:16
Speaker 7: Nancy I am.
20:17
Speaker 5: I'm a little worried about what we're going to discover
20:19
Speaker 5: once we hit trial. So it's just it's really just
20:24
Speaker 5: so scary to think about what these women went through.
20:26
Speaker 5: These women who are just going to go and this
20:27
Speaker 5: was supposed to be a joyous moment for Hernica to
20:29
Speaker 5: go and grab her kids to celebrate a birthday, and
20:32
Speaker 5: ending like this was nothing that any of us had anticipated.
20:35
Speaker 1: So you've got one guy who claims he hurt his
20:38
Speaker 1: hand fencing, is wearing a big bandage, you know, Mark Tate.
20:42
Speaker 1: I've seen it a lot where knife defendants end up
20:47
Speaker 1: slicing themselves. And if you think that's far fetched, just
20:51
Speaker 1: think about how many times you may have cut your
20:53
Speaker 1: own hand or finger just when you're slicing veggies or
20:56
Speaker 1: fruit in the kitchen. It happens all the time. Can
20:59
Speaker 1: you imagine in the middle of a double murder. I'm
21:03
Speaker 1: not surprised that all there's allegations they cut themselves.
21:06
Speaker 9: That's consistent. I think the prosecutor's going to harp on it.
21:10
Speaker 9: I think that from the standpoint of someone trying to
21:12
Speaker 9: defend someone's indicted with this kind of evidence, I think
21:15
Speaker 9: a knife wound that they suffer using that particular kind
21:18
Speaker 9: of knife. I believe that piece is maybe called the bolster.
21:21
Speaker 9: I'm not sure exactly, but it doesn't protect the hand
21:24
Speaker 9: from getting injured while you're stabbing somewhere. And I believe
21:27
Speaker 9: that the descriptions we received here today from your folks
21:31
Speaker 9: is that you know, this is a crime of passion
21:33
Speaker 9: when you stab somebody. It is not something that you
21:37
Speaker 9: have to be in a frenzy. I think, for the words,
21:38
Speaker 9: it's not something that's a quick or easy or intended
21:42
Speaker 9: to be a quick or easy death. It's intense, it's
21:44
Speaker 9: up close, it's personal, and so yeah, those types of
21:46
Speaker 9: assailants do have those kinds of wounds that are involved
21:50
Speaker 9: and Again, that's why a defense lawyer who agrees to
21:53
Speaker 9: take on the case has to do things like show
21:57
Speaker 9: why those injuries might exist for some reason other than
22:00
Speaker 9: the use of a k bar knife. It's difficult, but
22:03
Speaker 9: if we're going to undertake as a lawyer to defend
22:05
Speaker 9: these people who have a right to be defended, then
22:08
Speaker 9: sometimes you have to explore each evidence, each piece of
22:12
Speaker 9: evidence and how it's going to come in, and other
22:14
Speaker 9: potential arguments that can be made about why that evidence
22:18
Speaker 9: exists or could be interpreted differently. That's the system. We'd
22:21
Speaker 9: rather see one guilty person go free than one innocent
22:24
Speaker 9: locked up. So you know, it's the thing that we're
22:28
Speaker 9: straddled with or burdened with when we take an oath
22:30
Speaker 9: to the court and to our clients. We have to
22:33
Speaker 9: test the prosecutorial theories and have them really overcome the
22:37
Speaker 9: presumption of innocence. This is a very difficult case to defend,
22:42
Speaker 9: and I don't know if there are enough lawyers out
22:45
Speaker 9: there to take on five different victims, pardon me, five
22:48
Speaker 9: different assailants indicted with this and again it's the testimony
22:52
Speaker 9: of that young sixteen year old child who provided almost
22:57
Speaker 9: all of the investigatorial roots for the Oklahoma Bureau of
23:02
Speaker 9: Investigation to root all of this album.
23:08
Speaker 4: Five people arrested in the disappearance of Veronica Butler and
23:12
Speaker 4: Jillian Kelly, including Butler's.
23:15
Speaker 8: Former mother in law.
23:17
Speaker 1: What is the connection? A few minutes earlier, you heard
23:21
Speaker 1: high profile defense attorney Mark Tate using as some sort
23:26
Speaker 1: of a contorted defense that these aren't professional killers. I
23:30
Speaker 1: doubt the dead people care. I doubt their families care
23:33
Speaker 1: whether they were professional killers or not. But the word
23:39
Speaker 1: idiot comes to mind.
23:40
Speaker 8: Listen, inside the freezer, investigators recover a stun gun, a
23:44
Speaker 8: k bar, knife tape, a black saw handle, and two
23:48
Speaker 8: bloody sets of men's clothing. Prosecutors now say one set
23:52
Speaker 8: of clothes has Paul Grice and Veronica Butler's DNA on them.
23:56
Speaker 8: The other set has traces of Tad Cullum and Jillian Kelly's.
24:01
Speaker 1: You heard a lot of rigormarole about a lot of
24:03
Speaker 1: pressure on a sixteen year old girl. It's the only
24:05
Speaker 1: evidence there's DNA evidence. Let me understanding that lawless before
24:10
Speaker 1: I say another word. The bodies are folded up of
24:14
Speaker 1: these two young moms, stuffed into an ice chest, then
24:20
Speaker 1: buried in a cow pasture, and I believe chunks of
24:25
Speaker 1: cement were then put on top. I'm just enunciating each
24:29
Speaker 1: word a nette, so it can really sink in what
24:33
Speaker 1: was done to these ladies. And then in the ice
24:36
Speaker 1: chest here comes the query. There's bloody clothes and other items.
24:43
Speaker 1: But on those bloody clothes is the DNA of Paul Grice,
24:49
Speaker 1: Veronica Butler, Tad Cullum, and Jilly and Kelly. They buried
24:58
Speaker 1: the bloody clothes with their DNA on it. The defendants,
25:03
Speaker 1: the four suspects, their DNA is found with the dead
25:07
Speaker 1: bodies in the ice chist.
25:08
Speaker 5: It's remarkable, it really is to think about that, preserving
25:13
Speaker 5: essentially the evidence that will be used against them. I
25:16
Speaker 5: don't know what they were thinking, and these people accused
25:19
Speaker 5: of what they were thinking of putting this stuff there,
25:23
Speaker 5: I don't know it. It's really remarkable, this whole thing
25:26
Speaker 5: that God's misfits saying of this anti government group and whoa.
25:31
Speaker 1: Whoa, let me get the best back in the middle
25:33
Speaker 1: of the road. I haven't even gotten to the fact
25:35
Speaker 1: they call themselves the misfits. That's I would say apropo.
25:39
Speaker 1: But you know, to you Chris McDonough you have investigated
25:43
Speaker 1: what over three hundred homicides, and then, of course I'm
25:48
Speaker 1: not even going to bring up the time years you
25:49
Speaker 1: were in vice. But they don't have to be professional killers.
25:53
Speaker 1: They don't even have to be smart. And I thank
25:56
Speaker 1: God for that because now I've got their DNA. What
26:00
Speaker 1: are they thinking? What were they thinking? Because you know
26:04
Speaker 1: what somebody like Martin Take might spin out at trial
26:08
Speaker 1: that they were framed. That what idiot would have put
26:11
Speaker 1: their own DNA in an ice chest with the two
26:15
Speaker 1: dead bodies and buried in a cow pasture, that they
26:19
Speaker 1: had to have been framed. They would never have done that.
26:22
Speaker 1: Oh yes they did.
26:23
Speaker 12: Chris McDonough, Yeah, and Nancy, you know, if I would
26:26
Speaker 12: have present a package like this to you for prosecution,
26:31
Speaker 12: you would absolutely shred these five defendants.
26:35
Speaker 6: I mean, think about this, every time they made a
26:38
Speaker 6: move that was specific intent to commit homicide in conjunction
26:43
Speaker 6: with a conspiracy to do it with four other people.
26:47
Speaker 6: The fact that they're calling them God's misfits, I wish
26:50
Speaker 6: they wouldn't even use the Lord's name. They should call
26:53
Speaker 6: them the Devil's assistance, because that's what this case is.
26:58
Speaker 6: And the knife if we go back to the night
27:00
Speaker 6: just for a minute in the duct tape. Again, each
27:03
Speaker 6: one of those weapons, like doctor Bethany was talking about,
27:06
Speaker 6: the knife in of itself, is a control mechanism. It's personal,
27:10
Speaker 6: it has a blood groove on it. Every time that
27:13
Speaker 6: knife is utilized, there is a cast off. Who knows
27:17
Speaker 6: what those investigators have or seen even at that crime scene.
27:22
Speaker 6: And then the duct tape is just a coup de gral.
27:24
Speaker 6: If they're not dead, let's wrap them up and put
27:27
Speaker 6: them in a freezer. My question is were they alive
27:33
Speaker 6: still bleeding out in that freezer, and if so, that
27:37
Speaker 6: just even makes this case even much more horrendous.
27:40
Speaker 1: Let me understand. Back to and Natt, I understand, we
27:43
Speaker 1: keep hearing tidbits about how this was meticulously planned to
27:46
Speaker 1: kill these tea moms. Is it true that this group
27:50
Speaker 1: actually posted lookouts to alert the killers if law enforcement
27:57
Speaker 1: was coming, if another car was coming along the road.
28:00
Speaker 1: What do you know about two of the women being
28:02
Speaker 1: posted as lookouts?
28:03
Speaker 5: From my understanding, yes, they did have people who were
28:06
Speaker 5: looking out for things. They had plans to go and
28:10
Speaker 5: commit this crime, to go and kill at least the
28:13
Speaker 5: plan is to kill Veronica. But that plan didn't go
28:18
Speaker 5: through exactly how they intended, but those lookouts were there
28:21
Speaker 5: to make sure that they could go and use those
28:23
Speaker 5: stun guns so they could go and attack them and
28:26
Speaker 5: get what they wanted to get rid of them.
28:28
Speaker 1: All this why what's the motive?
28:31
Speaker 13: Locked in a year's long custody battle with the children's father,
28:35
Speaker 13: The latest court ordered arrangement allows Butler to have supervised
28:38
Speaker 13: visits with her young children, Cole and Kendall, who live
28:40
Speaker 13: with their paternal grandmother, Tiffany Adams. Butler plans to host
28:44
Speaker 13: a birthday party for Kendall's sixth birthday, and makes a
28:47
Speaker 13: forty five minute drive to her hometown of Eva, Oklahoma
28:50
Speaker 13: to pick them up. Jillian Kelly rides with Butler, acting
28:53
Speaker 13: as a court approved supervisor for the visit.
28:55
Speaker 1: You know, I have known my husband's mother since college,
29:01
Speaker 1: and in all those years, not one crossword with mister
29:06
Speaker 1: or missus Lyncher, anybody in their whole family. And this
29:10
Speaker 1: mother in law arranged meticulous planning, I might add, to
29:15
Speaker 1: murder her daughter in law, the mother of her grandchildren.
29:19
Speaker 1: Yeah her, listen to the degree of detail.
29:23
Speaker 2: Cora and Carl Twombley are arrested in the same nineteen
29:25
Speaker 2: ninety one Chevrolet pickup truck they allegedly used on their
29:28
Speaker 2: mission that ended with Veronica Butler and Jillian Kelly Dad.
29:32
Speaker 2: Inside the truck, cops find a Taurus three eighty handgun
29:35
Speaker 2: with a full magazine of hollowpoint ammunition and a live
29:38
Speaker 2: round in the chamber stun guns. Kitty litter used for
29:41
Speaker 2: liquid absorption of trace evidence, biological DNA evidence, digital photos,
29:46
Speaker 2: spatial scans, and all other evidence of the crime of murder.
29:49
Speaker 1: Chris mc dunnaugh. This meticulous planning to kill these two moms.
29:54
Speaker 1: Why kitty litter? Why was that on their to do list?
29:58
Speaker 6: Kitty litter can be utilized to absorb any kind of liquid,
30:02
Speaker 6: specifically blood, probably in this situation.
30:04
Speaker 1: Nancy, hold on, I need a shrink before I need
30:06
Speaker 1: a defense lawyer, Doctor Bethany Marshall. Not only did they
30:11
Speaker 1: go and buy all these supplies, These people go and
30:15
Speaker 1: they assemble k bar knives and ice chests. They even
30:19
Speaker 1: get farm machinery to dig a hole. They think and
30:23
Speaker 1: plan and scheme, gnashing their teeth and switching their tails.
30:29
Speaker 1: They even get kitty litter to absorb what they know
30:32
Speaker 1: will be a surplus of blood and catch this doctor
30:36
Speaker 1: Bethany Marshall, granny actually goes to Walmart to buy burner phones.
30:42
Speaker 1: You think they don't have video of that. Think Todd
30:45
Speaker 1: mom buying push up bras and beers while her daughter
30:48
Speaker 1: is quote missing this one. That one right there, goes
30:51
Speaker 1: to Walmart to buy burner phones so they can all
30:54
Speaker 1: communicate and then get rid of the phones. Dr Bethany
30:58
Speaker 1: kitty litter on her phones Walmart.
31:01
Speaker 7: You know, Grandma had a very strange fixation and obsession
31:06
Speaker 7: with having total control over her her grandchildren. And you
31:10
Speaker 7: see in that one picture how little they are, and
31:12
Speaker 7: it makes me wonder, what is the future. What would
31:15
Speaker 7: have been the future course of these two children's lives
31:18
Speaker 7: had they been under this mother's, this grandmother's care, she
31:21
Speaker 7: would have separated them from everybody, homeschooled them, not wanted
31:24
Speaker 7: them to have any outside influences. She did not want
31:28
Speaker 7: to share their love with anybody. But as an overlay,
31:31
Speaker 7: she had homicidal impulses towards her own, you know, daughter
31:36
Speaker 7: in law and the kitty litter to soak up the blood.
31:40
Speaker 7: That just tells me how much she hated this person
31:45
Speaker 7: and how much she influenced a whole hire group of people.
31:49
Speaker 7: She whipped up a mob mentality Nancy, And because of that,
31:54
Speaker 7: I really don't think these two women died quickly. I'm
31:57
Speaker 7: very sorry to say. I think they were likely chased
32:01
Speaker 7: around with these taser guns, knifed in a vicious way.
32:07
Speaker 7: And I agree with the other commentator who said, who
32:10
Speaker 7: knows if they were even dead when they were buried
32:14
Speaker 7: in the freezer. I mean, this grandmother was going to
32:17
Speaker 7: stop at nothing to inflict as much pain, cruelty and suffering.
32:22
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting. They do not want us or
32:25
Speaker 1: anyone else but specifically us to read these search warrants
32:31
Speaker 1: and these returns listen.
32:33
Speaker 11: Accused murderer, Tiffany Adams attorney files emotion to seal warrants
32:37
Speaker 11: to keep them from public scrutiny, even though law enforcement
32:41
Speaker 11: agencies generally must make the disposition of warrants available for
32:45
Speaker 11: public inspection, going so far as to name Nancy Grace
32:50
Speaker 11: as a reason for keeping the search warrants sealed. The
32:53
Speaker 11: judge disagrees with the alleged murderer's lawyer and releases the
32:57
Speaker 11: documents for the public to see.
32:59
Speaker 1: Doctor Kenel joining US Chief Medical Examiner Tyrant County that's
33:03
Speaker 1: fort worth. Doctor Crown's. The specter that these women may
33:10
Speaker 1: have been alive, still alive and bleeding out when they
33:14
Speaker 1: were stuffed in that ice chest is highly disturbing. One,
33:22
Speaker 1: how would we know or would we know? And two?
33:27
Speaker 1: How long would it have taken them to run out
33:30
Speaker 1: of air and mercifully die in the ice chest?
33:34
Speaker 4: All right? So how would we know if they were
33:36
Speaker 4: still live in the ice chest? It would be dependent
33:39
Speaker 4: on if the areas of their body that were hit
33:42
Speaker 4: with the knife caused them to inhale blood, So you
33:46
Speaker 4: might see blood in the lungs, which is called hemo aspiration.
33:51
Speaker 4: If they aren't hitting the lungs. It would depend on
33:53
Speaker 4: what vessels are hit. If it's kind of superficial or
33:56
Speaker 4: minor vessels, it's going to take long blood vessels. It's
34:00
Speaker 4: going to take longer for you to bleed out from
34:03
Speaker 4: a smaller vessel. If it's a bigger vessel, you'll bleed
34:05
Speaker 4: out faster. So let's go with the assumption that they're
34:09
Speaker 4: alive when they're placed inside the cooler. How long will
34:12
Speaker 4: they live If it's a large cooler, which I assume
34:15
Speaker 4: it is. Two women placed inside a large cooler, there
34:19
Speaker 4: isn't going to be a lot of extra room for
34:21
Speaker 4: air with two people in there, so they'll probably suffocate
34:24
Speaker 4: under ten to fifteen minutes.
34:26
Speaker 2: A bone chilling discovery. OSBI, the FBI, and the Texas
34:30
Speaker 2: County Sheriff's Department followed cell phone pings to find a
34:33
Speaker 2: horrific scene, a ten foot deep hole eight and a
34:36
Speaker 2: half miles from the mom's aband in car, in a
34:39
Speaker 2: pasture on leased farmland and near a bridge. Whether the
34:43
Speaker 2: two moms were buried alive not yet determined.
34:46
Speaker 1: Were the moms buried alive? Again, that specter hanging over
34:49
Speaker 1: the entire entire proceedings, But listen now.
34:53
Speaker 14: The four suspects are being kept in the Oklahoma Texas
34:56
Speaker 14: County jail, but that doesn't mean they will be having contact.
35:00
Speaker 14: Jewels are being separated in the ninety six bed facility. Currently,
35:03
Speaker 14: the building houses forty seven inmates, thirty six men and
35:06
Speaker 14: eleven women in separate sections for each gender. According to
35:10
Speaker 14: the sheriff, Tadcullum and Cole Twombly are intentionally held on
35:14
Speaker 14: opposite sides of the men section, separated by four pods.
35:17
Speaker 14: The women, Adams and Cora Twombly are also separated by
35:21
Speaker 14: pods ensuring no contact. Only their attorneys and spiritual advisors
35:25
Speaker 14: are allowed visitation, Family and friends communicate through video calls.
35:29
Speaker 14: Three good quality meals are provided daily, and the facility
35:32
Speaker 14: offers inmates the opportunity to purchase snacks, hygiene items, board games,
35:36
Speaker 14: and office supplies from an online commissary service. There is
35:40
Speaker 14: no exercise facility, but an indoor cement room with metal
35:44
Speaker 14: grates on the windows somewhat allows inmates to see outdoors.
35:47
Speaker 1: Did you hear that tag? They can have board games, snacks,
35:54
Speaker 1: video calls with their family and friends.
35:58
Speaker 9: Why they're afforded freedoms that people who are not under
36:02
Speaker 9: indictment are still allowed to have because they're not convicted
36:07
Speaker 9: yet it sounds terrible to say, we got to give
36:09
Speaker 9: them three meals a day, and if I were their lawyer,
36:12
Speaker 9: I would tell them not to spend a whole lot
36:14
Speaker 9: of time talking to others, whether they be spiritual counselors
36:18
Speaker 9: or family members, because every single thing they say, of course,
36:21
Speaker 9: is monitored, and anything they say that's even moderately arguably
36:24
Speaker 9: incriminatory is going to be used against them. But because
36:27
Speaker 9: they're not convicted, because they are not felons who have
36:30
Speaker 9: lost all of their freedoms. At this point, they're still
36:33
Speaker 9: allowed to have certain levels of treatment. And by the way, Nancy,
36:36
Speaker 9: you know, even after you're a convict, we have the
36:39
Speaker 9: notion of cruel and unusual punishment. So even after we
36:42
Speaker 9: convict these people, we still can't you know, treat them
36:46
Speaker 9: perhaps the way some would say they should be treated.
36:48
Speaker 9: Because of the way these victims were treated, I understand
36:51
Speaker 9: that sympathy.
36:51
Speaker 1: I don't want inhumane treatment. No, I don't want that,
36:55
Speaker 1: but board games. Really, guys. We found out that, according
37:01
Speaker 1: to the newly released documents, that Adams and Callum own
37:05
Speaker 1: numerous firearms, a rifle amongst many, but also body armor
37:12
Speaker 1: and a quote go bag, A go bag who does that?
37:18
Speaker 1: They've been watching way too many movies. Who are these people?
37:23
Speaker 1: They are members of something called God's Misfits who hate
37:27
Speaker 1: the government, specifically taxes. Listen.
37:29
Speaker 2: The OSBI determines the sect of God's Misfits includes Tiffany Adams, Tadcullum,
37:35
Speaker 2: Paul Grice, Cora Swombley, col Twombley, Barrett Cook, and Lacey Cook,
37:39
Speaker 2: and is anti government with a religious affiliation, hosting weekly
37:43
Speaker 2: meetings at Twombley's and Cook's residences. The leader of God's
37:47
Speaker 2: Misfits is in South Carolina, a man who goes by
37:50
Speaker 2: the name Squirrel. He says the murder suspects are not
37:53
Speaker 2: affiliated with him or his group, and he has no
37:55
Speaker 2: relationship with them. Without equivocation, Squirrel says, the God that
38:00
Speaker 2: I serve condemned such hate.
38:01
Speaker 1: Okay. I had a long talk with Squirrel, and apparently
38:06
Speaker 1: this sect of God's Misfits was an offshoot of the
38:12
Speaker 1: actual God's Misfits. Don't care, don't care. What I do
38:16
Speaker 1: care about is this. Listen to this description from our friends.
38:20
Speaker 1: Koco needs five of one of these young moms. Her
38:25
Speaker 1: kids were her world, Her kids were her life. Everything
38:29
Speaker 1: she did was for her kids, to get in a
38:30
Speaker 1: pool with them, She'd blow bubbles with them, whatever it was,
38:33
Speaker 1: she was there with them. Anett Laula is with me,
38:37
Speaker 1: editor and investigative reporter. Annette, what's next for this gang?
38:41
Speaker 5: In course, a judge had decided that the next steps
38:45
Speaker 5: for these suspects, they will not be looked at individually.
38:50
Speaker 5: They're going to group four of them together and then
38:53
Speaker 5: one and another part of the preliminary hearing. So in
38:56
Speaker 5: the coming weeks we're going to be looking forward to
38:58
Speaker 5: the next stages of stuff next month and I think
39:00
Speaker 5: in December as well, and hopefully everything will come into
39:04
Speaker 5: trial come next year. I'm very interested to see what
39:07
Speaker 5: more bits of evidence we're going to find that are
39:10
Speaker 5: on earth in the next phase. Is because I'm telling you,
39:13
Speaker 5: every time they go to court, we just keep hearing
39:15
Speaker 5: stuff as journalists in this community, and it is jaw
39:18
Speaker 5: dropping nancy to hear of everything, of how gruesome this
39:21
Speaker 5: attack was and these people, I mean to think of
39:25
Speaker 5: everything that was contrived here and the things that they
39:28
Speaker 5: believed that the suspects thought they could get away with.
39:32
Speaker 5: It's just it's amazing to even I mean, it's just
39:34
Speaker 5: I can't believe it, and I think a lot of
39:36
Speaker 5: people here in the community can't either.
39:38
Speaker 1: If you know or think you know evidence about this case,
39:41
Speaker 1: you may think it's small, you may think it's non consequential,
39:45
Speaker 1: but remember the two victims dead in a brutal and
39:50
Speaker 1: horrific manner. Please dial toll free eight hundred five two
39:54
Speaker 1: to two eight zero one seven, repeat eight hundred five
39:59
Speaker 1: two to t eight zero one seven. We wait as
40:05
Speaker 1: justice unfolds. Thank you to our guests for being with us,
40:10
Speaker 1: and tonight we remember the families of these two slain moms. Goodbye, friend,