GUYMON – Sometime between September and October 2023, Tifany warned Adams about what would happen if someone tried to take her young grandchildren, a murder investigation found.
“There were going to be bodies falling,” she reportedly said.
Months later, the grandmother orchestrated a double murder to keep the boy and girl away from their mother, Veronica Butler, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said in court affidavits. She confessed, the OSBI said.
On Tuesday, a judge will begin hearing testimony at a preliminary hearing for Adams, 55; her boyfriend, Tad Bert Cullum, 44; and a third defendant, Cole Twombly, 50.
Two other defendants, Paul Grice, 32, and Cora Twombly, 45, are being called by the prosecution to testify against them. Cole and Cora Twombly are married.
“They each played their own role,” prosecutors alleged in a legal filing in September.
After hearing testimony, Associate District Judge Clark Jett will determine whether the prosecutor has sufficient evidence to take the case to trial. The hearing in Texas County District Court could last three days.
Victims were ambushed on the highway in the Oklahoma Panhandle, investigators say
On March 30, Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, were murdered. “Adams hated and despised Butler and wanted her dead,” prosecutors alleged in the legal filing.
Adams cared for the children, then six and eight, at her home in Keyes. The OSBI reported that the paternal grandmother was in a “problematic custody battle” with their mother, who was seeking long-term visitation. The next court hearing in the custody dispute was scheduled for April 17.
Investigators say the victims were ambushed on a highway in the Oklahoma Panhandle as they drove from Kansas to pick up the children for a birthday party. Kelley, a pastor’s wife, came along to supervise the visit.
More: Who are ‘God’s misfits’? Murder case in Oklahoma draws a lot of attention to the ministry of the same name in S. Carolina
The case attracted national attention after the women went missing and again when it was determined that the defendants belonged to an anti-government group called “God’s Misfits.” Adams also previously served as chairman of the Cimarron County Republican Party.
According to their autopsy reports, the women had been stabbed multiple times, possibly after stun guns were used on them. The bodies were found on April 14 in a large locked freezer buried in a cow pasture leased by Cullum.
Underneath the freezer were a stun gun, a roll of tape, a sheathed knife and clothing, according to autopsy reports.
Prosecutors allege Adams purchased burner phones so “the conspirators could communicate.” They claim she also purchased the stunning equipment and yellow straps used to secure the freezer.
Prosecutors allege her boyfriend, Cullum, used a skid steer to dig the hole, stabbed Kelley, drove the bodies from the ambush to the cow pasture and buried them in the freezer.
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Prosecutors allege Grice stabbed Butler and cut his own hand during the ambush.
“Cole and Cora…were the lookouts on the day of the murders and…confided in their daughter in hopes of establishing an alibi,” prosecutors wrote in the legal filing.
Adams warned of falling bodies when James Taylor, then sheriff of Cimarron County, conducted a welfare check on the children, the OSBI reported in court affidavits.
Prosecutors have not yet said whether they will seek the death penalty against Adams, Cullum and Cole Twombly. All three face two counts of first-degree murder, one count of conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of unlawful disposal of a corpse and two counts of unlawful desecration of a human corpse.
Adams also faces two counts of child neglect.
Grice and Cora Twombly waived their preliminary hearings.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: ‘God’s Misfits’ Oklahoma murder trial testimony begins Tuesday
