Murdered Kansas mothers were found dead in buried freezer: police

Two Kansas mothers who were murdered in the Oklahoma panhandle were found dead in a chest freezer buried in the ground, according to police.

Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley disappeared on March 30 and were found dead on April 14, but authorities have released few other details in the case.

However, search warrants recently filed in district court in Texas County, Oklahoma, revealed police discovered their bodies in a freezer in the county, Oklahoma City NBC affiliate KFOR reported Tuesday.

Cops also said they found jeans, sweatshirts, T-shirts, a black jacket, cloth gloves, ball caps, duct tape and a sheathed black knife in the freezer, according to KFOR. Police believe several of the items had blood on them.

Butler, 27, and Kelley, 39, were traveling from Hugoton, Kansas, through the panhandle to pick up Butler’s two children for a birthday party. Butler and the children’s father, Wrangler Rickman, had shared custody of the kids.

Kelley was traveling with Butler as a court-approved supervisor of the custody exchange. Rickman was at a rehab facility in Oklahoma City at the time, and his mother, Tifany Adams, had custody of the children.

Adams was one of five people arrested and charged with killing Butler and Kelley. Her boyfriend Tad Cullum and their friends Cole and Cora Twombly were also arrested, along with a man named Paul Grice.

Grice was arrested several days after the first four suspects. Police said he was trying to get out of the country before cops could catch up with him, KFOR reported. According to court documents, Grice asked someone “how to get a guy and his family” to Mexico and how long DNA would remain on clothing in a dirt hole 15 feet deep.