An Oklahoma judge on Monday sentenced Tifany Machel Adams to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the kidnapping and murders of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley, two Kansas mothers who vanished March 30, 2024, while driving to pick up Butler’s children for a birthday party in rural Texas County near the Kansas border.
Prosecutors said the killings grew out of a long-running custody dispute involving two of Butler’s children. Adams, a grandmother to those children and a well-known figure in the Oklahoma Panhandle, pleaded no contest in October to two counts of first-degree murder and four related offenses. The case drew wide attention as authorities searched for weeks across farm and pastureland before finding the women’s bodies. With Monday’s sentence, the court closed the primary case against Adams while four co-defendants face trials or negotiated agreements, and relatives on both sides brace for additional proceedings and formal victim-impact statements.
Butler, 27, and Kelley, 39, left southern Kansas early on March 30 to meet a court-ordered visitation in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Investigators said the women never arrived. Their abandoned vehicle was found along Highway 95 near Road L in Texas County, a sparsely populated stretch of the Panhandle. Search teams combed fields and creek beds for more than two weeks, aided by state agents and local deputies. In the weeks that followed, investigators focused on Adams and acquaintances connected to a small anti-government circle who, according to family members and court filings, sometimes met under the name “God’s Misfits.” “This was an ambush,” a law enforcement official said during the search, describing a plan to intercept the women on an isolated road.
Authorities later recovered the bodies on private rural land in Texas County. In court, prosecutors outlined how the victims were forced off the highway, abducted, and ultimately killed. Records say Adams took part in planning and cleanup and directed others after the fact. Adams pleaded no contest to six counts: two murders, two counts of unlawful removal of a dead body, and two counts of unlawful desecration of a human corpse. In exchange, three counts — one conspiracy charge and two counts of child neglect — were dropped. A no-contest plea is treated as a conviction while not requiring an admission of guilt in open court. The judge imposed life without parole on each murder count. Additional terms on the related counts were ordered to run concurrently, leaving Adams to spend the rest of her life in state custody.
The investigation also pulled in four other defendants. Adams’ boyfriend, Tad Bert Cullum, is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy, with trial set for Oct. 16. Cora Twombly and her husband, Cole Earl Twombly, face the same slate of charges; Cole Twombly’s trial is scheduled for February 2027. A fifth defendant, Paul Grice, is charged similarly. Prosecutors disclosed that Twombly and Grice each reached separate plea agreements and testified in December 2025 about the abductions and killings. Under the agreements, Grice will not face the death penalty, and Twombly must serve 30 years before parole eligibility. Prosecutors said those terms reflect the defendants’ roles and cooperation and are subject to court approval at their final sentencings.
Butler shared two children with Adams’ son, who was in a rehabilitation program in Oklahoma City when the women disappeared, according to court records. Under a supervised-visitation order, Saturdays were set aside for Butler to see the children, and Kelley had been designated by the court to supervise that visit. Family members said the women were headed to collect the children for a birthday party when they were intercepted. The abandoned vehicle, found the same day, prompted an immediate multi-agency response. Deputies, state agents and volunteers followed tire impressions and footpaths, and searchers used drones to scan arroyos and shelter belts that cut across the county’s wheat fields and grazing tracts.
The case stirred intense emotions across the Panhandle and in southwest Kansas. Small prayer vigils formed in Guymon and Hugoton as word spread about the missing mothers. After the bodies were found, relatives described Butler as a young mother working to stabilize custody and Kelley as a church volunteer who agreed to help because she had experience with supervised exchanges. “They were doing what the court ordered and trying to keep the peace,” a family pastor said at a memorial. At Monday’s hearing, relatives addressed the court, describing birthdays and holidays that would now pass in silence. The judge thanked them for their statements before announcing the sentence.
Adams’ background also drew scrutiny. Local Republicans confirmed she had served as the Cimarron County GOP chair, a role that positioned her in civic circles in Boise City and nearby towns. Investigators said her influence and relationships helped coordinate searches early on, even as suspicion narrowed. Prosecutors emphasized that Adams’ status did not factor into the charging decisions beyond establishing her connections to other defendants. Defense filings focused on evidentiary disputes and the limited admissions contained in a no-contest plea. In the end, the judge sided with the state’s recommended punishment, citing the gravity of the crimes and the lasting harm to two families and four children left without their mother.
Records in the case describe a plan that began online and by text and culminated in a roadside stop on a quiet section of Highway 95. According to testimony summarized in court, the group coordinated movements the morning of March 30 to ensure the victims would drive through a remote gap with few passersby. After the abductions, the killers separated the women and moved them to rural property. Investigators later documented efforts to conceal the bodies, including moving remains and attempting to sanitize a vehicle and tools. Forensic teams gathered fibers and soil and compared them with materials found around the burial site. Court exhibits traced cell signals and mapped contacts among the defendants in the hours before and after the women vanished.
As the criminal cases continue, prosecutors must still decide whether to seek the death penalty for Cullum and Cole Twombly. Lawyers for Cullum have asked the court to strike capital punishment as unconstitutional and “cruel and unusual,” a motion the state is expected to contest at pretrial hearings ahead of the Oct. 16 trial date. Separate scheduling orders set status checks over the summer for both remaining defendants. If those trials move forward, jurors in the Panhandle could hear testimony again from Grice and Cora Twombly, along with investigators and forensic experts who worked the searches and recovery.
The Panhandle setting shaped the investigation. Texas County spans vast farmland crisscrossed by section roads that can be empty for long stretches. Ranch gates and windbreaks limit visibility from the highway, and spring weather often brings gusty winds that scatter evidence and complicate drone flights. Local law enforcement leaned on farmers and ranchers for access to properties during the two-week search, and road crews helped close or reroute traffic when teams dug in likely areas. A sheriff’s spokesman said the pressure to find answers was intense, with volunteers asking for updates at feed stores and churches. “It became a whole-community search,” he said.
At sentencing, prosecutors read portions of statements from Butler’s relatives and Kelley’s church community. Butler’s family said the children still ask why their mother is not there to pick them up on weekends. Kelley’s friends recalled her calm temperament and willingness to serve as a neutral presence during custody exchanges. “She stood in because it was the right thing to do,” a friend said outside the courthouse. Adams, given a chance to speak, declined to address the families directly. Her attorney argued that the no-contest plea spared jurors retraumatizing testimony and asked the court to run sentences concurrently. The judge replied that the severity of the acts demanded the harshest punishment available under Oklahoma law and pronounced life without parole.
Relatives of the accused left through a side exit without comment. Outside, a small group clustered near the steps of the Texas County Courthouse as a cold wind cut across Main Street. A memorial of flowers and photos for Butler and Kelley, first placed months earlier during the search, had been refreshed for the hearing. A pair of handwritten notes thanked searchers who “walked miles of fields” and urged neighbors to remember the victims as mothers, friends and sisters rather than case numbers. Inside the clerk’s office, staff posted the updated docket entries and prepared certified copies of the judgment and sentence for state corrections.
With Adams sentenced, attention now shifts to the unresolved cases. Cullum’s trial is scheduled for Oct. 16, with pretrial motions to be heard in the coming weeks. Cole Twombly is slated for trial in February 2027. The court will set separate hearings to finalize the agreements for Grice and Cora Twombly. Prosecutors said they expect to call investigators, digital forensics specialists and medical examiners at the remaining trials. Defense teams have signaled they will challenge the reliability of cooperating witnesses and the handling of certain physical evidence recovered from rural properties.
As of Monday evening, Adams was processed into state custody to begin serving life without parole. The Texas County District Court will publish updated minute entries when hearings are set in the co-defendants’ cases. Families of Butler and Kelley said they plan private remembrances in Kansas and Oklahoma in the coming weeks.
Author note: Last updated February 3, 2026.