Clockwise from top left: Veronica Butler (Texas County (Okla.) Sheriff’s Department), Jilian Kelley (Texas County (Okla.) Sheriff’s Department), Tifany Machel Adams (Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation).
An Oklahoma grandmother convicted of murdering two Kansas moms who were kidnapped from their van while going to pick up one of the victim’s kids will spend the rest of her life behind bars.
Tifany Machel Adams, 56, was sentenced to life without parole, local CBS affiliate KFDA reported Monday. According to Oklahoma court records, she pleaded no contest in October to two counts of first-degree murder and other charges in connection with the 2024 deaths of Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Butler and Kelley were traveling on March 30, 2024, from southern Kansas to pick up Butler’s children in rural Oklahoma for a birthday party, but never made it. Authorities found their abandoned car along Highway 95 and Road L in Texas County, Oklahoma, near the border with Kansas. The disappearance was considered suspicious and evidence indicated foul play.
Signs would eventually point to a vicious custody dispute between Butler — who shared two children with Adams’ son — and members of an anti-government conspiracy group that calls itself “God’s Misfits.”
Butler had court-ordered visitation with her children each Saturday and Kelley was one of the people selected by the court to supervise the visit. Cops say Adams and her co-defendants on March 30 intercepted Butler and Kelley on the highway and kidnapped them. Authorities searched for more than two weeks before finding the victims’ bodies in rural Texas County.
Adams pleaded no contest to six charges: two charges of first-degree murder, two charges of unlawful removal of a dead body, and two charges of unlawful desecration of a human corpse. In exchange, three additional charges — conspiracy and two charges of child neglect — were dropped, according to court records. In a “no contest” plea, a defendant does not admit guilt, but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction.
Four other people, in addition to Adams, have been charged in the women’s deaths: Adams’ boyfriend, Tad Bert Cullum, Cora Twombly, and Cora Twombly’s husband, Cole Earl Twombly, are charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. A fifth person, 31-year-old Paul Grice, is facing the same charges.
Family members said Adams, Cullum, and the Twomblys are self-proclaimed members of an anti-government group called “God’s Misfits.” They met weekly at each other’s houses. Adams was also the Republican Party chair in Cimarron County in the far western part of the Sooner State’s panhandle, according to State Sen. Nathan Dahm, who is the chairman of the Oklahoma State GOP.
Cora Twombly and Paul Grice have individual plea agreements in place, KFDA reported. In December 2025, the two gave testimony about the murders. Grice will not receive the death penalty in exchange for his testimony, and Twombly must serve 30 years in prison before she is eligible for parole, the station reported.
Cullum’s trial is scheduled for Oct. 16. According to KFDA, his attorneys have filed a motion declaring the death penalty unconstitutional and “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Cole Twombly’s trial is set for February 2027.
