Two of the five defendants in the 2024 deaths of two Kansas women enter pleas of not guilty to the charges.
51-year-old Cole Earl Twombly and 44-year-old Tad Bert Cullum both appeared in a Texas County, Oklahoma, courtroom yesterday. They both faces charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of 39-year-Jilian Kelley and 27-year-old Veronica Butler, both of Hugoton, Kansas. The two women disappeared in March 2024 after they traveled to the Oklahoma panhandle to pick up Butler's children. They were found stabbed to death and buried in a freezer two weeks later.
Cullum is scheduled for a jury trial to begin on June 1st, while Twombly's trial is set to begin on October 19th.
Tifany Adams, Cora Twombly, and Paul Grice are also charged in the case. Adams pleaded no contest to first-degree murder in the case on October 15. As pasrt of that deal, she will not face the death penalty when she is sentenced in
