Two Oklahomans accused in a sprawling murder conspiracy that took the lives of two mothers are telling law enforcement key details about the bizarre and gruesome crime.

As of now, the case against the alleged members of the anti-government group known as “God’s Misfits” is still in the pre-trial stage.

Paul Grice, 32, and Cora Twombly, 45, each faced myriad charges but agreed to plea deals for their testimony in December 2024. The judge overseeing the case, however, could still deny those plea deals if the defendants do not cooperate with prosecutors as they are expected.

Transcripts of what Grice and Twombly told the court were recently placed on the public docket in a related wrongful death civil case brought by the heir and estate of one of the victims.

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“Will you tell the court what your understanding is of what you’re receiving in exchange for being here and testifying today for the State,” the judge asked Grice during the hearing.

“To get off the death penalty,” Grice replied.

Twombly’s time at the dais revealed a similar bargain: she will spend at least 30 years behind bars before she is eligible for parole.

The pair recalled how the five charged defendants started off as “just friends hanging out” and then regularly met as members of a prayer group that became a private member association.

Over time, they said, co-defendant Tifany Adams, 55, began to complain about the custody situation involving her grandchildren – griping that the minors were around drugs because of her son and casting aspersions about the “parenting abilities in general.”

That custody dispute was eventually transmogrified into the bloody and brutal murders of Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39.

The slain Kansas women left home in late March 2024 – to pick up Butler’s children in rural Oklahoma – but would never return. Their bodies were found buried in an underground freezer on April 14, 2024.

Grice discussed how Adams allegedly approached him.

“This initial – this meeting where she came over to your house in February in your opinion what was the purpose of that meeting?” a prosecutor asked Grice.

Grice is said to have replied: “Well, she – after our talk she point blank asked me if I would kill Veronica.”

“What was your response?” the prosecutor followed up.

“Told her I would think about it,” Grice went on. “I had let her story create a lot of bitterness and hatred in me. And I didn’t have any proof of it and it was my fault.”

Paul Grice (Texas County Sheriff’s Department).

And to further justify the planned-out violence, Adams used religion, specifically the Christian Bible, the defendant said during the hearing.

“She had a couple verses,” Grice told the state.

The prosecutor next asked about the general contours of the plan to kill the two women – again Grice identified Adams as the leader; he also mentioned a prominent role for Tad Bert Cullum, 44, Adams’ boyfriend.

From the transcript, at length:

Q. Okay. Who was explaining the plan to you?
A. Tifany.
Q. Okay. And what did she you tell the plan was?
A. She said she was going to have a pickup and a trailer with a freezer in it and she would come with a way to lure the women to the trailer. Told me that my job was to kill Veronica and that Tad would handle the supervisor, Jilian. And that Tad had a place to bury the bodies and the evidence.
Q. Okay. Where was the murder supposed to take place?
A. The corner of road L and was it Highway 95.
Q. Ask you a different way. Was it supposed to take place inside the trailer?
A. Yes, that was our hope and plan.
Q. Why was it supposed to be in the trailer?
A. I don’t really know why. It’s just what we come up with.

Left to right: Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley (Texas County Sheriff’s Office).

The defendants went on to describe the various other roles each defendant would allegedly play on the day in question.

Twombly said her role was to sit and wait outside the trailer for the victims to arrive – and then to depart with any cellular phone that had been brought to the scene of the crime, along with Adams, and to later destroy the cellphones at another location. Her husband, Cole Earl Twombly, 50, was to act as the lookout.

But in the end, “things hadn’t gone the way she planned,” Twombly testified – referring to Adams – “and there was a lot of blood.”

Twombly said she arrived to a more chaotic crime scene than expected – one of the co-defendants was chasing one of the victims. There, she said, she also saw Grice pleading for help as he killed the women.

Grice, for his part, admitted to killing Butler with a hammer and then killing Kelley with a knife – but told prosecutors he felt that he had been set up to be the only person “with blood on [his] hands.”

A prosecutor asked about the aftermath of the first murder: “Going back to Tifany coming over there while you have Veronica on the ground. What is Tifany doing?”

Grice reportedly replied: “Walking a circle around us laughing. It was the most evil laugh I ever heard.”

The next hearing in the case is related to the testing of evidence that could destroy or damage certain materials; it is slated for July 30.