OK OK, Veronica Butler 27 & Jilian Kelley 39, Vehicle Abandoned, Texas County, 30 Mar 2024

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PommyMommy said:
This was thrown together pretty quickly, so please feel free to pick it apart. I'm off to work though. See you this evening. :)

Saturday, March 30:
  • 9:30 a.m. - She/they leave Hugoton KS to pick up Veronica's children, with plans to return to Hugoton for her daughter's birthday party.
  • X - Veronica and Jilian miss their return home.
  • X - Pastor Heath Kelley and Pastor Tim Singer drive in the direction they believe the women traveled.
  • 10:30 a.m. - Veronica's blue Kia SUV is found by investigators near Highway 95 and Road L, south of Elkhart, Kansas, in rural Texas County.
  • X - Just three miles from the women’s destination, the pastors see LE surrounding Veronica’s vehicle.
  • 6:15 p.m. - Veronica and Jilian are reported missing by Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
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The two pastors come upon the car an hour after the women left? It would take them perhaps 30 minutes to get to where the car was left...so what made them go out looking only a half hour after the women left (which is likely about the time that whatever happened to them happened, since it takes a half hour to get to where they were). I wonder if one of them was on the phone with one of the pastors, or if they tried to call but got cut off and then the pastor couldn't get an answer when he tried to call back.
 
Valhall said:
I have not seen anything that indicates they were picking up at any time other than the designated time of 8:00 am in the custody papers. So they would have left Hugoton around 7 am.
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I agree with this. Being late to pick up is usually a bad look and used against the late parent in custody battles, from what I've seen. I tend to think they probably left around 7 a.m., and it fits better with the rest of the timeline regarding discovery of the car, etc.

Does anyone know the exact original source of the claim that they left Hugoton at 9:30 a.m.?
 

doublestop said:
The two pastors come upon the car an hour after the women left? It would take them perhaps 30 minutes to get to where the car was left...so what made them go out looking only a half hour after the women left (which is likely about the time that whatever happened to them happened, since it takes a half hour to get to where they were). I wonder if one of them was on the phone with one of the pastors, or if they tried to call but got cut off and then the pastor couldn't get an answer when he tried to call back.
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Exactly right!
And when the pastors got there LE was already there.
 
doublestop said:
The two pastors come upon the car an hour after the women left? It would take them perhaps 30 minutes to get to where the car was left...so what made them go out looking only a half hour after the women left (which is likely about the time that whatever happened to them happened, since it takes a half hour to get to where they were). I wonder if one of them was on the phone with one of the pastors, or if they tried to call but got cut off and then the pastor couldn't get an answer when he tried to call back.
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Could TA have called 911?
 
charmingbetsy said:
I agree with this. Being late to pick up is usually a bad look and used against the late parent in custody battles, from what I've seen. I tend to think they probably left around 7 a.m., and it fits better with the rest of the timeline regarding discovery of the car, etc.

Does anyone know the exact original source of the claim that they left Hugoton at 9:30 a.m.?
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The missing poster states they went missing at around 9:30am.
 
otto said:
This is my understanding at this time.

"She was going to get her kids for a birthday party, and she never made it," Singer said.
...

Singer said Kelley and Butler were supposed to pick up the children in Texas County and return to Hugoton for the birthday party, which was scheduled for Saturday morning. Butler's car was found in an extremely rural area, and they were nowhere to be found.

"Their vehicle was found abandoned near Highway 95 and Road L. This was just south of Elkhart, Kansas, in rural Texas County," said Hunter McKee, a spokesperson for OSBI."

koco.com
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Thanks.
 
Speculation:

AFAIK their cell phones haven't been accounted for. It's pretty likely that one of the women (Jilian probably) had an app like Life 360 or one similar. If Jilian's preacher husband happened to look at Life 360 to check their progress (heck, maybe Jilian even asked him to do so) and saw that they had been stalled in one location or were heading rapidly to somewhere off the map, he would've felt the urge to go investigate. These apps can do crazy things sometimes but if he was at all aware of the heated custody situation it might prompt him to assume something bad was happening and spring into action. Especially if she wasn't responding to texts or calls checking in on them.
 
lightofmine99 said:
Speculation:

AFAIK their cell phones haven't been accounted for. It's pretty likely that one of the women (Jilian probably) had an app like Life 360 or one similar. If Jilian's preacher husband happened to look at Life 360 to check their progress (heck, maybe Jilian even asked him to do so) and saw that they had been stalled in one location or were heading rapidly to somewhere off the map, he would've felt the urge to go investigate. These apps can do crazy things sometimes but if he was at all aware of the heated custody situation it might prompt him to assume something bad was happening and spring into action. Especially if she wasn't responding to texts or calls checking in on them.
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This was my thought. I've been a supervisor for parenting time and sometimes the situations can be less than comfortable. It wouldn't surprise me if Jilian had something set up with her husband to check in on her or for periodic text/phone call check-ins for safety. If she missed a check-in or an app like Life 360 showed something strange her husband would have already known to call it in.
 
Trino said:
Why an abandoned place? People are naive. J seems like she had a positive outlook on life/people, did not suspect a problem. Would like to know more about her.
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I think they felt a false sense of safety just being together. Like, what can happen when there's two of you. The other person would be a witness to anything that was said/done. Usually that would be true but as we WS'ers know, that's not always the case.
 
Alcina said:
I think they felt a false sense of safety just being together. Like, what can happen when there's two of you. The other person would be a witness to anything that was said/done. Usually that would be true but as we WS'ers know, that's not always the case.
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So true. They probably thought - it's out in the open, broad daylight...
 
doublestop said:
A new (I think) piece of info in this article: Foul Play Suspected After 2 Women Disappear In Oklahoma Panhandle

"The two women were driving a small blue SUV when they disappeared, agents said."

I'm not sure we had it confirmed that it was a small SUV.
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* I saw that this morning but thought it was an error. It’s an Oklahoma station which doesn’t always get things correct or go into much detail but I also see it with Nancy: the transcript is here:


We know that the car was a small blue SUV that the car belonged to Veronica. Ispoke to an eyewitness last night who says that she was traveling on that sameroad and passed by and saw the abandoned car. Her story is that at least one ofthe windows were smashed was broken on that car. Now police have notconfirmed that, but the eyewitness said that she saw a window smashed on thecar. She also says that she made a nine to one one call to report this abandonedcar on the side of the road in this rural area.
omny.fm

Missing Mom and Preacher's Wife Vanish, Picking up Kids: Car Just Found - Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

6:15 PM Saturday: Oklahoma Highway Patrol issues a ‘Missing Endangered’ Alert for Veronica Butler and Jillian Kelley on behalf of the Texas County Sheriffs. By Sunday evening, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation announces they are joining the investigation into the women's “suspicious...
omny.fm omny.fm
 
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otto said:
The best way to avoid digital detection is to leave electronics and cell phone at home, and to drive an old vehicle. Otherwise, data tracking will be used to identify which cell phone IDs were in that area at the time they vanished.

Assuming this was planned, and since this was a broad daylight abduction of two women on a rural road, chances are a truck was used to transport two injured adults away from their car. Chances are their kidnapper wouldn't drive far with two bodies in the back of the truck before either hiding them better, or disposing of them. Hypothetically.
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Even better if the truck had some type of trailer attached. The bodies could be placed in the trailer as opposed to the truck bed. The trailer would be used to transport the victims to a burial or disposal location and separated from the pickup truck shortly thereafter and put in a location away from the owner’s land/home. Then, if the owner of the truck were to be served with a search warrant for that truck, it would be clean. Being that that area is known for all sorts of farm equipment like various kinds of trailers, it might be hard to pinpoint such a trailer as belonging to the truck owner in terms of a search warrant. Hypothetically.
 
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