Accused of double murder: The grandmother, her boyfriend and the couple who hosted anti-government religious meetings

Authorities say a five-year custody dispute ended in a plot involving burner phones and stun guns and the killings of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley.

Tifany Machel Adams did not want her grandchildren to see more of their mother. The children’s mother, Veronica Butler, however, wanted more access to her kids than the court-ordered supervised Saturday visits she was allowed. It was the latest flash point in a custody fight that had already gone on for five years. These are some of the details investigators laid out in probable cause affidavits submitted as part of requests for warrants for the arrest of Adams, her boyfriend Tad Cullum and married couple Cole and Cora Twombly. Each has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping and a count of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the killings of Butler, who had children with Adams’ son, and another woman, Jilian Kelley. This story uses the statements from the affidavits and other official statements to unravel how investigators say the murders happened. The four suspects were walked separately into the Texas County Courthouse on Wednesday, each shackled and wearing a striped jail jumpsuit and protective vest. All four defendants were denied bond during their initial court appearance, according to the court docket. They were assigned court-appointed attorneys with the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, according to Charles Laughlin, the agency’s executive director. The agency’s policy is not to speak to the media regarding pending cases, Laughlin told CNN in an email. The two victims, Butler and Kelley, disappeared in the empty, open landscape of Oklahoma’s panhandle while traveling from Kansas to pick up Butler’s children from Adams late last month.