Two Kansas moms who were traveling together to pick up children in Oklahoma’s panhandle have not been seen in more than a week, and police suspect foul play.
Jilian Kelley, 39, was traveling with Veronica Butler, 27, to pick up Butler’s young children in Eva, Oklahoma, but they never arrived. Their vehicle was found abandoned in Elkhart, Kansas, just a few miles from their destination, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said in a Facebook post on March 31.
What investigators discovered in the vehicle has led them to suspect foul play is involved, the OSBI said in an update. The bureau has not released what was found.
Kelley is the wife of Pastor Heath Kelley of the Hugoton First Christian Church in Kansas, The Christian Post reported. A video posted to YouTube last week shows church officials praying for the Kelley family. Willow Christian Church also posted prayers for the missing women on Facebook.
“Please, please be in prayer for these women. Jillian is the wife of our new minister, Heath Kelley, and the sister-in-law of church member Hillary Kennedy,” the church said. “Please pray that Jillian and her friend Veronica are safe and that they are found quickly. God please bring these women home to their families that are so worried about them.”
Butler was a member of the Hugoton Assembly of God, and her pastor told ABC News that the two women were acquaintances rather than friends.
“It appears that this was not a willing incident on their own to have taken off. It looks to me that there’s something more involved,” he told the outlet.
The two women were traveling to pick up Butler’s 6-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son. The children were living with their biological father’s mother. Butler was reportedly involved in a custody dispute with the father of her children, Wrangler Cole Rickman, Inside Edition reported. Rickman had been released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for possession of a firearm, just a week before the women went missing. But Lauren Conlin, an independent journalist, spoke to Rickman’s grandmother who said Rickman had been released from prison and ordered to go to rehab on the same day. She said Rickman was in rehab when the women disappeared.
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“He [Rickman] was checked into rehab on the 22nd- 30 days no contact and cannot leave any outings from the facility for 30 days, and has to be there for six months. OSBI confirmed he was there,” the grandmother said, Conlin posted on X.
UPDATE: Regarding #MISSING Kansas women, #VeronicaButler and #JillianKelley. I spoke with the grandmother of Wrangler Cole Rickman [Rickman is Veronica’s ex and father of her children]. Grandmother confirmed the below:
“He [Rickman] was checked into rehab on the 22nd- 30 days… pic.twitter.com/eHuJkcZN3q
— Lauren Conlin (@conlin_lauren) April 3, 2024
The grandmother also told Conlin that Butler’s children were safe.
Butler and Kelley remain missing.