Missing pastor’s wife, woman in custody dispute ‘could be in danger,’ investigator says
Officials at the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation fear a pastor's wife who disappeared with a woman she was accompanying to pick up children on Saturday "could be in danger."
"There's every reason to believe that they could be in danger," Hunter McKee, a representative of OSBI, told ABC News, noting nobody knows exactly where the two women went.
In a statement, the OSBI said the Texas County Sheriff's Department requested their help investigating the "suspicious disappearance" of Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, on Saturday.
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Kelley is the wife of Pastor Heath Kelley, who currently leads Hugoton First Christian Church in Kansas. Heath Kelley recently agreed to serve as the new pastor of Willow Christian Church in Nebraska starting in June. Both churches have been praying for the safe return of the pastor's wife and Butler.
"Their vehicle was found abandoned near Highway 95 and Road L, south of Elkhart, Kansas, in rural Texas County," the OSBI reported. Special agents, along with local law enforcement agencies, are working to locate the women.
An advisory from the Texas County Sheriff's Department said Jilian Heath and Butler, who both sported tattoos, did not make it to the location where they were expected to pick up the children.
"Veronica and Jilian were traveling together to pick up children. They never made it to the pick-up location," the advisory said. "Their car was located abandoned on the side of the road. Veronica has several tattoos, a Chinese symbol on her left forearm, a sunflower on her left shoulder. Jilian has a butterfly tattoo on her left forearm."
Representatives from Hugoton First Christian Church and Willow Christian Church did not immediately respond to The Christian Post's requests for comment on Tuesday.
A video posted on YouTube Monday shows officials at Hugoton First Christian Church offering up prayers for the Kelley family while Willow Christian Church issued several statements about prayer vigils for the missing women.
"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 stated in a notice on Facebook Sunday morning. "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."
Tim Singer, the pastor of Hugoton Assembly of God, described as Butler's pastor, told ABC News that Butler and Jilian Heath were more like acquaintances 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 said.
A source close to Butler told ABC 7 that the missing mom was supposed to pick up her 6-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son in Eva, Oklahoma, to celebrate her daughter's birthday. Jilian Kelley traveled with her from Elkhart, Kansas, on what was supposed to be a 16-mile trip, but the trip appeared to end three miles short of their destination.
"Really hard to deal with knowing that someone I've been in contact with since I was 16 years old (is missing), it's been really difficult," the unidentified source said.
Court documents show that Butler, the father of her children as well as his family were involved in a bitter custody dispute over the children.
In a motion filed in the Cimarron County Court in Oklahoma last November, Tifany Adams, the children's paternal grandmother, opposed any adjustment in the supervised visitation arrangement Butler had with the children, noting that the children had been exposed to sexual abuse while under her care.
The motion alleged the children's father, Wrangler Cole Rickman, was a drug addict who had no interest in caring for his children. It noted, however, that he trusted his mother more than he trusted Butler to protect the children.
"Petitioner appears to be capitalizing on the indifference Mr. Rickman has shown for his children. Mr. Rickman has removed himself from the children's lives. Instead of being a father, he now seeks out the pleasures of drinking alcohol, using drugs, and other degenerate behavior," the complaint explains.
"When he left the children, he left the children in his mother's care, not in the Petitioner's care. The reason for this is twofold. First, it would have been a violation of the court's order granting Mr. Rickman temporary emergency custody for him to leave the minor children with Petitioner. This is because, and the point cannot be stressed enough, Petitioner's brother has been found to have sexually abused the minor children by this court, and Petitioner has been found to have violated the no-contact order prohibiting the minor children from being around Petitioner's abusive sibling," it adds.
"The second reason is because, obviously, Mr. Rickman trusts Ms. Adams with the children more than he trusts the Petitioner with the children."
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