Oklahoma authorities said Wednesday they now suspect “foul play” was a factor in the disappearance of two Kansas moms who vanished while on their way to pick up one’s children last weekend.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said they’d found “evidence to indicate foul play” based on a search of the car that Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, were last seen in.
That vehicle was abandoned on the side of a highway Saturday in the rural Oklahoma Panhandle, near the Kansas border, authorities said.
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Few details about the women’s disappearance have been released, but a spokesperson for the bureau, Hunter McKee, told Fox News on Wednesday that investigators believe the women are “in danger,” especially since their vehicle was found in “a very rural area of the state.”
“We have not found them yet,” he told the network. “We are doing everything we can.”
Authorities have not identified any persons of interest in the case, nor have any arrests been made.
Butler was the owner of the vehicle the women were last spotted in on March 30. Loved ones told NBC News she had been enmeshed in a child custody dispute.
The women were members of the First Christian Church in Hugoton, Kansas, and were more “acquaintances” than “friends,” NewsNation reported on Thursday. Kelley runs all the children’s programs at the Church, her mother told KFOR. An unnamed family member told NewsNation she’d traveled with Butler “to assist her with a custody matter.”
Kelley’s husband, Heath Kelley, was due to move to soon become the new minister at Willow Christian Church in Indianola, Nebraska, according to The Kansas City Star. That church has been posting pleas for prayers since the women disappeared.
“We ask that you continue to pray for Jilian and Veronica and their families as the search and investigation continue,” the church wrote. “Pray for strength, wisdom and faith for everyone involved. We appreciate everyone who has shared the prayer requests. We are getting messages from all over the country of people praying for these two women and their families.”
