Two teen girls who went missing over the weekend in rural Oklahoma were found dead on Monday afternoon, alongside the bodies of a convicted rapist and four others, authorities reported.
An Amber Alert was reportedly blasted out to phones on Monday morning after Ivy Webster, 14, and Brittany Brewer, 16, vanished. They were deemed “at-risk” and believed to be with the convicted rapist, 39-year-old Jesse McFadden, who was facing a new sex-crimes trial.
Authorities on Monday afternoon went to a property owned by McFadden with a search warrant, Okmulgee County Sheriff Eddy Rice said.
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“We’ve located seven bodies,” Rice said. “We believe to have found everything we were seeking this morning.” As for a motive, he said, “We have no idea.”
While cops didn’t clarify the relationship between Webster, Brewer, and McFadden, or provide the identities of the other four victims or causes of death for the group, relatives provided further details.
McFadden’s mother-in-law, Janette Mayo, told the Associated Press that the sheriff’s office had notified her that the other four victims were her daughter, 35-year-old Holly Guess, who was married to McFadden, and Mayo’s three grandchildren, Rylee Elizabeth Allen, 17, Michael James Mayo, 15, and Tiffany Dore Guess, 13.
Erin Christy, a reporter at News 2 Oklahoma, posted to Facebook that she’d spoken to Ivy Webster’s mom. The mom, who was not identified, said she’d given her daughter permission to stay at McFadden’s house so she could sleep over with his daughter, Tiffany. But since Webster had left home, no one had heard from the trio of friends, nor from Tiffany’s two brothers, her mother, or McFadden himself.
There were mixed reports on when Brewer and Webster first went missing. An “endangered missing advisory” from the Oklahoma State Patrol stated that the friends were last seen together at 1:40 a.m. Monday. However, a news release from the sheriff’s office said Webster was reported as missing from rural Henryetta, an hour south of Tulsa, when she didn’t arrive home from the McFaddens’ place at 5 p.m. Sunday as planned.
In a heartbreaking interview on NewsNation, Brittany Brewer’s mother, Malaina Schabell, said she and her ex-husband—Brittany’s father—were unaware of McFadden’s criminal past and that their daughter had previously spent time staying with Tiffany. When Brittany didn’t call her for their usual Saturday chat, Schabell said she knew something was amiss.
“I knew something was wrong ’cause she wasn’t answering my—I mean, I tried to call. I got online on her Facebook and I tried calling her, video calling her, and I messaged her and she wouldn’t respond, and it showed she was online and—but she wouldn’t respond, so I knew something was wrong.”
Nathan Brewer, Brittany’s father, told News On 6 that his daughter was “outgoing.”
“She actually was selected to be Miss Henryetta... coming up in July for this National Miss pageant in Tulsa. And now she ain’t gonna make it because she’s dead. She’s gone,” he said.
Mayo expressed grief and anger, apparently at her son-in-law, on Facebook.
“That man had her fooled,” she wrote. “My daughter didn’t help him... he killed her and 5 children.”
Her sister posted a photo of some of the victims and the message, “I miss you all so much already. I love you all so very much.” Replying to a commenter, she added, “It’s like a horrible nightmare I can’t wake up from.”
Jesse McFadden.
Oklahoma Department of CorrectionsTulsa World, citing court documents, reported that McFadden was scheduled to have a court hearing on Monday. He faced charges of soliciting sexual conduct and possession of child pornography. News On 6 reported that McFadden served 16 years in prison after he was convicted of rape.
The mysterious deaths are the second grim tragedy to rock Okmulgee County recently. Last October, a group of four friends was murdered, and their dismembered bodies were dumped in the Deep Fork River—not far from where Ivy Webster was last seen alive.
