WARNING, DISTRESSING CONTENT: Jason Thornburg, 44, has been sentenced to death in Texas after he was found guilty of the brutal murders of three people and carrying out gruesome acts on their bodies
A 44 year old man has been handed a death sentence in Tarrant County, Texas after being found guilty of the horrific murders of three individuals by a jury.
Not only did he commit the savage killings, but he also mutilated his victims and set their corpses alight.
Over a seven-day period in September 2021, Jason Thornburg took the lives of David Lueras, 42, Maricruz Mathis, 33, and Lauren Phillips, 34, later claiming the trio needed to be sacrificed for religious purposes.
During the lengthy trial, chilling details emerged about the events at the Mid City Inn in Euless. The three victims were separately lured into the room Thornburg was renting and subsequently murdered.
The killer slit the throats of two victims and strangled Phillips before violating her lifeless body. He even consumed part of David’s heart and severed his penis, reports the Mirror US.
After the victims were dead, Thornburg dismembered their bodies in the motel bathtub and stashed their remains in rubbish bags under the bed.
In the early hours of September 22, the murderer transported the body parts, which he had kept in plastic storage tubs, to a skip on Bonnie Drive in Fort Worth.
He dumped the remains in the skip, ignited them and drove off. Firefighters were summoned to the inferno and put out the fire, where they stumbled upon the victims’ burnt bodies.
The authorities homed in on Thornburg after CCTV footage showed his Jeep Grand Cherokee near the scene when the bodies were dumped and set aflame. In a chilling act, he meticulously cleaned and returned the containers to the shop where they were purchased.
The evidence presented at trial, including chilling details of the events at the motel, led the jury to conclude that Thornburg posed a continuing threat to society, resulting in a death sentence. The jurors took a mere five hours to agree unanimously, with Thornburg remaining quiet as the judgement was delivered.
Following the verdict, the presiding judge stated: “Therefore, Jason Allen Thornburg, you have been adjudged by a jury to be guilty of capital murder. And the juror has answered the special issues making it mandatory that your punishment be death. Therefore, this court sentences you, Jason Allen Thornburgh, to death.”
An automatic appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals will scrutinise the conviction and death sentence; if confirmed, Thornburg awaits execution under state custody. Death row inmates often wait years before their execution is actualised.
In a startling twist, upon his arrest for the motel slayings, Thornburg allegedly admitted to police involvement in two additional homicides.
Thornburg is alleged to have confessed to law enforcement that he murdered his flatmate, 61 year old Mark Jewell, who perished in a suspicious home explosion in May 2021, and his ex-girlfriend Tanya Begay in Arizona back in 2017.
Firefighters discovered Jewell’s body following a gas explosion at their Fort Worth residence. Begay vanished in March 2017 after last being spotted with Thornburg.
As reported by Fox 4, the FBI still considers the case unresolved as her body has yet to be found.