Over a week-long period in September 2021, Jason Thornburg killed David Lueras, 42, Maricruz Mathis, 33, and Lauren Phillips, 34, at a motel in Fort Worth, Texas. Thornburg was then a 44-year-old apprentice electrician.
After his arrest, he told police he had been instructed "by God" to carry out the killings as a "human sacrifice."
Killings and dismemberment
Thornburg slit the throats of two of his victims and strangled Lauren Phillips before violating her lifeless body. He also ate part of David Lueras' heart, severed his penis, and ate portions of Lauren and Maricruz.
He butchered the bodies in the bathroom of the motel, dismembering them in the bath. He stored the victims' remains in bin bags and plastic storage containers under his bed before moving them to a skip in Fort Worth.
Discovery and capture
Thornburg set the victims' remains ablaze and drove away. Firefighters who responded to the fire discovered the human remains. CCTV footage captured his Jeep Grand Cherokee near the scene, leading investigators to close in on him.
Before his arrest, he meticulously cleaned the containers he had used to store the victims and returned them to the shop where he had purchased them.
Victim identified and arrest
Police initially struggled to identify the two female victims. The breakthrough came when Lauren Phillips' mother filed a criminal complaint against Thornburg. She suspected he had killed her daughter, a mother of two sons, after Lauren befriended him and had been living at the inn alongside him.
Thornburg was then apprehended.
Trial and death sentence
His trial began in November 2024. The defence argued he should be acquitted on grounds of insanity, while the prosecution said he was legally sane, pointing to the way he concealed the bodies and evaded capture for several days.
On November 20, 2024, Thornburg was convicted on three counts of capital murder. The jury unanimously imposed the death penalty after five hours of deliberation.
Addressing the convicted killer, the presiding judge said: "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."
