Authorities suspect “foul play” after two Kansas moms traveling in Oklahoma vanished and the car they were driving was found abandoned in a remote part of the Sooner state’s panhandle.
Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley went missing Saturday in a “rural” part of Texas County, near Highway 95 and Road L, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau.
Investigators revealed Wednesday that a more thorough analysis of the circumstances around their disappearance has revealed “evidence to indicate foul play.”
Butler, 27, and Kelley, 39, were traveling only 16 miles to pick up Butler’s 6-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son, who were living with her ex-mother-in-law in Eva, Okla., according to ABC 7.
When the women never arrived to pick up the children, Butler’s ex-husband found the car on the side of the road near a school Butler had graduated from in 2015, according to the report.
The car was found about three miles north of Eva.
Kelley — a mother of four herself — was suspected of traveling with Butler to help her with a custody issue, sources familiar with the matter told NewsNation on Wednesday.
Strangely enough, the school near where the woman went missing and the one Butler had graduated from, Yarbrough School, started operating under a lockdown status on Tuesday, according to a Facebook post.
The Texas County Sheriff’s Department also issued an Endangered Missing Advisory for the two mothers.
The mothers were both members of the Hugoton First Christian Church in Kansas and were reported to be more “acquaintances” than “friends,” according to NewsNation.
Kelley, the wife of a preacher and the secretary of the community church, was said to regularly participate in volunteer work, including running the church’s children’s programs, according to ABC 7.
Her husband, Heath Kelley, previously the pastor of Hugoton, has recently moved to become the new minister at Willow Christian Church in Nebraska.
The congregation is asking the community to keep spreading the word about the disappearance and praying that both women are found.
“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,” the church wrote in a Facebook post Monday.
A friend of Butler’s told ABC7 they’re hoping the women are found but understand the odds of finding a missing person dwindle after the “first 24-48 hours” have passed.
“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 real difficult,” the source told the outlet.
The Oklahoma State Bureau said that they have currently made “no arrests” after suspecting the mothers of disappearing under suspicious circumstances.
“There’s every reason to believe that they could be in danger,” Public Information Manager with the Bureau Hunter Mckee told ABC News Tuesday.
“It was a very rural area. They’re nowhere to be found. … The fact that we’ve had no contact with them for this long.”
