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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-10-12 Euless ArticlesTexas Man Killed and Dismembered 3 at Motel, Police Say Jason Alan Thornburg, 41, an electrician’s apprentice, told detectives that he “believed that he was being called to commit sacrifices,” according to an arrest warrant. Investigators believe Jason Alan Thornburg killed and dismembered three people at the Mid City Inn in Euless, Texas.Credit...NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth By Michael Levenson Published Oct. 1, 2021Updated Oct. 4, 2021 For about two months, the man who stayed in Room 113 at the Mid City Inn in Euless, Texas, would sit outside, reading the Bible and encouraging others to come to church with him, according to a manager of the motel, Kanti Gandhi. “He was a fanatic about the Bible,” Mr. Gandhi said, recalling how the man, Jason Alan Thornburg, once invited a woman who works at the inn at night to come to his room and study the Bible with him. Now, the police say, Mr. Thornburg’s apparent fervor may have played a role in five homicides that he told detectives he had carried out. This week, he was charged with capital murder in the killing and dismemberment of three people at the motel, whose remains, the police said, he then burned in a dumpster. During an interview with homicide detectives, Mr. Thornburg “described having an in- depth knowledge of the Bible and believed that he was being called to commit sacrifices,” according to an arrest warrant. Mr. Thornburg, a 41-year-old electrician’s apprentice, also told detectives that he had “sacrificed” his roommate in May by cutting his throat and then uncapping a gas line and lighting a candle in their house in Fort Worth, according to the arrest warrant. The house exploded minutes after Mr. Thornburg left for work, the police said. Because of the explosion, the medical examiner had not been able to determine how the roommate, whose name was redacted in the arrest warrant, had died, the police said. Mr. Thornburg told the police that he had also “sacrificed” his girlfriend in Arizona. Her name was redacted in the warrant, which said she had been reported missing. He has not been charged in those two cases. It was not immediately clear if Mr. Thornburg had a lawyer. Tarrant County jail records show that he was arrested on Monday and was being held for $1 million bond. Mr. Thornburg did not have an extensive or violent criminal history, according to Sgt. Joe Loughman of the Fort Worth Police Department. “I really couldn’t even go into the psyche of somebody that is able to do this,” Sergeant Loughman said at a news conference on Tuesday. Mr. Gandhi said he was wondering if Mr. Thornburg, who had helped him with a malfunctioning air-conditioner, really could have carried out such gruesome crimes. “He was a nice guy,” he said. “He never had any fights.” The investigation began when firefighters were called to a dumpster fire in Fort Worth on Sept. 22 at 6:17 a.m., the police said. After putting out the flames, they found the remains of three people inside, the police said. A tattoo on one of the victims helped investigators identify him as David Lueras, 42, the police said. Mr. Lueras “had shown up” at the Mid City Inn about five days earlier and had stayed in Mr. Thornburg’s room, the police said. Mr. Thornburg cut his throat and dismembered him, the police said. He “believed that David needed to be sacrificed,” according to the arrest warrant. The two other victims were women who had come to the motel several days after Mr. Lueras was killed, the police said. Mr. Thornburg said he had cut the throat of one of the women and had strangled the other, the police said. The women’s names have not been released, the police said. Sargeant Loughman said that Mr. Thornburg had indicated that “he only knew them casually.” The police were able to link the killings to Mr. Thornburg when they found surveillance video that showed a man driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee to the dumpster and then dumping the contents of several containers into it before lighting it on fire, according to the arrest warrant. Detectives tracked the Jeep back to Mr. Thornburg, the police said. Investigators also found surveillance video from the Mid City Inn on the night of the fire that showed a man carrying large containers from Room 113 into a Jeep, the police said. He was wearing a full-body suit of the sort that is sometimes used for painting or handling hazardous materials. Mr. Ghandi said that Mr. Thornburg had been playing loud music in his room during the week that, police say, he was killing his victims. “It was so loud, people were disturbed upstairs and next door,” he said. “Mostly some church music, probably.” South Euless Elementary Students Jump into Learning to Code with Unruly Splats NEWS PROVIDED BY Unruly Studios Oct 06, 2021, 08:38 ET South Euless Elementary students demonstrate the game they coded with Unruly Splats. EULESS, Texas, Oct. 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- When South Euless Elementary School went back to school in August, the district's STEM & school libraries coordinator Kiera Elledge had a special activity planned that combines active play with learning to code. The school's K-6th graders are the first in the district to use Unruly Splats, programmable floor buttons that students code to light up, make sounds, and collect points when stomped on to create their own active games. "The students might feel like they're in recess, but they're learning how to code," said Ms. Elledge. "Instead of sitting in front of their computers, the kids are running around the classroom. It's a different way to introduce students to coding that might inspire kids who wouldn't have been interested in computer science otherwise." South Euless Elementary won the Unruly Splats "Go Bananas!" back to school competition against dozens of schools across the US and Canada. They competed to collect the most "yellow stomps" and won with over 184,000 stomps in the month of September! "At the start of the school year, we want to remind students about the joy of learning," said Maureen Sterling, Principal at South Euless Elementary. "Unruly Splats are just one of the ways the teachers have gotten creative incorporating games and playfulness into the curriculum, laying the groundwork for a successful school year academically." The Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District now plans to bring Unruly Splats to its Computer Science School of Choice programs at Midway Park Elementary and Harrison Lane Elementary. Unruly Splats help schools fulfill a range of high priority learning objectives including: • Cross-curricular coding: A Gallup study found that 73% of principals believe that computer science is just as important as offering core subjects like math and English. Unruly Splats allow teachers to incorporate coding into any subject, including PE, general education, science, and even music! • Recess-like play combined with STEM: The games kids play with Unruly Splats encourage physical movement, helping to combat a decades long drop in active-play for children exacerbated by the pandemic. • Collaborative games that connect students virtually and in-person: A cloud-based app allows kids and teachers to code and play games with Unruly Splats, no matter the setting: in-school, virtual, or hybrid. School memberships come with Unruly Splats, unlimited seats in the accompanying coding app for teachers and students, resources and lesson plans developed by curriculum experts, and ongoing professional development opportunities to ensure teachers are empowered to incorporate STEM into their classrooms. To learn more about Unruly Splats, visit www.unrulysplats.com. About Unruly Studios Unruly Studios is the creator of Unruly Splats, the first STEM learning tool that combines coding with active-play. Students build their own games with programmable floor buttons that they can code to light up, make sounds, and collect points when stomped on. Unruly Studios' vision is to create an electronic playground that makes learning more playful, collaborative, and inclusive. The team is made up of experts in cognitive science, toy manufacturing, education, and technology who bring broad industry experience from Scratch, Hasbro, Mattel, Nickelodeon, iRobot, Disney, and MIT Media Lab. Media Contact: Charlotte Ward 320671@email4pr.com (530) 563-6860 SOURCE Unruly Studios 33-year-old woman identified as 3rd victim found in burning dumpster in Fort Worth Maricruz Reyes Mathis, 33, died of homicidal violence, according to the medical examiner's autopsy. Author: Ryan Osborne Published: 8:48 AM CDT October 8, 2021 Updated: 8:48 AM CDT October 8, 2021 FORT WORTH, Texas — A third person found in a burning dumpster in Fort Worth in September has been identified, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office. Maricruz Reyes Mathis, 33, died of homicidal violence, according to the medical examiner's autopsy. She was one of three victims found dismembered in a dumpster that was set on fire in the Western Hills area of Fort Worth. The dumpster was found burning on Sept. 22 near a business at 3120 Bonnie Drive, near Camp Bowie West Boulevard and Alta Mere Drive. Jason Alan Thornburg, 41, has been arrested in the case. He faces a charge of capital murder of multiple people. Thornburg remains in the Tarrant County Jail with his bond set at $1 million. The other two victims have been identified as Lauren Phillips and David Lueras. Police said Thornburg knew and met all of the victims at the Mid City Inn in Euless, according to an arrest warrant released last week. Police added he gave a confession of his involvement with the deaths of the people found in the dumpster and "went into intimate details" about how he killed them. Police said Thornburg also confessed to two other, separate killings, one in Texas and another in a different state. “In my time in the homicide unit, we don’t have anything that resembles this," Sgt. Joe Loughman of the Fort Worth police department's homicide unit said during a news conference last month. “I couldn’t even go into the psyche of someone who is able to do this.” The warrant for Thornburg's arrest gave grisly details into the killings, which happened over multiple days. According to the document, Thornburg said he was being called to commit sacrifices. In the news conference, Fort Worth homicide detectives said they were able to identify Thornburg and his possible involvement based off of a Jeep Grand Cherokee that was seen in the area near the time the dumpster was set on fire. Investigators began the process of finding the Jeep involved by cross-referencing nearly 7,000 vehicles in the area, police said. During their search, police saw Thornburg's name - which was already familiar to detectives because he was a person of interest in a suspicious death investigation in the same area in May of this year - was listed as a Jeep owner, according to police. Officials said detectives reviewed surveillance video from a Euless motel where Thornburg was staying that reportedly showed him loading and unloading containers into Jeep on the property. Other surveillance video from near the dumpster - which coincided with the motel video - showed him dumping dismembered body parts from clear plastic containers into the dumpster, police said. The surveillance video, according to police, then shows him igniting the fire. Police eventually tracked down Thornburg to Arlington and asked him to come to the station, where he reportedly gave a confession of his involvement with the deaths of the people found in the dumpster and "went into intimate details" about how he killed them, police said.