Man ate victim's heart and chopped off penis after killing him
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.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
5 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
'Perfect' neighbour cut off man's penis and ate it with him before killing him
Armin Meiwes, 42, killed and ate Bernd Brandes, 43, after the latter answered his ad for someone who wanted to be killed and consumed - and now the home where it happened has been burnt down In a horrifying case of cannibalism, a killer devoured his consenting victim over 10 months following a macabre pact between the two. Armin Meiwes infamously consumed Bernd Brandes' flesh with his consent, in a gruesome saga that lasted almost a year. Meiwes had placed a ghastly advertisement titled 'Dinner - or your dinner' on a German internet forum, seeking someone willing to be eaten. Bernd, a 43-year-old engineer, responded to the ad in 2001. Then 42, Meiwes welcomed him to his Rotenburg home in southern Germany. There, Meiwes gave Bernd a powerful mix of sleeping pills and schnapps to numb him before cutting off his penis, which they both ate, reports the Mirror US. As reported by the Mirror, what ensued was another horrific act involving Bernd's back meat. In the documentary Docs: Interview With a Cannibal, Meiwes said: "I took out my best dinner service, and fried a piece of rump steak – a piece from his back – made what I call princess potatoes, and sprouts." Meiwes narrated his initial experience of human flesh as an extraordinary feeling. He said: "The first bite was, of course, very strange. It was a feeling I can't really describe. I'd spent over 40 years longing for it, dreaming about it." He added: "And now I was getting the feeling that I was actually achieving this perfect inner connection through his flesh. The flesh tastes like pork but stronger." In a chilling ritual, Meiwes carefully arranged his dining table with candles, ready to indulge in the forbidden feast he had craved his entire life. Following the meal, Bernd, who was still conscious, was placed in a bath while Meiwes recited from a Star Trek book until he committed the final fatal deed, stabbing Bernd in the throat and ending his life. Meiwes then horrifically butchered his victim and buried the body parts in his garden, saving some of the flesh in his freezer for later consumption over ten months. He was caught in December 2002 and concocted a tale for the police, alleging the meat in his freezer was wild boar. The former IT worker had a long-standing morbid obsession with cannibalism, a dark fantasy that began in his youth. In court, he maintained that the engineer "came to me of his own free will to end his life. For him, it was a nice death." Investigations later revealed that the deceased had an extraordinary wish to be disfigured and had seemingly agreed to Meiwes' gruesome craving as a compromise – fearing that he might be committed if he chose to continue living. Over a month, the duo exchanged messages daily, meticulously crafting their grim agreement, which culminated in Bernd selling his car, wiping his computer clean, and leaving his possessions to his partner via a handwritten note before he left. In January 2004, Meiwes was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years and six months behind bars. Following a retrial in May 2006, he was convicted of murder and handed a life sentence, where he remains locked up at the age of 63. In April 2023, an arson attack razed Meiwes' former residence, the scene of the horrific crime, to the ground.
Daily Mirror
14 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Death row child killer says pacemaker will reactivate his heart during execution
Byron Black was convicted in the 1988 shooting deaths of girlfriend Angela Clay, 29, and her two daughters, Latoya, 9, and Lakeisha, 6. His execution is scheduled for August 18 Lawyers for a Tennessee death row inmate are making a final attempt to halt his impending execution. In Nashville's Chancery Court, they're pleading with a judge to order the Tennessee Department of Correction to switch off an implanted defibrillation device, similar to a pacemaker, just before Byron Black's execution. If the judge agrees, this could potentially postpone the execution until the state finds someone willing to carry out the deactivation. Simultaneously, at the state Supreme Court level, they're seeking an order for a lower court to consider their argument that Black is unfit to be executed. General challenge The lawyers have also lodged a general challenge against the state's new execution protocol, but with a trial set for 2026, any decision there will be too late for Black, reports the Mirror US. Black was found guilty in the 1988 shooting deaths of his girlfriend Angela Clay, 29, and her two daughters, Latoya, 9, and Lakeisha, 6. Prosecutors claimed Black was in a jealous fury when he shot the three at their home. At the time, Black was on work-release while serving a sentence for shooting and injuring Clay's estranged husband. Execution postponed Black has already had three execution dates postponed, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a pause on all executions from Gov. Bill Lee after it was discovered that the Department of Correction wasn't testing the execution drugs for potency and purity as required. Black's legal team has previously attempted, without success, to argue that his execution would be unconstitutional due to his intellectual disability. New bid In a fresh approach, they now contend that Black's competence for execution should be evaluated under older English common law standards. The state rebuts this, asserting that Black does not meet the criteria for incompetency as he comprehends his conviction, impending execution, and the connection between them. In a separate move, Black's lawyers are petitioning another court to decree that his implanted cardioverter-defibrillator must be switched off just prior to the execution. They propose that if left active, the device will repeatedly attempt to restart his heart, prolonging the execution and causing Black unnecessary suffering. Given that most medical professionals refuse to partake in executions - viewing it as a breach of medical ethics - it could potentially be a lengthy and challenging process to find someone willing to deactivate the device to facilitate Black's execution. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for 14 July.
Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Daily Mirror
'Slaughter house' prison with bodies strewn across floor and execution parties
WARNING DISTRESSING DETAILS: Bashar Al-Assad's brutal regime saw thousands die in his 'human slaughterhouse' prisons - with some guards getting so carried away they threw execution parties Before Bashar Al-Assad's regime was toppled, thousands perished or disappeared after being sent to his notorious "human slaughterhouse" jails. Prisoners in one of Assad's infamous institutions faced gruesome realities, where execution parties and floors strewn with corpses were everyday sights. Notably, a single jail accounted for the deaths of 13,000 individuals. Incarcerated souls endured conditions so abhorrent they were often driven to madness, crammed together to the point of asphyxiation and fed as if they were less than cattle. One Saydnaya Prison guard even boasted about his fearsome reputation to a BBC Two documentary called 'Surviving Syria 's Prisons': "When the prisoners heard my name, they would tremble. I beat them with all my strength. I showed them no mercy at all." With the collapse of Assad's rule, evidence of the atrocities began to surface, including rooms littered with documents and charred pictures of detainees – efforts to obliterate proof of the horrors within those walls were clear. Amidst these chilling scenes, families were recorded desperately sifting through the debris, searching for traces of their missing relatives, reports the Mirror US. From 2000 onward, Al-Assad ran a ruthless dictatorship in Syria, marked by appalling violations of human rights. The terror spawned from his prisons served to cement his iron-fisted reign for over twenty years. The Arab Spring in 2011, inspired by calls for enhanced human rights in Tunisia, was swiftly silenced in the Syrian capital, casting the nation into a protracted civil war. Thousands were detained, including Shadi, and whisked away to clandestine sites where they endured torture until they coughed up confessions, which were frequently concocted. During his second arrest with his brother, Shadi found himself in the infamous Air Force Intelligence branch in Harasta. Colonel Zain, who was second-in-command at the time, revealed: "The place I worked in was very famous for its bloody practices and the number of detainees held there. We would pack 400 detainees in a room that was eight by ten metres. "Those who entered would walk over the bodies of the detainees - you couldn't see the floor. The interrogation room was right underneath my office. Everyone heard the screams. Everyone knew how the interrogations were conducted." Shadi said: "The temperature was around 40 degrees, because it was so crowded. We saw strange cases of disease amongst prisoners, I think, due to oxygen deficiency because of overcrowding. These psychotic episodes soon turned into physical symptoms." Inmates were stripped in a changing room before some were thrown into solitary confinement cells for months or even years. Demonstrating against a wall, Shadi illustrated how he was forced to endure hours of torture. "They'd bring a cable and suspend us like this. This is the 'Ghost Method'. They'd pull us up and we'd be on our toes - you'd last 30 minutes then you'd pass out." Shadi recounted his harrowing experience of being chained up with his brother and interrogated via ceiling pipes. He revealed: "We were taken there and hung by our handcuffs from the pipes. It was unbearable - for almost 72 hours, three days, in the same position, without food or drink. "We were tortured for hours, and stopped keeping track of time," Hadi remembered. "If someone cried during a beating, the beating would get worse." Amnesty reports that as many as 13,000 inmates were executed here alone in the initial four years of the civil war. Hussam, a military policeman, said: "Our superiors would say, 'Torture them, don't let them sleep at night. Throw them a party... put them in a grave if you want to, bury them alive'. "When they'd call me to go and torture them, the prisoners would return to their cells bloody and exhausted. On Wednesday mornings, we'd have an 'execution party. Our role during executions was to place the rope on the prisoner - only an officer could push the chair. "One time, the chair was pushed, but after 22 minutes he didn't die. So I grabbed him and pulled him downwards, so another guard who was bigger and stronger said, 'go I will do it.' Before he died he said one thing: 'I'm going to tell God what you did'. "Most of the bodies suffered acute weight loss, resembling a skeleton," Kamal, an army nurse, noted. "Most of them suffered from skin lesions and rashes due to lack of hygiene - and most of them had torture marks." He revealed a harrowing fact: "It was forbidden to record the cause of death as torture. Even those killed from gunshots were recorded as heart and respiratory failure." With an overwhelming number of casualties, mass graves became a grim necessity. Investigators have since uncovered at least 130 burial sites throughout Syria, although many of those laid to rest there may never be identified.
