10/2/2021- 10:00 p.m.
For about two months, the man who stayed in room 113 of the Mid City Inn in Euless, Texas, sat outside, reading the Bible and encouraging others to come to church with him, according to a motel manager, Kanti Gandhi.
“He was a fan of the Bible,” said Mr. Gandhi, recalling how the man, Jason Alan Thornburg, once invited a woman who works at the inn at night to come to his room and read the Bible with him. study.
Now, police say, Mr. Thornburg’s apparent passion may have played a part in five murders he told detectives he had carried out. This week he was charged with murdering three people at the motel, whose remains, according to police, he subsequently burned in a dumpster.
During an interview with homicide detectives, according to an arrest warrant, Mr. Thornburg described “having a thorough knowledge of the Bible and believing that he was called to make sacrifices.”
Thornburg, a 41-year-old electrician’s apprentice, also told detectives that he “sacrificed” his roommate in May by slitting his throat and then disconnecting a gas line and lighting a candle at their Fort Worth home. , according to the arrest warrant. The house exploded minutes after Mr. Thornburg left for work, police said.
The explosion had prevented the coroner from determining how the roommate, whose name was listed on the arrest warrant, had died, police said.
Mr. Thornburg told police he also “sacrificed” his girlfriend in Arizona. Her name was redacted in the warrant, which said she was reported missing. In those two cases, he was not prosecuted.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Thornburg had a lawyer. Tarrant County jail records show he was arrested Monday and held on $1 million bail.
According to Sgt. Mr. Thornburg had no extensive or violent criminal history. Joe Loughman of the Fort Worth Police Department.
“I couldn’t even go into the psyche of someone capable of this,” Sargeant Loughman said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Mr. Gandhi said he wondered if Mr. Thornburg, who had helped him with a faulty air conditioner, really could have committed such heinous crimes. “He was a nice guy,” he said. “He never argued.”
The investigation began when firefighters were called to a container fire in Fort Worth at 6:17 a.m. on Sept. 22, police said. After extinguishing the flames, they found the remains of three people inside, police said.
A tattoo on one of the victims helped investigators identify him as David Lueras, 42, police said. Mr Lueras “had appeared about five days earlier” at the Mid City Inn and had stayed in Mr Thornburg’s room, police said.
Mr. Thornburg slit his throat and cut him into pieces, police said. According to the arrest warrant, “he believed that David should be sacrificed.”
The other two victims were women who died just days after Mr. Lueras had come to the motel murdered, police said. Mr Thornburg said he cut the throat of one of the women and strangled the other, police said.
The names of the women have not been released, police said. Sargeant Loughman said Mr Thornburg had indicated that he only knew them in passing.
According to the warrant, police were able to link the murders to Mr. Thornburg when they found surveillance video showing a man driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee to the dumpster and then dumping the contents of several containers into it before setting it on fire. .
Detectives followed the jeep back to Mr. Thornburg, police said.
Investigators also found surveillance video from the Mid City Inn on the night of the fire showing a man carrying large containers from room 113 into a jeep, police said.
He wore a full-body suit of the kind sometimes used for painting or handling hazardous materials.
Mr Gandhi said Mr Thornburg had been playing loud music in his room during the week he was murdering his victims, police say. “It was so loud it disturbed people above and next door,” he said. “Mostly some church music, probably.”
