A Texas man has confessed to brutally slitting the throats of his three victims before setting them on fire in a Fort Worth dumpster last week as he committed a gruesome "biblical sacrifice."
The Fort Worth police have arrested and booked Jason Alan Thornburg, 41, into the Tarrant County Jail at around 11:30 p.m on Monday, Sept. 27, on capital murder charges. The murderer is being held on a $1 million bond, the Daily Beast reported.
On Sept. 22 at around 6:15 a.m., Fort Worth firefighters were called to a dumpster fire on the city's west side in the 3100 block of Bonnie Drive and were confronted with the charred and dismembered remains of three people, including an infant and an adult woman, in the dumpster.
Authorities identified one victim as 42-year-old David Lueras from a large tattoo that the victim had on his back. Lueras reportedly had a long criminal record and had ties to Dallas County and northeast Tarrant County.
Fort Worth police checked CCTV surveillance cameras near the dumpster as part of the investigation and observed a man in a dark SUV pulling up next to the trash bin at around 11 p.m. on Sept. 21. He was seen to be making several trips to and from the vehicle.
Investigators identified the SUV in the video as a black Jeep Cherokee made between 2005 and 2010 with chrome accents and rims and a roof rack. From a list of more than 7,000 similar vehicles in Tarrant and Dallas counties, they found one that matched the SUV in the surveillance videos, a 2008 Grand Cherokee that was owned by Thornburg, according to The Dallas Morning News.
“Thornburg believed that Lueras needed to be sacrificed,” his arrest warrant stated. “He sliced Lueras' throat and then cut him into pieces in the bathtub. Thornburg initially hid the remains in his room in trash bags before obtaining Rubbermaid-type tubs to store them in.”
Thornburg reportedly sacrificed another woman who came to his motel two days later by cutting her throat. He then proceeded to dismember her body and also stored her remains in the storage tubs, according to the document.
“Thornburg described initially trying to stab her but said that he ultimately had to strangle her. He cut her body in pieces and also stored her remains in the tubs,” the warrant stated.
In an interview with the investigators back at the police station, Thornburg told them that he had detailed knowledge of the Bible and believed that he was being called to perform sacrifices.
He reportedly confessed in “intimate detail” about his killings to the investigators. In addition to the murder of the three people found in the dumpster, he also confessed to slitting his roommate’s throat in May before causing a gas explosion that burned down the house, according to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth.
When investigators asked if he had made any additional sacrifices, he told them that he had sacrificed the body of his girlfriend in Arizona.
Fort Worth PD Chief Neil Noakes said that he was proud of his officers for arresting the suspect in less than a week.
“It would have become a cold case if not for their diligent efforts,” he said.
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