Fort Worth Dumpster Suspect Admits Three Killings and Two More Deaths, Warrant Says
Jason Thornburg, 41, charged with capital murder, told police he killed the three people found in a burning dumpster, plus his roommate and an Arizona girlfriend.
Published
Six days after firefighters pulled the dismembered remains of three people from a burning dumpster in west Fort Worth, police said on Tuesday, September 28, 2021, that they had the man responsible in custody. Jason Thornburg, 41, an electrician's apprentice, had been arrested on Monday and booked into the Fort Worth jail at 11:48 that night on a charge of capital murder of multiple persons. According to the arrest warrant, he told detectives that he had killed all three. He also told them, the warrant said, that he had killed his roommate in May and a girlfriend in Arizona, and that he believed he was being called to "commit sacrifices."
The fire had burned on the morning of Wednesday, September 22, in a dumpster on Bonnie Drive, and the bodies were found once it was out. For nearly a week the only victim police could name was David Lueras, 42. His cousin, Aaron Torres, told KDFW that Lueras had lived in North Texas off and on for twenty-five years and had come back to get away from someone he was afraid of. "He wouldn't tell us their names," Torres said. Police had earlier said they believed one of the other two bodies was a child's. On Tuesday they said the remains were those of a man and two women, and that the medical examiner would release the women's names.
A camera led detectives to Thornburg. According to the warrant, surveillance video near the dumpster showed an SUV pull up late on the night of September 21 and someone empty containers into the bin, then come back early the next morning and drop in more. Video from the motel in suburban Euless where Thornburg had been living since late July showed a person in what appeared to be a full body suit carrying large containers out of his room and loading them into the vehicle. On Monday, the warrant said, officers found him at work in nearby Arlington.
In the interview that followed, Thornburg told officers he had an in-depth knowledge of the Bible. He described the killings one at a time. About five days before the bodies were found, he said, Lueras had shown up at his motel room, and he cut Lueras's throat and then cut him into pieces in the bathtub. About two days later, according to the warrant, he slit the throat of a woman who came to the room. Two days after that he killed another woman who had come to the motel; he said he tried to stab her and ended up strangling her. Police said at a news conference that he knew the women only casually.
Detectives already knew his name. In May, his roommate had died in a house fire that police treated as suspicious, and the medical examiner had not been able to say how he died. Thornburg now told officers that he had slit his roommate's throat, uncapped a natural gas line and lit a candle. When they asked whether there had been other sacrifices, he said he had also sacrificed his girlfriend in Arizona. Records showed she had been reported missing, the warrant said; police gave no other details about her.
Thornburg was held on $1 million bond, and jail records listed no attorney for him. The capital murder charge covered the three people found in the dumpster. The deaths of his roommate and the Arizona woman rested, at that point, on what he had told police.
What came later. The two women were later identified by the Tarrant County district attorney's office as Maricruz Mathis, 33, and Lauren Phillips, 34. A Tarrant County jury convicted Thornburg of capital murder in November 2024 and sentenced him to death on December 4, 2024. In its release on the sentence, the district attorney's office said police say he confessed to killing his roommate, Mark Jewell, in May 2021, and his girlfriend, Tanya Begay, in Arizona in 2017. Neither death was part of the Tarrant County trial.
Sources
- Texas man admits to killing, dismembering bodies found in burning dumpster, Associated Press, via CBS Austin
- Man arrested in Fort Worth triple murder case of dismembered bodies found in dumpster, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, via Yahoo News
- Man Sentenced to Death for Killing, Mutilating Three, Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney
- Jury hands down death penalty for Jason Thornburg, convicted of gruesome Tarrant County slayings, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth
Related News
- December 4, 2024: Jury Sentences Jason Thornburg to Death for Killing Three People in a Euless Motel Room