Serial killer dismembered three and burned bodies in dumpster as ‘human sacrifices’
A serial killer is set to be executed for dismembering three people and leaving their bodies in a burning dumpster for what he claimed was a religious calling.
Jason Thornburg, 44, was sentenced to death on Wednesday for the 2021 triple murders in Forth Worth, Texas.
Thornburg called his victims – David Lueras, 42, David Lueras, 42, and Lauren Phillips, 34 – ‘human sacrifices’.
‘He is a psychopath. He is evil. He is the type of evil that we want to believe doesn’t exist in our community,’ prosecutor Amy Allin told the jury.
‘We want to believe we live in a world where the Bible is not a weapon, where your vulnerabilities don’t make you prey to a serial killer.
‘But so long as we live in a world with Jason Thornburg, said evil will exist.’
Thornburg admitted to dismembering the bodies and keeping them in a room at the Euless motel before setting them ablaze.
Firefighters on September 21, 2021, responded to a dumpster fire and found the remains of the three victims, who were killed over the course of a week. Some of their body parts were not there.
Thornburg, the apprentice of an electrician, said he God told him to ‘commit sacrifices’ and that he knew the Bible well, an affidavit stated. He used religion to lure in his victims, cops said.
His lawyers had argued that he should not be found guilty due to insanity because he has partial fetal alcohol syndrome.
But last month, jurors convicted Thornburg of capital murder.
Separately, Thornburg confessed to killing his girlfriend Tanya Begay, a 36-year-old Navajo woman who disappeared after going on a trip with him to Arizona in 2017, his arrest warrant showed. He also claimed responsibility for murdering his ex-roommate, Mark Jewell, 61, and then speaking at his funeral in May 2021.
Thornburg’s execution date has not yet been set.
In the Lone Star State, death penalty cases go through appeal automatically. Even if the Texas Supreme Court upholds the capital punishment, Thornburg could be on death row for a few years.
The only form of execution currently being used in Texas is the lethal injection, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
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