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A Tarrant County jury will decide if convicted killer Jason Thornburg will receive the death penalty.
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Thornburg was convicted of killing 3 people in Euless in 2021.
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He then dismembered the bodies and set them on fire inside a Fort Worth dumpster.
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Thornburg reportedly confessed to two other murders after his arrest.
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A Tarrant County jury will decide if convicted killer Jason Thornburg will receive the death penalty.
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Thornburg was convicted of killing 3 people in Euless in 2021.
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He then dismembered the bodies and set them on fire inside a Fort Worth dumpster.
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Thornburg reportedly confessed to two other murders after his arrest.
Texas’s Fort WorthJason Thornburg, a convicted murderer, will have his destiny decided by a Tarrant County jury.
In November, Thornburg, 44, was convicted of capital murder for the September 2021 murders of Maricruz Reyes-Mathis, 33, Lauren Phillips, 34, and David Lueras, 42. Then, at an Eulessmotel, he disassembled their bodies and kept them beneath his bed. Then, inside a Fort Worth dump, he burned the bodies.
During the trial’s guilt-innocence phase, Thornburg told investigators that he was being asked to “commit sacrifices” and even ate the heart and other body parts of victims.
Thornburg allegedly admitted to police that he killed his lover Tanya Begay in Arizona back in 2017 and his roommate, 61-year-old Mark Jewell, in May 2021 during a suspected home explosion when he was taken into custody for the 2021 motel killings. According to reports, Thornburg admitted to detectives that he had sacrificed Begay in Arizona.
Thornburg will either be executed or sentenced to life in prison without the chance of release by the same Tarrant County jury that found him guilty.
The Punishment Phase
Early on Wednesday morning, the final witness to testify during the punishment phase took the stand. The prosecution’s closing arguments followed the witness testimony.
In the sentencing phase for convicted murderer Jason Thornburg, the prosecution makes its final arguments Wednesday morning. In November, the 44-year-old was convicted of capital murder for the 2021 murders of three individuals in Euless.
The prosecution spoke to the jury for roughly twelve minutes during their closing arguments.
“A psychopath, he is. He is malevolent. He is the kind of evil that we would like to think is nonexistent in our neighborhood. We want to think that Jason Thornburg and other similar individuals do not exist in the world in which we are raising our kids. We like to think that the Bible is not a weapon and that a serial killer won’t take advantage of your weaknesses. However, said evil will persist as long as Jason Thornburg is in the world.
During the trial, the defense claimed that Thornburg’s executive functions were ineffective, according to the prosecution. According to the lawyer, he has a 4.0 at a community college and a lengthy history of working as an electrician.
“You don’t almost get away with two murders with a lack of executive functioning.”
“We’ll listen to his statement again if you need examples of his executive functioning functioning perfectly,” the prosecution added.
“I couldn’t use my chainsaw because that would be too loud and I would get caught,” the prosecution claims Thornburg said. I must make use of my knife. That’s not how I can carry out the bodies. That would be too clear. I must retrieve my vehicle. I must purchase some bins and load them into my vehicle. To get away from the crime, I have to go dispose of these remains in a dumpster thirty miles away. Since I’ve done it twice before and know it works, I must burn the bodies in order to eliminate the fingerprints.
In the punishment phase for convicted murderer Jason Thornburg, the defense started its closing arguments Wednesday morning. In November, the 44-year-old was convicted of capital murder for the 2021 murders of three individuals in Euless.
Then came closing arguments from Thornburg’s defense lawyers.
“Doomed in the womb,” they declared at the outset, meant that Jason Thorburg would never be able to “be the correct person he should be.” He wasn’t that way by choice.
The defense questioned whether Thornburg was honest with the cops. “He did, indeed. because he believed that making a terrible, immoral sacrifice was the proper thing to do. The voices that he heard are unjustified. In a sense, they are evil, yet he thought it was right. That is really strange. So strange. But you see, he thought so. He felt that his sacrifices were just, even though we as citizens know that they are wrong.
According to the second defense lawyer:
“As jurors, you must choose whether to execute a person who was insane at the time of their actions. You must consider whether we put someone who is delusional to death. Is that what a civilized society is all about? If someone’s mother left them vulnerable to all the horrors in our culture, do we put them to death? Is that what a civilized society does? Or do we do the opposite and keep them in captivity for the rest of their lives?We bury them beneath the courthouse after locking them up and discarding the key. What is the more equitable course of action? When someone stops experiencing hallucinations and responds to medication, is that more fair? And there is a significant decrease in psychosis? Is it merely to carry on with the regiment they are on, or is it to execute that individual? Their lives have been altered by it.
Jason Thornburg’s punishment phase began Wednesday morning with the prosecution’s reply in closing arguments. In November, the 44-year-old was convicted of capital murder for the 2021 murders of three individuals in Euless.
“We don’t use words like cannibal, because it’s fun,” she remarked in response to the prosecution’s answer. He ate David’s heart, which is why we use terms like cannibal. We use the word “sadist” because (Thornburg) had sex with Lauren’s torso, not because it’s a trendy term. He also severed David’s penis. Alicia Woods was also raped by him. And as we all know, he treated Maricruz and Lauren exactly the same way he treated Alicia. He is the type of person who would have sex with Lauren while Maricruz and David’s bodies were under that bed, which is why we call him a sadist. He can be aroused in a moment where there are two bodies under his bed.”
“This is not about death,” she added. This has nothing to do with hypothetical cannibals. This is about a man who took the heart of the man right there and put it in his mouth. We are here for that reason. And ladies and gentlemen, remember we sat here and talked about, oh the ritual. See, ladies and gentlemen, the reason he did all of this, is the ritual. And the fire, the fire cleanses his soul. No. The fire cleanses crime scenes. And now you know that, because you know about Tanya now. You know that in 2017, not because of a ritual, not because God told him to, but because he regularly beat this woman in a domestic violence situation that resulted in him throwing a coffee pot in her eye. And when he’s about to get in trouble for that, she goes missing. And we know, now, that he burned her. He used the word cremated. Do you know how long you have to burn someone to cremate? That’s what he did. Because fire, once again, cleansed his crime scene.”
What did Jason Thornburg do?
Thornburg, Jason
Three persons were killed by Thornburg in September 2021: Maricruz Reyes-Mathis, 33; Lauren Phillips, 34; and David Lueras, 42. Then, at an Eulessmotel, he disassembled their bodies and kept them beneath his bed. Then, inside a Fort Worth dump, he burned the bodies.
During the trial’s guilt-innocence phase, Thornburg told investigators that he was being asked to “commit sacrifices” and even ate the heart and other body parts of victims.
In Fort Worth, the mutilated remains of a man and two women were discovered in a smoldering dumpster.
Thornburg’s lawyers have maintained that he suffered from a serious mental illness and was mad at the time of the 2021 killings.
Death Penalty Decision
A Euless man found guilty of killing three people, dismembering them, and setting their remains on fire must now be decided by a Tarrant County jury if he will be executed. He described the murders to the police as “sacrifices.”
The jury will have to determine if Thornburg poses a threat in the future, according to attorney Russell Wilson, who is not involved in the case.
“If you were either medicated or kept in an area for a person who suffers from mental problems, then you would argue that person is not a future danger because they would be confined to prison for the rest of their life,” he stated.
Possible Previous Murders
Thornburg allegedly admitted to police that he killed his fiancée in Arizona in 2017 and his roommate in May 2021 during a suspected home explosion when he was taken into custody for the 2021 motel killings.
Tanya Begay vanished in March 2017. The missing indigenous woman was last seen with her then-boyfriend Jason Alan Thornburg. According to reports, Thornburg admitted to detectives that he had sacrificed Begay in Arizona. The FBI considers Tanya’s case open, and her body has not been found.
Thornburg was indicted in the killing of his roommate, 61-year-old Mark Jewell. Jewell’s body was found by firefighters after a gas explosion at their Fort Worth home in May 2021.
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Information in this article comes from closing arguments in the punishment phase of Jason Thornburg and past FOX 4 coverage.
Information in this article comes from closing arguments in the punishment phase of Jason Thornburg and past FOX 4 coverage.
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