Police had connected suspect to another Fort Worth fire death before dumpster killings
A man who burned to death in his bedroom in west Fort Worth in May was a victim of a serial slaying suspect who killed three people and set their bodies on fire last week, police alleged on Tuesday.
Mark Jewell, 61, died of thermal and blast injuries in a house in the 4500 block of Valentine Street, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office, which classified the manner of his death as undetermined.
Before the triple homicide last week, police had connected Jason Thornburg to the May 21 death of Jewell, who was his roommate, but concluded that they did not have probable cause to arrest him, Fort Worth police homicide unit Sgt. Joe Loughman said as he described detectives’ work in the cases.
Indeed it was Thornburg’s connection to the Jewell case that narrowed a list of suspect vehicle owners in the case in which he is accused of killing a man and two women at a motel in Euless, dismembering their bodies and driving the parts in plastic bins to Bonnie Drive in Fort Worth, where they were burned in a dumpster.
Detectives began with about 7,000 Jeep Grand Cherokees that were manufactured between 2005 and 2010 whose registered owners live in Tarrant or Dallas counties. The make, model and year range came from a vehicle that detectives saw on a video surveillance recording at the Bonnie Drive scene.
Thornburg owns such a vehicle, and he became a suspect in the dumpster case.
After Thornburg admitted to the September killings, in an interview with detectives, Loughman said, the discussion turned to Jewell’s death.
“We were able to get Mr. Thornburg to admit to that being a homicide as well,” Loughman said. “He provided information that only someone that was involved in the offense would be able to provide to us.”
Thornburg told police he sliced Jewell’s throat and started the fire by uncapping a natural gas line and lighting a candle in the bedroom, according to an affidavit supporting an arrest warrant in the Bonnie Drive case.
Firefighters found Jewell’s body in the bedroom were the fire originated, according to a Fort Worth Fire Department report.
The home exploded minutes after Thornburg left for work, police said.
Loughman declined to describe motives for the killings in which Thornburg is a suspect. A detective wrote in the affidavit that Thornburg also admitted to killing his girlfriend in Arizona and that Thornburg said that he has in-depth knowledge of the Bible and said that he “believed that he was being called to commit sacrifices.”
This story was originally published September 28, 2021 at 4:21 PM.
