Authorities release name of third person whose dismembered body was found in dumpster
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office has released the name and age of a third person whose dismembered body was found last month inside a dumpster in Fort Worth.
Jason Thornburg slashed Maricruz Mathis’ throat and cut up her body and the bodies of two other people, drove the pieces in containers to a dumpster and ignited a fire, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Mathis was 33. Slain with her was Lauren Phillips, 34, and David Lueras, 42. Their bodies were found on Sept. 22.
The medical examiner’s office did not release the cities in which Mathis and Phillips lived.
Thornburg, 41, is charged with capital murder of multiple persons in the deaths.
Over the course of several days in September, Thornburg killed Lueras, Mathis and Phillips at a motel where he had been living in Euless, according to Fort Worth police. Wearing a full hazmat body suit, Thornburg loaded containers into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, drove to Fort Worth, put the dismembered parts in a dumpster in the 3100 block of Bonnie Drive and set it on fire, police said.
He was arrested on Sept. 27 after police connected him to the crimes through surveillance video recorded near the dumpster and the motel. Thornburg said he “sacrificed” Lueras, Phillips and Mathis when they came to his Euless motel room separately, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
Thornburg told police that after he killed Lueras and Mathis by cutting their throats, Phillips arrived at his motel room. He tried to stab her, but he ultimately strangled her, he told police, according to the warrant.
Thornburg also confessed to killing a roommate, Mark Jewell, 61, and setting their west Fort Worth house on fire in May, police wrote in the warrant. He also told police he killed his girlfriend, Tanya Begay, in Arizona. Begay, 36, was last seen in New Mexico in 2017, and her body has not been found.
Thornburg told police he felt biblically called to sacrifice the victims, a detective wrote in the warrant affidavit.
This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 11:08 PM.
