A US man was convicted on Wednesday of capital murder after killing three people, dismembering their bodies, and burning them as part of a ritualistic “sacrifice”. Jason Thornburg, 42, was found guilty by a Tarrant County jury, who will now decide whether he should face the death penalty or serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, the NY Post reported.
The gruesome crime took place in September 2021, when Thornburg killed three people and stored their dismembered remains under his bed at a motel in Euless, Texas. He then set the bodies on fire inside a dumpster in Fort Worth. Thornburg admitted to investigators that he felt compelled to carry out “ritualistic sacrifices,” and even confessed to consuming parts of his victims' bodies, including one victim's heart.
“I was called to commit sacrifices,” Thornburg reportedly told authorities during his confession.
Thornburg's defence team argued that he was suffering from a severe mental illness at the time of the murders, labelling him insane when the killings occurred.
In addition to the charges related to the 2021 killings, Thornburg also admitted to killing his roommate during a suspicious home explosion in May 2021 and his girlfriend in 2017 in Arizona. These two previous murders were introduced as evidence during the punishment phase of the trial on Thursday.
The families of the victims are not allowed to speak publicly until the sentencing phase concludes. The jury will soon determine Thornburg's fate.
Earlier, a pregnant woman in Pakistan was brutally killed and dismembered by her in-laws over suspicions of "witchcraft." The crime took place in Daska, near Lahore, where the woman' body was found chopped into pieces in sacks. Her mother-in-law, Sughran Bibi, along with three accomplices, confessed to smothering her with a pillow and then dismembering her body. The motive came from Sughran Bibi's jealousy and suspicion that the woman was practising witchcraft. The woman's husband had started sending money directly to her, which angered her in-laws. The suspects have been arrested, and a murder case has been filed.
