Slain Oklahoma teen’s parents didn’t know she was with sex offender

(NewsNation) — The parents of a slain Oklahoma teen, whose body was found with six others at a rural Oklahoma property Monday, detailed their final messages with the teen and said they had “no idea” the man she was last seen with was a registered sex offender.

Authorities discovered the seven bodies while searching for missing teens, 14-year-old Ivy Webster and 16-year-old Brittany Brewer, on a property near Henryetta, a town of about 6,000, 90 miles east of Oklahoma City.

Okmulgee County Sheriff Eddy Rice says three of the bodies found are believed to be Webster and Brewer, along with Jesse McFadden, the felon investigators said the teens were with.

Webster’s heartbroken parents, Justin and Ashleigh Webster, told NewsNation host Elizabeth Vargas one of McFadden’s stepchildren was close with their daughter.

“We knew him just because our kids were close. So we would communicate pickup, drop-offs, stuff like that. But we weren’t friendly outside of that. We had met him and Holly many times,” Ashleigh Webster said of McFadden and his wife, Holly Guess.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections prison records show McFadden was convicted of first-degree rape in 2003 and released in October 2020.

They said they would have “never in a million years” allowed their daughter to be around McFadden if they had known about his criminal past, and that they “never suspected any maliciousness.”

“We had no idea. We didn’t find out until we saw the Amber Alert with his mugshot. Then our phone started blowing up from Facebook and people just sending us everything they knew about it,” Ashleigh Webster said.

The couple said their daughter and other children hung out with McFadden’s stepchildren frequently in the two years they’ve lived in Oklahoma.

“From the first day our kids got on the school bus with their kids, they were friends,” Justin Webster said on “CUOMO.”

Ashleigh Webster said she believes a message sent from Ivy’s phone was possibly sent by McFadden. She told Vargas she exchanged Snapchat photos with her daughter late Saturday night.

“She was just sending me pictures with filters on and then I sent her one of her dog, closer to midnight,” Ashleigh Webster said. “She was like, ‘Mom, you’re past your bedtime.’”

Ashleigh Webster said she received a message Sunday morning from Ivy’s phone telling her that they were going to a nearby ranch and they would be home later. She believes McFadden wrote the text.

“It probably had already happened by that point,” her mom said. “Ivy, she’s my best friend. She is constantly like, ‘Mom, I love you’ (…) She lets me know everything.”

She says she later received a call from McFadden Sunday at 5 p.m., saying the group was at a ranch and signal was poor.

“He said (…) they weren’t getting good service and that he had to walk far enough as it was just to get that little bit of communication. which we know that they never made it to the ranch. I believe at that point, the kids were already gone.”

The Websters say the police have not told them much about the investigation.

“That’s been kind of part of the problem through this process is we didn’t get much of any information yesterday. I had to the drive to the crime scene just to get some kind of word,” Justin Webster said.

Ashleigh Webster described her daughter as “beautiful inside and out.”

“She was the most caring person I’ve ever known,” Ashleigh Webster said. “She was genuinely just a good person.”

“God got an angel yesterday,” Justin Webster added.

Janette Mayo, 59, said the sheriff’s office notified her late Monday that the other four victims were her daughter, Holly Guess, 35, and her grandchildren, Rylee Elizabeth Allen, 17; Michael James Mayo, 15; and Tiffany Dore Guess, 13. Mayo told the Associated Press Guess was recently married to McFadden, saying that while his controlling behavior was concerning, the family didn’t learn about his criminal history until a few months ago.

“He lied to my daughter, and he convinced her it was all just a huge mistake,” Mayo told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday morning. “He was very demure. He was very standoffish, generally very quiet, but he kept my daughter and the kids basically under lock and key.”

Court records show McFadden was scheduled to appear in court Monday for the start of a jury trial on charges of soliciting sexual conduct with a minor and possession of child pornography. A message left Monday evening by the Associated Press with McFadden’s attorney in that case was not immediately returned.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.