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Fort Worth police release identity of second person found in burned dumpster

Police identified Lauren Phillips Monday as a victim in an official complaint from the state of Texas against Jason Thornburg.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Editor's note: The above video is from Sept. 28, 2021. The details in this story may be disturbing for some. Reader discretion is advised. 

Fort Worth police have released the name of another victim in the homicide investigation where three people were found dismembered in a dumpster that was on set fire in September in the Western Hills area. 

Police identified Lauren Phillips, Monday, as a victim in an official complaint from the state of Texas against Jason Thornburg. The complaint states that Thornburg "did intentionally or knowingly cause the death of an individual, Lauren Phillips" by strangling her on Sept. 22, 2021.

Phillips is the second victim identified in this investigation. Fort Worth police identified 42-year-old David Lueras as one of the victims last week.

RELATED: Arrest in case of dismembered bodies found in burned Fort Worth dumpster; suspect connected to more killings, police say

One other woman found dismembered in the dumpster is still unidentified.

Fort Worth police arrested Thornburg Sept. 27. 

Police said Thornburg knew and met all of the victims at the Mid City Inn in Euless, according to an arrest warrant released last week. Police added he gave a confession of his involvement with the deaths of the people found in the dumpster and "went into intimate details" about how he killed them. 

Police said Thornburg also confessed to two other, separate killings, one in Texas and another in a different state. He faces a charge of capital murder of multiple persons and is being held at Tarrant County jail on a $1 million bond.  

RELATED: Timeline, criminal history: Here's what we know about Jason Thornburg

It was on Wednesday, Sept. 22 when the Fort Worth Fire Department responded to a report of a dumpster fire outside a business in the 3100 block of Bonnie Drive.

While extinguishing the fire, authorities said three bodies were found inside the dumpster. Police initially thought one of the bodies belonged to a child, but clarified later that the three bodies found in the dumpster were adults. Police said all three were heavily dismembered.

“In my time in the homicide unit, we don’t have anything that resembles this," Sgt. Joe Loughman of the Fort Worth police department's homicide unit said during a news conference last week. “I couldn’t even go into the psyche of someone who is able to do this.”

The warrant for Thornburg's arrest gave grisly details into the killings, which happened over multiple days. According to the document, Thornburg said he was being called to commit sacrifices.

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