Michael Tisius is scheduled to be executed tonight by the State of Missouri for the murders of two prison guards
According to court documents Michael Tisius was just released from a jail from a minor charge when he took part in an escape attempt. Tisius would go back to the jail with one of the escapee’s girlfriends. When they arrived they managed to convince the two guards, Leon Egley and Jason Acton, they were dropping off cigarettes. Moments after the two guards would be shot and killed. The escape did not last long and soon all of the men were in custody
Michael Tisius would be convicted and sentenced to death. Now his execution is scheduled for tonight, June 6 2023
Michael Tisius was executed on June 6 2023
Michael Tisius News
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Monday declined clemency for a man who faces execution Tuesday evening for killing two jailers in an ill-fated effort to free someone else from a county jail.
Michael Tisius, 42, would be the third person in Missouri, and the 12th person nationally, to be executed in 2023. He’s accused of killing officers Leon Egley and Jason Acton in June 2000.
“It’s despicable that two dedicated public servants were murdered in a failed attempt to help another criminal evade the law,” Parson, a Republican, said in a statement. “The state of Missouri will carry out Mr. Tisius’s sentences according to the Court’s order and deliver justice.”
Michael Tisius has at least one pending court appeal. His appeals and his clemency request have focused on several issues. Among them: Tisius was just 19 at the time of the killings; he had been neglected as a child; and a juror at his 2010 resentencing may have been illiterate — in violation of Missouri law.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to halt the execution based on Tisius’ age when the crime occurred. A federal judge last week stayed the execution over the claim that a juror was illiterate, but an appeals panel reinstated it. The Supreme Court hasn’t yet ruled on that issue.
Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, an attorney for Michael Tisius, said the ups and downs of the appeals are taking a toll on him.
“I think he’s sort of, frankly, on an emotional roller coaster,” Carlyle said. “He’s pretty anxious. He doesn’t want to die. I think he’s angry and frightened.”
A 2005 Supreme Court ruling prohibits executions for those who were under 18 at the time of the crime. But Carlyle said “emerging science plus information about Mr. Tisius’ own brain dictates that they should now change that rule to apply to Mr. Tisius.”
A court filing from the Missouri attorney general’s office noted that both the original trial jury and the jury at resentencing considered Tisius’ age and mental health, “yet both juries still decided to impose the death penalty.” The Supreme Court turned aside the appeal without comment.
Advocates for Michael Tisius say he was largely neglected as a child and was homeless by his early teens. In 1999, as an 18-year-old, he was jailed on a misdemeanor charge for pawning a rented stereo system.
In June 2000, Michael Tisius was housed at the small Randolph County Jail in Huntsville with Roy Vance. Tisius was about to be released, and court records show the men discussed a plan in which Tisius would help Vance escape
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Monday declined clemency for a man who faces execution Tuesday evening for killing two jailers in an ill-fated effort to free someone else from a county jail.
Michael Tisius, 42, would be the third person in Missouri, and the 12th person nationally, to be executed in 2023. He’s accused of killing officers Leon Egley and Jason Acton in June 2000.
“It’s despicable that two dedicated public servants were murdered in a failed attempt to help another criminal evade the law,” Parson, a Republican, said in a statement. “The state of Missouri will carry out Mr. Tisius’s sentences according to the Court’s order and deliver justice.”
Michael Tisius has at least one pending court appeal. His appeals and his clemency request have focused on several issues. Among them: Tisius was just 19 at the time of the killings; he had been neglected as a child; and a juror at his 2010 resentencing may have been illiterate — in violation of Missouri law.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to halt the execution based on Tisius’ age when the crime occurred. A federal judge last week stayed the execution over the claim that a juror was illiterate, but an appeals panel reinstated it. The Supreme Court hasn’t yet ruled on that issue.
Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, an attorney for Michael Tisius, said the ups and downs of the appeals are taking a toll on him.
“I think he’s sort of, frankly, on an emotional roller coaster,” Carlyle said. “He’s pretty anxious. He doesn’t want to die. I think he’s angry and frightened.”
A 2005 Supreme Court ruling prohibits executions for those who were under 18 at the time of the crime. But Carlyle said “emerging science plus information about Mr. Tisius’ own brain dictates that they should now change that rule to apply to Mr. Tisius.”
A court filing from the Missouri attorney general’s office noted that both the original trial jury and the jury at resentencing considered Tisius’ age and mental health, “yet both juries still decided to impose the death penalty.” The Supreme Court turned aside the appeal without comment.
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Advocates for Michael Tisius say he was largely neglected as a child and was homeless by his early teens. In 1999, as an 18-year-old, he was jailed on a misdemeanor charge for pawning a rented stereo system.
In June 2000, Tisius was housed at the small Randolph County Jail in Huntsville with Roy Vance. Tisius was about to be released, and court records show the men discussed a plan in which Tisius would help Vance escape.
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Just after midnight on June 22, Tisius went to the jail accompanied by Vance’s girlfriend, Tracie Bulington. They told Egley and Acton that they were delivering cigarettes to Vance. The jailers didn’t know that Tisius had a pistol.
At trial, Bulington testified that she looked up and saw Tisius with the gun drawn, then watched as he shot and killed Acton. When Egley approached, Tisius shot him, too. Both officers were unarmed.
Tisius found keys at the dispatch area and tried to open Vance’s cell, but couldn’t. When Egley grabbed Bulington’s leg, Tisius shot him several more times.
Tisius and Bulington fled but their car broke down in Kansas. They were arrested in Wathena, Kansas, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) west of Huntsville. Tisius confessed to the crimes.
Bulington and Vance are serving life sentences.
Defense attorneys have argued that the killings were not premeditated. Tisius, they said, intended to order the jailers into a holding cell and free Vance and other inmates. Tisius’ defense team issued a video last week in which Vance said he planned the escape attempt and manipulated Tisius into participating.
The people executed in Missouri this year included Amber McLaughlin, who killed a woman and dumped the body near the Mississippi River in St. Louis. The execution was believed to be the first of a transgender woman in the U.S.
Raheem Taylor, 58, was put to death in February for killing his live-in girlfriend and her three children in 2004 in St. Louis County.
Four of the U.S. executions this year have been in Texas, and three in Florida.
https://apnews.com/article/missouri-execution-michael-tisius-e4a26eebace4f63ac5da75b6e07a6a16
Michael Tisius Execution
A Missouri man who shot and killed two jailers nearly 23 years ago during a failed bid to help an acquaintance escape from a rural jail was executed Tuesday evening.
Michael Tisius, 42, received a lethal injection of pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m., authorities said. He was convicted of the June 22, 2000, killings of Leon Egley and Jason Acton at the small Randolph County Jail.
Tisius breathed hard a few times as the drug was administered, then fell silent. His spiritual adviser, Melissa Potts-Bowers, was in the room with him. Because the execution chamber is surrounded by soundproof glass, it’s not known what they were saying to each other.
In a final written statement, Tisius said he tried hard “to become a better man,” and he expressed remorse for his crimes.
“I am sorry,” he wrote. “And not because I am at the end. But because I truly am sorry.
Tisius’ lawyers had urged the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution, alleging in appeals that a juror at a sentencing hearing was illiterate, in violation of Missouri law. The court rejected that motion Tuesday afternoon.
The New York Times reports that some of the jurors who decided Tisius should get the death penalty had said prior to his execution they would have backed or wouldn’t have objected if Missouri Gov. Mike Parson commuted the sentence to life in prison.
But Parson, a Republican, refused to on Monday, saying in a statement, “It’s despicable that two dedicated public servants were murdered in a failed attempt to help another criminal evade the law. The state of Missouri will carry out Mr. Tisius’s sentences according to the Court’s order and deliver justice.”
The Supreme Court has already turned aside another argument — that Tisius should be spared because he was just 19 at the time of the killings. A 2005 Supreme Court ruling bars executions of those under 18 when their crime occurred, but attorneys for Tisius argued that even at 19 when the killings occurred, Tisius should have his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole.
Advocates for Tisius also have said he was largely neglected as a child and was homeless by his early teens. In 1999, as an 18-year-old, he was jailed on a misdemeanor charge for pawning a rented stereo system.
In June 2000, Tisius was housed on a misdemeanor charge at the same county jail in Huntsville with inmate Roy Vance. Tisius was about to be released, and court records show the men discussed a plan in which Tisius, once he was out, would help Vance escape.
Just after midnight on June 22, 2000, Tisius went to the jail accompanied by Vance’s girlfriend, Tracie Bulington. They told Egley and Acton that they were there to deliver cigarettes to Vance. The jailers didn’t know that Tisius had a pistol.
At trial, Bulington testified that she looked up and saw Tisius with the gun drawn, then watched as he shot and killed Acton. When Egley approached, Tisius shot him, too. Both officers were unarmed.
Michael Tisius found keys at the dispatch area and tried to open Vance’s cell, but couldn’t. When Egley grabbed Bulington’s leg, Tisius shot him several more times.
Michael Tisius and Bulington fled but their car broke down later that day in Kansas. They were arrested in Wathena, Kansas, about 130 miles west of Huntsville. Tisius confessed to the crimes.
Bulington and Vance are serving life sentences on murder convictions.
Defense attorneys have argued that the killings were not premeditated. Michael Tisius, they said, intended to order the jailers into a holding cell and free Vance and other inmates. Tisius’ defense team issued a video last week in which Vance said he planned the escape attempt and manipulated Tisius into participating.
