Russell Tillis’ Booby-Trapped, Tarp-Covered Home
Crime and Coffee/TwitterTillis claimed that his bizarre confession was orchestrated to be as shocking as possible and earn him the death sentence.
In 2015, a man in Jacksonville, Florida by the name of Russell Tillis was arrested for aggravated assault and battery after police followed the fleeing man into his yard — and found it booby-trapped with razor blades and nail-studded boards half-buried in the dirt.
According to The Florida Times-Union, Tillis was later charged with murder, kidnapping, human trafficking, and abuse of a dead human body after the dismembered remains of a woman named Joni Lynn Gunter were found on his property.
But while Tillis’ crimes were certainly horrific, the most intriguing part of his case wasn’t the nature of the crimes but rather the nature of his confession.
While he was in jail on the assault charges, he told another inmate, Sammy Evans, about killing and dismembering a woman and burying her on his property. When the police inevitably found Gunter’s remains, it seemed to confirm what Evans had captured on the wire he was wearing during the conversation.
Florida State Attorney’s OfficeThe ramshackle interior of Russell Tillis’ home.
Tillis actually confessed to Gunter’s murder three times: twice to Evans and once to prosecutor Alan Mizrahi. Tillis described keeping women as captive sex slaves in a soundproofed room, killing and dismembering at least two of them with a saw. Tillis’ neighbors had even called the police 80 times over the course of four years to report screams from women and other suspicious activity occurring on his property.
Later, however, he claimed that his brother had brought Gunter to his house, already dead in the trunk of a car — but then got squeamish and left Tillis to dismember her himself.
Florida State Attorney’s OfficeThe pit behind Tillis’ home where investigators found Gunter’s remains.
And even later, he told jurors that he didn’t deny his confession but that it was at least partially fabricated. He claimed that he and Evans came up with a story together that would be so shocking it would guarantee Tillis the death penalty, so he wouldn’t have to spend an extended amount of time in prison.
According to Tillis’ attorney, he was a “very despondent, depressed, suicidal individual.”
In the end, though, no matter how badly Tillis wanted the death penalty, the jury didn’t rule in favor of it unanimously. Per WJXT, Tillis was instead given two life sentences, plus an additional 30 years.
