JACKSONVILLE, Fla — Does childhood trauma and a lifetime of drug abuse warrant mercy?
Or does the brutal murder Russell Tillis was convicted of last week merit the death penalty?
That is an issue jurors are now deliberating.
The final two defense witnesses in the death penalty trial were called Thursday morning: Tillis’ adult son, Nathan Russell Tillis, and his mother, Shannon Brinkley, who dated and briefly lived with Tillis four decades ago.
Brinkley testified via Zoom that Tillis told her in his early 20s he’d been anally raped by his father as a child. She said she broke up with him when he began dealing methamphetamine from their home.
“Some things I learned about him when we were together that scared me a little bit,” she said. She said that abuse was one reason she broke off their relationship with Nathan was 2 months old, and less than a year after the couple began dating. “It wasn’t just the drugs, it was the fact that I was nervous about his past. I was nervous about the history he had with his dad. I was worried … about my son. I don’t want my son to be raped in a household where it’s OK to abuse children.”
She said Tillis was sober when they first met, but soon slipped back into using. “It became bad. The final straw was when women were knocking on our door late and night offering sex in exchange for drugs. … I was like --- this is not cool.”
Tillis' son testified he spoke to his father on two occasions – once when he was 12 and once when he was 18. But he said he has written him in jail and did want to try to have a relationship with him going forward.
This same jury that found Tillis guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping and abuse of a dead body will now decide if his sentence is life or death. In his closing argument, Prosecutor Alan Mizrahi told jurors to consider his prior felony convictions.
“This was not just a bad day or a bad week or a bad month for this defendant. It’s a bad life," he said. “This is not about future dangerousness; this is about past punishment. That’s what the criminal justice system is all about. We can’t predict the future, ever. But we can make people responsible for the past."
Noting that one of the mitigating circumstances suggested to jurors to consider was “Russell David Tillis is a human being," to which Mizrahi took exception. “The defendant is part of the primate species called Homo Sapiens. But is his life human?” he asked. “Do human beings rape? Do human beings kidnap? Do human beings kill, torture?”
When defense attorneys objected, he wrapped up his speech. “The law never demands a death sentence, but the facts and common sense allow you with confidence to vote for death for the Homo Sapien known as Russell Tillis.”
Defense attorney Allison Miller used her time to remind jurors of the sexual and physical abuse Tillis endured as a child.
“The state and media, they want to talk about a ‘House of Horrors.’ It was a House of Horrors for Joni Gunter, but it started as a house of horrors in 1961 for Russell Tillis.”
She said society as a whole failed Tillis.
“We failed him. He was not protected. He was beaten, he was struck, he was abandoned, he was neglected, he was poisoned by violence and then began poisoning his own body with drugs and alcohol when he was a child.”
Miller also assured jurors Tillis would never “walk free” again.
“The suit that Russell is wearing right now? Today is the last day that Russell Tillis will ever wear anything other than a prison jumpsuit for the rest of his life. The question now is will he die in prison of natural causes? Or will he die when a needle is stuck in his arm and his body is pumped full of lethal chemicals until his heart stops?”
In stark contrast to Mizrahi’s questioning Tillis’ humanity, Miller urged jurors to consider the defendant as a vulnerable child.
"I am asking you for mercy for that little boy who had all of those horrible things happen to him, and became this man," Miller tells jurors. "End the cycle of violence. Sentence Russell Tillis to life in prison."