Wife slain by shotgun blast in back at their Vincent home
Saturday, October 24, 2009
MALCOMB DANIELS
News staff writer
A jury deliberated less than two hours Friday before convicting a former Vincent pastor of murder for shooting his wife in the back with a shotgun.
Timothy Dane Tillman, 45, was found guilty of the Oct. 26, 2005, slaying of Janet Lorita Tillman, 40. She was killed in the home where she and her husband lived with their two daughters.
He also was convicted of possession of a forged instrument, in the forgery of a $5,000 check in his wife's name months after her death.
Tillman, who contends he shot his wife by accident, faces 20 years to life in prison on the murder conviction. He faces one to 10 years on the forgery conviction.
Janet Tillman's mother hugged prosecutors outside the courtroom following the verdict, delivered by a jury of seven men and five women.
"The family has been here all week," Shelby County Assistant District Attorney Roger Hepburn said. "Justice has been served, and I hope they get closure out of it."
Circuit Judge Dan Reeves ordered Tillman taken into custody and held without bond. He scheduled Tillman's sentencing for Dec. 14.
Prosecutors on Friday told jurors Tillman intentionally killed his wife because he wanted to move on to a new life with a woman he subsequently married.
Tillman had been leading a double life that was fast catching up to him, prosecutors said. He had been pretending to be an officer in the Navy, visiting the woman he is still married to while on trips to the West Coast for church business for the Vincent Revival Center.
Erskine Mathis, Tillman's attorney, urged the jury to find Tillman not guilty, saying the prosecution had failed to prove its case.
The prosecution presented only circumstantial evidence and listed a lot of bad things Tillman had done, which had nothing to do with the trial, in an attempt to make them mad at Tillman and find him guilty, Mathis told jurors.
Prosecutors say background was necessary to show what was in Tillman's mind.
Authorities initially thought Janet Tillman's death could have been an accident. Tillman was charged with murder in 2007.
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