A 42-year-old man in the United States (US), Michael Tisius has been executed after killing two men as a teenager.
Several jurors had petitioned a reduced sentence for his case but his life was eventually taken by lethal injection at a Missouri state prison in the US on Tuesday, June 6, 2023.
He was given the death sentence back in 2010 after killing two sheriff’s deputies in an attempt to free a former cellmate which was not successful.
Tisius will be the 12th man to be executed in the United States (US) in 2023.
The governor of Missouri, Mike Parson did not accept a clemency request for Tisius, also a late appeal for a stay of execution with the US Supreme Court was also unsuccessful.
The then 19-year-old Tisius made his way to the Randolph County jail in 2000 with Tracie Bulington, the girlfriend of his former cellmate Roy Vance, prosecutors said. He then fired a gun toward sheriff’s deputies, Jason Acton and Leon Egley, who were both unarmed.
However, Tisius and Vance’s girlfriend couldn’t find the keys to Vance’s cell so they had to flee. They ended up being captured and arrested the following day after their car had broke down. Both were eventually sentenced to life in prison.
Tisius’ lawyers wanted him to be spared the death penalty, according to them, he was 19 years old at the time of the killings and at the same time suffering from mental illness.
In Tisius’ final statement, he expressed remorse to the families of the men he had killed.
“I am sorry. And not because I am at the end. But because I truly am sorry,” he said.
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