Lem Tuggle was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of Jessie Geneva Havens
According to court documents Tuggle was on parole for the murder of seventeen year old Shirley Brickey would meet Jessie Geneva Havens at a dance. The two would leave together and later the woman would be sexually assaulted and murdered
Tuggle would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Lem Tuggle would be executed by lethal injection on December 12 1996
Lem Tuggle Photos
Lem Tuggle Case
A murderer who was one of six death-row inmates to escape from a Virginia prison in 1984 was executed by injection on Thursday night.
The prisoner, Lem Tuggle, 44, was put to death for the 1983 murder of Jessie Geneva Havens, 52. The authorities say he raped and shot her after they met at a dance. The killing took place four months after Mr. Tuggle was paroled in another case. He served half of a 20-year term for murdering a 17-year-old girl, Shirley Brickey, in 1971.
In May 1984, Mr. Tuggle was one of six inmates who used homemade knives and stolen guard uniforms to take 13 prison employees hostage and bluff their way out of the Mecklenburg Correctional Center. Mr. Tuggle was captured with another inmate in Vermont, and all the escapees were caught within three weeks. The other five have since been executed
