Tyrone Levar “TJ” Miller, a 38-year-old Black/African American man from Holden, West Virginia, was killed on January 2, 2016, in the Cora community of Logan County. Miller, who had worked as a coal miner, was in the front yard of a residence in the Cora area when an encounter with Marvin Tolliver turned violent. West Virginia State Police later described the confrontation as an altercation between Miller and Tolliver that ended when Tolliver shot Miller in the head. Authorities received the report at approximately 3:30 that Saturday afternoon and responded to Cora after being told someone had suffered a gunshot wound. Miller was pronounced dead at the scene.
The shooting was followed almost immediately by a search for Tolliver. According to the West Virginia State Police account of the investigation, Tolliver fled after the shooting but did not get far. Troopers located and arrested him a short distance from the scene.
Contemporary reporting indicated that he was taken into custody roughly 10 to 15 minutes after officers arrived. Investigators said Miller and Tolliver knew one another, although police initially did not identify what had caused their confrontation to escalate into gunfire.
The case quickly became more direct when investigators questioned Tolliver. Troopers told reporters that Tolliver admitted shooting Miller, but he reportedly did not provide a reason for doing so. The admission, combined with the circumstances developed at the scene, resulted in Tolliver being arrested for Miller’s killing. He was initially described as charged with murder, and the charge was subsequently reported as first-degree murder. Tolliver was booked into the Southwestern Regional Jail following his arrest.
Tolliver was arraigned shortly after the homicide. At that proceeding, a magistrate did not set bond, leaving him incarcerated while the first-degree murder case moved forward. The West Virginia State Police later included Miller’s killing among the notable cases in its fiscal-year report, recording that Tolliver and Miller had been involved in an altercation, that Tolliver shot Miller in the head, fled, and was captured nearby. That official account continued to identify Tolliver as the accused in the homicide.
Available online reporting located for the case documents Tolliver’s arrest, alleged confession, arraignment, incarceration and first-degree murder charge, but does not provide a reliable publicly accessible account of a later plea agreement, trial verdict, conviction, acquittal or sentencing. Because no dependable follow-up source establishing such an outcome was located, the documented public history of the case ends with Tolliver facing the first-degree murder charge for Miller’s death.
