Jessie Geneva Havens, a 52-year-old woman, was tragically killed on May 29, 1983, in Marion, Virginia. Her death was the result of a brutal encounter with a man she met at a local dance.
On the evening of May 28, 1983, Jessie attended a dance at the American Legion Lodge in Marion. There, she met Lem Davis Tuggle Jr., who introduced himself as David Tuggle. He spent the evening with Jessie and her two friends, dancing with them. When the dance ended around 1:00 a.m., Tuggle offered to drive Jessie home.
Jessie was never seen alive again by her friends or family. Four days later, her body was discovered down an embankment. An autopsy revealed that she had been raped, sodomized, and had sustained multiple injuries, including a bite mark on her breast. The cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the chest.
The investigation quickly led to Lem Tuggle. He was apprehended after robbing a gas station, and the. 25 caliber automatic weapon he had in his possession was ballistically matched to the bullet that killed Jessie. During questioning, Tuggle, after being read his Miranda rights, directed investigators to the location of Jessie's body.
Tuggle had a violent criminal history. At the time he killed Jessie, he had been on parole for just four months after serving part of a 20-year sentence for the 1971 murder of 17-year-old Shirley Brickey.
In 1984, a jury convicted Lem Davis Tuggle Jr. of the capital murder and rape of Jessie Geneva Havens and recommended the death penalty. Following his conviction, Tuggle, along with five other death row inmates, staged a well-publicized escape from Mecklenburg Correctional Center in 1984, but he was recaptured nine days later in Vermont. After numerous appeals, Lem Tuggle was executed by lethal injection on December 12, 1996.
