Woman given 30 years on murder charge
A local woman was sentenced to 30 years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to second- degree murder for deliberately running over a man who later died last year.
Stacy Illine Tilson, 24, who has remained in custody in lieu of $ 250,000 bond since her arrest Oct. 3, 2012, also pleaded guilty to an unrelated count of residential burglary from an earlier arrest in March 2012 and was sentenced to five years in prison, to run concurrently.
Tilson, who listed an address of 212 Thornton St., will be given credit for time served and court costs and fees were expunged. She had been set to stand trial this week.
“That was all we offered,” Deputy Prosecutor Joe Graham said Tuesday of the sentence, which was the maximum for the second- degree murder charge. He noted the only thing that benefited her was running the burglary sentence concurrent instead of consecutively, which could have added additional time.
He noted Tilson will have to serve at least seven and a half years before she is even eligible for parole, and that would depend on her behavior and record in prison.
Graham said the family of the victim, James A. Moore, 22, of Hot Springs, were “very happy” with the sentence and would be notified whenever Tilson comes up for parole so they could be at the hearing.
According to the affidavit, on Sept. 30, 2012, shortly before 8 p. m., Hot Springs police responded to the 400 block of South Patterson Street in reference to
an intoxicated person.
When they arrived, they saw a man, later identified as Moore, on the side of the road on the corner of Centerview and Plain streets with extensive head injuries. He was transported by LifeNet to Mercy Hospital Hot Springs.
Officers were advised by witnesses that Moore had broken a window at 421 S. Patterson during an argument with his girlfriend earlier, and then left the residence walking. After the victim left, Tilson, who had also been at the residence, left in a maroon Pontiac Grand Am.
Police located the Grand Am in the backyard at 421 S. Patterson with extensive damage to the windshield and noted what appeared to be cloth and possible DNA material on the broken windshield.
Tilson voluntarily came to the police department and gave a statement to detectives admitting she was driving the Grand Am and hit the victim and then left the scene and drove back to the residence.
She states when Moore broke the window at the house, a piece of glass had struck Tilson’s sister in the lip, causing a cut. At that point, she got into the Grand Am, which belonged to another female at the residence, and left.
As she was driving, she states she saw Moore walking and accelerated and “boom.” She admitted she had parked the car behind the house after she got back.
Tilson was initially arrested Oct. 1 on a charge of first- degree battery, but after Moore died two days after the incident as a result of his injuries the charge was upgraded to second- degree murder.
“That’s what we could prove based on the evidence we had,” Graham said. In order to charge her with a more serious charge “we would have had to show she had the intent to kill him when she hit him and that would be hard to prove.”