Gary Gene Tison

Case record: Gary Gene Tison

Background

Gary Gene Tison was serving life sentences at the Arizona state prison. He had been imprisoned at the age of 25 for robbery and later escaped.

Tison had previously been charged with parole violation after passing a bad check in 1967.

Tison worked as a prison cook. He was described as fearing and respected by fellow inmates.

Randy Greenawalt was Tison’s cellmate and fellow escapee. Greenawalt had been convicted in 1974 in Coconino County of the murder of a truck driver and was serving a life sentence with no parole for 25 years. He worked as a prison clerk.

Tison’s sons plotted to break him and Greenawalt out of prison. Tison’s sons were Donny, Ricky, and Ray, and later named as Donald, Ricky, and Raymond. During prison visit accounts, Tison’s sons also included Raymond, 19, Donald, 22, and Ricky, 18; in other accounts, the ages were given as Ricky, 18; Donald, 20; and Raymond, 19.

The offence

Tison was serving a life sentence for killing a prison guard. The prison guard was killed after Tison overpowered him, handcuffed the officer, and shot him to death with the officer’s own service revolver during an incident en route to a court hearing.

The prison breakout enabled subsequent killings and a kidnapping.

After the prison escape, the group kidnapped a family of four for their car and shot the whole family to death.

The killings involved the Lyons family and included Marine Sgt. John F. Lyons, his wife, Donnelda, and their son, Christopher.

The group also kidnapped Lyons’ niece, Teresa Tyson.

Authorities investigated whether the fugitives may have killed a Texas couple in Colorado. The van used during the escape was reported as stolen from the Texas couple.

Investigation

After the prison break, the Department of Public Safety set up roadblocks in a 15-mile radius around the prison in Florence, and an airplane from the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office joined Department of Public Safety helicopters in an air search.

Authorities continued to search for Gary Tison and others for days. Search activity included police checks of freight trains and an orchard search.

Authorities suspected the fugitives killed the Texas couple during their 13-day attempt to avoid the manhunt.

A game warden later found bodies in the desert.

Prison escape and flight

Prison break details

On July 30, 1978, Gary Gene Tison and Randy Greenawalt escaped from the Arizona State Prison.

The escape occurred shortly before 9:30 a.m.

Two more of Tison’s sons arrived at the state prison in Florence with a basket of food for their father, and then entered the lobby area. A shotgun was pulled and guards were covered while a demand for Tison’s release was made.

Randy Greenawalt temporarily disabled prison telephones and the alarm system.

Authorities said no shots were fired and there were no injuries during the breakout.

After the guards were held, the five men fled in a late-model green automobile.

One account described the escape as involving Tison’s sons thrusting shotguns through round speaking holes in glass partitions separating inmates from visitors. Greenawalt was described as having kept eight armed guards and six visitors at bay and herding them into a closet while Tison’s sons walked out.

A corrective response occurred after the escape, including corrective actions to prevent further escapes, but no specific measures were provided.

Early pursuit and roadblocks

After the breakout, authorities searched and set roadblocks. Later events included a roadblock near Gary Tison’s home town of Casa Grande, Arizona, and a second roadblock five miles down the road.

A vehicle approaching the roadblock began to slow while the driver braked, but a blast of gunfire from the windows scattered officers as Tison and his gang swept past.

At the second roadblock, deputies were ready, killing Donald Tison with their first barrage of fire.

Greenawalt and the surviving Tison sons surrendered after running out of ammunition.

Gary Tison escaped into the desert on foot after the shootout.

Death of Donnelda and others; Teresa Tyson

The Texas couple’s van ownership was later identified as belonging to James and Margene Judge from Colorado. Those owners were later found dead in the woods.

A body of Teresa Tyson was not immediately found; she was described as missing and believed to be a hostage. Authorities hoped to find her unharmed.

A game warden found three bodies in an abandoned 1969 Lincoln Continental a mile from U.S. 95, about 120 miles west of Phoenix.

The victims were identified as:

• Sgt. John F. Lyons, 24, U.S. Marine assigned to the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station
• Danelda Lyons, 23
• Christopher Lyons, 2

The bodies were found in a car that had a rear window blown out. Eighteen expended 16-gauge and 20-gauge shotgun shells were found around the car. The boy was described as standing between his mother’s legs.

Authorities said the victims were killed July 31 or early Aug. 1, shortly after leaving on vacation to Las Vegas, Nev., and to Fremont, Neb., to visit Lyons’ mother.

The missing girl was named as Teresa Tyson, daughter of Joanne Tyson of Las Vegas, and believed to be Lyons’ sister. Authorities said they found the location of the grave came from one of the fugitives.

Arrests, captures, and the shootout

On August 12, 1978, authorities reported that one of Tison’s sons, Donald Tison, was killed in a shootout, and three other fugitive members of the group were arrested.

The arrested individuals were Raymond, 19; Ricky, 18; and Randy Greenawalt, 29.

At that time, authorities described Gary Tison as having eluded searchers following a pre-dawn shootout.

Tison was being hunted by more than 200 heavily armed Arizona law officers on horseback and in airplanes and helicopters after fleeing following a shootout at a roadblock south of Casa Grande.

Officers investigated reports that Tison boarded a freight train near the search area and headed into Tucson, but Tison was not found on any checked trains.

Searchers also surrounded a fruit orchard near Maricopa after receiving reports that a man matching Tison’s description was in it, but the search failed to find him.

During the roadblock shooting:

• Donald Tison was killed at the scene.
• Tison’s body was not seen running from the wreckage.
• Officials estimated the van was traveling at about 95 mph when it crashed through the second roadblock.
• Deputies reported finding three shotguns, one high-powered rifle, and about six handguns in the van.
• Reyes said the men broke through two roadblocks before they were captured and the roadblocks were set up about five to six miles apart.

Pinal County Attorney Roy Mendoza said he could not comment on whether the elder Tison was in the van during the shootout and that there was an ongoing investigation.

Pinal County sheriff Frank Reyes said the obvious conclusion was that the Texas couple were dead, while noting authorities could not confirm it yet because the bodies had not been found at that time.

Another DPS spokesman said the Judds of Amarillo, Texas, were supposed to drive to Colorado for their honeymoon and that officials had talked with relatives indicating the couple would not have driven through Arizona on the way.

Sentencing

Gary Tison was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences on March 25, 1968.

His conviction of first-degree murder earned a life sentence.

Tison’s life sentence was described as being for the kidnapping and murder of a prison guard during an escape attempt.

Before the murder, Tison was serving a one-to-two-year term for embezzlement.

Appeals

Tison v. Arizona is described as a 5-4 decision in which the United States Supreme Court qualified the rule set forth in Enmund.

The case was described as involving a proportionality principle and concluding that the death penalty was an appropriate punishment for a felony murderer who was a major participant in the underlying felony and exhibited reckless indifference to human life.

The record described that later the death penalties of Ricky and Raymond Tison were reduced to life sentences because they were under twenty at the time of the crimes.

Greenawalt was described as being executed in 1997.

Outcome

Tison escaped from the Arizona State Prison on July 30, 1978.

Tison later died of dehydration and exposure in the desert in August 1978.

Tison’s body was discovered about 7:30 a.m. on August 23, 1978.

The body was discovered half a mile from the scene of a shootout that killed one of his sons and was found near a chemical plant in an area searchers had gone through four times a week.

After an autopsy, a physician estimated that Tison had been dead seven to 10 days.

The cause of death was estimated as heat stroke based on absence of injuries, and the physician said Tison did not die of a heart attack.

The body was discovered by Ray Thomas, an employee of Papago Chemicals Inc., which was described as located four miles southwest of the village of Chuichu on the Papago reservation south of Casa Grande.

Sgt. Allan Schmidt said the body was positively identified as that of Tison, 42, through fingerprints.

Other details

Prison escape reporting and descriptions

Authorities described the escapees as armed and dangerous.

Tison was described as 5 feet 10 1/2 inches tall and weighing 200 pounds, with a heavy build, a fair complexion, and blonde hair and blue eyes.

Greenawalt was described as 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing 195 pounds, with a stocky build, a fair complexion, and dark brown hair and blue eyes.

The two escapees were described as Caucasian.

Security breach statements

Arizona Corrections Director Ellis MacDougall blamed lax security and shortcomings in the design of the trusty annex where the men escaped from.

MacDougall stated that Greenawalt’s presence in the security control center of the prison’s annex outside the main walls of the prison was a serious breach of security.

MacDougall said, “A prisoner should never have been in the control center,” and that the security was lax.

MacDougall asked prison Warden Harold Cardwell to explain why Greenawalt was in the control center during the escape.

Cardwell replied: “I'm not going to explain anything to you, if you want the answers ask the director (MacDougall).”

References to later investigations and links

Authorities linked the escape to three deaths found shotgunned to death in the desert and to the possibility of additional killings including a Texas couple in Colorado.

Authorities theorized that Lyons’ family had stopped to help the fugitives before the family was killed, based on the damaged tire of the Lincoln Continental.

Sgt. Alan Schmidt said a Lincoln Continental similar to the one they found the bodies in was in possession of one of the Tison boys prior to the escape.

At the time of the early manhunt, authorities said they had received information about a grave’s location from a fugitive.