Debra Sue Tuggle

Background

Debra Sue Tuggle was an African American woman born in Arkansas. She had a history of mental illness and had been a former mental patient.

Between 1974 and 1982, Debra Sue Tuggle killed her three sons and her fiancé’s daughter. Her third son died in 1976 and her death was later described as suffocation. Her first two children’s deaths in 1974 had been attributed to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at the time, and physicians later blamed one death on pneumonia.

Debra Sue Tuggle was arrested for the murder of her boyfriend’s daughter in March 1984.

Michael Newton described the case as illustrating how loopholes could allow murderers to remain at large for years. A Pulaski County coroner and other officials described a “breakdown in the system” that permitted Tuggle to escape prosecution for years.

The offence

Debra Sue Tuggle killed her children and her fiancé’s daughter.

Her first two children were sons Thomas Bates and William Henry. Thomas Bates was age two months and died in 1974. William Henry was 21 months and died in 1974. Their deaths were attributed to SIDS, and William Henry’s death was also blamed on pneumonia in Debra Sue Tuggle’s hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas.

A third son, Ronald Johnson, died in 1976 at age nine months. His death was also blamed on SIDS at the time.

In 1982, Tomekia Shenee Paxton, the daughter of Debra Sue Tuggle’s boyfriend, was deliberately drowned. She was described as two years old.

Debra Sue Tuggle was also suspected in the death of a fifth child. Terranz Andrew Tuggle was described as age 2½ months, and authorities were investigating his death in 1979 in Malvern, Arkansas. This fifth child death was never charged for homicide.

In custody, Debra Sue Tuggle admitted pressing a pillow over Tomekia’s face to “stop her crying” while she watched television. She held the pillow in place for about two minutes, and she later claimed she “didn’t think Tomekia was dead,” only realizing later that Tomekia had died.

Investigation

Pulaski County coroner Steve Nawojczyk became suspicious about so many SIDS-related deaths in one family and prompted the investigation.

A New York Times report stated that a faulty legal system allowed Tuggle to escape suspicion for years. Coroner Steve Nawojczyk said:

“It scares the hell out of me that somebody could get away with killing five people over a period of eight or nine years,”

and further:

“This particular case was brought about because of a breakdown in the system.”

The investigation was described as beginning with the last case and working backwards.

A state medical examiner, Dr. Fahmy MaLak, determined that Paxton’s daughter died of suffocation rather than pneumonia.

Dr. Alexander Merrill analyzed unrelated victim surnames and recognized a link between five child deaths within a decade. Merrill worked on establishing a system for tracking suspicious SIDS deaths in Arkansas. Merrill was fired in January 1985 for “unwarranted criticismo of state health officials” and, in his view, was punished for “making waves” and exposing the foibles of a negligent bureaucracy.

Authorities in Malvern, Arkansas investigated Terranz Andrew Tuggle’s death in 1979.

No motive was presented in the case.

Arrest

Debra Sue Tuggle was arrested in March 1984. She appeared for a hearing before Judge Andy Clark in Municipal Court on March 23, 1984.

At the time of the March 23, 1984 hearing, she was held under $750,000 bond. She was charged with murder in the 1982 drowning death of her boyfriend’s 2-year-old daughter, Tomekia Shenee Paxton, and the suffocation deaths of her three sons: Thomas Lee Bates (2 months), William Earl Henry (21 months) in 1974, and Ronald Earl Johnson (9 months) in 1976.

A preliminary hearing was scheduled in Little Rock municipal court.

Deputy Prosecutor Ed Scrimshire said charges were pending in the 1979 death of Debra Sue Tuggle’s fourth child, Terranz Andrew Tuggle (2½ months), in Malvern, Arkansas, where she once lived.

Trial

In September 1984, Debra Sue Tuggle was convicted of second-degree murder for Tomekia Shenee Paxton’s death. Jurors were described as convicting her on one count of first-degree murder but recommending the statutory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Debra Sue Tuggle faced another trial regarding the murder charges for her first three sons. Prosecutors planned to appeal a later dismissal of counts.

Sentencing

In September 1984, Debra Sue Tuggle was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Appeals

On December 7, 1984, Circuit judge Floyd Lofton dismissed all three outstanding murder counts against Debra Sue Tuggle.

The judge declared there was no scientific evidence to indicate a homicide in Ronald Johnson’s death. The judge also said state law barred the prosecution from using Tuggle’s standing conviction on an identical crime to make the case. Regarding Thomas Lee Bates and William Henry, the judge ruled that the statute of limitations had run out on their deaths after 10 years of official inaction.

Prosecutors vowed to appeal the ruling, but their efforts were described as futile. This left Tuggle facing mandatory release at age 36 in 1994.

Outcome

Debra Sue Tuggle was released in 1994 at the age of 36.

Due to insufficient evidence, Debra Sue Tuggle was not tried for the murder of her own children.

The three other counts of murder were dismissed by the court on grounds of insufficient physical evidence. State law barred introduction of her standing conviction to prove a series of pattern crimes.

Aftermath

George Paxton said officials should have stopped the killings because they knew she was mentally ill.

In the Altoona Mirror report dated Mar. 22, 1984, George Paxton (36, of Little Rock) said:

“My daughter should not be dead,”

and:

“I don’t hate her. She’s a sick person.”

In the same report, George Paxton also said:

“She had always been kind and gentle to my children,”

and:

“How could this woman kill five kids?”

He also said:

“Hospital people slick together. They’re not going to say, ‘We really messed up.’”

Other details

Tuggle was described as having tried to give herself a coat-hanger abortion in May 1983, which she bungled.

George Paxton met Debra Sue Tuggle on a blind date. Paxton said his doctor assured him she was well before he allowed her to move in with him in early 1982 to help care for his three children.

A healthy girl, G’Joy Paxton, was born in October 1983.

Debra Sue Tuggle was described as having shot herself in the abdomen in 1979, an apparent suicide attempt, and she was briefly committed to a state hospital for treatment. The doctors there pronounced her “cured,” and she was on the street in time to bear and kill her fourth child at Malvern, Arkansas, in 1979.

The coroner also described “people” being aware the children were dying but not suspecting she was killing them because her stories were believable enough that it wasn’t reported. In one report, Steve Nawojczyk said:

“People were aware her children were dying, but her stories were believable enough that it wasn’t reported,”

and:

Debra Sue Tuggle had children with different fathers.

She was held under $750,000 bond pending trial and ultimate conviction on the outstanding murder counts. The bond was set two days after her March 20, 1984 jailing on four counts of first-degree murder.

Authorities were investigating the 1979 death of Terranz Andrew Tuggle (2½ months) in Malvern, Arkansas.

No motive was advanced by prosecutors in the Tuggle case.