Gary Gene Tison was a convicted murderer who left the Arizona State Prison at Florence on July 30, 1978, with the help of his three sons and a fellow prisoner, Randy Greenawalt. Within days a family of four from Yuma, Arizona, was dead. Tison died in the Arizona desert in August 1978, of exposure, before he could be charged. The legal record of those deaths is therefore a record of other people's trials: his sons Raymond Curtis Tison and Ricky Wayne Tison, and Greenawalt, were convicted of the four murders, and the sons' appeal produced Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137 (1987), one of the best-known capital-punishment decisions of the Supreme Court.
His own convictions are narrower than his reputation. He was convicted of one killing, in 1967. The deaths in Arizona in 1978 were never tried against him, and two deaths in Colorado that police attribute to the group were never charged against anyone.
Little of Tison's early life was reported. ABC15 Arizona reported in 2016 that he was first sent to prison in 1960 for a robbery, and that he was paroled after serving that sentence. Time magazine reported in September 1978 that in 1967 he was accused of violating his parole by passing a bad check.
It was in 1967 that he killed a prison guard while the guard was escorting him. Time wrote that he was being taken to a parole hearing; ABC15 wrote that he was being taken to prison. Both agree that the guard died and that Tison was sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to the state prison at Florence. The Supreme Court, summarizing the record in 1987, described him as a man serving a life sentence for killing a guard during an earlier escape, and the Arizona Supreme Court, in 1981, described him as serving a life sentence for murder. The court that sentenced him, the exact name of the offense and the date of the sentence are not on record.
In prison Tison shared a cell with Randy Greenawalt. According to the Associated Press, Greenawalt was serving a life sentence for a 1974 murder. The Supreme Court recorded that Tison insisted Greenawalt be included when his family planned a second escape. The Arizona Supreme Court recorded that both were held in the trusty annex of the Florence prison.
The Supreme Court's opinion states that Tison's wife, his sons Donald, Ricky and Raymond, his brother Joseph and other relatives planned the escape. On July 30, 1978, the three sons entered the Arizona State Prison at Florence. Tison and Greenawalt left with them.
The legal consequences fell on those who were caught. The Arizona Supreme Court, in a decision of February 24, 1981, State v. Greenawalt, 128 Ariz. 388, 626 P.2d 118, affirmed the convictions of Greenawalt, Raymond Tison and Ricky Tison for numerous offenses arising from two events: the escape from the prison at Florence on July 30, 1978, and the events near Casa Grande on August 11, 1978. In its 1981 decision about Raymond Tison, the court listed among those convictions seventeen counts of assault, possession of a stolen motor vehicle, unlawful flight from a pursuing law enforcement vehicle, and aiding and assisting an escape. Those counts were tried in Pinal County. Donald Tison, who had also taken part, did not stand trial; he died on August 11. Gary Tison died before any trial for the events of 1978.
The Arizona courts have set out what followed in some detail, drawing largely on statements the sons made to investigators under a plea agreement. The agreement was rescinded when the sons would not testify about the planning of the escape, and they were then tried, the Supreme Court recorded.
The victims were a husband and wife, their 2-year-old son, Christopher, and the husband's 15-year-old niece, Theresa Tyson. The family lived in Yuma. The Associated Press dated the deaths to July 31, 1978, the night after the escape. The Ninth Circuit, in a 1986 decision about Greenawalt, summarized the trial evidence as placing the deaths between July 31 and August 2. The Arizona Supreme Court recorded that the family had left Yuma on July 31, and the later prosecutions took place in Yuma County.
The Supreme Court's account of the record is that Gary Tison and Greenawalt killed the four members of the family. The same opinion records that Raymond and Ricky Tison did not take part in the killings, that they later said they had been surprised by them, and that neither tried to help the victims. The Arizona Supreme Court found, in the case of Raymond Tison, that the homicides were committed to secure a vehicle for the group's continued flight. That finding is why the Arizona courts treated the deaths as part of a felony murder: the group had taken the family's car.
None of this was found against Gary Tison in a trial. The findings were made in proceedings against Greenawalt and the two sons, and the Supreme Court's statement of what Tison did is a statement of what the record before it showed.
The Associated Press reported in 1997 that police believed the group killed a newly married couple from Amarillo, Texas, James and Margene Judge, near Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and that no one was ever prosecuted for it. Time reported in 1978 that the couple had been on their honeymoon, that a van the fugitives later used was registered to the husband, and that the couple were presumed to have been killed by the Tisons. ABC15 wrote in 2016 that the group killed the couple. The date is not on record beyond the interval between the Arizona deaths and August 11, 1978, when the group returned to Arizona in the couple's van, as the Associated Press reported.
The Arizona opinions on the sons and Greenawalt do not treat any Colorado matter as a charge. The group is attributed with these two deaths by police; no court has found them.
On August 11, 1978, near Casa Grande, in Pinal County, the group in the Colorado couple's van was stopped. Donald Tison, one of the sons, died. Ricky Tison, Raymond Tison and Greenawalt were taken into custody. The Supreme Court wrote that Gary Tison escaped and "subsequently died of exposure." Time reported on September 4, 1978, that he had apparently died of exposure to the desert heat. The exact date of his death is not on record; the reports place it in August 1978.
A deputy county attorney quoted by Time said of Tison that he had been "released to a higher authority."
Greenawalt's first trial for the deaths of the family ended in a mistrial after the Tison brothers withdrew from their agreement to testify against him, the Ninth Circuit recorded. At a second trial the jury convicted him of four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of armed robbery, three counts of kidnapping and one count of theft of a motor vehicle. He was sentenced to death. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed on January 23, 1981 (State v. Greenawalt, 128 Ariz. 150, 624 P.2d 828), and the Supreme Court denied review in October 1981.
Raymond and Ricky Tison were tried separately in Yuma County. Each was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of armed robbery, three counts of kidnapping and one count of theft of a motor vehicle. The murder counts rested on Arizona's felony-murder and accomplice-liability statutes. Ricky Tison was 20 and Raymond 19 at the time. The trial judge found each had been a very substantial participant who could reasonably have foreseen that death might result, and sentenced both to death. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed on July 9, 1981 (State v. Raymond Curtis Tison, 129 Ariz. 546, 633 P.2d 355, and, the same day, State v. Ricky Wayne Tison, 129 Ariz. 526, 633 P.2d 335). It acknowledged that the brothers had not specifically intended the deaths and had not planned them, but treated those facts as of little significance.
After the Supreme Court's decision in Enmund v. Florida (1982), which restricted the death penalty for accomplices to a felony murder, the brothers challenged their sentences. A divided Arizona Supreme Court read Enmund to require an intent to kill and defined that phrase broadly, to cover a defendant who anticipated that violence might be used.
The Supreme Court heard argument on November 3, 1986, and decided Tison v. Arizona on April 21, 1987. Justice O'Connor wrote for the majority; Justice Brennan dissented. The Court held that the Arizona standard was erroneous. It rejected "intent to kill" as defined by the state as little more than a restatement of the felony-murder rule, and held that "major participation in the felony committed, combined with reckless indifference to human life" is enough to satisfy the Enmund requirement. The Court said the Arizona courts had already found major participation and remanded for a determination of reckless indifference. The judgments were vacated.
On remand the trial judge resentenced each brother to death without an evidentiary hearing. On May 2, 1989, the Arizona Supreme Court, in a per curiam opinion, State v. Tison, 160 Ariz. 501, 774 P.2d 805, vacated both death sentences and sent the case back for an evidentiary hearing and resentencing. The Associated Press reported that in 1992 the state supreme court overturned the sons' death sentences and that they were resentenced to life in prison.
Greenawalt remained on death row for 18 years. He was executed in Arizona on January 23, 1997, according to the Associated Press. Asked for last words, he said, "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine," per the state's corrections director. ABC15 reported that he had also confessed to killing two other men in other states; those statements are not described further.
Several points are not settled by a court. The first is the number of killings that Tison himself committed. He has one conviction. The four deaths of July 1978 were found in other men's trials, and the Colorado deaths were never charged. The second is the 1967 conviction: the court, the exact name of the offense and the date of sentencing are not on record, and accounts differ on where Tison was being taken. The third is the date of the Arizona deaths, given by the Associated Press as July 31 and by the trial evidence, as the Ninth Circuit summarized it, as a window from July 31 to August 2.
The case entered the law through the sons' appeal, and entered the public memory through James W. Clarke's 1988 book on the escape, "Last Rampage," which the University of Arizona Press has published in paperback since 1999. A feature film based on the escape was released in 2017.
1960: Tison is first sent to prison, for a robbery, and is later paroled.
1967: Accused of violating parole; kills a prison guard; convicted of murder and sentenced to life.
1974: Randy Greenawalt is sentenced to life for a murder.
July 30, 1978: Tison and Greenawalt leave the Arizona State Prison at Florence with the help of Tison's sons.
July 31, 1978: Four members of a Yuma family die (dated by the Associated Press; trial evidence gives July 31 to August 2).
August 1978: A couple from Amarillo, Texas, die near Pagosa Springs, Colorado (attributed by police; no charge).
August 11, 1978: Near Casa Grande, Donald Tison dies; Ricky Tison, Raymond Tison and Greenawalt are taken into custody; Gary Tison is not.
August 1978: Gary Tison dies of exposure.
January 23, 1981: Arizona Supreme Court affirms Greenawalt's convictions and death sentences.
February 24, 1981: Arizona Supreme Court affirms convictions in the escape and Casa Grande matters.
July 9, 1981: Arizona Supreme Court affirms the sons' convictions and death sentences.
April 21, 1987: Tison v. Arizona decided.
May 2, 1989: Arizona Supreme Court vacates both death sentences.
1992: Sons resentenced to life (Associated Press).
January 23, 1997: Greenawalt executed.