Jacksonville, FL — Three days after Russell Tillis was found guilty of killing a woman and burying her dismembered body at his Southside home, Action News Jax is hearing from the brother who Tillis claimed was the real killer.
When Action News Jax’s Bridgette Matter asked Claude Tillis if he killed Joni Gunter in 2015, as his brother Russell claimed, he said, “No, I did not kill her. There’s no way.”
Russell Tillis confessed to Gunter’s murder in a recorded conversation with an inmate who was wearing a wire. But during his week-long trial, Tillis changed his story and told the jury his brother, Claude, killed Gunter and brought her body to Tillis’s home to bury it.
“When he says I drove up there with a body in my car, I was really floored at that time,” Claude said.
[RELATED: Jacksonville ‘House of Horrors’ suspect Russell Tillis found guilty of first-degree murder]
He denied knowing 30-year-old Gunter and said, “I even took a polygraph test. I hired a lawyer. They brought in an FBI agent to give me a polygraph test. I passed it with flying colors.”
He went on to say he and Russell didn’t get along very well. He said he doesn’t think his brother has a heart. “I don’t know what moves his blood. I think it’s all done by battery.”
Russell Tillis now faces the death penalty. Claude said, “I don’t care if he gets the death penalty. I really don’t.”
The penalty phase of the trial begins Wednesday.
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