Tony Carruthers Is Set to Be Executed in May for a Triple Kidnapping and Murder in 1994
A Tennessee death row prisoner set to be executed next month is asking the courts to allow more DNA testing, arguing the evidence could show he was wrongly convicted in a 1994 triple kidnapping and murder case.
The new filing centers on Tony Carruthers, whose lawyers say physical evidence from the crime scene does not match him and has never been fully tested against another possible suspect.
Carruthers was convicted alongside James Montgomery in the killings of Marcellos “Cello” Anderson, his mother Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker. The three were kidnapped from Delois Anderson’s Memphis home and later found buried in a graveyard beneath a casket on March 3, 1994, about a week after they disappeared.
Motion Points to Unmatched DNA and Fingerprints
The motion, filed April 9 in the Tennessee Supreme Court, asks for post conviction DNA testing and seeks comparison of unidentified evidence to another suspect named later in the case.
According to the filing, six fingerprints recovered from the crime scene excluded both Carruthers and Montgomery. The motion also says one male DNA profile found on a white blanket buried with the victims remains unidentified.
Carruthers’ attorneys argue there has never been physical evidence tying him to the crime. They say the prosecution instead relied on jailhouse informants, testimony that has long been scrutinized in wrongful conviction cases.
Alternate Suspect Cited in Filing
The motion also points to a statement James Montgomery gave in 2010 while serving the remainder of his sentence.
According to the filing, Montgomery told an investigator that Carruthers was not involved and identified Ronnie “Eyeball” Irving as the person sent to kidnap Delois Anderson. Irving was killed in 2002, but the motion says his fingerprints and DNA sample remain on file with the medical examiner’s office and have not been compared to the unidentified evidence.
Lawyers for Carruthers say that comparison could be completed before the scheduled May 21 execution date. They argue that if the results support innocence or undermine the death sentence, they will seek a stay.
Trial History Still Shapes the Case
Carruthers and Montgomery were sentenced to death in 1996 after being convicted of three counts of first degree premeditated murder. Jonathan Montgomery, another suspect in the case, died before trial after he was found hanged in his cell.
The filing says the jury in Carruthers’ trial never heard about the fingerprint evidence because Carruthers represented himself.
A Tennessee Supreme Court opinion later recounted that he had gone through six attorneys and had engaged in threatening behavior toward some of them. His current lawyers describe his self representation as ineffective and tied to severe mental illness at the time.
Montgomery later won a new trial after an appeals court found he had been denied a fair trial because of Carruthers’ self representation. During that retrial, DNA testing was conducted on some physical evidence, but the motion says it did not produce a match to either Carruthers or Montgomery. Montgomery later accepted a plea deal to reduced charges of three counts of second degree murder and was released in 2016.
Court Rejects Separate Fingerprint Appeal
Alongside the DNA motion, Carruthers also sought fingerprint testing through the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals. That court denied the request this week, writing that it did not find a reasonable probability that the requested testing would have prevented prosecution or conviction.
The case now moves forward with Carruthers still scheduled for execution on May 21. The ACLU says the state should not carry out an irreversible punishment without first testing evidence that could identify someone else.
