Fugitive in Motel Murder Found, Indicted

June 30, 2022 – A Memphis man who served part of a six-year sentence for a fatal shooting in 2016 has been indicted in the April killing of a man at a motel in southeast Memphis, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

Michael Ray Tillman, 24, was secretly indicted last week on first-degree murder charges three days after he was taken into custody as a fugitive in Bismarck, N.D. The grand jury also indicted him as a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

He was returned to Memphis and booked into the Shelby County Jail Wednesday, which allowed the indictment to be made public. He is being held on $1 million bond.

Tillman is accused in the fatal shooting of Jamon Ueal, 28, of Cordova, shortly after 7 a.m. on April 18 this year at the Garden Inn in the 3400 block of American Way.

Investigators said surveillance video showed a vehicle pull up to the motel and the four occupants – two men and two women – get out. The driver, identified as Tillman, yelled at the other male passenger who walked toward another car nearby.

Tillman then fired several shots at the man, identified as Ueal, who dropped to the ground. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead from multiple gunshot wounds.

In 2016 Tillman was charged in the shooting death of 51-year-old Willie Presley in the 1400 block of Woodward St. in South Memphis. He pled guilty in 2019 to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to six years in prison, which included credit for three years he was in jail while awaiting trial. Tillman’s sentence expired in May of 2020.

The new homicide case is being handled by Chief Prosecutor Kirby May of the District Attorney’s Vertical Team 5 which prosecutes cases in General Sessions Division 13 and in Criminal Court Division 9.