Lillelid murders
Natasha Wallen Cornett was born on January 26, 1979 in Pike County, KY. She is currently serving a sentence of life without parole at the Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville for her participation in the Lillelid murders.
Cornett was born in rural Pike County in Eastern Kentucky. Cornett's mother, Madonna Wallen, became pregnant while having an affair with Natasha’s biological father, a local policeman named Roger Burgess.
According to Tennessee court records, she grew up with "the lack of a father figure, and an irresponsible mother". She left school before completing ninth grade, and had no history of employment except babysitting.
Cornett started using alcohol and illegal drugs, including heroin, ecstasy, and cocaine. At the age of 14, she was arrested for forgery due to the theft of a box of checks, and sentenced by the juvenile court to one year of probation. Cornett was arrested a second time for assaulting her mother, Madonna Wallen, and threatening to kill her with a knife, but her mother had the charges dismissed.
Madonna Wallen was herself molested when she was four or five by a local man, a pastor at a nearby church; nobody talked about it but her mother took her to the doctor to deal with the physical trauma.
At 17, Madonna married a Pepsi Cola salesman, an abusive alcoholic named Don Adkins; Velina was born in 1960; the couple divorced in 1966, after Madonna fired a shotgun at Adkins while he threatened to kill her; his wounds weren't fatal and she wasn't charged, on grounds of self-defense. Her first daughter, Velina, says she was molested by Madonna's second husband, Ed Wallen. Madonna was married to Wallen when she had the affair with Natasha’s father, Roger Burgess.
By junior high school, Natasha Cornett was alienated from most of her peers as an outsider because of her gothic dress and odd behaviors. By high school, Cornett was being openly harassed and bullied by other students. She suffered from anorexia, and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which went without treatment due to lack of health insurance.
Pleas for help by her were ignored by unsympathetic school authorities. She dropped out during her freshman year of high school, and married friend Stephen Cornett on her 17th birthday.
Natasha told Women's Entertainment Network in a 2009 interview that after about six months, when Stephen ended the marriage, she was psychologically devastated, and said that the failed relationship worsened her existing mental health issues.
During this period Cornett was abusing drugs and alcohol and practicing self-mutilation, she became the informal leader of her friend group.
On April 6, 1997, Cornett, 18; Edward Dean Mullins, 19; Joseph Lance Risner, 20; Crystal R. Sturgill, 18; Jason Blake Bryant, 14; and Karen R. Howell, 17, left for New Orleans in Joseph's junky Chevrolet Citation.
The previous night Natasha secured a room in the since closed Colley Motel where they could party. The party got out of hand and the group thought it would be prudent to leave town before they had to deal with any legal consequences resulting from the property damage they caused. They were hoping to start new lives in New Orleans, escaping the boredom and poverty of Pikeville. Natasha spent a few weeks with a friend there after the end of her marriage.
They discussed possibly car-jacking a bigger and more dependable vehicle.
Not long later, they met the Lillelid family at an interstate highway rest area in Greeneville, Tennessee: Vidar Lillelid, 34, ; his Delfina, 28; their daughter Tabitha, 6; and son Peter, 2. Vidar Lillelid grew up in Bergen, Norway. He moved to the USA in 1985, where he met Honduran American Delfina Zelaya. They married in 1989 and began a family.
Cornett and her friends wanted to steal the family's van. The group was armed with two guns: a 9mm and a .25 caliber pistol.
Eyewitnesses saw six youths in conversation with the Lillelid family. Vidar Lillelid, carrying his son Peter, approached Cornett and Howell to discuss his religious views, before Risner and Bryant joined the group. At some point, Risner brandished a firearm and said, "I hate to do you this way, but we are going to have to take you with us for your van."
He then directed the Lillelid family into their van, as Vidar pleaded with the group, offering his keys and wallet, but Risner refused. At gunpoint, the family was forced back into their van, and Risner ordered Vidar Lillelid to drive the van while Risner, holding the gun on him, sat in the passenger seat. Risner, Bryant, Howell, and Cornett were in the van with the Lillelids, while Mullins and Sturgill followed in Risner's car.
Attempting to calm her children, Delfina Lillelid began to sing; Bryant ordered her to stop. Risner directed the Lillelids to a secluded road at the next exit up the interstate, Payne Hollow Lane, near Greeneville.
The Lillelids were then lined up against a ditch along the road, where they were shot they were shot execution style by 14-year-old Jason Bryant and possibly other male members of the group. Checking the bodies, Bryant stated, "They're still fucking alive," and shot them again. Later court testimony differs on which other male members of the group participated in the shooting.
Dr. Cleland Blake, the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy, testified that Vidar Lillelid was shot six times, once on the right side of his head, and five times in his chest.
The first shot entered his right eye and exited in front of his right ear. While uncertain, Dr. Blake stated his opinion that this shot would have caused a loss of consciousness. The victim was then shot three times in the upper right side of his chest after falling to the ground. The wounds were described as consistent with those from a 9mm, and that the gunshots to the chest were fired to form the shape of an equilateral triangle.
A gunshot wound just below Mr. Lillelid's nipple was consistent with a .25 caliber weapon, and a final 9mm gunshot wound was located just beneath it. There was a "graze laceration" on the victim's right forearm, and postmortem superficial abrasions to the back of the victim's legs.
Delfina Lillelid was shot eight times, and all eight bullets were recovered from her body; six were from a 9mm and two were from a .25 caliber weapon. The first of the 9mm shots shattered a bone in her left arm; the second shattered the femur in her left thigh. Dr. Blake testified that these shots would not have killed her, but would have caused severe pain, leaving the victim unable to stand.
Mrs. Lillelid was shot an additional six times while on her back, with the first three shots striking the left side of her abdomen. Dr. Blake's opinion was that these shots formed a triangular pattern, similar to the wounds left on Mr. Lillelid. The shots pierced her stomach, leaving a four- to five-inch tear, and traveled through her pancreas, spleen, left kidney, and left adrenal gland.
A final 9mm entry wound was located at the mid-section of Mrs. Lillelid's abdomen just above her navel and was recovered from her spine. There was a .25 caliber gunshot wound under her left armpit where the bullet entered, coming to a stop in the skin on the back of her left shoulder. Another shot caused a wound to Mrs. Lillelid's left side, and the bullet was recovered from the center of her liver. She also suffered abrasions on her right calf.
Mrs. Lillelid's wounds were not immediately fatal, and she could have been conscious for nearly half an hour, including while her body was run over as her killers escaped in the stolen van.
Tabitha Lillelid was shot once in the head with a small caliber weapon, with the bullet entering the left side of her skull and exiting behind her right ear. This caused immediate brain death.
Two-year-old Peter Lillelid was shot twice with a small caliber weapon. One shot entered behind his right ear and exited near his right eye, while second gunshot penetrated his back and exited through his chest.
He was transported to the pediatric intensive care unit at the University of Tennessee Memorial Hospital in Knoxville by Lifestar helicopter. Peter required intensive resuscitation efforts. He had a contusion to his right lung with some residual bleeding in his right chest cavity. Eleven days later, doctors amputated his damaged eye. He remained in the hospital for 17 days before being transferred to a rehabilitation center in Knoxville to recover.
Soon after Peter Lillelid's medical condition stabilized at the end of April 1997, a custody battle began between his maternal grandmother Lydia Selaya of Miami, Florida, USA and his father's sister Randi Heier of Sweden. Citing Randi's pledge to raise Peter in the faith and teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses as the deciding factor, local Judge Fred McDonald awarded her custody of Peter on July 1, 1997.
Peter has since been raised in Sweden by his Aunt Randi Heier and her family. He was left blind in one eye and permanently disabled, still struggling to walk.
After the shooting, the group abandoned their own vehicle with its license plates removed and left in the Lillelid family's van. Soon after they drove off, police found Vidar and Delfina dead at the scene; Tabitha died after being transported to the hospital. Peter, who was found lying in a ditch, was the only survivor.
The group continued towards New Orleans in the Lillelids van. They stopped at a Waffle House but left when a group of police officers arrived. Abandoning their plan to travel to New Orleans, they instead headed to Mexico. When they reached the border, they were initially denied admittance because they did not have the proper forms of identification, but eventually made their way into the country.
The group was stopped by the Mexican police. When they claimed they were lost, the officers ordered the group out of the van and conducted a search, finding a knife, as well as a Lillelid family photo album.
Two days after the shootings, the six perpetrators in the Lillelid family's stolen van were taken into custody by US Customs and Immigration officials in Arizona, having been ordered by Mexican police to return to the United States for entering Mexico without proper papers.
At the time of their arrest, two days after the murders, several of them had personal items belonging to the Lillelids in their possession.
Natasha and the others were transported to Greeneville, Tennessee, where they were booked into the county jail on charges of first degree murder, attempted murder, and kidnapping.
Cornett accepted the pro bono legal services of attorney Eric Conn, a lawyer who did not specialize in criminal defense. At Conn's insistence, Natasha called herself the "Daughter of Satan" and made claims of devil worship to lay the foundation for an insanity defense.
The judge felt that this was not in the best interests of the defendant, so he ordered Conn removed and replaced before the trial started.
Before the case could go to the jury, district attorney Berkeley Bell decided to offer a deal to the defendants in which they would plead guilty and receive life without parole instead of risking execution.
On March 13, 1998, all defendants pled guilty to all charges. Although Natasha took the plea bargain, court testimony established that she did not do the actual shooting of the four victims. During her own testimony, Cornett claimed she tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent the deaths. Natasha received three sentences of life without the possibility of parole and two additional sentences of 25 years for attempted murder and kidnapping.
Cornett earned a GED in prison, and certification in cosmetology. Madonna Wallen stated in an interview that her daughter serves as a mentor for some of her fellow inmates.
On August 24, 2001, Cornett and death row inmate Christa Pike allegedly attacked fellow prisoner Patricia Jones, almost strangling Jones to death with a shoe lace, after Pike and Jones were placed in a holding cell with Cornett during a fire alarm.
Although the Department of Corrections believed that Cornett was involved, investigators found insufficient evidence to charge her with helping Pike, who was subsequently found guilty of attempted murder.