William Emmett LeCroy
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has scheduled the execution of William Emmett LeCroy Jr. for Sept. 22 following his 2004 death sentence for the murder of Joann Tiesler.
Tiesler, a 30-year-old Cherry Log resident, was a nurse practitioner at Mountain Medical with Dr. Ray Tidman at the time of her murder, which took place Oct. 7, 2001.
LeCroy was convicted of breaking into her Cherry Lake subdivision residence, where he waited for her to return home from a shopping trip, raped and murdered her.
Tiesler’s fiancé called Mountain Medical the following day because he hadn’t heard from her. The office sent an employee to her home to check in on her, and they found her brutalized and dead.
Following her murder, LeCroy stole Tiesler’s 1996 Ford Explorer and fled the state. He was apprehended two days later in Grand Marais, Minn., while attempting to cross the Canadian border.
LeCroy, a convicted sex offender, had been on a supervised release program from federal prison with his mother and stepfather, who lived in the same neighborhood as Tiesler, for a matter of weeks when he committed Tiesler’s murder. He had previously served 10 years in federal and state prison for, among other crimes, aggravated assault, burglary, child molestation and statutory rape.
Tiesler’s autopsy report stated she had died as a result of multiple stab wounds. The federal indictment charged that LeCroy “committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner in that it involved torture and serious physical abuse.”
Tiesler was an honor graduate from Vanderbilt University and grew up in Nashville. She had worked in Ellijay and Blue Ridge for over three years, and Tidman described her as athletic, disciplined and bright.
LeCroy’s execution is set to take place at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.
(By Sydney Criteser, News Observer)