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Maryland Man Accused Of Killing Girlfriend Commits Suicide Hours Before Trial
A prosecutor called Tyler Tessier, who is accused of fatally shooting his pregnant girlfriend in 2017, a "psychopath."
Just hours before he was supposed to appear in court for opening statements in his murder trial, Tyler Tessier, who is accused of killing his pregnant teacher girlfriend Laura Wallen last year, hung himself in his jail cell.
Tessier was found dead a little before 5 a.m., with a bed sheet wrapped around his neck, inside his cell at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Clarksburg, Maryland, according to WTOP in Washington D.C.
In 2017, before Wallen’s body was found, Tessier held hands with Wallen’s mother at a press conference, while pleading for the safe return of his girlfriend. He even cried while delivering a statement on the issue.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, believe it was all an act.
An autopsy report revealed that Wallen was shot in the back of the head before being left in a shallow grave, according to CBS Baltimore. The high school social studies teacher, who was named Wilde Lake High’s Senior Class Teacher of the Year in 2016, was four-months pregnant when she died. Police believe Tessier pulled the trigger.
After Tessier’s suicide on Thursday morning, the Montgomery County state’s attorney called him a “psychopath,” according to a WTOP report.
“We were robbed this morning of the opportunity to allow the public to know the true nature and details of this crime,” Prosecutor John McCarthy said at a press conference.
Had he lived, Tessier would have gone on trial for first-degree murder. Instead, Circuit Judge Michael Mason told revealed to jurors on Thursday that the defendant was dead and that there would be no trial.
McCarthy told reporters that Tessier was seeing another woman, whom he was engaged to, for years while also dating Cullen. He said the women weren’t aware of one another.
“To Tyler Tessier, lying was like breathing,” McCarthy said. “He lied about everything…There are so many stories, so many lies, and so many changes to what he said happened in this case.”
Defense attorney Allen Wolf said the Tessier family was distraught over the news of Tessier’s suicide, WTOP reported.
[Photo: Montgomery County Police Department]
