Eight months after suspicious death, Kentucky man in custody, charged with murder

Published 5:38 am Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Nearly eight months after a suspicious death occurred on the East side of Lexington, Kentucky police have a Frankfort suspect booked for murder.

Theodrick Tillman, 31, has been charged with murder in connection to a dead body found under an overturned SUV in Lexington last November. Lexington Police investigated the incident.

De’Shawn Jimerson, of Washington state, was found dead on Friday, Nov. 20, near the intersection of Winchester Road and Midland Place. Investigators at the scene discovered Jimerson had gunshot wounds.

“Based on the preliminary investigation, it appears this shooting may have happened shortly after midnight,” a police press release from the time read.

An employee at the Fayette County Coroner’s Office did not provide any comment to the State Journal, but the Herald Leader reported that even though Jimerson was shot, the injuries from the crash would have been severe enough to kill him.

Frankfort Police arrested Tillman on a Fayette County warrant Friday night, per FPD spokesperson Lynn Aubrey.

Tillman’s previous arrest was the subject of some controversy, as he was extracted from his girlfriend’s apartment in May by a Frankfort Police SWAT team. Police say he had barricaded himself in his apartment and did not respond to calls from a bullhorn for 30 minutes before they broke the windows of the apartment and released a chemical agent similar to pepper spray into his apartment.

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd apologized to Tillman and said that he regretted issuing the warrant on which Tillman was served in May because of the SWAT deployment.

Aubrey said that FPD uses a complex matrix system to determine whether or not it uses SWAT, and that Tillman met the criteria due to a litany of previous charges. Tillman has several pending charges in Franklin County, including assault and resisting arrest. One charge in 2012 involved him assaulting two guards at the Franklin County Regional Jail.

Tillman is currently lodged at Franklin County Regional Jail on a $750,000 full-cash bond.