Elvin EJ Tisdale is placed in handcuffs Friday after being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing 20-year-old Brycen Douglas on July 15, 2021. A jury found him guilty of aggravated murder, murder, firearm specifications, and having weapons while under disability after deliberating for nearly two hours. (Photo by Mary Ann Greier)

LISBON — Life in prison without the possibility of parole — that’s the punishment convicted murderer Elvin EJ Tisdale received Friday afternoon for ending the life of 20-year-old Brycen Douglas during a shooting in East Liverpool’s east end in 2021.

“I don’t know how a person can have such a disregard for life,” Columbiana County Common Pleas Court Judge Megan Bickerton said while addressing the 35-year-old defendant from West Virginia prior to issuing the sentence.

The trial which started Tuesday morning with jury selection ended when the 12 chosen jurors issued a guilty verdict on all counts — aggravated murder and murder, both unclassified felonies, both with findings for use of a firearm, and third-degree felony having weapons while under disability. The jury received the case at 11 a.m. Friday, broke for lunch a little after noon, then returned to continue deliberations at 1 p.m., reaching the verdict at 1:30 p.m.

After they were excused, Bickerton heard from both sides for immediate sentencing, opting to follow the recommendation of county Assistant Prosecutor Steve Yacovone, who tried the case along with county Assistant Prosecutors Tammie Riley Jones and Christopher Weeda.

The two murder charges merged for sentencing, with Yacovone requesting the sentence be based on the more serious aggravated murder charge and recommending life without the possibility of parole. Bickerton explained the options included life without the possibility of parole. life with the possibility of parole after 25 years or life with the possibility of parole after 30 years. She noted this was not Tisdale’s first offense.

She sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole, plus an additional mandatory three years for the firearm specification and an additional 36 months or three years for the having weapons under disability charge related to being prohibited from having or using a gun due to a previous felony conviction for drugs. For a separate drug case, she also sentenced him to 10 months in prison for a 2024 fifth-degree felony charge of aggravated possession of drugs. He pleaded guilty to the drug charge earlier this year. He was accused of possessing methamphetamine on Aug. 2, 2023 while he was an inmate at the county jail for the then pending murder case.

He received credit for 765 days served in jail.

Yacovone described the shooting as the “senseless killing of a 20-year-old boy who had no issues with anybody, no beef with anybody. The fact that more people weren’t killed is surprising.”

During his closing arguments, he called it a retaliation killing and said at sentencing there was no reason for that to happen. Elvin Tisdale was friends with Dion McMillon, who was shot to death on May 19, 2021 in East Liverpool, just two months before Elvin Tisdale decided to retaliate and opened fire on the porch on Pennsylvania Avenue where Brycen and several other young man were hanging out. The person who killed McMillon was prosecuted, with Tyrell Travers of Wellsville sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in May 2023 for aggravated murder and murder plus an additional three years for a firearm specification.

Bickerton touched on the retaliation in addressing Elvin Tisdale and the fact that there was another jury trial in this very courtroom for his friend’s killer and she told Travers pretty much what she was telling him, that he hunted the person down.

“What you did was even more egregious,” she said, explaining that a lot of people were on that porch and there were seven shots fired and they could have had seven people dead.

“He has shown no remorse throughout this trial,” Yacovone said.

Defense attorney Paul Conn, who represented Elvin Tisdale along with defense attorney Coleen Hall Dailey, said “I understand the family’s pain,” but said his client wasn’t going to say anything because he’s planning to appeal. He asked for the minimum sentence for murder, claiming the evidence didn’t show that he had forethought, that he was intending to do anything.

Bickerton questioned Elvin Tisdale to ask if he had anything to say. He answered “no, your honor.”

The reading of the verdict and the sentencing occurred before a packed gallery, with a lot of Brycen’s family members and friends present, some who wept. Three supporters of Elvin Tisdale were also there. Brycen’s mother and aunt both spoke and Bickerton said, “I hope you listened to every word from Brycen’s family.”

She commented how Brycen’s aunt said she was praying for the defendant and the defendant’s family. She also said what saddens her in this whole thing is that a lot of people were involved, but didn’t want to testify because they saw what happened to Brycen on that porch.

The day began with both the state and the defense resting their cases, with the defense offering no witnesses. Conn asked for the case to be dismissed, claiming the state didn’t prove their case and Yacovone strenuously disagreeing. Bickerton denied the motion.

During closing arguments, Yacovone said the state met every burden on every element of every charge and showed that no alternate theory was possible.

“The defense threw out wild theories with no backing and no evidence. It was like they were throwing paint on the wall and expecting to make art,” he said.

Yacovone said every piece of evidence pointed to Elvin Tisdale, from his former co-defendant and cousin Allen Tisdale testifying about what happened that night, to Elvin Tisdale’s DNA on the shell casings found between two houses across the street from the house hit with gunfire, to video evidence showing a car in the neighborhood, a car that was similar to his mother’s car, location evidence from his two cell phones and Allen’s cell phone pinging off of towers in the east end of East Liverpool at the time of the shooting and two alibi witnesses, one a friend who he asked to tell police that Elvin was at his house that night and the other his girlfriend, who he claimed he was with all night in West Virginia but wasn’t.

Yacovone told jurors that the defense would claim Allen Tisdale lied, he took a deal and he made it all up, yet everything he told them matched up to physical evidence. He lied at first because he thought he wasn’t going to get in trouble. He tried to convince his cousin to do the right thing. Even more, when he talked again to Detective Captain Darin Morgan in December 2024 to tell him everything that happened, he provided details that they didn’t know about. The investigators didn’t know about a man who was sought out to dismantle the guns or that the Tisdales and two others involved went to another Tisdale house in East Liverpool to burn the clothing they were wearing.

All the evidence corroborated Allen’s testimony. Allen said he was the lookout and Elvin Tisdale and Curtis Holland fired guns from between two houses while Travis Kidder was the driver. Yacovone said they were all equally culpable in this death.

“Their day will come,” he said.

Curtis Holland has not been charged with anything at this point, while Travis Kidder is awaiting trial for obstructing official business for allegedly lying to investigators related to the case. Allen pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter and complicity for a weapons charge, with his testimony required as part of the plea deal. He’ll face sentencing on July 21, with a 10-year prison term being recommended.

During closing arguments, Conn said this was a tough case. He repeated that Yacovone asked jurors to get justice for Brycen, then said “don’t do an injustice to Elvin Tisdale.”

He said the facts are just what the state wants them to be, but it’s up to the jury to decide.

Conn talked about consistency and cooperation and urged jurors to make the state’s massive amount of information make sense.

He talked about Allen’s testimony and lies, how he told somebody he did it, how when he first talked to police he said he had nothing to do with it and neither did Elvin. By the time he talked to police again in December 2024, Conn said he knew what the story was, he knew what the evidence was. According to Conn, the only three things they knew for sure were that Brycen Douglas was killed, that Allen Tisdale was there and that the bullet entered the left side of Brycen’s neck and exited out the right.

As for the shell casings, Conn said “we don’t know where the shells came from and we don’t know when they got there.”

He questioned why the investigators didn’t have the DNA test done for relatives, he pointed out the medical examiner’s testimony and questioned how the shooting could have come from the right when the bullet went through the left side of the victim’s neck. He said the state chose to shine the light on Elvin Tisdale and didn’t look at anyone else.

Jones closed out the closing arguments by refuting the arguments brought up by Conn and asked jurors not to be misled by Conn. She noted the DNA evidence came from a single source and that source was identified as Elvin Tisdale, no one else. She said the victim was turning his head, trying to get away when he was hit.

Jones talked about Allen reaching out to his mom last year and writing to her, something which was discovered by Morgan because he was still investigating and monitoring the mail. She said he told his mom that he was going to come clean, that he was sorry and loved her.

She said they know Allen didn’t tailor his testimony to the evidence because he gave information they didn’t know about.