Death Row

Tony Von Carruthers | Rose Hill Cemetery Triple Murder

Tony Von Carruthers is the Memphis man on Tennessee’s death row for a cemetery triple murder that left Marcellos “Cello” Anderson, his mother Delois, and teenager Frederick Tucker bound, shot, and buried alive in a waiting grave in 1994.

Tony Von Carruthers Mug Shot

American Murderer

Tony Von Carruthers

Last Update November 20, 2025

  • Full Name: Tony Von Carruthers
  • State: Tennessee
  • County of Conviction: Shelby County (Memphis) Tennessee Courts
  • Current Status: On Tennessee’s death row at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution; execution scheduled for May 21, 2026, pending competency proceedings. Tennessee Courts+1
  • Convicted Of:
    • 3 counts first-degree premeditated murder
    • 3 counts especially aggravated kidnapping
    • 1 count especially aggravated robbery Tennessee Courts
  • Crime Date: Night of February 24, 1994; bodies recovered March 3, 1994 in Rose Hill Cemetery. Tennessee Courts+1
  • Sentence: Death x3, plus consecutive terms totaling decades for the non-capital counts.
  • Victims:
  • Marcellos “Cello” Anderson, 21
  • Delois Anderson, 43
  • Frederick Tucker, 17 Tennessee Courts+1
  • Motive Alleged: Robbery and takeover of Anderson’s lucrative neighborhood drug trade—cash, drugs, and jewelry. Tennessee Courts+1
  • Co-Defendants:
  • James Montgomery – originally sentenced to death; later won a new trial and ultimately received a 27-year sentence for second-degree murder. https://www.actionnews5.com
  • Jonathan “Lulu” Montgomery – charged as well but found hanged in his Shelby County jail cell months before trial. Tennessee Courts

Classification & Characteristics

This is a drug-motivated triple homicide with features prosecutors framed as calculated and “execution-style”: a lured drug dealer, his mother, and a teenage friend abducted at gunpoint, stripped of valuables, driven to a cemetery, shot, and dumped into a grave that had been prepared for someone else’s funeral. Tennessee Courts+1

The case is also notorious in death-penalty jurisprudence. Carruthers burned through multiple appointed attorneys. After years of conflict, threats, and accusations, the trial judge ruled that he had effectively forfeited his right to counsel, forcing him to represent himself – with lawyers kept only in a limited advisory role – at a capital trial that ended in three death sentences. The legality of that decision has dominated his appeals ever since. Sixth Circuit Court+1

Timeline of the Tony Von Carruthers Case →

  • Summer 1993 – “Master plan.”
  • While in prison on an unrelated conviction, Carruthers wrote letters to another inmate describing a “plan” to make the streets pay once he got out—talking about robbing drug dealers with money and jewelry. Tennessee Courts+1
  • February 24, 1994 – Disappearance.
  • Anderson, his mother Delois, and teenager Frederick Tucker left a Memphis duplex neighborhood in a borrowed Jeep Cherokee; none returned. Witnesses later placed Carruthers and the Montgomery brothers in contact with Anderson that evening. Tennessee Courts+1
  • February 25, 1994 – Burned Jeep & missing persons.
  • The borrowed Jeep was found burned in Mississippi. Family members filed missing-person reports when Delois and Marcellos failed to come home. Tennessee Courts
  • March 3, 1994 – Cemetery discovery.
  • Acting on information from Jonathan Montgomery, detectives went to Rose Hill Cemetery and exhumed the grave of Dorothy Daniels. Under her casket, in a separate pit dug earlier, they found the three victims’ bodies. Tennessee Courts+1
  • 1994–1996 – Capital trial.
  • Carruthers cycled through multiple court-appointed attorneys amid threats and serious conflict. After finding that he had manipulated and threatened counsel, the trial judge ruled he had forfeited his right to appointed lawyers and ordered that he represent himself with standby counsel. A jury convicted him and co-defendant James Montgomery of three counts of first-degree murder and sentenced both men to death in 1996. Sixth Circuit Court+1
  • 2000 – Tennessee Supreme Court direct appeal.
  • In State v. Carruthers, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed Carruthers’s convictions and death sentences but reversed Montgomery’s death sentences and remanded his case. The court also endorsed the trial judge’s “forfeiture of counsel” ruling in Carruthers’s case. Tennessee Courts
  • 2006 – Montgomery resentenced.
  • After a new proceeding, James Montgomery pleaded to second-degree murder counts and received a 27-year sentence for his role in hiding the bodies in the grave. https://www.actionnews5.com
  • 2007 – State post-conviction denied.
  • The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Carruthers’s post-conviction claims, including ineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, and challenges to his self-representation.
  • 2013 – DNA-testing petition denied.
  • In a separate proceeding, Tennessee’s appellate court turned down his request for post-conviction DNA testing on items such as a blanket and physical evidence, finding he had not shown the testing would likely change the verdict. Justia
  • 2018 – Federal habeas appeal denied.
  • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of federal habeas relief, holding that Tennessee’s handling of his forfeiture of counsel and competency findings was not contrary to clearly established Supreme Court precedent. Sixth Circuit Court
  • February 19, 2019 – U.S. Supreme Court.
  • The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Carruthers v. Mays (No. 18-697), leaving the Sixth Circuit decision intact. SCOTUSblog+1
  • 2021–2025 – Competency litigation.
  • Tennessee’s high court remanded for proceedings on whether Carruthers is competent to be executed and whether a “next friend” should be appointed to litigate on his behalf, given long-standing concerns about delusions and mental illness. Website
  • October 2, 2025 – New execution date.
  • In a 4–1 order entered September 30, 2025, the Tennessee Supreme Court set May 21, 2026 as Carruthers’s execution date, denied commutation, and again directed lower courts to address his competency before that date. Tennessee Courts+1

Case Summary

In February 1994, Memphis drug dealer Marcellos Anderson, his mother Delois, and friend Frederick Tucker vanished after leaving a duplex neighborhood in a Jeep Cherokee. Days later, the Jeep was found burned in Mississippi, and on March 3, 1994, all three victims were discovered in a pit beneath another woman’s casket at Rose Hill Cemetery in Memphis. A Shelby County jury later convicted Tony Von Carruthers of masterminding the plot – kidnapping, robbing, and killing the trio to seize Anderson’s cash and drug territory – and sentenced him to death in 1996; Tennessee’s appellate courts and federal courts have upheld the convictions and death sentences, even as litigation rages over his competence and self-representation. Tennessee Courts+2Tennessee Courts+2

🕊️Victims of Tony Von Carruthers

  • Marcellos “Cello” Anderson (21)
  • Anderson was a young Memphis man immersed in the local drug trade. Witnesses said he wore expensive jewelry, carried cash, and stored more money at his mother’s home. He considered Carruthers a trusted friend, which prosecutors argued made him a target: someone with product, currency, and a circle that could be taken over. His body was recovered in the Rose Hill grave, stripped of jewelry and cash. Tennessee Courts+1
  • Delois Anderson (43)
  • Delois was Marcellos’s mother and, by all accounts, not part of the drug business. She was at home when she left with her son and Frederick Tucker on the night they disappeared. Prosecutors maintained she was taken and killed simply because she was present—and because leaving a witness alive would threaten the plot. Her body was found alongside her son’s under the Daniels casket. Tennessee Courts+1
  • Frederick Tucker (17)
  • Tucker was a teenager associated with Anderson and caught up in the events of that February evening. Like Delois, there was no evidence he dealt drugs. He was with the Andersons when they left the duplex and vanished; he was later found in the same concealed grave, bound and shot. Tennessee Courts+1

→ FAQs

Who is Tony Von Carruthers?

He is a Memphis man sentenced to death in 1996 for the kidnapping, robbery, and triple murder of Marcellos “Cello” Anderson, Anderson’s mother Delois, and teenager Frederick Tucker, whose bodies were hidden in a pre-dug cemetery grave at Rose Hill Cemetery. Tennessee Courts+1

What did prosecutors say happened at Rose Hill Cemetery?

According to trial testimony, Carruthers and accomplices abducted the victims at gunpoint, robbed them of cash and jewelry, drove them to Rose Hill Cemetery, shot them, and dumped their bodies into a pit beneath another person’s casket in an already-dug grave. Tennessee Courts+2Tennessee Courts+2

Why is his case important in death-penalty law?

Tennessee courts held that Carruthers forfeited his right to counsel through threats and manipulation, forcing him to represent himself in a capital trial. Federal courts later agreed this did not violate clearly established Supreme Court precedent, making his case a touchstone in debates over self-representation, mental illness, and the death penalty. Sixth Circuit Court+1

When is Tony Carruthers scheduled to be executed?

As of the latest Tennessee Supreme Court order, Carruthers is set for execution on May 21, 2026, by lethal injection under Tennessee’s current protocol, with competency issues still being litigated in lower courts. Tennessee Courts+2Nashville Scene+2

Tony Von Carruthers | Rose Hill Cemetery Triple Murder

Tony Von Carruthers | Rose Hill Cemetery Triple Murder

👉 The Story

A Grave Already Waiting

By early 1994, Marcellos “Cello” Anderson was moving money and cocaine through a corner of Memphis that glowed with cash and danger. He wore thick jewelry, carried rolls of bills, and, according to testimony, kept more money hidden in the attic of his mother Delois’s house. Tennessee Courts

In prison on another charge, Tony Carruthers wrote to a fellow inmate about a “master plan” – a way to make serious money when he got back to the streets. The letters described a future where he would be organized, violent if needed, and ready to “get” wealthy dealers like Anderson. Tennessee Courts+1

When Carruthers was released, he drifted into Anderson’s orbit. Witnesses at trial said Anderson trusted him, spoke of him as someone reliable, and believed they might do business together. Carruthers, however, allegedly had other ideas: remove Anderson, take his cash and drugs, and assume control of his territory. Tennessee Courts+1

On the night of February 24, 1994, Anderson, his mother Delois, and 17-year-old Frederick Tucker left a duplex neighborhood in a borrowed Jeep Cherokee. They were never seen alive again. The next morning, Anderson’s Jeep turned up burned in Mississippi. When phone calls and check-ins failed, relatives filed missing-person reports. Tennessee Courts+1

Attention soon settled on Carruthers and the Montgomery brothers – James and Jonathan. A borrowed car came back muddy. There were rumors of sudden money, strange comments about “having to kill some people,” and talk of an AK-47 rifle that might have been used. Tennessee Courts+1

On March 3, 1994, Jonathan “Lulu” Montgomery led detectives to Rose Hill Cemetery on Elvis Presley Boulevard. He pointed them to the grave of Dorothy Daniels, recently buried. Under Daniels’ casket, in a separate pit dug below, police unearthed three bound bodies: Marcellos Anderson, Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker. Their valuables were gone; one of the victims still had tape around the head and mouth. Autopsy findings indicated gunshot wounds and asphyxia. Tennessee Courts+1

Investigators pieced together a narrative: Carruthers and the Montgomerys had access to cemeteries through work details and knew how graves were dug. A grave was prepared in advance. The victims were lured out, robbed of cash, drugs, and jewelry, then taken to Rose Hill and executed into a hole that would be sealed by another woman’s coffin. Without an informant, the bodies might never have been found. Tennessee Courts+2Tennessee Courts+2

The prosecution’s case leaned heavily on witness testimony and co-conspirator statements. Jimmy Lee Maze, an inmate who had known Carruthers in prison, recounted those “master plan” letters. Other witnesses described Carruthers talking about how, if you wanted to kill someone and get away with it, you should “make sure there’s no body.” The grave beneath a grave fit that logic chillingly well. Tennessee Courts+1

Carruthers’s defense never settled. Over months, he went through attorney after attorney – complaining, threatening, insisting he was the one “calling the shots.” Lawyers told the court they feared for their safety. Eventually, the trial judge concluded Carruthers was abusing the process, had driven away qualified counsel, and had forfeited his right to a new lawyer. He would try a capital case himself. Sixth Circuit Court

So, when the jury filed in to hear a death-penalty trial about a cemetery grave and three murdered victims, Carruthers was at counsel table alone in jail garb, questioning witnesses, lodging objections, and speaking directly to the jurors about whether he should live or die. The jury returned three guilty verdicts and three death sentences. Tennessee Courts+1

On direct appeal, Tennessee’s Supreme Court called the case “particularly disturbing” and upheld the verdicts and sentences for Carruthers while overturning James Montgomery’s death sentences. Post-conviction and federal courts later agreed, emphasizing that the trial judge had repeatedly warned Carruthers and that his own conduct had cost him his lawyers. Tennessee Courts+1

Today, nearly three decades after Rose Hill Cemetery gave up its secret, Carruthers maintains his innocence and insists the evidence was twisted. His attorneys argue that he was delusional and incompetent even back then – and that forcing a mentally ill man to defend himself in a capital case is a stain on the justice system. Tennessee’s courts, so far, have disagreed. Yet with an execution date on the calendar and a competency fight still alive, the final chapter of this grave-within-a-grave story has not quite been written. Nashville Scene+2+2

Legal Status | Paper Trail | Tony Von Carruthers

Direct Appeal – State v. Carruthers, 35 S.W.3d 516 (Tenn. 2000)

State Post-Conviction – Carruthers v. State (Tenn. Crim. App. 2007)

Post-Conviction DNA Petition – Carruthers v. State (Tenn. Crim. App. 2013)

Federal Habeas – Carruthers v. Mays, 889 F.3d 273 (6th Cir. 2018)

U.S. Supreme Court – Carruthers v. Mays (No. 18-697)

Competency & Execution Orders – Tennessee Supreme Court

  • 2021 order remanding to Davidson County Criminal Court to examine Carruthers’s competency to be executed and whether a “next friend” should be appointed. Website
  • September 30, 2025 order setting an execution date of May 21, 2026, denying commutation, and again directing the trial court to resolve competency issues before that date. Tennessee Courts

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Beyond the Gavel | Tony Von Carruthers

Roll Card

  • Name: Tony Von Carruthers
  • Jurisdiction: State of Tennessee – Shelby County
  • Facility: Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, Nashville
  • Current Status: Death sentence active; execution scheduled May 21, 2026, pending competency findings. Tennessee Courts+1
  • Execution Method: Tennessee’s default is lethal injection (pentobarbital), with electrocution available under statute for certain pre-1999 offenses or if lethal injection is held unconstitutional. Justia+1
  • Key Legal Flashpoints:
    • Forfeiture of right to counsel in a capital case
    • Competency to stand trial and to be executed
    • Limits of federal habeas review under AEDPA

Docket Map | Proceedings (Condensed)

  1. Trial & Sentencing (Shelby County, 1996) – Jury convicts Carruthers on all counts and returns three death sentences. Tennessee Courts
  2. Direct Appeal – State v. Carruthers, 35 S.W.3d 516 (Tenn. 2000) – Convictions and death sentences affirmed; co-defendant James Montgomery’s death sentences reversed.
  3. Post-Conviction (Shelby County → TCCA, 2007) – State post-conviction relief denied and affirmed on appeal.
  4. Post-Conviction DNA – Carruthers v. State (2013) – DNA testing petition denied.
  5. Federal Habeas – Carruthers v. Mays, No. 14-5457 (6th Cir. 2018) – Denial of habeas relief affirmed.
  6. U.S. Supreme Court – Carruthers v. Mays (2019) – Certiorari denied February 19, 2019.
  7. Competency Litigation – Tennessee Supreme Court (2021) – Remand for factual findings on competency to be executed and next-friend representation.
  8. Execution Date Set – Tennessee Supreme Court (2025) – Order setting May 21, 2026 execution date and denying commutation.

Case File Extras | What the Record Shows

  • Grave Beneath a Grave: Detectives did not simply find three bodies in a cemetery – they found them in a pit dug under another woman’s casket. The arrangement was deliberate, concealed, and likely meant to ensure the victims were never discovered. Tennessee Courts+1
  • Letters from Lock-Up: Long before the killings, Carruthers wrote from prison about a plan to hit wealthy drug dealers and “organize” his life on the outside – evidence prosecutors used to portray premeditation and a targeted motive. Tennessee Courts
  • Self-Representation in a Capital Case: Multiple lawyers testified or argued they feared for their safety or could not work with Carruthers. Courts later held that his threats, manipulation, and refusal to cooperate justified forcing him to proceed without appointed counsel – an extraordinarily rare outcome in a death-penalty case. Sixth Circuit Court
  • Co-Defendant Outcomes: Jonathan Montgomery, the younger brother, died by apparent suicide in jail before trial. James Montgomery’s death sentences were vacated; he ultimately received 27 years and was no longer on death row—even as Carruthers remains under an active death warrant. Tennessee Courts+2https://www.actionnews5.com+2
  • Competency & Mental Illness Claims: Recent filings emphasize reported delusions and mental-health concerns, arguing that Carruthers may not understand the reason for his punishment – an issue that could halt or reshape his execution if courts agree. Website+2Nashville Scene+2

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