JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A woman whose remains were found buried at a Bowden Circle East home in February was killed, according to the medical examiner's report.
Jacksonville police are still working to identify the woman, who was found buried in the yard of Russell Tillis' home on February 10, 2016. The ME has ruled her death a homicide.
Investigators said she was a white woman who would have been in her teens to age 30. They said she would have had shoulder length brown hair when she died.
A notice posted Thursday by the city's code division said the home just off Bowden Road, east of I-95, has been condemned and is “unsafe and unfit for human habitation and subject to demolition.”
The notice also says the owner would be subject to prosecution for failure to comply with the order.
Tillis, 54, has been in jail since May 2015. Police said when officers went to his home to serve him with arrest warrants on charges unrelated to the woman's body, Tillis came at the officers with two knives. His trial on those felony charges is set for Aug. 8.
About nine months after Tillis was arrested, police searching the home after receiving a tip dug up the human remains.
Neighbors told police Tillis' home was booby-trapped with razor wire and hidden pieces of wood with nails sticking up. The traps were cleared and police searched for a week but found only one set of remains on the property.
A faded Polaroid photo of a woman was released by the Sheriff's Office in connection with the Tillis investigation, but police would not say that the woman in the photo was the one whose remains were found in Tillis' yard. Neither the identity of the victim nor the identity of the woman in the photo are known, police said.
Tillis pleaded no contest in February to unrelated charges of violating an injunction and threatening a neighbor.
After nine felony convictions and going behind bars four times, Tillis' past charges include incidents of exposing himself, harassing neighbors and assaulting police.
Tillis is expected back in court Aug. 4 for a pretrial hearing on the aggravated assault charges against the officers.