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newsCrime

Lost promise: A life full of hardship, then hope, senselessly taken

Michael Tilley of West Dallas, who endured poverty, mental illness, violence and prison time, seemed on the brink of breaking through.

Editor’s Note: In 2019, homicides in Dallas spiked to the highest level in more than a decade. This year, The Dallas Morning News is tracking the city’s homicides, exploring the impact on families and neighborhoods and examining the possible causes of the rise in violence.

One in an occasional series.

Despite a ban on large public gatherings, several dozen people met in Tipton Park in West Dallas to grieve a murdered neighbor.

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A photo of the victim, Michael Tilley, was displayed on a picnic table. The mourners lit candles and formed a prayer circle. They released red, white and black balloons. They circulated donation envelopes.

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Michael, 35, had been dead for six days. His family desperately wanted to muster enough money to bury, rather than cremate, his body.

“We got everybody out here representing my brother,” said Shanequa Tilley, 37. “We might all have corona by tomorrow, but we out here. When the corona police come, we gone.”

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Even though coronavirus-related restrictions brought daily existence to a virtual standstill, Dallas had 19 murders, including that of Michael Tilley, in March, an increase of three from the same month last year. What makes the uptick even more concerning is that 2019 was Dallas’ most deadly year in recent memory, with the city eclipsing 200 homicides for the first time since 2007.

Amid the global pandemic and economic free fall, though, Michael’s death resonated only here in Westmoreland Heights, a neighborhood of roughly 1,000 people in the heart of West Dallas.

Here, Michael was not just a statistic. He was a thoughtful, amusing, gospel-singing yet troubled soul with a wandering glass left eye, courtesy of a 20-gauge shotgun blast when he was 14.

Michael Tilley's photo was displayed at Tipton Park in West Dallas on March 21, 2020, days...
Michael Tilley's photo was displayed at Tipton Park in West Dallas on March 21, 2020, days after he was murdered. In the portrait, Tilley was wearing a suit provided by friend Reid Slaughter for a professional résumé photo.(Family photo)

His saga is one of a young man who burrowed into a mountain of obstacles — poverty, mental illness, family dysfunction, incarceration, violence — and was on the cusp of breaking through.

Michael was grateful for opportunities he received from a documentary filmmaker who befriended him. He was passionate about helping neighbors, especially children and the elderly, through community service.

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Despite his love for West Dallas, he realized he had to leave — but each time he nearly emerged from his circumstances, they sucked him back in. And so those who came to Tipton Park mourned not only Michael, but his lost promise.

That he died at a young age isn’t surprising. It’s the why, where and how of his slaying, with 9mm Glock bullets piercing his neck and upper chest, that are hard to bear.

Especially for his identical twin, Marcus.

“It really feels like a piece of me is gone,” he said. “People get killed every day, but it’s different when you have to watch your brother spend his life running from death, knowing he’s escaping death, and then knowing it finally got him.

“You’re like, ‘Damn, Mike.’ ”

The Saturday afternoon gathering in Tipton Park, bordered by wood-framed homes that families have owned for generations, reminded mourners of when Michael, in 2015, organized an AmeriCorps youth camp on the park’s asphalt basketball courts and parking lot.

His job with CitySquare that spring and summer also entailed delivering food as part of the mobile meals program.

Within a 1-mile radius of Tipton Park, though, are vestiges of Michael’s bipolar disorder- and drug-fueled alter ego.

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There is the Valero convenience store, where in a fit of rage he ripped down the cash register. The Jerry’s Market and Mr. Food Mart, whose front windows he smashed. The now-empty lot of the house he burned down. And the crack house in which he was killed.

“Mike loved God,” Marcus said. “And he loved kids. But he rassled with himself. He rassled for his environment to accept him.

“He wanted to be seen. He wanted to be loved.”

A life of good intentions

Looming 5 miles east, across the Margaret Hunt Hill and Margaret McDermott bridges, are Dallas’ skyscrapers and Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Michael and Marcus were born on May 16, 1984.

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Their parents, Michael Ray Porter and Betty Tilley, never married, but Shanequa’s 1982 birth compelled 10th-grader Michael Ray to drop out of L.G. Pinkston High School and get employment.

Michael Ray was hard-working and mechanically inclined. He loved taking things apart and putting them back together.

He could play trombone, guitar and drums, even though he couldn’t read music. He was employed in warehouses until he joined Waste Management.

In November 1999, while working a route solo in Waxahachie, he parked his truck on a hill, but as he exited the cab, the truck rolled backward. Michael Ray tried to reenter the cab but was flung beneath the truck.

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The front left tire rolled over his chest, yet he managed to walk up the hill for help. He was CareFlited to Methodist Dallas Medical Center, where he lived another two weeks, but his internal injuries were too extensive.

He died on Dec. 4 at age 33. More than 200 West Dallasites attended his memorial service.

“I’m not just saying this because he was my brother: He was an awesome guy,” said Rena Hightower, 63. “He was energetic, smart and goofy. All the kids loved him.

“Michael Tilley looked just like his dad and was goofy just like him, but he didn’t have the ambition. He had good intentions, but he could never seem to reach and grab his goals.”

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(LEFT) Michael Tilley (left) with his sister, Shanequa, and his twin brother Marcus....
(LEFT) Michael Tilley (left) with his sister, Shanequa, and his twin brother Marcus. (CENTER) Their father, Michael Ray Porter, who died in 1999 when a garbage truck he had been driving rolled over his chest. (RIGHT) Michael Tilley visits his father's grave at Lincoln Memorial cemetery. Michael and aunt Rena Hightower visited Michael Ray Porter's grave every Memorial Day weekend. Michael now is buried two plots over from his father's grave.(Family photos)

Hightower says she promised her brother on his deathbed that she would help look out for Shanequa, Michael and Marcus, but says her efforts have proved futile and heartbreaking.

Family members say Betty Tilley battled drug and alcohol problems and was a sporadic presence during her kids’ formative years.

Marcus says he treasures the ordinary moments he and Michael shared: riding bikes to the Boys Club; boxing; playing football; riding horses near Hampton Road as part of a police program; taking bus rides to watch wrestling at the Sportatorium.

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“That was when we had our daddy,” he said.

At age 14, Michael was shot in the face while turning a corner on his bicycle, resulting in the loss of his eye. He moved with his mother to Athens, Texas, where she married a man named Cedric Jones.

That is where Shanequa says she saw Michael again get shot, though she never understood why: “All I know is the boy drove up to him and shot him in the stomach.”

Shanequa, meanwhile, was well down a path of numerous arrests, mostly for stealing. “People don’t know that I was tired of stealing,” she said. “But how was I going to live? I didn’t have anyone. Any normal person would have a mother or father they could lean on.”

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Michael attended Athens High School for two years but didn’t graduate. He grew to a lean, strong 6 feet. He fathered a son, then a daughter, and for six months worked at the Sanderson Farms plant in Bryan.

He began to sell and use drugs, and, at 21, was charged with attempted murder when he ran over a rival drug dealer with his car.

Shanequa says that when Michael’s court-appointed attorney told him he faced five to 10 years in prison, he opted for the longer sentence, reasoning, “I need to get off the streets.”

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‘We know there is hope’

According to a 2016 report by SMU’s Budd Center, 34% of West Dallasites lived below the poverty line, only 51% had high school diplomas and 9.6% were unemployed.

Despite such challenges, teenage and young-adult success stories emerge due to grass-roots efforts like Mercy Street Dallas’ mentorship programs and the educational and emotional tools created by the Budd Center’s School Zone program.

“What happened in a supernatural way, by the work of God, is people who grew up in the community began to realize that, ‘Hey, we can make a difference,’ ” said Arrvel Wilson, 72, West Dallas Community Church’s pastor emeritus and founder of West Dallas Evangelical Outreach in 1978.

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“The community over the years has just blossomed,” he said. “Despite the [coronavirus-related] struggles we’re going through at the present time, we know there is hope. If not now, soon.”

Patricia Stephens, 70, has dedicated her life to instilling hope in Westmoreland Heights, where she is executive director of the neighborhood association.

Four decades ago, she created the senior and junior Civil Change, Social and Charity Clubs. Michael Ray Porter was among the hundreds “Miss Pat” has mentored.

Each year, Miss Pat takes busloads of senior citizens and young people on field trips, often out of state, to broaden their awareness and sense of possibility. She’s organized computer and financial literacy classes and a discipleship program for ex-offenders.

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“We would have their probation officers come here, instead of them meeting in the probation office,” she said. “The probation officers would bring in speakers who could offer them job leads.

“A lot of people here just need a chance — and a way to seize it.”

Shortly after 30-year-old Michael Tilley was released after nine-and-a-half years of prison, in 2015, he came across Miss Pat. She told him about her food co-op that each week feeds more than 100 families.

“Come down and help me sometime,” she told Michael.

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He did, often, Stephens said. He helped box groceries. He helped deliver food to senior shut-ins. Two Christmases ago, he helped pass out Santa’s Helpers toys to neighborhood children.

Whenever Michael organized those field days at Tipton Park, it warmed Miss Pat’s heart. Children gravitated to Michael, whether in the pews of Tabernacle Baptist Church or when he volunteered at the Boys & Girls Club of Dallas.

“He had a real passion,” Stephens said. “He was like a little kid when it came to kids.

“Every time he came around, he always talked about Christ, and he was singing. He was happy to get a second chance on life.”

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A chance encounter mere weeks after his prison release proved to be a godsend.

Michael Tilley and filmmaker Reid Slaughter, who befriended Tilley while producing a...
Michael Tilley and filmmaker Reid Slaughter, who befriended Tilley while producing a documentary about West Dallas.(Reid Slaughter)
Michael Tilley, dressed up in a suit belonging to his friend Reid Slaughter, as he posed for...
Michael Tilley, dressed up in a suit belonging to his friend Reid Slaughter, as he posed for a photo that was used in his résumé.(Bandana Media)

Reid Slaughter, CEO of Bandana Films, was in the early stages of producing a documentary about West Dallas. He came upon several dozen men drinking beer in an empty lot.

Hoping to earn their trust, a scarce West Dallas commodity, Slaughter offered to go to Jerry’s Market and buy four cases of beer. To his surprise, one of the men, Michael, opened the passenger door of Slaughter’s Chevy Tahoe, announcing, “I’m going with you.”

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Slaughter and Tilley bought and dropped off the beer, then parked near Michael’s house. A two-hour conversation ensued. Michael offered to introduce Slaughter around West Dallas — to pastors, prostitutes, business owners, pimps, cops and crackheads.

“I was struck by his desire to be known,” Slaughter said. “He had only been out of jail a few weeks, and he was hungry to share his story, his pain and his dreams with someone. He was also desperate to escape West Dallas.”

They spoke about race, religion, life. Slaughter says Michael appeared to be shocked when he told him they were brothers because they share the same father: God.

Slaughter, of Highland Park, said a prayer for Tilley, of Westmoreland Heights. Tilley cried. A friendship was born.

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“It was a beautiful, if unlikely, moment together,” Slaughter said. “I followed up with him the next day and we talked for hours. I think our differences were what attracted us.”

Through their respective prisms, they taught each other about their lives. They often played a game they called “What Are You Thinking?”

“Wherein we would both describe how black people from West Dallas see the world versus people from Highland Park,” Slaughter said. “It was great fun.”

Michael, at last, had real hope. His arrow finally was pointed up. He worked as a grip for Bandana Films and was extensively interviewed for the documentary.

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After his five-month stint with CitySquare, Michael worked for six months in the Pizza Hut on Singleton Boulevard. His employers described him as a tenacious worker. Slaughter helped him open his first bank account. Michael reconnected with his children.

While having lunch one day with Michael, Slaughter spotted former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, whom he knew from his days as publisher and editor of Cowboys & Indians magazine.

“Find what you are passionate about,” Kirk told Michael. “And then work hard as hell for it.”

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Michael’s favorite gospel song was Tasha Cobbs’ “Break Every Chain,” which he often crooned at the top of his lungs while riding around West Dallas.

There is power in the name of Jesus

To break every chain, break every chain, break every chain

‘You ain’t going to beat me’

Always, though, dark forces lurked within Michael, as he acknowledged in a rambling Christmas 2016 Facebook video that he titled, “I know the Devil is a Liar, I really do.”

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“Listen here, devil, you ain’t going to beat me ‘cause God got me. I’m gonna be all right. You need to know that I’m blessed. You need to know that I’m loved. Whatever you’re trying to use up on me, it ain’t gonna work.”

His Aunt Rena often scolded him for spending time with the wrong kind of friends.

“I could see the changes he was trying to make,” she said. “But, see, around here, some people don’t want to see you do good. They want you to stay right where they are, so they can feed off of you.”

Realizing Michael needed to break away from West Dallas, Slaughter in 2018 asked a Highland Park friend who owns several John Deere franchises to arrange a job for Michael in Ardmore, Okla.

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Michael performed Deere equipment maintenance. He was set up with an apartment and connected to a nearby church. He promised to settle in Ardmore for at least three months before returning to visit West Dallas.

By all accounts, he was thriving, but two weeks into his stay, he got lonely and decided to come home for Memorial Day weekend, against Slaughter’s advice. En route on I-35, Michael wrecked the Mustang that Slaughter and others bought him.

Racked with guilt, he spent the weekend drinking. Slaughter didn’t learn of what happened until Michael failed to return to work.

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“Even when we gave him a means of escape, he always returned,” Slaughter said. “He spiraled down pretty bad after that.”

Michael and Marcus lived catty-corner from Aunt Rena and their grandmother Renoma. The home was the only remnant the Tilley siblings received from the $100,000 compensation that a different aunt got from Waste Management after Michael Ray Porter’s death.

Shanequa says Michael and Marcus quarreled over control of the home. Marcus says he wanted to tear down a wall after spotting mold. Michael objected.

“Michael said he was going to burn the house down,” Marcus said. “And, yeah, he burned the house down. If he’d think about something, he’d do it — and then regret it the next day.”

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An empty lot is all that remains at 3514 McBroom St. in West Dallas, after Michael Tilley...
An empty lot is all that remains at 3514 McBroom St. in West Dallas, after Michael Tilley burned down the house that was once there.(Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

Care and confrontation

Michael moved in with Aunt Rena and helped care for Granny Renoma, often massaging her arthritic feet and making her laugh by remarking that she had crocodile skin.

For all of Michael’s psychological problems and demons, Rena says there was something special about him. He was relatable. No matter how often she fussed at him, he’d tell her he loved her.

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“Michael had a good heart, but Michael had a split personality,” she said. “When Michael wasn’t drinking or on drugs, he was just like his daddy.

“But ooohhh, when he got off his medicine and on drugs and drinking, he was a monster.”

His mother, Betty Tilley, lived three streets over, on Toronto, in a well-known crack house, even after the man with whom she lived chopped off one of her fingers with a machete.

Shanequa says she confronted Betty about remaining in the house. Shanequa told Betty to stop calling her kids and dragging them into her problems -- especially Michael, who lived so close.

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“She cussed me out,” Shanequa said.

In January 2016, Michael Tilley showed visitors the damage to a small house in West Dallas...
In January 2016, Michael Tilley showed visitors the damage to a small house in West Dallas that he had previously fixed up for his mother, who had been on the streets and addicted to drugs. After she brought drugs and fellow drug users into the house, it became totally wrecked.(Jeffrey McWhorter)

On March 15, a Sunday, Rena prepared roast, potatoes, carrots, purple-hull peas and cornbread. She prepared a plate to take to her pastor, while Michael and Granny ate.

When Rena returned, Michael was gone, but his wallet and phone were near his lunch plate. Renoma assumed he’d gone to the front porch for a smoke.

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Within minutes, Rena learned the heart-sickening facts. Betty, in hysterics, phoned Michael for help. Michael raced to Toronto Street, burst in to rescue Betty and was confronted by Keith Waters, 58.

Shouting ensued. Michael began beating the smaller Waters with a table leg. Waters pulled a 9mm gun from his waistband and fired several rounds at Michael, according to a police report. Michael stumbled outside, collapsed between the sidewalk and curb, and died. Waters was later arrested on a murder charge.

Shanequa was folding clothes when she got the news. Rushing to the scene, she saw a blue blanket over Michael’s body and Betty being put into a police car. The presence of drugs in the house violated her probation stemming from a 2017 drug charge.

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A neighbor told Shanequa that he spoke to Michael as he took his last breaths. Michael told the neighbor that Betty and Waters were arguing over a crack pipe.

“If he died on his own, it probably wouldn’t hurt so bad because we would have been expecting it, but to lose your brother over a crack pipe ...,” Shanequa said, sobbing.

Nonetheless, Shanequa got Betty out of jail so that she could attend Michael’s funeral, over Rena’s objection.

“All I can see that she did for him was two things,” Rena said. “Birth him into the world. And get him killed.”

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Rena pointed to the chair in which Michael was sitting before he bolted out to help his mother. She imagines how Michael’s life would have turned out had the freak accident that took his father not occurred.

“A lot better,” she said, breaking into tears. “Love. I think that’s what was missing. Michael was smart. Michael had a chance. But the love that he needed just wasn’t there.

“It’s crazy. A life senselessly gone.”

Twelve days after his death, Michael Tilley was, in fact, buried, at Lincoln Memorial cemetery — two plots down from his father’s grave, which he and Aunt Rena used to visit every Memorial Day weekend.

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Friends and neighbors pooled about half the $7,000 cost needed for the viewing, graveside ceremony and burial, such as they were under coronavirus restrictions.

Rena borrowed $2,500 and saved further costs by having Michael buried in a pre-purchased plot.

Hers.

Before Michael’s casket was closed, several mourners remarked how peaceful he looked in his red and black suit with black bowtie, his lips pursed in a slight smile.

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Those who peered closely through his designer glasses could see, beneath his glass eye, on his left cheek, his trademark tattoos.

Three teardrops.

Twitter: @Townbrad