Jury acquits Lillard in murder of UGA professor

Published 8:52 am Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Someone killed Marianne Shockley by choking her to death on May 11, 2019, at a home in Baldwin County.

But a jury of 12 men and women who listened to better than three days of testimony in the murder trial of 44-year-old Marcus Allen Lillard contend he wasn’t the killer of the popular University of Georgia professor as he was portrayed to be by members of the prosecution team, along with local and state law enforcement authorities.

The case was bizarre from the beginning, perhaps one of the strangest murder cases in the history of Baldwin County, as it was learned that there was a third person at a party that Lillard and Shockley attended the night before Shockley’s lifeless and nude body was discovered in a hot tub in the wee morning hours of May 11, 2019.

That third person was Dr. Clark Heindel, a former clinical psychologist and owner of Good Karma, a yoga studio in Milledgeville. 

While waiting to be interviewed by deputies with the Baldwin County on the morning of the crime, Heindel went inside his residence on Watson Reynolds Road and shot himself in the head with a shotgun.

The shooting was ruled a suicide after authorities discovered a suicide note in the residence.

Jurors deliberated only 35 minutes last Friday night before they rendered a verdict of not guilty on all counts against Lillard, a former car/truck sales and finance manager. He was living in Milledgeviie before accepting a job as a finance manager for a car dealership in Albany, where he worked for just three weeks before quitting to take a planned trip to Ecuador with the 43-year-old Shockley and some of her students from UGA. 

The trip was planned for the Thursday following Mother’s Day 2019.

Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Alison T. Burleson had instructed everyone in the packed courtroom that there would be no outbursts when the verdict was announced.

The verdict was read aloud in open court by Baldwin County Superior Court Chief Deputy Clerk Kimberly Brown.

“In the Superior Court of Baldwin County, the State of Georgia vs. Marcus Allen Lillard as to count one, felony murder, we, the jury, find the defendant, not guilty,” Brown said. “As to count two, aggravated assault, we, the jury, find the defendant, not guilty. As to count three, involuntary manslaughter, we, the jury, find the defendant, not guilty. As to count four, reckless conduct, we, the jury, find the defendant, not guilty, the 8th day of April 2022.”

Lillard immediately looked at his defense attorney, Matthew Tucker, of Jonesboro, and smiled and then turned around in his chair and gave a big smile to his mother, Elsie, who sat directly behind her son during the trial.

The trial received extensive media coverage and it even captured the attention of producers of the popular CBS crime show, “48-Hours,” which plans to air coverage.

Even though jurors acquitted Lillard in the killing he wasn’t set free.

Lillard instead still had to face up to a probation violation charge. The charge was heard immediately after jurors were dismissed after the verdict was read.

“In this case, I was sitting as the fact-finder on this probation revocation case at the same time as the jury,” Burleson said. “I listened to the evidence and considered all the same evidence, listened to the opening arguments and the closing arguments in the case, and Mr. Lillard, I’ve come to quite a bit of a different conclusion than what the jury has come to.”

 Burleson said it was quite clear to the court that the only person Lillard was concerned with on the night, May 11, 2019, was himself.

“And for that reason, I do find that the state has proven by the ponderance of the evidence the crimes that are listed and the subsequent offenses in this probation petition,” Burleson said. “So, I do find by the ponderance of the evidence that you violated probation in the manner alleged in the petition, and I’m going to revoke your probation for the balance of this sentence, which runs through Oct. 15, 2030,” Burleson said. “You will have to do whatever the parole board tells you to serve.”

The judge advised Lillard that since the probation hearing was contested that he had a right to file a discretionary appeal if he so wishes. Such an appeal has to be filed within 30 days of Friday, April 8, 2022.

“And I do need to inform you that you are in lawful confinement,” Burleson said. “If you escape or even attempt to escape, you could be charged with those crimes. And those are punishable by additional time and the time you are getting here. You are under the control of the sheriff’s services. Good luck to you.”

Lillard was immediately taken into custody by courthouse security deputies and later transported to the Baldwin County Law Enforcement Center, where he has been kept for almost three years in a jail cell.