2, including man brought back to life twice in last 60 days, arrested in drug-related death: sheriff says
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Two men are accused of dumping a woman’s body into a St. Petersburg alley after she overdosed in a motel room.
According to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were called to investigate a report of a dead person in the alley just south of 3564 52nd Ave. North in St. Petersburg around 10:30 a.m. on Monday.
When detectives arrived, they discovered the body of 30-year-old Jillian Tully wrapped in a sheet with a cardboard box on top of her.
Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said it was obvious to detectives that she died somewhere else and dumped in the alley.
According to the sheriff, the case was initially investigated as a homicide because of where the body was found. However, he added that further investigation and an autopsy led officials to determine that she had died from a drug overdose.
Detectives say they traced Tully’s last known whereabouts to the Gateway Motel located at 4190 34th Street North in St. Petersburg, which is a few blocks away from where her body was discovered.
"It really is good old-fashioned boots on the ground police work and what detectives found was an imprint on her leg. The imprint was there on her leg from a fence and they matched it up to a fence at the motel. It took them back to the motel and the sheet she was wrapped in was a motel-type sheet that would have come from a motel like the Gateway," the sheriff explained.
Investigators say Tully was an unemployed transient with no known physical address. Gualtieri added that she was addicted to drugs. He noted that she had an extensive criminal history.
"She’s not a bad person. She’s an addicted person who ended up doing some bad things. She ended up in trouble and ended up in the system and ended up being transient. But it’s because of a drug addiction. A drug addiction is what caused it," the sheriff said.
Deputies say they were called to an alley on Monday for reports of a dead person. Image is courtesy of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
According to Gualtieri, Tully was dropped off in the 800 block of 12th Ave. South in St. Pete on Saturday afternoon. He said she was last seen at the Gateway Motel around midnight.
READ: 3 arrested in Polk County’s largest fentanyl seizure: ‘This stuff is killing us’
According to the sheriff, John Yeckley, a maintenance man, who was employed by and lived at the Gateway Motel, invited Tully, who he did not know, into room number 2.
Gualtieri said Tully had crack cocaine and fentanyl on her when she entered the room. He went on to say that Tulley injected the fentanyl into her arm while Yeckley smoked the crack cocaine. The sheriff said Yeckley told investigators that he fell asleep around midnight. According to the sheriff, when Yeckley woke up around 5 a.m., Tully was dead on the floor in the motel room.
READ: Narcan is now available without a prescription: Here's where to find it
"Yeckley became concerned, as you would say, or they would say, freaked out, because he had this dead woman on the floor of his room. He had drugs in his room. As opposed to doing what he should have done, which was call the police and report it, he recruited Michael Sloan, who’s a local transient, to help him get rid of Tully’s body, Gualtieri explained.
The sheriff said video shows the pair took her body out of the room, wrapped her in a sheet, put her on the back of a bike and dumped her in the alley.
Video shows suspects transporting Tully's body on a bike. Image is courtesy of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
"This is really just a sad situation," Gualtieri said. "This just shows you how out of control the fentanyl and opioid drug problem is, and life is so devalued that they are just dumped in an alley after overdosing."
The sheriff said deputies were called to the Gateway Motel on Christmas Day because Sloan had overdosed and was dead. According to the sheriff, deputies administered Narcan and Sloan got up. Gualtieri said the same thing happened in November 2023.
Mugshots of John Yeckley and Michael Sloan courtesy of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
"In the last roughly 60 days, he’s been brought back from the dead twice with deputies administering Narcan," Gualtieri said.
According to PCSO, Sloan also overdosed at the Gateway Motel in 2022.
He added that in 2020 and 2021, Yeckley overdosed.
Yeckley and Sloan have been charged with tampering with evidence and improper disposal of a body.