On April 6, 1997, six-year-old Tabitha Lillelid was shot and later died at a hospital after a brutal carjacking and execution-style attack on a rural road near Greeneville, Tennessee. Her parents, Vidar and Delfina Lillelid, were found dead at the scene; Tabitha’s two-year-old brother Peter survived but suffered permanent disabilities from his wounds. The family had been returning from a Jehovah’s Witnesses convention and stopped at a rest area off Interstate 81, where they were approached by a group of six young people from Kentucky who decided to steal the family’s van.

The group forced the family to drive to a secluded location, then lined them up and shot them in a ditch. The six — Natasha Cornett, Edward Dean Mullins, Joseph Risner, Karen Howell, Crystal Sturgill, and Jason Bryant — fled in the stolen van and were arrested two days later in Arizona after being turned away at the Mexican border. Stolen toys belonging to Tabitha were recovered in the van.

All six were charged with three counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping, and theft; each pleaded guilty and received three consecutive life sentences without parole plus 25 years for the attempted murder of Peter.