Tammy Cole is an Illinois woman serving a life sentence in Wisconsin for the April 2010 shooting death of her ex-boyfriend, 53-year-old Vance Evans, at his home in Tomah. A Monroe County jury convicted her of first-degree intentional homicide while armed and attempted arson in March 2011, and she will not be eligible for supervised release until roughly 2041.
What Happened in Tomah on April 26, 2010
Cole, then 47 and living in Big Rock, Illinois, had been in a relationship with Evans since 2008. On the evening of April 26, 2010, she drove to his home in Tomah. By her own trial testimony, she learned that night that Evans was seeing another woman.1Wisconsin Court of Appeals. State v. Cole, 2013AP947-CR
Evans was in a difficult period of his life. He was facing a prison sentence connected to a DUI prosecution and was reportedly struggling with depression. He kept loaded firearms in the house, and in March 2010 Cole had hidden a shotgun from him after he spoke of suicide.1Wisconsin Court of Appeals. State v. Cole, 2013AP947-CR
Cole told the jury she saw a handgun on a coffee table and picked it up, intending to put it out of Evans’s reach. As she carried it toward a kitchen cupboard, she said, Evans grabbed her in an embrace, they stumbled, and the gun went off. A single bullet struck Evans in the back of the head.1Wisconsin Court of Appeals. State v. Cole, 2013AP947-CR
What Cole did next became central to the prosecution. She placed the gun in the oven, opened a natural gas line downstairs, and set a lit candle in an upstairs bedroom. She later told investigators she had meant to kill herself. The gas did not ignite. She left the house and drove back to Illinois.2WKBT News 8000. Illinois Woman Gets Life in Prison for Killing Tomah Man That same day, an attorney named David Towns contacted a police investigator, said he represented Cole, and reported that she had been involved in an accidental firearm discharge the night before.1Wisconsin Court of Appeals. State v. Cole, 2013AP947-CR Evans’s body was found at his home on April 27.
Charges, Trial, and Verdict
Cole was charged in Monroe County Circuit Court with first-degree intentional homicide while armed and attempted arson. The case, 2010CF181, was tried before Judge Todd L. Ziegler, with Monroe County District Attorney Dan Cary prosecuting and attorney Kristine Peshek for the defense.3Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Illinois Woman on Trial for Killing Tomah Man
Prosecutors argued that Cole shot Evans intentionally after discovering his affair and then tried to burn the house down to destroy evidence. They introduced forensic evidence placing her at the scene, including her fingerprints on Evans’s phone and her DNA on a beer can.2WKBT News 8000. Illinois Woman Gets Life in Prison for Killing Tomah Man Cole took the stand and stuck to her account that the shot was accidental, fired during a stumble while she was trying to secure the gun. Peshek pointed to the trajectory of the shot as evidence Evans had not been executed.3Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Illinois Woman on Trial for Killing Tomah Man
The jury took about three hours. In March 2011 it convicted Cole on both counts.2WKBT News 8000. Illinois Woman Gets Life in Prison for Killing Tomah Man
The Sentence
On May 25, 2011, Cole was sentenced to life in prison on the homicide count, with no eligibility for supervised release for 30 years. The court added a consecutive seven-year sentence for the attempted arson.4Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Spurned Woman Who Killed Ex-Boyfriend Sentenced in Wisconsin A spokesperson for the Evans family said they were satisfied with the sentence but that “nothing will bring Vance back to them.”2WKBT News 8000. Illinois Woman Gets Life in Prison for Killing Tomah Man Under those terms, her first eligibility for supervised release falls around 2041.
Postconviction Challenge
Cole sought a new trial on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel. Through her appellate attorney, James A. Rebholz of Milwaukee, she raised six claims. Among them: that trial counsel should have investigated how much she had been drinking the night of the shooting, should have asked for jury instructions on lesser charges such as homicide by intoxicated use of a firearm, and should have introduced documentation of Evans’s own legal troubles to support the defense theory that Cole was trying to protect him from himself.5Wisconsin Law Journal. Criminal Procedure – Ineffective Assistance, 2013AP947-CR
The circuit court denied the motion. On February 27, 2014, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed and rejected each argument. On the intoxication theory, the court noted Cole had consistently told her own attorney she was not intoxicated. On the lesser-included charges, the court found that her own testimony — that the shooting was an accident during a careful attempt to protect Evans — gave the jury no basis to find reckless or negligent conduct. The appeals court likewise rejected her argument that the trial judge should have instructed the jury on second-degree reckless homicide and homicide by negligent handling of a dangerous weapon, concluding her version of events did not support those instructions.1Wisconsin Court of Appeals. State v. Cole, 2013AP947-CR
The Earlier Loss of Her Sons in Maine
Cole’s name is tied to another case that is sometimes confused with her own prosecution. Less than a year before she shot Evans, her two sons were killed in Maine. On June 30, 2009, Derek Greene, 21, and Gage Greene, 19, were shot outside the Biddeford home of a neighbor, Rory Holland, after a long-running feud. Both brothers were unarmed.6Justia. State v. Holland, 2012 ME 27Portland Press Herald. Biddeford Man Sentenced to Life for Murder of Greene Brothers8Bangor Daily News. Court Upholds Biddeford Man’s Conviction in Murder of Brothers Cole was the victims’ mother in that case, not a defendant. Her own criminal conviction is the Wisconsin homicide of Vance Evans.