Bio

Andrew A. Lyons was born on September 21, 1957. By 1992, Lyons lived in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, with his girlfriend Bridgette Harris. The couple had been together for about three years. Their 11-month-old son, Dontay, lived with them, along with Bridgette’s two older children from a previous relationship, Demetrius and Deonandrea.

The relationship between Lyons and Bridgette became unstable. About a week before the murders, Lyons told a longtime friend that he was having problems with Bridgette and said he felt like killing. Around the same time, Bridgette left Lyons and moved with her children into the home of her mother, Evelyn Sparks.

In the days before the shootings, Lyons made several threats. He showed a shotgun to Bridgette and her older sister while they were walking, and they reported the incident to police. He also told others that Evelyn was interfering in his relationship with Bridgette and that he planned to kill her.

Murder Story

On the morning of Sunday, September 20, 1992, Andrew Lyons went to Evelyn Sparks’s house in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, where Bridgette Harris and her children were staying. He and Bridgette argued. Lyons then left, went back to his own house, and got a shotgun, ammunition, and a duffel bag packed with clothes.

Shortly after 10:00 a.m., Lyons returned to Evelyn’s home. Evelyn was upstairs in the kitchen, getting ready for church. Bridgette, Dontay, Demetrius, and Deonandrea were downstairs in the basement. Demetrius heard a loud noise from upstairs and went to see what happened. On the way, he saw Lyons coming down the stairs carrying a shotgun. He then saw his grandmother lying on the kitchen floor.

Lyons went into the basement. He shot Dontay Harris and then shot Bridgette Harris. The two older children hid under a bed while Lyons searched the house for them. After he left, the children escaped and ran to a relative’s home.

After the shootings, Lyons drove to the home where his half-brother Jerry DePree was staying. He asked DePree to follow him to the home of friends, John and Gail Carter, so he could leave his truck there. Inside the Carter home, Lyons told Gail Carter that he had killed Bridgette and Evelyn and had shot Dontay by accident.

Lyons then transferred the shotgun and duffel bag into DePree’s car and asked him to drive away. DePree dropped him off at Trail of Tears State Park. Later that day, after learning that Evelyn, Bridgette, and Dontay had been killed, DePree turned the shotgun over to police. Firearms testing matched shell casings from the scene to the shotgun.

Police found Lyons at the state park around 3:15 p.m. He tried to run, but stopped when a deputy warned him. After being arrested and advised of his rights, Lyons asked whether anyone had died. He later confessed to shooting Evelyn, Bridgette, and Dontay.

In April 1996, Lyons was tried after a change of venue to Scott County. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder for the deaths of Evelyn Sparks and Bridgette Harris and involuntary manslaughter for the death of Dontay Harris. The jury recommended death for Bridgette’s murder and seven years for Dontay’s manslaughter. The judge sentenced Lyons to death for Evelyn’s murder as well.

The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences in 1997, and later affirmed denial of post-conviction relief in 2001. Years later, both death sentences were removed. A Missouri death-penalty history list states that one death sentence was resentenced to life without parole on August 21, 2007, and the other was resentenced to life without parole on January 26, 2010.