Original charges downgraded to second degree murder, four charges not prosecuted as part of plea agreement in Jollet area homocides
By Randy Arrington
LURAY, Dec. 17 — As a nearly full courtroom remained intensely silent, Timothy Thomas Comer sat between two defense attorneys, put on his spectacles, and signed the prosecution’s plea agreement on Wednesday afternoon in Page County Circuit Court.
Members of the three victims’ families filled a few pews, but they uttered not a sound as the short and stout Shenandoah man who lead law enforcement on a 15-day manhunt through Jollett Hollow in the summer of 2023, stood before circuit court Judge Clark A. Ritchie and gave the same response to three charges of second degree murder: “Guilty.”
One year after the manhunt and three homicides along Jollett Road, a Page County grand jury indicted Comer on a total of seven felony charges on June 5, 2024, including first degree murder, two aggravated murders, three weapons charges and arson. As part of the plea deal, four charges were nolle prosequi (not prosecuted), and all three murder charges were reduced to second degree murder.
The plea deal preempted a three-week jury trial that had been scheduled to begin on Jan. 20. As part of the process, Comer had to openly acknowledge that he was “pleading guilty because [he was] in fact guilty” of “willfully and deliberately killing and murdering” Gregory Lee Williams, his neighbor; Michael Lyles, his nephew; and Eunice Lam, his grandmother.
All three murders centered around arguments over land.
At about 5:05 p.m. on June 29, 2023, the Page County Emergency Communications Center (ECC) received a 911 call in reference to a “man down” in the 5600 block of Jollett Road. The site actually has an Elkton mailing address, but sits within the southern boundary of Page County not far from Naked Creek.
Upon the arrival of first responders from fire, emergency medical services (EMS) and law enforcement, a male identified as Williams was “located on his property deceased from an apparent gunshot wound,” according to a press release issued by the Page County Sheriff’s Office. The investigation was immediately handled as a homicide.
The first person to actually find Williams’ body was Steve Breeden, a friend and hunting buddy. On the day of the shooting, Breeden stated he received a call from Williams’ wife and went looking for his friend. He found his lifeless body near a fence line with Comer’s property. Breeden testified last year that his all-terrain vehicle (side-by-side) was still running, with Williams’ rifle strapped in between the seats. He returned to Williams’ home, informed his wife, and called law enforcement.
Comer was living in a small trailer in the Jollett area for a while reportedly with no electricity or running water. That trailer sat roughly 50 feet from where Williams’ body was found, along with .45-caliber shell casings, according to a report given on Wednesday by Commonwealth Attorney Chapman Good. He also added that the two men had “an ongoing dispute about property.”
Mixed reports indicated that the fugitive may have been avoiding law enforcement through Jollet Hollow’s remote and rugged trails and thickets, or possibly by getting some help from close-by friends and relatives. Shenandoah National Park temporarily shut down some trails in that area during the most intensive portion of the search. Some in the area mentioned potential squabbling among the neighbors prior to the shooting.
John McClure, an inmate housed in the same jail as Comer, testified last year that Comer told him he was arguing with some guy over property, and he told the other guy “if I can’t have it, no one else can have it either.” He then stated that he shot him with a .45 pistol, unloading the entire clip, according to McClure. The former inmate shared other details from Comer’s story, such as the four-wheeler was still running. Unlike most jailhouse informants, McClure’s testimony did not come in exchange for any accommodation or reduced sentence, as he had already completed his sentence.
Good stated on Wednesday that the inmate’s testimony included a statement of Comer saying, “So I pulled my gun and I unloaded on him,” talking about Williams. Previous testimony repeated that Comer emptied his .45-caliber pistol on his neighbor.
When the autopsy report came back, it stated that Greg Williams died of a gunshot wound to the head. The bullet appeared to enter just below his left eye, and exited at the back of his head. Based on blood at the scene, he appeared to have fallen backwards after being shot from the front, and the shell casing was to the right of where the shooter would have been standing facing him.
The prosecution would also provide evidence showing that a green and black .45 caliber handgun was found inside the trailer that Comer was hiding in and laboratory ballistics testing would later match the .45 shell casing recovered at the scene of Williams’ murder to the handgun.
The first 11 days of the 15-day search for Comer utilized resources from the sheriff’s office in Page, Rockingham and Shenandoah counties, as well as the Virginia State Police. The search was joined by U.S. Marshals soon after a fatal fire on the same block of Jollett Road claimed two lives on Sunday, July 9, 2023. Found the next day among the debris once the site cooled, the remains of two bodies were sent to the Chief Medical Examiner in Manassas. The two victims were believed to be an elderly woman and her grandson, who lived at the residence.
On July 11, marshals started offering a $2,500 reward for information on the whereabouts of Comer. Two days later, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined the search and added another $7,500 to the reward purse. At 9:37 p.m. on Thursday, July 13 — just a few hours after the reward money increased four-fold to $10,000 — Comer was in custody.
The sheriff’s office received numerous tips from citizens during the search, but seemed to arrive at some sites just after Comer had reportedly left the area. That ended when a tip came in around 6 p.m. on July 13, 2023 “that Comer was seen entering a vacant home in the 4000 block of Jollett Road.” Although deputies arrived within minutes, verified that Comer was inside the residence and established a perimeter, according to the report, it would be more than three hours before Comer was arrested.
The delay was fueled by Comer’s defiance to multiple commands by law enforcement to exit the residence, a report stated. Gas was used to push him out of the structure. He was eventually taken into custody by a state police tactical team.
The shocking testimony of McClure last year left family members in the courtroom in tears, as he described how Comer told him he used a .22 rifle to shoot his grandmother in the head, and then shoot his nephew. He recalled how Comer had bragged that police would never find the gun because he surrounded the bodies with gasoline and burned the trailer down on top of them. The former inmate stated that Comer told him he killed his grandmother and nephew as revenge for them selling his property “out from under him” while he was previously incarcerated.
“She stole my property,” is the reason Comer gave McClure for killing his own grandmother, according to testimony.
During Wednesday’s pre-trial motion hearing, Good told Judge Ritchie that the commonwealth’s attorney’s office had consulted with the victims families and they were “satisfied” with the plea agreement.
Comer, 57, is being held at RSW Regional Jail in Front Royal until his next court hearing at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, to set a sentencing hearing date. He is being represented by court-appointed public defender Peter K. McDermott of Virginia Defenders in Winchester and Harrisonburg attorney Gene Hart.
For more information on Page County courts,
visit https://www.pagecounty.virginia.gov/150/Courts
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