American mortician who was convicted of the 19 November 1996 murder of his companion, wealthy 81-year-old widow Marjorie “Marge” Nugent, in Carthage, Texas. He was 38 at the time of the murder.
These events are the subject of the critically acclaimed film Bernie (2011), a dark comedy directed by Richard Linklater and starring Jack Black as Tiede. The film attracted attention to Tiede’s case and new evidence was discovered. He was temporarily released on bail in 2014, pending a resentencing hearing. Despite the new evidence, Tiede was sentenced to 99 years or life.
Tiede met the wealthy widow Marjorie Nugent in March 1990 at her husband’s funeral, which Tiede had helped arrange as assistant director at Hawthorn Funeral Home. The two eventually became inseparable companions, although she was more than 40 years his senior. In 1991, Nugent altered her will and disinherited her only child Rod Nugent, leaving her entire $10 million estate to Tiede. By 1993, Bernie left his job to work for Nugent full time as her business manager and travel companion.
In November 1996, Tiede killed Nugent by shooting her in the back four times with a .22 caliber rifle. He placed her body in a freezer used to store food at her Carthage home. According to the Amarillo Globe-News, Nugent’s estranged son Rod, an Amarillo pathologist, had grown concerned about not being able to reach his mother. After traveling to Panola County nine months after her death, Rod declared Nugent a missing person. He and his daughter entered his mother’s house, where they found her body in the freezer.
Tiede was taken in for questioning, and he admitted to Nugent’s murder to police in August 1997. A jury convicted Tiede of first-degree murder and sentenced him to 50 years in prison. When he appealed his sentence, the appellate courts ruled that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to have found premeditation, a condition of the charge.
After the film Bernie (2011) was released, attorney Jodi Cole became interested in Tiede’s case and met with him, filing a post-conviction writ of habeas corpus in which Tiede alleged that his constitutional rights were violated in the first trial because of newly discovered evidence. He further alleged in the writ that the 81-year-old Nugent was controlling and emotionally abusive toward him, and that he had murdered her in a dissociative state resulting from years of sexual abuse as a child by an uncle.
At the resentencing trial, Tiede was sentenced to life in prison. Rod filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tiede, claiming he had embezzled more than $3 million from his mother.
Shortly after entering the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in 1999, Tiede was attacked by fellow inmates. During his imprisonment, he was described by a prison official as “a model prisoner.” He taught health classes and participated in the prison’s choir. Until May 2014, he was serving a life sentence.
Between the time of his release in 2014 and his resentencing hearing in April 2016, Tiede resided in Austin, Texas, at the garage apartment of filmmaker Richard Linklater, who had offered to assist him; this was a condition of his release.
The resentencing trial began on 6 April 2016. On 22 April 2016 the jury of 10 women and two men issued a new sentence of 99 years or life for Tiede. After three weeks of testimony, they had deliberated for just over four hours.
Link to Wikipedia biography