A former Chicago police officer who claimed he accidentally shot and killed the mother of his child in self-defense three years ago was found not guilty of murder despite evidence he tried to cover up the woman’s death.
Pierre Tyler, 32, was acquitted May 17 after a jury unanimously declared him innocent in the 2021 killing of 29-year-old Andris Wofford, who — according to defense attorneys — pointed a firearm at her boyfriend before she was shot in the face during a struggle for the gun.
Tyler, who was a five-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department at the time of the shooting, took the stand in his own defense, testifying for two hours as part of five-day trial, while the jury took about four hours to deliver the shocking verdict.
Tyler was acquitted despite confessing that he tried to hide the woman’s death, testifying that, “I began to make a series of stupid, bad decisions in my panic.”
Most notably, Tyler never called authorities or anyone else to report the shooting, while the gun that was used to kill Wofford was never found.
The woman’s body was discovered by her family the next day after she didn’t pick up her children the previous night and couldn’t be reached.
Further, prosecutors emphasized that Tyler drove Wofford’s mother back to her apartment without revealing that he knew her daughter was lying there, dead.
After the verdict was read, Wofford’s family members were overcome with grief and left the Leighton Criminal Court Building in tears.
Assistant State Attorney Jacqueline Griffin called Wofford a “beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her,” while suggesting that Tyler had gotten away with murder.
“She was done with the relationship,” Griffin said. “She told him she was going to file for child support and keep him away from his kids. She was on her way out the door, put her coat on, zipped it all the way. She tried to leave. He wasn’t done.”
Tyler’s defense team, however, presented evidence that showed Wofford was consumed with rage, including text messages where she said was ready to “spazz out,” and that Tyler “don’t even know what he’s walking into.”
But Assistant State Attorney Michelle Papa rebutted these arguments, saying what the texts really showed was a woman who had reached the end of the rope with the man she fell in love with.
“All they show you is a real-life woman struggling with her relationship and talking to her family about it,” she said.
Meanwhile, Tyler’s relatives cried and embraced in the courtroom, and someone among the family exclaimed, “Thank you, Jesus!”
Defense attorney Tim Grace was thrilled with the outcome, eagerly leaning over to tell Tyler’s family members, “he’s coming home tonight.”
During the trial, Grace characterized Wofford as a dangerously jealous girlfriend who was growing increasingly unstable in the days before she grabbed Tyler’s service weapon.
“What he did afterwards is awful,” Grace said in support of Tyler’s self-defense claim.
“He was scared, he was afraid. Sometimes in life we make bad mistakes,” Grace said. “What did he do? He defended himself. He pushed that gun away from him. It’s justified.”
Back at the department, a spokesperson told the Chicago Sun-Times that Tyler is listed as “inactive” and remains “on a leave of absence.”
It was not immediately clear if he planned to return to the force after being jailed since his arrest in 2021.
“My heart goes out to the family of my granddaughter, but this was not going to fall on my son,” said Tyler’s mother Myrthis, who would not provide her last name to the Sun Times. “This is a horrible situation. I’ve got a granddaughter with no mother.”
None of the jurors made a statement about the decision to acquit Tyler.
Tyler was the final witness to take the stand during the trial.
He stood in the witness box and reenacted the tussle for the gun that he claimed led to the tragic shooting of his girlfriend on Dec. 8, 2021, at the woman’s North Nashville Avenue apartment.
Tyler testified that Wofford grabbed the gun in the heat of an argument after accusing him of being married to someone else.
Tyler said he admitted to cheating on Wofford but denied that he was a bigamist.
During the trial, prosecutors claimed Tyler shot Wofford as she attempted to leave the apartment following the argument, and then tried to cover up the crime by lying to investigators.
A Chicago police detective testified that Wofford’s body showed no signs of a struggle for the gun as her nails were “perfect” and not broken.
During his testimony, Tyler said he placed the gun on a table as he was getting ready for work and a fight between them intensified.
However, before he he could holster the weapon again, Wofford picked it up, Tyler testified.
“I tell her to put the gun down, to calm down,” he said.
Tyler said she began aiming the weapon at him with her finger on the trigger, claiming she was enraged, wild-eyed and shaking.
Tyler’s sister testified that he called her during the fight, and that she heard Wofford in the background, screaming and yelling.
The gripping testimony ended dramatically as Tyler demonstrated how he tried to wrest the gun from the woman’s hands, causing the weapon to go off accidentally and shoot Wofford in the face.
“As her arm goes up, the firearm goes off,” he said. “Her body fell.”
Afterward, Tyler said he was in shock and could “barely move.”
He said he panicked and intentionally did not call 911 because he feared investigators would not believe his story.
Tyler testified that he left the apartment with the gun, as well as Wofford’s keys and phone, going out the back door to avoid being spotted after the fatal gunshot.
In the hours that followed, Tyler sent text messages from Wofford’s phone to her friends and family, discarded the gun in a vacant lot, and disposed of Wofford’s personal effects, though he said he couldn’t recall exactly how, highlighting the contradictions in his story, prosecutors said.
At one point during cross examination, Papa interrupted Tyler’s testimony to say she agreed that his explanation “makes no sense” as he struggled to recall key parts of what happened, leading to objections from the defense table, which Judge Mary Margaret Brosnahan sustained.
Papa also zeroed in on the fact that Wofford was fully dressed to leave the apartment when she was killed, suggesting a lack of intent to engage in a physical altercation.
“She puts on her coat, zips it up, gets her wristlet, gets a mask, gets everything ready to go,” she said. “Then all of a sudden she decided she was going to grab the gun. That’s what you want us to believe?”
Tyler was charged with murder soon after the shooting, but maintained his innocence ever since, claiming he acted in self-defense.
