One of two men charged with capital murder in the 2015 killing of a Marshall County couple with Cullman ties struck a plea deal in exchange for testifying against his alleged accomplice. 

Henry Martin Pyle, 54, pleaded guilty to murder this week and was sentenced to life in prison, avoiding the possibility of the death penalty by going to trial. He will be confined to Kilby Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Mount Meigs near Montgomery. 

Pyle and Jeffery Lee McKelvey were charged with five counts of capital murder in connection with September 2015 shooting deaths of Denie Tucker, 68, and Pamela Cordes Tucker, 64, a Cullman County native. 

The couple were found dead in their Pea Ridge Road home in the Asbury community. Denie and Pam Tucker owned Tucker Milling LLC and were lifetime members of the National Barrel Horse Association and American Quarter Horse Association. 

Marshall County investigators testified in a preliminary hearing that McKelvey approached Denie Tucker at the Cracker Barrel in Cullman with a story that his daughter had been in a wreck. He said he’d left his wallet at home and needed gas and cash to go see about her, but promised to pay him back. Tucker gave him $60 and a business card with his address on it.

Investigators said McKelvey later went to their home to rob them. The couple was shot during the robbery — Denie Tucker once in the back between the shoulder blades and Pamela Tucker three times with what investigators believe was a .40 caliber pistol, which has not been found. The bodies were found in their bedroom.

A fingerprint found on a storm door matched McKelvey’s prints, and witnesses later saw McKelvey with a “significant sum of cash,” along with a distinctive pair of earrings that belonged to Pam Tucker. The earrings were sold at a Birmingham pawn shop after the slayings, authorities said.

Marshall County Sheriff’s investigators testified that upon entering the Tucker home, they found the contents of Pam Tucker’s purse had been dumped in the living room, and her husband’s empty wallet was found nearby. Safes in the hall had been opened, but investigators found $25,000 cash in an unopened safe. 

McKelvey and Pyle were both reportedly homeless but stayed in the Decatur area. The two men had been running a scam along interstates 65 and 59 for a long time, approaching people with sob stories and getting money. Pyle told investigators they made up to $250 a day with the scam. 

In his plea agreement, Pyle was listed as a habitual offender. He was convicted of three prior felonies in Jackson and Madison counties, including theft and possession of a controlled substance.

McKelvey’s defense attorney, Jake Watson, of Huntsville, told The Decatur Daily that his client maintains innocence of the capital murder charges and that “Pyle doesn’t have any credibility and is just trying to save his own skin.”

McKelvey has an extensive criminal record. 

He was sentenced to 21 years in prison for third-degree burglary in Morgan County in 1990, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. He was paroled three times, but sent back to prison in 2009 for parole violations, spokesman Bob Horton said.

McKelvey was transferred from a Hamilton work center to a Walker County supervised re-entry program on Sept. 4, 2014, Horton said. He completed his sentence May 13. McKelvey served a year and three months of a three-year sentence in 1987-88 for a second-degree forgery conviction in Cullman County, Horton said.

McKelvey is currently being held in the Marshall County Jail with no bond since his November 2015 arrest. His case is set for arraignment on September 9 before Presiding Marshall County Circuit Judge Tim Jolley.