Naman Shrestha
In the summer of 2015, a 34-year-old emergency physician named Lisa Amodio Riley took her last breath inside her apartment in Leesburg, Georgia. When the news broke out, the entire community was left shell-shocked while the detectives tried their best to get to the bottom of the case. Apart from covering the intricate details of the murder, ‘Very Scary People: Thomas the Terrible’ also features exclusive and in-depth interviews with several individuals, including the officials linked to the investigation.
Lisa Amodio Riley Was Found Unresponsive In Her Leesburg House
Lisa Marie Amodio Riley was welcomed into the world in 1981 by a pair of loving and supportive parents — Joseph and Eileen Amodio. From her early days, she was kind-hearted and went out of her way to help others. Having completed her education with flying colors, Lisa pursued a career in the medical industry, something she always wanted to do. In the 2000s, her profession reportedly also gave her the opportunity to work in New York for a short while as she was doing her residency at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx. There, she first crossed paths with Yathomas Riley, a professional boxer also known as “Terrible Thomas the Punisher,” at the gym. As the two got to know each other, one thing led to another, and they began dating.
Lisa also served as his cut-woman who treated his wounds between rounds during his fights. As their romance intensified, in 2009, they got engaged. However, his boxing training had him move back to South Florida for an important fight. After a short hiatus, in late 2012, the two moved in together in an apartment in Albany, Georgia. While she worked as an emergency medicine physician at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Yathomas established a car repair business and later a gym called Riley’s Boxing Gym. Thanks to the couple having stable jobs, the couple shifted to a luxurious four-bedroom house on a suburban street in Leesburg in August 2013. In April of the following year, they took the next step in their relationship and tied the knot in front of their loved ones.
In the fall of the same year, they welcomed a son named Giuseppe, completing their family. In the summer of 2015, something unexpected and tragic broke the Riley family. On July 10, 2015, 34-year-old Dr. Lisa Marie Amodio Riley was found unconscious inside her Leesburg property. As soon as the paramedics and police arrived, they taped the potential crime scene and inspected the victim’s body, pronouncing her dead at the scene. When the autopsy report arrived, it was determined that a gunshot wound to the head was the cause of her death. Thus, a homicide investigation was immediately launched.
The Killer Claimed That She Took Her Own Life
It was Lisa Marie Amodio Riley’s husband, Yathomas Riley, who dialed 911 and reported the situation to the police on the fateful morning, claiming that she took her own life. Almost immediately, the police arrested him on site but not for being responsible for his wife’s demise. In the month prior, on June 14, 2015, Lisa had filed a complaint against her boxer husband, claiming that he threatened her with a gun to her head on multiple occasions. According to her, he forced her into the bedroom closet once, and on another occasion, he allegedly wrapped his legs around her neck and squeezed it. On the same day, Yathomas was arrested and charged with battery and three counts of aggravated assault, but he maintained his innocence.
Although he was released on a $15,000 bond, the boxer was ordered to give up his firearms and avoid going within 1,000 feet of his wife. However, a few days later, she requested the court to revoke the non-contact provisions. So, when the police arrived at the scene on July 10 and found out that he had not turned in all of his guns despite the court’s orders, he was charged with violating bond conditions. While he was in custody, the detectives delved deep into the couple’s marriage and determined him to be the prime suspect in the case as he had been connected to a similar crime in Florida in 2010. Before the suspect met Lisa, Yathomas was in a relationship with a corrections officer named Koketia King, with whom he even shared a child.
While he was temporarily staying in Florida with her in 2010, he was accused of shooting Koketia twice in June. While she claimed that he had shot her in a fit of jealous rage, he told the investigators that she shot herself twice, first in the buttocks and then in the head, during a heated argument. Keeping both sides of the story in mind, the authorities arrested and charged him with attempted murder. However, due to the lies that Koketia told the police about a key piece of evidence, the prosecution was forced to drop the charges on Yathomas, who was released from his jail cell in August 2012. Thus, given the circumstantial evidence against him, the boxer was charged with the murder of Lisa Marie Amodio Riley about ten days after her murder.
Yathomas Riley is Incarcerated at a Georgia Prison Facility
About a year after his arrest, in June 2016, Yathomas Riley stood trial for killing his wife, Lisa Amodio Riley. While the prosecution focused on the evidence at hand, the defense argued that no direct evidence was found that connected the defendant to the murder. They even offered a few theories of their own as to what might have happened on the fateful morning, which included the theory of her taking her own life. His defense lawyers also tried to create doubt in the jury’s minds by talking about the gunshot distance and the lack of a blood splatter test.
The prosecution closed their arguments by emphasizing that Yathomas had killed Lisa on July 9, 2015, while she was on her knees. On June 24, 2016, after deliberating for less than an hour, the jury returned with a guilty verdict and convicted the boxer on all counts, including malice murder and aggravated assault. That same day, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and an additional 40 years. As of today, he is serving his sentence at Hays State Prison in Trion, Georgia.
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