Killer of Susie Zhao denied in final appeal attempt

Brutal murderer and torturer Jeffery Bernard Morris will serve life in prison without parole after Michigan Supreme Court declines to hear case

Jeffery Bernard Morris, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the July 2020 torture and immolation of well-known poker pro and commentator Susie Zhao, will spend the rest of his life in a Michigan prison after the state’s Supreme Court denied his request for a new trial.

Morris, now 65, was found guilty of first-degree murder in November 2022 after an Oakland County, Michigan jury deliberated less than an hour in the case, which featured brutal imagery and extensive physical and electronic evidence connecting Morris to the murder.

Zhao, a Michigan native, had returned to the state to live with her parents after an apparent downturn in her poker career. Within a month of her return to the northwest suburbs of Detroit, Zhao had come into contact with Morris, who had a lengthy criminal record in both Michigan and Florida.

Zhao’s burnt body was discovered in the parking lot of a forest preserve with her hands and feet zip-tied, and an autopsy determined she had still been alive when Morris doused her with gasoline and set her on fire. Later, investigators recovered thousands of internet searches and imagery from Morris’s phone depicting various forms of sexual torture and killing, including acts similar to what was inflicted upon Zhao.

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First appeal attempt by Morris denied in March

Immediately after his late-2022 conviction and sentencing, Morris’s new counsel filed an appeal with Michigan’s Court of Appeals. In October of 2024, that court denied an attempt to have the case immediately remanded for a new trial, as Morris’s appeal was in the process of being considered by the appellate court.

Morris’s appeal made two primary claims, in that he was denied a speedy trial and that he did not receive proper and effective counseling from his court-appointed attorney.

In its opinion in March 2025, the appellate court agreed that some minor errors had occurred, but none prejudiced the case to the point where Morris was due to a new trial. The court found that most of the time delays in the case were attributable to the impact of the COVID-19 upon the court’s calendar. Also, one technical error, that briefly resulted in an accidental duplicate filing of the first-degree murder charge against Morris, was also found to have had no impact or prejudice against Morris in the final result of the case.

Likewise, the first appellate court found that while the court-appointed defense may have made errors, they also did not prejudice the case in any meaningful way. In one example, a security officer from the big-box store where Morris shoplifted a bag of zipties, just prior to Zhao’s killing, accidentally used the word “defendant” when referring to Morris during his testimony, when he was there only to offer information about Morris’s shoplifting. The verbal slip could have brought an objection from Morris’s counsel, who missed the moment, but the appellate judges found that the slip had no case-changing impact.

Impact of possible defense witness who died before trial considered

Another claim made in the appeal was that the delays before the actual jury trial began robbed Morris’s defense of testimony from one possible supporting witness. A friend of Morris’s, Thomas “Tommy” Nickerson, died unexpectedly at age 35 in August 2025, just three months before the actual court trial of Morris began.

Morris had been in contact with Nickerson and Nickerson’s former fiance, Brienne Wyrick, in the hours and days before Zhao’s murder occurred, with Morris asking for a minor loan or a ride or the like. In the appeal, however, Morris asserted that Nickerson may have had a role in Zhao’s murder. “On appeal, Morris states that he suspects Nickerson had a role in this offense, but does not offer any more information to support that assertion,” the appellate decision details, dismissing Morris’s attempt to implicate Nickerson despite all the evidence pointing to Morris himself.

The appellate court also denied an overriding claim by Morris that the multiple minor errors had a cumulative effect that prejudiced the case and therefore warranted a new trial.

Michigan Supreme Court declines further appeal

After Morris’s primary appeal was denied, his new counsel dutifully filed an attempt at appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court. Two weeks ago, that court declined to take up the case.

In its brief notification, the three-judge panel declared that it was “not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.” With that, Morris’s appellate path ended.

Morris is serving his life-without-parole sentence at Oaks Correctional Facility, near Manistee in western lower Michigan.