Michelle Lyons

Her father began his career as a reporter at The Daily News and met her mother while she was working as a records clerk at the Galveston Police Department.

Lyons was raised in Galveston, attending the island's famous Ball High School until 1992, when her family relocated to Southern Illinois after her sophomore year for her father's job.

[4] Lyons began her journalism career at the age of 16, working for The Benton Evening News as a photographer and a darkroom assistant, developing film and printing photos for each of the newspaper's six-day daily editions.

[4][11] She resigned entirely from the TDCJ[12] in May 2012 after two additional false complaints were lodged at her,[4] the last of which was 'failure to obey an order,' and filed suit, alleging sex discrimination[13] and specifically, that she was being required to keep her time in a way that was wholly different from both her current and former male coworkers, as well as against the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

[17] During her 2001-2012 tenure with the prison system, Michelle Lyons witnessed more than 280 executions[3][18][19] by lethal injection,[3] including high-profile cases such as Napoleon Beazley, Betty Lou Beets, and Shaka Sankofa (nee Gary Graham).

[3] Lyons does not take a position on the death penalty but maintains that it is a personal view, and one that she feels is dependent on the specific facts of an individual case.