Saying she held her fiancé in her arms as he lie dying after being gunned down outside a double wide on Cherry Springs Road, Angela Pack pointed to Michael Cody Mills as the man who pulled the trigger.
“He was lying on the ground in front of my car, blood everywhere,” Pack tearfully recalled of the last moments of Bobby Ashburn’s life April 12 after he suffered four gunshot wounds from a 45-caliber gun allegedly wielded by Mills.
The defendant was bound to the grand jury on criminal homicide charges following the hearing Tuesday afternoon before General Sessions Judge Bill Locke. Pack was the lone witness during the hearing. Mills remains held in lieu of bond.
Pack testified she and her fiancé went to the home of Zach Turner to bring supper to Ashburn’s daughter, Hannah Ashburn. Cherry Springs Road is located in a rural area near Centertown. Pack noted when they arrived, Hannah came outside and hugged them and told them there was someone she wanted them to meet.
“This is Mills,” Pack recalled Hannah Ashburn saying as she unwittingly introduced her father to his alleged killer minutes before the suspect reportedly fired four shots into him at point-blank range.
Pack told the judge everything was calm and they shook hands with Mills before engaging in conversation. Pack said she stepped aside to talk to Hannah for a moment and was heading back when she heard Ashburn say something “in a frightened tone” before gunfire erupted.
A moment later, she saw Ashburn on the ground, bleeding profusely from a head wound. She stopped short of saying she saw Mills holding the smoking gun, but instead said she saw him putting something under his shirt.
“Why did you shoot my daddy?” Pack heard Hannah yell as Mills allegedly tried to get rid of the murder weapon.
“I told him to drop the gun and go,” Pack recalled, noting the suspect tossed the gun into her vehicle and then ran into the woods. “I was scared he was going to shoot me. He’d just shot Bobby.”
Pack said she wrapped her shirt around the victim’s head to try to stem the bleeding.
“I held him until the ambulance arrived,” she recalled, noting he was airlifted from the scene but died on the way to Vanderbilt.
While recalling the shooting, Pack said she has no idea why Mills shot her fiancé, noting she didn’t realize Mills had a gun until he opened fire. She was certain there were no sounds of yelling or fighting leading up to the shooting, noting everyone was standing in the backyard around cars.
However, during her testimony, Pack admitted she was a drug addict back in April and had bought meth and marijuana at the residence from a drug dealer on a “handful” of occasions. The drug dealer in question was also visiting the house at the time and reportedly witnessed the shooting along with the homeowner and Hannah Ashburn.
Josh Crain is representing the defendant after the public defender’s office had to recuse itself because it had represented Pack in a prior criminal case. Crain’s cross-examination dealt mainly with clarifying Pack never actually saw the gun in Mills’ hand, nor did she actually see him shoot her fiancé.