Man brutally killed girlfriend in drug-fueled rage
A Jones County man who committed one of the most brutal murders in recent local history appealed his conviction, claiming that he didn’t have the mental capacity to form an intent to kill and complaining that the jury shouldn’t have been shown gruesome images from the scene.
Adam Mills, 32, was sentenced in Jones County Circuit Court to life in prison for first-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend Ashley Pearson, whose body was “cut in half” during a drug-fueled rage in the home they shared in the Powers Community on June 4, 2020.
The state Supreme Court denied Mills’ appeal and unanimously affirmed the conviction and Judge Dal Williamson’s rulings and sentence.
Mills argued that he could not be convicted of first-degree murder because “the weight of the evidence did not support a finding that he had the requisite mental capacity to form a premeditated intent to kill,” according to his appeal of the May 2022 conviction.
The high court cited case law showing that “voluntary intoxication is not a defense to a specific-intent crime,” and it added that the victim’s injuries “bespeak an unmistakable deliberate design to kill — nearly all of Mills’ stabs and slashes were directed at vital organs: Pearson’s throat was slashed, she was stabbed repeatedly in the upper left chest (damaging the heart, lungs and aorta) and her abdomen was cut across its entire front, spilling her entrails and organs. The evidence that Mills committed first-degree murder was overwhelming,” Justice David Ishee wrote.
In Mills’ claim that the trial court erred by admitting photographs and body-cam footage from the scene of the crime and an autopsy photo, the high court again cited case law to support Williamson’s decision to allow them despite the objections of public defenders Patrick Pacific and Matt Sherman.
“The trial judge thoughtfully explained his reasons for admitting the video and the photographs,” Ishee wrote. “The only evidence of what was in Mills’ mind when he committed the crime was what can be inferred from what he saw and did, and the best evidence of that was photographs and video recordings from the scene.
“This was a gruesome crime, but the photographs and the ... footage were no more gruesome than they had to be to show the jury what had happened. We find no abuse of discretion in the decisions to admit the video and the photographs.”
Deputies from the Jones County Sheriff’s Department were responding to a call for a suicidal man just before 3 a.m. when they arrived and found Mills outside the home, naked, covered in blood and pacing. He yelled obscenities, then ran toward them, and Sgt. Brennan Chancellor fired three rounds from a non-lethal shotgun and Deputy Chase Smith deployed his “taser,” taking Mills to the ground. Medical personnel began to tend to him and the first-responders were not aware of a second person at the scene.
It was only when they went to “clear” the house that Pearson’s bloody body was discovered in the laundry room. Furniture had been knocked over, fixtures broken and blood splattered and smeared throughout the home. One first-responder repeatedly exclaimed that she had been “cut in half,” according to the ruling.
Mills tested positive for an array of drugs, including amphetamines (Adderall and pseudoephedrine), methamphetamine, benzodiazepines (midazolam — a sedative used in hospitals), benzoylecgonine (a metabolite for cocaine) and cannabinoids, according to the state crime lab report.
The victim had more stab wounds than could be counted, according to the medical examiner’s report, and she had “extensive bruising on her face and body” and “numerous defense wounds on her hands.”
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