Death penalty sought over double killing
The Flathead County Attorney’s Office intends to seek the death penalty for the man accused of gunning down his ex-girlfriend and her teenage daughter on Christmas Day.
Prosecutors submitted a lengthy affidavit in District Court Wednesday to support the possibility of capital punishment for 34-year-old Tyler Miller.
The 13-page document includes interviews with Miller that followed the double shooting, which he has allegedly admitted committing, as well as previously unreleased details of the shootings.
The interviews provide a portrait of a man who apparently has no remorse for the shootings of 35-year-old Jaimi Hurlbert and her 15-year-old daughter Alyssa Burkett.
County Attorney Ed Corrigan wrote that evidence along with Miller’s comments to detectives, correction guards and others show that the shooting was premeditated and therefore worthy of the death penalty under state law.
During his first interview with detectives after the afternoon shootings of Hurlbert and Burkett, Miller allegedly said he felt like he had “accomplished something.”
“I probably pulled off the most evil, manipulative pathetic thing today, but I feel good about it,” he said after his arrest, according to court documents. “I wish I felt bad. I wish to God I (expletive) felt bad, but I am (expletive) happier than hell. I prayed to God I could pull off something like this.”
His motive, he said, was to punish Hurlbert and one of her friends for attempting to have him put back in prison. In interviews, as well as in a letter sent to the Inter Lake, Miller also claimed Hurlbert was taking their 18-month-old daughter to homes where drugs were being sold.
Miller said that early on Dec. 25 he asked his brother to bring his and Hurlbert’s infant daughter from their mother’s home to his. He said he had previously hid a .45 caliber handgun — the alleged murder weapon — in a backpack that he later filled with clothes.
Miller said he had test-fired the gun to make sure it wouldn’t jam.
Miller convinced his mother during a telephone conversation to allow him to come to her home for Christmas. He promised he would not confront Hurlbert when she arrived to pick up their daughter, according to court documents.
His mother originally had told him not to attend the family gathering because of his alleged methamphetamine use.
“I knew she couldn’t say no,” he said in an interview. “And I knew that’d get me up to the house. I knew that would keep me close to my brother who’s going to do the switch with Jaimi.”
Once at his mother’s home, Miller allegedly went to a bathroom, retrieved the gun from his bag and put it in his waistband. He said he “avoided tight hugs” with family members as he waited for Hurlbert to arrive.
Another family member told detectives that she and Miller were standing on the porch of his mother’s home when Hurlbert arrived with Burkett to pick up her daughter at about 3 p.m. The relative said she pushed Miller inside the house when he refused to go in himself, and then turned to follow him through the door.
It was then that Miller said he exited the home through a garage door.
Hurlbert was heard saying, “Oh my God” immediately before the sound of gunshots, according to the affidavit.
“Jaimi was there like two seconds,” Miller told detectives, according to the affidavit. “She didn’t even make it into the house. My family herded me inside. I went out the garage, pop-pop-pop-pop.”
Miller shot Hurlbert twice, once in her face and once in her shoulder. He then turned the gun on Burkett and shot her once in the center of her chest.
Miller said he then struck Hurlbert in the face with the butt of the handgun and then kicked Burkett in the face after she screamed, “Mom, mom!”
Hurlbert died at the scene and Burkett was pronounced dead at Kalispell Regional Medical Center.
Miller said he initially planned to kidnap Hurlbert and kill her elsewhere.
He was arrested less than two hours later after fleeing the driveway in Hurlbert’s vehicle. He was found inside a vacant trailer on Ashley Hills Road. The following day, after an initial round of interviews with detectives, Miller allegedly told a Flathead County Detention Center officer he was high on methamphetamine on the day of the murders and the days prior.
“The meth had nothing to do with what I did,” he allegedly said. “It just made it easier because it makes you numb. I wish I could blame it on the meth but I can’t. I would do the same thing again if I had a chance to do it over.”
Asked how he felt, he said “I feel great,” according to court documents.
He allegedly bragged to another corrections officer about luring Hurlbert to his mother’s house so he could “smoke her” and said that he originally intended to kill one of Hurlbert’s friends.
During the course of several interviews, he accused Hurlbert of setting him up on the night of Dec. 24. Kalispell Police Department officers had unsuccessfully searched for him after he allegedly chased Hurlbert into the Scoreboard Pub and Casino, threatened her and stole her cellular phone.
He said she knew he was coming but ran to make him look “like a bad guy.”
Miller also repeatedly referred to the death penalty and his desire to have it imposed, according to the affidavit. He allegedly said “if this judge don’t give it to me, the next one will.”
“I’ll do it again if I don’t get the death sentence,” he said, according to court documents. “In prison, I’ll figure out a way to do it... hurt somebody else till I get that death sentence... I’ll live to be 80 in prison and it ain’t happening.”
Miller’s behavior since his arrest has been consistent with his statements to law enforcement officials following his arrest. He appeared to smile and wink during his January arraignment and mouthed several words to Butch Hurlbert, Jaimi Hurlbert’s father, before pleading innocent.
Miller is under tighter security after attacking a fellow inmate he believed had been a friend of Hurlbert’s on Jan. 15. He also has sent letters to Butch Hurlbert and others in which he expressed no remorse for the murders.
Another inmate who was housed with Miller told officials that Miller spoke of the double homicide constantly as they were jailed together at the Flathead County Detention Center.
Miller currently is being held without bail.
He’s scheduled to be arraigned March 24 before District Judge Stewart Stadler on amended charges of deliberate homicide.
Prosecutors could still reach a plea agreement with Miller or seek life imprisonment rather than the death penalty.
It also is unclear how legislation to eliminate the death penalty — now moving through the Montana Legislature — could weigh on the case.
The state Senate approved a bill to repeal the death penalty on Feb. 14. The state House has not yet taken up the measure.
Reporter Eric Schwartz may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at eschwartz@dailyinterlake.com