Prosecutors say they intend to seek the death penalty for a Kalispell man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend and her daughter on Christmas Day.
Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan submitted a lengthy affidavit in District Court on Wednesday to support the possibility of capital punishment against 34-year-old Tyler Miller, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of deliberate homicide in the shooting deaths of 35-year-old Jaimi Lynn Hurlbert and her 15-year-old daughter, Alyssa Burkett.
Corrigan says evidence and Miller’s comments to detectives, corrections guards and others show the shooting was premeditated and is therefore worthy of the death penalty.
Court records say that during his first interview with detectives after the shootings, Miller 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 the 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.”
Prosecutors say he told detectives his motive was to punish Hurlbert and one of her friends for trying to have him put back in prison. In interviews, as well as in a letter sent to the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Miller also claimed Hurlbert was taking their 18-month-old daughter to homes where drugs were being sold.
Court records say he also allegedly bragged to a corrections officer about luring Hurlbert to his mother’s house so he could “smoke her” and said he originally intended to kill one of Hurlbert’s friends.
The Inter Lake reports Miller, who is being held without bail, is scheduled to be arraigned March 24 on amended charges of deliberate homicide.