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UNICOI COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) – The trial of Tyler Lee Owens, who is accused of killing his girlfriend Stacie Brugger, continued Tuesday at the Unicoi County courthouse.
The court began the day by continuing to hear witness testimony.
The first testimony heard was by Eddie Stork, Brugger’s former boss and ex-boyfriend. He said Brugger had come to his house after she had car trouble on the way to her sister’s gender reveal party. Brugger decided to turn back in case she got stranded and made her way to Stork’s house.
Stork then testified that Brugger and Owens were arguing over text messages. He said Owens had threatened to put Brugger’s stuff on a bridge. Brugger decided to go to Owen’s camper to retrieve her belongings and had planned to return to Stork’s house.
Later that night, she was shot. Stork did not learn of it until a few days later.
Officers from the Unicoi County Sheriff’s Office also testified. The three officers were Gabriel Williams, Anthony Buckner, and Chad Ricker.
They had responded to Owen’s camper when they were informed of a potential murder.
All three said that when he was caught, Owens had pointed a gun in their direction before tossing the gun away.
During the testimony of Williams, who was a chief investigator at Unicoi County Sheriff’s Office at the time of Owens’ arrest, two audio recordings of interviews between Owens and officers were played for the court.
In those interviews, Owens told officers he and Brugger were in an argument about Owens’s ex-girlfriend Shaunna Williams, who was in town with her son visiting her brother.
He said the argument escalated to the point where Owens told Brugger to leave the camper.
Owens said he had an unloaded gun and a loaded gun magazine on the couch of his camper. He claimed Brugger then loaded the gun and pointed it at her head, saying she felt worthless.
According to Owens in the recording, he tried to take the gun away from Brugger, but it went off and shot her in the neck.
“She was, like, thrown into me and I fall back on my back and she’s laying on me,” Owens said in the recording, “And I just see blood. And I’m just screaming ‘baby, babe,’ and she wasn’t saying nothing. She didn’t say nothing.”
Throughout the interview, Owens repeatedly told officers he was scared afterward and did not know what to do.
He says he did not tell police due to outstanding warrants he had in North Carolina and that the whole thing was an accident.
Owens is facing 14 charges. He pleaded not guilty to nine of those charges, including first-degree murder.