Kyle Hill and Ashley Pearson.

(Updated, Tuesday, 6 p.m.) by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Ashley Pearson, 33, Wellington, has been bound over for trial and is likely to be facing a more severe charge after a 70-minute preliminary hearing held at Sumner County District Court Tuesday afternoon. 

Pearson is currently charged with murder in the second degree (reckless indifference to the value of a human life), a level 2 felony. However, upon the defense’s request, the charge will be upgraded to second-degree intentional murder. If convicted, Pearson could face up to 15 more years in prison with the intentional charge compared to the current reckless charge.

Sumner County Attorney Larry Marczynski is expected to file the new charges next week.  

Pearson is accused of stabbing her boyfriend, Kyle Hill, at 315 North B Street in Wellington on Sept. 15, 2018. Sumner County District Judge William Mott determined sufficient evidence to hold a jury trial.

Marczynski anticipates a jury trial probably will not take place until next April. Arraignment, where the official charges will be made to the court, is scheduled for Dec. 8 at 1:30 p.m. 

This has been a strange case that is already getting stranger. The incident, which occurred four years ago, was originally dropped by then-prosecutor Kerwin Spencer, who deemed her actions as self-defense. 

However, Marczynski determined just the opposite and filed second-degree murder charges in August 2022. 

At the preliminary hearing, defense attorney Jess Hoeme, representing Pearson, argued for a stiffer charge – almost unheard of in the legal profession. However, it is a calculated risk in that Hoeme thinks he can win over a jury proving his client’s innocence with an “intentional” charge levied against her instead of a “reckless” charge.

“It caught me off guard,” Marczynski said. “But it was a good move on his part. Essentially, the Kansas Supreme Court recently ruled that you cannot intelligently defend yourself while simultaneously performing reckless behavior. He is obviously going to try to convince a jury that her actions were based all on self-defense.”

Preliminary hearing

Marczynski called just two witnesses at the preliminary hearing: Wellington Police Chief Tracy Heath and WPD detective Bobby Wilson. 

Heath described the crime scene that included Hill, who died of a stab wound to his upper left chest and to his right forearm. Three minor children were living there at the time. They were removed from the home that night.

Heath said he had arrived at 3:05 a.m. and learned at 3:50 a.m. that Hill had succumbed to his injuries and had been pronounced dead by Wesley Medical Center staff. He said on Saturday at 9:15 a.m., he attended the autopsy for Hill at the Sedgwick County Regional Forensic Science Center by deputy coroner/medical examiner Dr. Jaime Oeberst. The preliminary findings were as follows: 

1) Entry-left side of the chest; 

2) Injuries-perforation of the left fifth rib, pericardial sac, heart diaphragm, and liver; 

3) Pathway- downward, left to right, and front to back; 

4) Depth of penetration – about 3 1/4 inches;

5) Stab wound of the right forearm. 

The cause of death was a stab wound to the trunk, deemed a homicide. 

Wilson was then called to the stand. 

He testified that during the initial interview, Pearson was taken to the police station. He photographed her hands where there was blood from an exterior source on the right hand and very little on the left. She did not appear injured, as there were no visible signs of bruising or cuts. 

There was blood on her pants and her lower leg. 

She did not answer questions after her first interview, but on Sept. 17, two days later at the Sumner County jail, she told Wilson about her and Hill’s relationship, which was filled with domestic violence. She said when Hill abused alcohol, he became mean. On June 13 that year, Hill broke her jaw, and she had to be taken to the Sumner Regional Medical Center emergency room.

Wilson said Pearson told him on the night of the stabbing, Hill was in a crappy mood and started drinking before 8 p.m. He then left around 9 p.m. with his mother, Dena Bailey, to Passtime Bar, where one of them was celebrating a birthday. 

When he came home at midnight, he and Pearson fought. Pearson couldn’t recall what the fight was even about. Hill allegedly grabbed her by the back of the hair and pushed her head down on the counter, and started punching her in the back of the head. During this confrontation, a toddler woke up crying and came down the home’s hallway. 

Hill allegedly said he was “tired of that f**king baby crying.” He let Pearson go and walked toward the baby. 

Pearson told Wilson she reached for something on the counter and wanted to scare him away from the toddler. She said she thought she had hit him with an object, and he stopped. She ran to the toddler to put her in bed. He never came into the room. 

She told Wilson that after she was back in bed, she pulled up his shirt and saw he had been stabbed and bleeding. She put her hand over the wound, trying to stop it. She then used the other hand, grabbed his phone, and called his mother. 

In the third interview with Wilson, the issue with the shirt was revisited. According to testimony from her neighbor, Melissa Stewart, when she entered the residence, Hill was not wearing a shirt. But Pearson said he was wearing a black shirt with no sleeves. Wilson asked her what happened to the shirt, and Pearson said she didn’t know. No shirt has been found associated with the crime. 

Also, there was a contradiction of whether she was applying pressure to his wound as she said she was kneeling next to him when authorities arrived. But according to a WPD police report, when they arrived, she was in the front room, not by Hill. 

Hoeme then asked Wilson if he noticed if Pearson had sustained injuries that night which Wilson said he did not. Hueme asked if he noticed that she had braces from the broken jaw from the June incident. Wilson said he did. 

In his closing argument, Hoeme described Hill as a violent man who had been drinking Long-Island Iced Teas that night at Passtime Bars. They had been in a violent relationship, where he consistently beat on her for a year. So much so that she had left him once. She returned, but he was only supposed to drink beer. 

However, Hoeme said that although she took the abuse, on that night, she was protecting the life of her daughter. So she intentionally picked up a knife and stabbed him to save the toddler’s life. 

He then asked that Pearson have her GPS removed from her as she is not a flight risk. Judge Mott said he would do so but warned her if she did not show up for a hearing or the trial that, the GPS would go back on, and her bond would be raised.