ROCK SPRING, Ga. – Steve Currin, shirtless and scared, ran up the gravel hill to his small trailer when he heard the screaming.
“Someone call 911! He’s beating me!” yelled 43-year-old Tamela Kirby, Currin’s roommate.
He saw Kirby standing in the yard, blood around her mouth. The screen door, ripped from its hinges, lay crumpled. Ricky Ashmore, Kirby’s ex-boyfriend whom she had kicked out of the trailer a few days before, fumed nearby.
Currin raced back down the hill to the six-bedroom home where Kirby’s 18-year-son, Eric Carden, lived. “Ricky’s up here beating the hell out of your momma,” he yelled, banging on the door.
Carden grabbed his .410 shotgun, firing it into the air as he barreled up the path. Ashmore fled in his car and Currin followed, the two racing a four-mile stretch before pulling over at the MAPCO gas station at U.S. Highway 27 and Georgia Highway 95.