On the afternoon of August 23, 2023, 42-year-old Ashley Eugene Curtis Bartel was at a rural property on Teal Lane outside the small Wyoming town of Burns, spending time at the home where he lived with his girlfriend and several housemates. Born in Cheyenne in October 1980, he had grown up an imaginative kid who loved wrestling, “Star Wars,” and the movie “E.T.,” later channeling that creativity into drawing and building miniature model cars. As an adult he was known for fixing cars, barbecuing, riding bikes, and watching movies, a son, brother, and friend whose easy enthusiasm for these simple pleasures left a strong imprint on those around him.
That day, life at the Teal Lane address was crowded and a bit chaotic. The property owner, Dannie Wilde, lived in an outbuilding, while the main house was shared by several people, including Ashley, his girlfriend Rhonda Bryan, her son Tyler James Hill, and another resident, Robin Warren. In the early afternoon, a dispute flared over the use of Ashley's car and car keys. Bryan later told investigators that she and Ashley were arguing because she wanted to use his car to take Hill to a truck stop, and Hill stepped into the argument. At 1:23 p.m., Laramie County sheriff's deputies were dispatched to 4572 Teal Lane for a reported shooting; when they arrived, firefighters from Laramie County Fire District #6 had already pronounced Ashley dead from a gunshot wound outside the home.
Wilde told investigators that before the fatal shot there had been heated words between Hill and Ashley over the car. He recalled Hill saying something like “you think I'm playing” and then firing a round into the ground with what Wilde described as a black semiautomatic handgun. Alarmed, Wilde retreated into his own small residence, locked the door, and soon heard three more gunshots outside. When he looked through a window no more than twenty feet from where Ashley's body would be found, he saw Ashley backing up with his hands raised, and watched Hill raise his arm and shoot him. Warren, roused by the shouting and gunfire, did not see the shooting itself but reported seeing Hill running around the house with what looked like a black semiautomatic pistol in his hand, saying something along the lines of “it wasn't my fault, he hurt my mom.” Bryan, Ashley's partner and Hill's mother, described only the final, devastating moment: she said she tried to push Hill's gun hand down or away during the argument, and as she did, the weapon went off and shot Ashley in the face.
In the chaotic minutes after the shooting, Hill grabbed the keys to Ashley's red Mazda and fled the property, heading east toward the Nebraska line. A description of the car went out quickly over the radio. Pine Bluffs Police Chief Austin Smith later recounted that he remembered passing a red Mazda matching the broadcast description on Interstate 80 near Pine Bluffs; after turning around, he located the vehicle near County Roads 159 and 210 and, with the help of a sheriff's deputy, pulled it over. Hill was taken into custody without further incident less than an hour after the first 911 calls.
As detectives pieced together what had happened at Teal Lane, the Laramie County Sheriff's Office quickly identified Ashley as the victim and publicly announced that the killing was being investigated as a homicide. The suspect, 25-year-old Tyler James Hill, was initially recommended for a charge of second-degree murder and was formally charged with that offense the following day. A judge set his bond at $250,000 cash, and an early court hearing was continued after Hill waived his right to a speedy preliminary hearing. At a later preliminary hearing, a Laramie County Circuit Court judge heard the testimony of Wilde, Warren, and Detective Sergeant Ryan Martinez, found probable cause based on their descriptions of the argument, the warning shot into the ground, and the final shot with Ashley's hands in the air, and ordered that Hill be bound over to Laramie County District Court on the second-degree murder charge.
Investigators and prosecutors looked closely at everyone on the property that day, but Hill remained the only person accused of causing Ashley's death. Another woman associated with the address, 37-year-old Tabetha Ivy Hodge, was arrested later that afternoon at the sheriff's office, but her arrest was on an existing warrant for probation revocation and not for any role in the shooting. Over the months that followed, the case moved through the courts. In district court, Hill ultimately agreed to a plea deal: on April 1, 2024, he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for shooting Ashley during the argument over the car, admitting that he had produced the pistol and that the gun fired in the midst of the confrontation.
That plea marked a turning point for both families. At a July 2024 sentencing hearing, victim impact statements described the hole Ashley's killing had left in the lives of his relatives and friends, while Hill's attorneys argued that the shot that killed him was not premeditated but the tragic culmination of a volatile domestic dispute. Judge Robin Cooley sentenced Hill to a prison term of 15 to 20 years for involuntary manslaughter, giving him credit for time already served but emphasizing the gravity of taking a life. Hill later appealed aspects of the sentencing process to the Wyoming Supreme Court, arguing among other things that the shooting had been accidental and that last-minute defense filings should have prompted a continuance. In 2025, the high court rejected those claims and upheld the sentence, leaving in place the conviction and punishment stemming from the brief, deadly argument on Teal Lane that ended Ashley Bartel's life.
