Mark Millican
markmillican@daltoncitizen.com
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A harrowing 911 call detailing threats by an intoxicated boyfriend to “put this gun to your head and pull the trigger” caused Mindy Bullard to beg for her life and the lives of her seven children at the scene of a birthday party near Dawnville last Thursday.
“I’ll kill them too,” David Dwight Hartline, 41, of Summerville, replied to the pleas. He died at the scene after exchanging gunfire with Bullard’s father, Edward Manz III, 61, of Chattanooga, who was fatally shot by Hartline at the 1571 Rainbow Circle home. Kenneth Simonson, 41, of Cleveland, Bullard’s ex-husband who had brought their son and daughter — who was celebrating her birthday — to the tragic party, died later that night at Hamilton Medical Center after being shot by Hartline.
One of the men in the house — unidentified on the call — said, “People are shot out here, get the ambulances out here quick! A man is killing people out here.”
When the dispatcher asks who is doing the shooting, the man gasps with resignation in his voice, “It’s David Hartline — here he comes now.”
After three rapid shots, the line goes silent and the dispatcher gets no more response.
None of the children were harmed, and were whisked away to a neighbor’s house after deputies arrived.
The lead investigator with the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office said some of the reporting on the shootings over the weekend was “not true.”
Capt. Rick Swiney said he “saw on the news” Sunday night that all three men had a firearm.
“That is not true,” he said. “We’re 100 percent sure Hartline had a gun, it was a 9 mm he retrieved from the toolbox of his truck, and Mr. Manz had a lightweight .38 caliber handgun. They call it an ‘airweight’ .38. It was his own firearm. It was our understanding he carried it — he’s the owner of a business up in Chattanooga — everywhere he went.”
Manz, whose funeral is today, was in the real estate rental business, according to the funeral home handling his arrangements.
“He had it on him when Hartline entered the house,” Swiney continued. “We don’t know 100 percent yet when the first exchange of gunfire took place, but we know the rounds from Mr. Manz’s gun were what killed Hartline, and the bullets from Hartline’s gun are what killed the other two men.”
Swiney said only two firearms were recovered from the scene, and that investigators found more than 20 rounds had been fired.
“Everybody went upstairs, and everybody was found upstairs except Mr. Manz,” Swiney said. “He was downstairs in the laundry room, and that’s where it appears an exchange of gunfire took place ... at close range.”
One news outlet quoted “police” as saying Simonson took three children upstairs and shielded two from gunshots.
“I don’t know of anyone that’s made a release beside myself, and I never said that,” Swiney said. “(Simonson) had one child, his son, (who) went into the bathroom with him, the other children were in the attic area. It was his daughter’s birthday, he has a son and a daughter he has custody of, he just brought them down for the party. Hartline shot him through the door.”
Swiney also disputed that Whitfield County deputies failed to respond to the scene earlier in the afternoon. A call went to a Murray County 911 tower since the Dawnville neighborhood is close to the county line. Murray 911 Director Peggy Vick confirmed receiving a call from Bullard at 4:35 p.m.
“It was giving a lookout on this truck, (it) said that the driver was David Hartline and he was possibly drunk, and gave the tag number and (description), and then Whitfield (911) was notified of the call we received,” she said. “But the actual shooting call, no, we did not get that.”
In the initial 911 call that was routed to Murray, Bullard said, “I need the police at my house right now ... (Hartline’s) tore down the driveway, he’s been drinking, he’s tearing down the driveway right now, going to Dawnville ... he’s raised all kind of Cain in front of my children and I’m trying to have a birthday party.”
A Murray 911 dispatcher responds, “Okay, I’ll go ahead and give this lookout (to Whitfield County).”
Jeff Ownby, director of Whitfield County 911, said the call from Murray 911 “came in as a lookout” call and not as a request for law enforcement to respond to the scene.
“After the information was processed they dispatched it out over the radio for the units to be on the lookout for that vehicle,” he said. “We had received the call at 4:39 (p.m.) ... and they just basically told us we needed to put a lookout on a male subject that had caused a disturbance and was intoxicated, he had been at the area of Rainbow Circle. Murray County (911) said it was David Hartline and that he was driving a blue Chevrolet King Cab truck, and they gave the driver’s license.”
The Murray dispatcher told Whitfield 911, “He came to this residence, showed his butt at a kids’ birthday party, and he is very drunk.”
Swiney said “at the time,” whether it was a lookout call or request for help, Hartline “wouldn’t have been there anyway” since he had left the scene.
“The call that came into Murray County 911, (Bullard) may have requested a car come to her house,” he said. “It seems Murray County 911 failed to tell Whitfield County 911 that, and no car was dispatched to her house. At the time, he wouldn’t have been there anyway ... they just told Whitfield 911 to be on the lookout for him.”
Swiney said deputies in the area were looking for the blue pickup truck, but noted Hartline could have fled toward Murray County on Highway 286, to Dawnville in the other direction or north on Lower Kings Bridge Road toward the Beaverdale community or east from there heading back into Murray County on Boyles Mill Road across the Coosawattee River.
“From Rainbow Circle (Bullard) couldn’t have seen which way (Hartline) went when he got on Lower Kings Bridge or Highway 286,” he said. “But if we had known she had requested officers to come to her house we would have gone.”
Swiney was asked if he knew how the children were faring.
“They’re with a relative,” he said. “We feel the children are being well taken care of at this time — their physical needs and their mental needs.”
Swiney did not say if the children were all together.
Whitfield County Coroner Bobbie Dixon, who has been in contact with Bullard family members, said she had been released from hospital care on Monday.
“It appeared she was shot at least twice, she had three wounds,” Swiney said. “One could have been an exit wound, and she had some injuries to her ankles.”
Hartline, a building contractor, was buried Monday in Summerville. Simonson’s arrangements are being handled by Jim Rush Funeral Home in Cleveland. His funeral is Wednesday.
