A Georgia man will spend the rest of his life in prison for a violent home invasion that terrified a woman and seriously injured her husband, a court recently ruled.
In late July, a jury found Jimmy David Mills, 60, guilty of first-degree home invasion, aggravated assault, possession of a knife while committing certain felonies, and criminal trespass.
On Tuesday, the DeKalb County District Attorney issued a press release announcing Mills’ life sentence plus 26 years in prison. These sentences will be served sequentially, or one after the other.
On September 17, 2020, the since-condemned man entered a home on North Druid Hills Drive North East in Brookhaven, a medium-sized city in Atlanta’s northeastern suburbs.
“Defendant Mills was seen entering the house on surveillance video,” according to the press release. “The couple who lived there was home with their baby at the time.”
According to prosecutors, the wife had just put her child to bed for a nap and brought her phone into the bathroom to monitor the baby. While in the shower, however, the woman received a notification from a different application: the home security system. The app alerted that someone had entered through the back door.
That person was Mills.
“She heard someone in the house and called out for them not to come into the bathroom,” the press release continues. “Mills then entered the bathroom and asked her if she was alone.”
The woman screamed so loudly that her husband heard her through his noise-cancelling headphones and rushed over to investigate.
When the man found Mills in his bathroom, he told him to leave.
But the defendant would not leave. So the man started pushing the stranger. When that didn’t work, the husband started punching him.
The two men eventually made their way to the kitchen. Mills reached into his pocket and began to pull out a knife he already had in his possession. So the husband responded by going to get a bat.
“Mills followed the man and began attacking the husband, stabbing him in the stomach and face, and slashing his arms,” a press release states.
The husband said he was able to hit his attacker with the bat at least once.
“That’s when he came in straight for my eye,” the husband said. “It was clear he was attempting to attack my eye but missed by this much. I thought, ‘I could die right now. “My life might end right now.”
According to police, the defendant fled after the seemingly senseless attack, jumping over a nearby concrete wall and haphazardly disposing of his weapon. A trail of blood was later discovered leading to the back door, with crimson smeared across the door itself.
Mills rang the doorbell at a house down the street but was turned down by the woman who answered because she noticed blood on his chest.
Meanwhile, a driver pulled over and told investigators that he saw a shirtless man jump over a wall and then carry an unknown object through the street.
The driver then directed officers to Mills’ location, where he was discovered clutching his own bloody shirt and promptly arrested.
At the time of Mills’ arrest, the Brookhaven Police Department described the incident as “truly the stuff nightmares are made of,” according to Atlanta Fox affiliate WAGA.
DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Courtney L. Johnson sentenced Mills immediately after he was found guilty, according to the DA.
