Police: Man accused of stabbing ex-girlfriend to death at convenience store

KINGS MOUNTAIN, N.C. — A man is accused of stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death at a convenience store in Kings Mountain on Tuesday, police said.

Kings Mountain officers were called around 7:45 p.m. that day to a Silver Express convenience store at 501 East King Street. When they arrived, officers found a woman, Ashley Erin Scoggins, 34, who had been stabbed.

Scoggins was taken to the hospital where she died a short time later, police said.

Investigators identified the woman’s ex-boyfriend, 37-year-old Timothy Prescott Parson, as the suspect in the case. Police said Parson assaulted her inside the store before leaving the parking lot in a dark gray Nissan Sentra with North Carolina plate JFT-4361.

On Thursday, Parson was arrested during a traffic stop near Dixon School Road and Interstate 85, according to the Kings Mountain Police Department. A passenger, identified as 42-year-old Tracey Marie Harris, was also arrested for obstruction of justice.

Mugshot weren’t immediately made available for either Parson or Harris.

Parson was last seen driving the same Nissan that left the parking lot after the crime.

Parson appeared in court Friday, the Shelby Star reported. He was given no bond, as well as a $50,000 bond for assault on a female. The bond for Harris was raised to $75,000.

The Shelby Star reported Parson cried in court the whole time.

‘Said he’d rather see her dead than with anybody else’

Channel 9′s Ken Lemon talked to Scoggins’ grandmother, who said Scoggins was a mother of two. She said Parson is the father to the youngest child, her 3-year-old daughter.

She said they all lived in Gastonia until Scoggins took the kids and left in 2021, telling a judge she was abused. Lemon learned Scoggins had been separated from Parson for a year and half, and just last month, she told a judge he followed her and threatened to kill her.

“Tim, you need to give yourself up. You know what you did,” her grandmother said, crying.

Scoggins’ grandmother, Nancy Costner, said Scoggins was taking a cousin to the hospital in Kings Mountain when she stopped at the convenience store to get a drink. Minutes later, security cameras captured Parson inside. Scoggins’ family believes he followed her there.

Costner said Parson had grown more threatening more recently.

“He said he would rather see her dead than with anybody else,” Costner said.

Costner showed Lemon video from her Ring doorbell camera. She said it shows Parson just last month trying to get inside to get to Scoggins. He shattered her windshield with a brick in that video before he walked off.

“I feel like I have to look over my shoulder,” Costner said.

Scoggins documented that incident last month in an order of protection. The order also lists another incident, where she said he grabbed her by the head and told her he would kill her. She said he followed her when she drove off and then bumped into her car, trying to force her off the road.

Her family thinks he continued trying to track her movements, and on Tuesday night, made good on his threats.

Her 11-year-old son is heartbroken. They haven’t told her 3-year-old daughter.

“That’s going to be the hard part,” said Scoggins’ aunt, Renee Costner. “I mean, how do you tell a 3-year-old that her mommy’s not going to come home?”

Before he was arrested, they worried Parson might go back to their home, and so they hoped he gave up and turned himself in.

Store clerk recalls the moments before the stabbing

A clerk at the store described the chilling encounter to Lemon. He said the suspect stabbed Scoggins in the chest near the heart and casually walked out, like nothing had happened.

Lemon said the clerk still had a shocked expression on his face when they spoke. The clerk said Parson stabbed her so casually, no one realized exactly what was happening. He told Lemon what he heard Parson say to Scoggins.

“‘It’s not over yet but it’s fixing to be.’ That’s what he said,” the clerk said.

He said he and another clerk pushed the panic button a couple of minutes before the stabbing, and police arrived just after Parson left.

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