As he sat in a Washtenaw County district courtroom Thursday surrounded by rows of family and listened to details of his son’s death, Richard Mishler said he harbored no hard feelings against the Ypsilanti Township woman police say is responsible for the March 23 killing.

Those feelings are not ones his son, Samuel Mishler, would want the family to carry, his father said.

“There’s no question about it,” Richard Mishler said. “As a family, we’ve decided we’re not going to go down that road.”

Mishler's words came just minutes after a judge found sufficient evidence to try his dead son's wife, Katharine Mishler, on a charge of premeditated murder. The charge followed testimony from a sheriff's detective and the playing of Katharine Mishler's 911 call that the judge cited as support for a premeditated shooting. She pleaded not guilty and the case was sent on to circuit court.

Her panicked voice strained by tears and interrupted by gasps for air, Mishler, who originally identified herself as “Kat Jackson” told a dispatcher that an intruder had entered her home with a knife and she had grabbed a gun and shot him.

“You’ve never seen this person before?” the dispatcher asked in the call that came through just before 2 a.m.

“No, I’ve never seen him,” Mishler replied.

Further investigation by the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office proved the report in Katharine Mishler’s original call to be false, police say.

Sheriff’s deputies say Mishler, 23, fatally shot her 20-year-old husband in the head at about 1:45 a.m. March 23 after an argument at Tuscan Creek Apartment homes in the 200 block of Stevens Drive in Ypsilanti Township. He was later pronounced dead at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital.

Sheriff’s Detective Everette Robbins was called forward to testify by Collins and said he was told “there were some inconsistencies” as he arrived at the scene of the March slaying. He offered the following account:

The male victim, who Katharine Mishler had reported as an unfamiliar intruder, had no shoes on, despite low temperatures outside. Authorities investigating inside the apartment had also taken note of pictures on a wall that appeared to be of the same man they found dead.

Robbins said he brought Katharine Mishler to the police station for testimony and she began by again identifying herself as “Kat Jackson.” She told him she had not seen Samuel Mishler, whom she called her fiance, since 6 a.m. the previous morning, when he left for work.

The doorway of the apartment where Samuel Mishler was fatally shot in March at the Tuscan Creek apartment complex in Ypsilanti Township.

Angela J. Cesere | AnnArbor.com

As Robbins pressed her for the truth, he said, Mishler’s story came out.

She and her husband had been in the living room of their Tuscan Creek apartment late that March 23 night when an argument broke out between the two. He was upset by their dog, which continued to jump on him. She was tired of constantly having to do the chores.

“If you don’t leave, I’m going to shoot you,” Katharine Mishler said she told Samuel Mishler, as she pushed him toward the door. But he wouldn’t leave.

Katharine Mishler walked into a nearby bedroom where she said three guns were kept. She picked up one and cocked it, thinking the noise would scare Samuel Mishler away as he stood in the living room.

She walked back out, but he stood unmoving.

“If you want me to leave so much, pull the trigger,” Samuel Mishler dared her, she said. Minutes later, Samuel Mishler was lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

“Originally, she thought it was just going to be a scare tactic, that she would fire at a wall or out the window— not at him,” Robbins testified, recalling his interview with Katharine Mishler the night of the shooting. “She wanted him to leave and he did not want to leave.”

Washtenaw County Chief Medical Examiner Bader Cassin performed an autopsy on Samuel Mishler shortly after the shooting. He testified Thursday that the results led him to rule the death a homicide, caused by a single gunshot wound to the head.

Cassin said he determined, based on the man’s injuries, that the gun’s muzzle was directly pushed against Samuel Mishler’s head at the time it was fired.

The resulting force was comparable to “a hammer striking the head,” he said.

Cassin said toxicology testing later revealed traces of marijuana and alcohol in Samuel Mishler’s bloodstream.

Katharine Mishler’s case will now head to circuit court. She remains lodged in the Washtenaw County Jail without bond. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. July 20 before Circuit Court Judge Archie Brown.

Heidi Fenton covers police and courts for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at heidifenton@annarbor.com or 734-623-4673. You also can follow her on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's e-mail newsletters.