A 49-year-old Ararat man is facing second-degree murder and three related felony gun charges after a shooting on Fancy Gap Highway in the Cana area of Carroll County on Tuesday. Deputies arrested Christopher Allan McMillan after the Carroll County Sheriff's Office received reports of gunfire on the rural highway, a stretch of road that has already seen one deadly shooting this year.
According to WSLS, the Carroll County Sheriff's Office announced that McMillan was taken into custody following the shooting and now faces second-degree murder, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and shooting into an occupied vehicle. The sheriff's office says its investigation into the incident remains ongoing, and officials have not released the identity of the victim or detailed the circumstances that led to the shooting.
A Rural Community Still Reeling From May's Deputy Killing
The location carries added weight for Carroll County residents. Fancy Gap Highway in Cana was the site of another fatal shooting in May, when Deputy Logan Utt was killed while performing a welfare check at a home on the same road, an incident that triggered a multi-day, multi-state manhunt for suspect Michael Puckett, as detailed by WFMY News 2. A second deputy survived that shooting after being saved by his ballistic vest. That case is still working through the courts; a Carroll County judge recently granted a continuance pushing Puckett's preliminary hearing to November 5 to allow time for court lab analysis, according to WSLS, and he remains held without bond at the New River Valley Regional Jail.
Carroll County is a small, rural Appalachian jurisdiction, with a 2020 population of just 29,155 spread across roughly 478 square miles, per the U.S. Census Bureau. Cana and Ararat, where McMillan lives, are neighboring unincorporated communities along the county's southern edge near the North Carolina line, an area defined by mountainous, sparsely populated terrain. For a county that size, two major violent incidents on the same stretch of highway within months of each other represents an unusual and unsettling pattern for residents.
Heavy Statutory Exposure Under Virginia Law
The charges McMillan faces each carry significant statutory penalties. Second-degree murder under Virginia Code § 18.2-32 requires proof of malice but not premeditation, and carries a sentencing range of 5 to 40 years in a state correctional facility, according to Virginia law. Separately, using or displaying a firearm in a threatening manner while committing murder, under Virginia Code § 18.2-53.1, carries a mandatory minimum of three years for a first offense that must run consecutively to any sentence for the underlying murder.
The felon-in-possession charge brings its own non-suspendable mandatory minimums under Virginia Code § 18.2-308.2, according to Goff Voltin PLLC — two years for non-violent felons convicted within the past decade, or five years for those with violent felony records. And maliciously shooting into an occupied vehicle where human life is endangered, under Virginia Code § 18.2-154, can carry 10 years or more in prison; appellate courts have ruled that statute applies whether the shooter was inside or outside the vehicle.
Not the First Vehicle Shooting in Carroll County This Year
This is not the only vehicle-related shooting Carroll County authorities have investigated this year. In August, a Charlotte doctor was arrested and charged with felony offenses after two sisters were shot inside a vehicle during a road-rage incident on Interstate 77, a case Hoodline previously covered; both victims in that incident survived their gunshot wounds.
The Carroll County Sheriff's Office, led by Sheriff Kevin Kemp, continues to serve as the primary investigating agency in the McMillan case, and officials say the investigation into the Fancy Gap Highway shooting is ongoing. The identity of the victim, McMillan's relationship to that victim, and the specific circumstances that preceded the gunfire have not yet been disclosed. McMillan is being held in Carroll County pending further court proceedings.
