A Georgia fire chief was shot dead after stopping to help motorists who hit a deer in Alabama, and a man who lived near the accident will be charged with murder.
Deputies from Alabama’s Chambers County responded around 5 p.m. Sunday to a reported traffic accident with a deer, but they arrived to find three people with gunshot wounds, the county sheriff’s office said late Sunday.
One of them was pronounced dead at the scene, while two were flown to trauma centers as authorities worked “to piece together the events that led to this horrific scene,” the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
James Bartholomew Cauthen, 54, a battalion fire chief with Coweta County Fire in Georgia who had been with the department for 24 years, was killed. Police said murder charges were pending against 33-year-old William Randall Franklin, who lived near the accident.
Cauthen was about 10 miles away from where he lived in Moreland, Ga., and was leaving property he owned or maintained just over the Alabama border when he noticed a vehicle that had hit a deer and stopped to help, Chambers County Chief Deputy Mike Parrish told WRBL. Cell service was scant in the remote rural area, so the driver and Cauthen approached Franklin’s nearby home to ask for help.
Franklin emerged from the house and allegedly started firing at them without warning as they started walking up the driveway, Parrish said. The unidentified driver, who was armed, returned fire and hit Franklin.
The driver was wounded but expected to recover. His wife, who never left their vehicle, was uninjured, the sheriff’s office said. The mortally wounded Cauthen tried to cross the street but collapsed in a ditch and died before help could arrive, Parrish said.
“I’ve worked a lot, but this is probably one of the most bizarre scenes I ever showed up on,” Parrish told WTVM.
Coweta Fire Rescue mourned the loss of “an amazing, hard-working man with a gentle soul,” adding, “We lost one of our brothers, leaders, mentor, and family to a senseless tragedy.”
With News Wire Services
