Fire chief fatally shot while helping a couple whose car struck a deer in Alabama
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/01/2025 (557 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
CHAMBERS COUNTY, Ala. (AP) — A man fatally shot a fire battalion chief and wounded the driver of a car that hit a deer in rural Alabama, authorities said.
The Coweta County fire department is mourning the death of James Bartholomew Cauthen, 54, remembering him as “an amazing, hard-working man with a gentle soul,” who worked for the department for more than 24 years, according to a Facebook post.
Cauthen was helping a couple whose car had struck a deer Sunday afternoon in Chambers County, Alabama, just west of the border with Georgia, the sheriff department wrote in a Facebook post. Cauthen, the battalion chief for the Coweta County Fire Rescue in Georgia, walked with the driver to a nearby property to ask for help because the couple couldn’t get service, Chambers County Sheriff Department Chief Deputy Mike Parrish told WRBL.
Authorities said the property owner, William Randall Franklin, 34, opened fire on Cauthen and the driver, killing Cauthen and wounding the driver. The driver was armed and returned fire, wounding Franklin. Law enforcement then arrived and took the driver and Franklin to a hospital. The driver’s wife never left the car and was uninjured during the shootout.
Court records in Georgia show that Franklin was arrested on Monday afternoon on a charge of being a fugitive from justice in Alabama. He is currently detained in the Muscogee County Jail. The Chamber’s County sheriff’s department said that there is a murder warrant for Franklin in Alabama.
There was no attorney listed to speak on Franklin’s behalf on Tuesday afternoon.
“Definitely an eerie sense of emptiness in the bay this morning,” Coweta County fire fighter Cody Darracott wrote on Facebook on Monday. The post described Cauthen as the “epitome of a Godly, selfless, hardworking man.”
___
Associated Press writer Kate Brumback contributed to this report from Atlanta.