Fire Chief Is Fatally Shot After Stopping to Help Driver Who Struck Deer

James Cauthen was killed on Sunday as he and the driver he was assisting came under fire while seeking help in Stroud, Ala., the authorities said. A man was charged with murder.


James Bartholomew Cauthen, who was known as Bart, was a battalion chief with Coweta County Fire Rescue in Newnan, Ga. Coweta County Fire Rescue

By Christine Hauser
Jan. 21, 2025

A fire chief was fatally shot after he and a driver who had hit a deer on a rural road in Alabama came under fire as they approached a house to ask for help, the authorities said. ... Sheriff’s deputies responded around 5 p.m. on Sunday to a report of a traffic accident involving a deer near the Georgia border, the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

They found three men with gunshot wounds. James Bartholomew Cauthen, 54, a battalion chief with Coweta County Fire Rescue in Newnan, Ga., was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver, whose name was not released, and a man identified as William Randall Franklin were flown by helicopter to a hospital for treatment of gunshot wounds, the sheriff’s office said. ... Mike Segrest, the district attorney for Alabama’s 5th Judicial Circuit, said in an email on Tuesday that Mr. Franklin had been charged with murder.

The authorities said that Chief Cauthen had stopped to assist the driver and that the two men sought help nearby in the small community of Stroud, Ala. As they were doing so, Mr. Franklin “opened fire on Chief Cauthen and the individual that struck the deer,” the sheriff’s office said. “All individuals were injured during the shootout.”

“They start walking up a driveway and an individual that lived in the residence where this driveway was came out and started shooting,” Mike Parrish, chief deputy of the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office, told WTVM-TV of Columbus, Ga.

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Christine Hauser writes breaking news stories, features and explainers. More about Christine Hauser