Fire chief shot and killed in Chambers County while helping a couple whose car struck a deer

A man in Chambers County is charged with shooting and killing a fire battalion chief and wounding the driver of a car that hit a deer.

54-year-old James Bartholomew Cauthen worked for the Coweta County, Georgia, fire department. Investigators say he was helping a couple whose car had struck a deer Sunday afternoon in Chambers County.

Cauthen had walked with the driver to a nearby property to ask for help because the couple couldn’t get cell phone service, Chambers County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Mike Parrish told radio station WBLR.

Authorities said the property owner, 33-year-old William Randall Franklin, 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 not hurt.

Franklin will be arrested on a murder warrant once he is released, WBLR reported.

The Coweta County fire department is remembering Cauthen 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.

“Definitely an eerie sense of emptiness in the bay this morning,” Coweta County firefighter Cody Darracott wrote on Facebook.  The post described Cauthen as the “epitome of a Godly, selfless, hardworking man.”

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