James W. Hutchins
Encyclopedia
James W. Hutchins was convicted of the murders of three NC law enforcement officers. The incident was the largest one-day homicide of law enforcement officers in North Carolina history. The incident inspired a motion picture and also promoted changes in law enforcement protocols state-wide for interagency reporting of officer murders, radio cross-communication between local agencies and the NC State Highway Patrol, which dispatches for most NC state law enforcement agencies and training protocols for response to domestic disturbance incidents. The murdered officers were: Rutherford County NC sheriffs deputies Captain Roy Huskey and Deputy Owen Messersmith and NC State Highway Patrol Trooper Robert L. "Pete" Peterson. Hutchins was executed at the age of 54 by the State North Carolina
at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina
by lethal injection
. He became the first person to be executed in North Carolina since 1977 when the death penalty
was reinstated.
. At the time of his publicized arrest in 1979, Hutchins was married to Geneva Hutchins. He also had three children. He had two daughters, Charlotte and Lisa, and one son, James Jr.
While living in North Carolina
, he worked at various occupations, including as a textile machinist and a woodcutter. He was unemployed at the time of the 1979 murder of the three lawmen.
Hutchins was known as a violent and dangerous man with a "short fuse" temper. He was reputed to attack others for little or no provocation and to routinely beat his wife and chlidren. He had once served in the US Air Force during the Korean War era and was trained as a rifleman; a skill that he used in the 1979 incident. He was ultimitately discharged for bad conduct by the Air Force for AWOL and other offenses.
. Following this arrest, Hutchins also had several other brushes with the law, including his December 1966 charge of assault and battery with intent to kill after attacking the husband of his ex-wife. Prior to May 31, 1979, Hutchins was also charged with shooting an unarmed man. These charges were later dropped.
Charlotte escaped and fled to a neighbors house where the sheriff's office was called. Hutchins shot Captain Huskey in the head with a high-powered rifle, ambush-style from within his home, as he exited his patrol car which was parked in the driveway in the front of the Hutchins' home. Deputy Messersmith was dispatched several minutes later to check on the captain who had not radioed or called in. Upon arriving, Messersmith apparently saw the captain lying beside his vehicle and realized that Huskey had been fatally shot. As he shifted into reverse and started to back away to cover, Messersmith too was shot in the head through the windshield of his patrol car. The vehicle drifted backwards across the street and came to rest in a ditch with Messersmiths' body slumped over the steering wheel, causing the horn to blow without stop.
A frantic neighbor called the sheriff's office to report that two deputies had been shot in the Hutchins driveway. Confusion ensued at the sheriff's office, as the radio dispatcher on duty fainted when told that the 2 officers had been shot. A jailer in the jail in the next room heard the radio, but became concerned that he did not hear the dispatcher. Upon entering the dispatch area, he realized the dispatcher was passed out and began to answer phones while calling an ambulance for the dispatcher. All available ambulances were speeding to the Hutchins residence at the time, adding to the chaos. The jailer did not know to notify state highway patrol regional headquarters in Asheville, so that troopers could be alerted of the situation to respond to assist and also to get a description of the shooter and his vehicle.
Immediately after the he murdered the 2 deputies, Hutchins fled the scene in his own car, still armed with his high-powered rifle. NC State Highway Patrol Trooper Robert L. "Pete" Peterson, 37, was stopped at the McDowell-Rutherford County line, to the North of Rutherfordton, on US Highway 221, talking to a fellow trooper assigned to McDowell County. Peterson sudddenly heard garbled radio traffic on the Rutherford County Sheriff's frequency on his scanner. Troopers often used personally-owned scanners to monitor local law enforcement radio calls, which were on differing frequencies from the State Highway Patrol. Though Peterson could not make out what was happening, he determined something was wrong and left toward Rutherfordton. In the pre-cell phone era, Peterson radioed the Troop "G" communications center in Asheville and asked state highway patrol dispatchers to call the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office and find out what was wrong. Like many rural NC counties, the sheriff's communications center dispatched for all law enforcement agencies in the county except for state officers.
State highway patrol dispatchers called repeatedly, but were not able to get through to the Rutherford County sheiff's office due to the chaos. They were also unable to get a computer reply either, because the jailer attending the phones did not know how to use the then-new North Carolina state-wide Police Information Network computer system (PIN/later the Division of Criminal Information [DCI]), the NC link of the FBI's nationwide National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Having used the PIN computer system would have enabled communication between the agencies in lieu of the overloaded phone lines. The chaotic situation and unlikely series of unfortunate events prevented troopers in the region from getting an immediate report of the incident and they were thus unaware that two Rutherford County officers had been murdered and that the suspect was at large in his car.
As Trooper Peterson entered the Rutherfordton city limits on US 221, Hutchins sped past the him. Peterson turned and pursued, apparently thinking he was after a speeder and not knowing the suspect had just murdered 2 sheriff deputies. Peterson's last radio transmission to Highway Patrol HQ in Asheville said that the suspect had fled on foot to the tree line. Troopers from across the region were made aware of the 2 Rutherford deputies having been murdered just as contact was lost with Peterson. Troopers who were rushing to assist Rutherford County officers realized that Peterson may have unknowingly encountered the killer of the deputies and slews of on and off-duty troopers began to speed to his location when he did not check in again. Responding troopers arrived to find Peterson's patrol car with the blue light on the roof flashing. It was stopped on the northbound shoulder of a sharp curve on US 221 behind Hutchins' car which was stopped near the tree line. The Trooper was slumped by the driver's side of his patrol car mortally wounded, suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. His revolver was drawn and had been fired one time. His body position was consistent with his having apparently used his vehicle engine block for cover, a standard tactic for troopers.
Pete Peterson was a living legend in the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, for being the longest-serving and most motivated physical training instructor in the history of the NC Highway Patrol Training Center. He had transferred to Rutherford County from the Training Center 18 months earlier and was affectionately nicknamed "Super Trooper" by both law enforcement personnel and Rutherford County residents for his incredible physical fitness and relentless motivation to arrest drunken drivers. Pete Peterson remains a legend within the State Highway Patrol, in Rutherford County and in Western North Carolina law enforcfement circles.
James Hutchins was captured in a dense thicket in Rutherford County on June 1, 1979 after a 12 hour search conducted by over 200 local, state and federal law enforcement officers from across Western North Carolina. This event was later recuonted in a feature film, Rutherford County Line, "Damon's Law" by a local film producer near Rutherford County. Due to the widespreaqd anger of local residents in Rutherford County against Hutchins for having murdered three respected and well-liked area lawmen, Hutchins was jailed the next day in Shelby leveland County, North Carolina] for his own safety. He was later transferred to the more-secure Buncombe County jail for safekeeping in Asheville, North Carolina. Trooper Peterson was one of 14 NC troopers killed in the western mountains of NC Highway Patrol Troop "G", which is nearly 1/4 of all troopers to die in the line of duty state-wide in North Carolina since the Highway Patrol was established in 1929. .
On June 12, 1979, Hutchins' oldest daughter, Charlotte, testified in Rutherford County that on the day of the murders her father beat her and other members of their family. The disagreement was over the amount of vodka the daughter had poured into a punch for a high school graduation party. As the trial opened on September 17, 1979, Hutchins pleaded not guilty following the prosecutor's demand that he receive the death penalty. Days later, the jury found Hutchins guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder. The same jury ruled that Hutchins should die in the state's gas chamber. Presiding Judge Donald Smith set October 12, 1979 as Hutchins' execution date, also referring to Hutchins as “the most dangerous man I’ve ever seen.” Appeals brought an automatic delay.
Superior Court Judge Lacy Thornburg later set October 15, 1981 as the date of execution. However, further appeals pushed the date to January 22, 1982. Prior to this scheduled execution date, the state Supreme Court granted a stay so further appeals could be pursued. A new date was set for October 15, 1982; however, this was also delayed by appeals.
Aftermath:
The State Highway Patrol made a concerted effort to have better and more timely communications with local law enforcement agencies after the Rutherford County tragedy, which was the worst one-day felonious loss of life of peace officer life in NC law enforcement history. A previous and similar incident occurred in 1975, when a NC Highway Patrolman was similarly killed (the title of "Trooper" was changed in 1977 when women were admitted to the ranks. In that incident, NC Highway Patrolman G.T. Davis of Troop "A" was shot to death in downtown Williamston (Martin County) in eastern NC, when he too stopped a car that was wanted. In his case, he stopped a car for running a redlight at US 64 and US 17 intersection, but was unaware that minutes earlier, the 3 suspects had just robbed a bank in Jamesville, 10 miles to the east. Martin County officials had failed to report the robbery and suspect description to the Highway Patrol. Law enforcement personnel across North Carolina continue to this day to chronicle the Rutherford County tragedy, to emphasize the dangers of domestic disputes to law enforcement officers. Response to domestic violence calls, related tactics and training were changed as a result of this incident to emphasize and enhance officer safety.
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...
by lethal injection
Lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...
. He became the first person to be executed in North Carolina since 1977 when the death penalty
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
was reinstated.
Personal life
James William Hutchins was born March 26, 1929 in Rutherford County, North CarolinaRutherford County, North Carolina
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 62,899 people, 25,191 households, and 17,935 families residing in the county. The population density was 112 people per square mile . There were 29,535 housing units at an average density of 52 per square mile...
. At the time of his publicized arrest in 1979, Hutchins was married to Geneva Hutchins. He also had three children. He had two daughters, Charlotte and Lisa, and one son, James Jr.
While living in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, he worked at various occupations, including as a textile machinist and a woodcutter. He was unemployed at the time of the 1979 murder of the three lawmen.
Hutchins was known as a violent and dangerous man with a "short fuse" temper. He was reputed to attack others for little or no provocation and to routinely beat his wife and chlidren. He had once served in the US Air Force during the Korean War era and was trained as a rifleman; a skill that he used in the 1979 incident. He was ultimitately discharged for bad conduct by the Air Force for AWOL and other offenses.
First Offenses
In April 1954, Hutchins was arrested for first degree murder while AWOL from the US Air Force in New MexicoNew Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
. Following this arrest, Hutchins also had several other brushes with the law, including his December 1966 charge of assault and battery with intent to kill after attacking the husband of his ex-wife. Prior to May 31, 1979, Hutchins was also charged with shooting an unarmed man. These charges were later dropped.
First Imprisonment
On the night of May 31, 1979 James W. Hutchins gunned down Rutherford County NC deputy sheriffs Captain Roy Huskey, 42, half brother of the Rutherford County Sheriff Damon Huskey, and Deputy Owen Messersmith, 58, when they arrived separately at the Hutchins residence in Rutherford County, located in the foothills-mountain region of Western North Carolina. The officers had responded to a domestic disturbance call involving Hutchins and his teenage daughter Charlotte, who had returned home from a high school dance where alcohol had been consumed. This caused Hutchins to become enraged and assaultive towards his daughter. When other family members tried to protect Charlotte, he became violent with the rest of his family.Charlotte escaped and fled to a neighbors house where the sheriff's office was called. Hutchins shot Captain Huskey in the head with a high-powered rifle, ambush-style from within his home, as he exited his patrol car which was parked in the driveway in the front of the Hutchins' home. Deputy Messersmith was dispatched several minutes later to check on the captain who had not radioed or called in. Upon arriving, Messersmith apparently saw the captain lying beside his vehicle and realized that Huskey had been fatally shot. As he shifted into reverse and started to back away to cover, Messersmith too was shot in the head through the windshield of his patrol car. The vehicle drifted backwards across the street and came to rest in a ditch with Messersmiths' body slumped over the steering wheel, causing the horn to blow without stop.
A frantic neighbor called the sheriff's office to report that two deputies had been shot in the Hutchins driveway. Confusion ensued at the sheriff's office, as the radio dispatcher on duty fainted when told that the 2 officers had been shot. A jailer in the jail in the next room heard the radio, but became concerned that he did not hear the dispatcher. Upon entering the dispatch area, he realized the dispatcher was passed out and began to answer phones while calling an ambulance for the dispatcher. All available ambulances were speeding to the Hutchins residence at the time, adding to the chaos. The jailer did not know to notify state highway patrol regional headquarters in Asheville, so that troopers could be alerted of the situation to respond to assist and also to get a description of the shooter and his vehicle.
Immediately after the he murdered the 2 deputies, Hutchins fled the scene in his own car, still armed with his high-powered rifle. NC State Highway Patrol Trooper Robert L. "Pete" Peterson, 37, was stopped at the McDowell-Rutherford County line, to the North of Rutherfordton, on US Highway 221, talking to a fellow trooper assigned to McDowell County. Peterson sudddenly heard garbled radio traffic on the Rutherford County Sheriff's frequency on his scanner. Troopers often used personally-owned scanners to monitor local law enforcement radio calls, which were on differing frequencies from the State Highway Patrol. Though Peterson could not make out what was happening, he determined something was wrong and left toward Rutherfordton. In the pre-cell phone era, Peterson radioed the Troop "G" communications center in Asheville and asked state highway patrol dispatchers to call the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office and find out what was wrong. Like many rural NC counties, the sheriff's communications center dispatched for all law enforcement agencies in the county except for state officers.
State highway patrol dispatchers called repeatedly, but were not able to get through to the Rutherford County sheiff's office due to the chaos. They were also unable to get a computer reply either, because the jailer attending the phones did not know how to use the then-new North Carolina state-wide Police Information Network computer system (PIN/later the Division of Criminal Information [DCI]), the NC link of the FBI's nationwide National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Having used the PIN computer system would have enabled communication between the agencies in lieu of the overloaded phone lines. The chaotic situation and unlikely series of unfortunate events prevented troopers in the region from getting an immediate report of the incident and they were thus unaware that two Rutherford County officers had been murdered and that the suspect was at large in his car.
As Trooper Peterson entered the Rutherfordton city limits on US 221, Hutchins sped past the him. Peterson turned and pursued, apparently thinking he was after a speeder and not knowing the suspect had just murdered 2 sheriff deputies. Peterson's last radio transmission to Highway Patrol HQ in Asheville said that the suspect had fled on foot to the tree line. Troopers from across the region were made aware of the 2 Rutherford deputies having been murdered just as contact was lost with Peterson. Troopers who were rushing to assist Rutherford County officers realized that Peterson may have unknowingly encountered the killer of the deputies and slews of on and off-duty troopers began to speed to his location when he did not check in again. Responding troopers arrived to find Peterson's patrol car with the blue light on the roof flashing. It was stopped on the northbound shoulder of a sharp curve on US 221 behind Hutchins' car which was stopped near the tree line. The Trooper was slumped by the driver's side of his patrol car mortally wounded, suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. His revolver was drawn and had been fired one time. His body position was consistent with his having apparently used his vehicle engine block for cover, a standard tactic for troopers.
Pete Peterson was a living legend in the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, for being the longest-serving and most motivated physical training instructor in the history of the NC Highway Patrol Training Center. He had transferred to Rutherford County from the Training Center 18 months earlier and was affectionately nicknamed "Super Trooper" by both law enforcement personnel and Rutherford County residents for his incredible physical fitness and relentless motivation to arrest drunken drivers. Pete Peterson remains a legend within the State Highway Patrol, in Rutherford County and in Western North Carolina law enforcfement circles.
James Hutchins was captured in a dense thicket in Rutherford County on June 1, 1979 after a 12 hour search conducted by over 200 local, state and federal law enforcement officers from across Western North Carolina. This event was later recuonted in a feature film, Rutherford County Line, "Damon's Law" by a local film producer near Rutherford County. Due to the widespreaqd anger of local residents in Rutherford County against Hutchins for having murdered three respected and well-liked area lawmen, Hutchins was jailed the next day in Shelby leveland County, North Carolina] for his own safety. He was later transferred to the more-secure Buncombe County jail for safekeeping in Asheville, North Carolina. Trooper Peterson was one of 14 NC troopers killed in the western mountains of NC Highway Patrol Troop "G", which is nearly 1/4 of all troopers to die in the line of duty state-wide in North Carolina since the Highway Patrol was established in 1929. .
On June 12, 1979, Hutchins' oldest daughter, Charlotte, testified in Rutherford County that on the day of the murders her father beat her and other members of their family. The disagreement was over the amount of vodka the daughter had poured into a punch for a high school graduation party. As the trial opened on September 17, 1979, Hutchins pleaded not guilty following the prosecutor's demand that he receive the death penalty. Days later, the jury found Hutchins guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder. The same jury ruled that Hutchins should die in the state's gas chamber. Presiding Judge Donald Smith set October 12, 1979 as Hutchins' execution date, also referring to Hutchins as “the most dangerous man I’ve ever seen.” Appeals brought an automatic delay.
Superior Court Judge Lacy Thornburg later set October 15, 1981 as the date of execution. However, further appeals pushed the date to January 22, 1982. Prior to this scheduled execution date, the state Supreme Court granted a stay so further appeals could be pursued. A new date was set for October 15, 1982; however, this was also delayed by appeals.
Aftermath:
The State Highway Patrol made a concerted effort to have better and more timely communications with local law enforcement agencies after the Rutherford County tragedy, which was the worst one-day felonious loss of life of peace officer life in NC law enforcement history. A previous and similar incident occurred in 1975, when a NC Highway Patrolman was similarly killed (the title of "Trooper" was changed in 1977 when women were admitted to the ranks. In that incident, NC Highway Patrolman G.T. Davis of Troop "A" was shot to death in downtown Williamston (Martin County) in eastern NC, when he too stopped a car that was wanted. In his case, he stopped a car for running a redlight at US 64 and US 17 intersection, but was unaware that minutes earlier, the 3 suspects had just robbed a bank in Jamesville, 10 miles to the east. Martin County officials had failed to report the robbery and suspect description to the Highway Patrol. Law enforcement personnel across North Carolina continue to this day to chronicle the Rutherford County tragedy, to emphasize the dangers of domestic disputes to law enforcement officers. Response to domestic violence calls, related tactics and training were changed as a result of this incident to emphasize and enhance officer safety.
Execution
On September 8, 1983, a new execution date was set for January 13, 1984. On January 6, leading up to his execution, James Hutchins chose lethal injection as his means of execution. Hutchins was ultimately executed in North Carolina on March 16, 1984.See also
- List of individuals executed in North Carolina
- Capital punishment in the United StatesCapital punishment in the United StatesCapital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...
Sources
- Offender Data Screen. North Carolina Department of Correction. Retrieved on 2008-04-15.
- Executions carried out under current death penalty statute. North Carolina Department of Correction.
- Witnesses Selected for August 6 Execution. North Carolina Department of Correction.
- Woodard v. Hutchins,