Prior to May 31, 1979, Hutchins was also charged with shooting an unarmed man. On the night of May 31, 1979 James W. Hutchins gunned down Rutherford County NC deputy sheriffs Captain Roy Huskey, 42, 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 to prepare for her high school graduation that evening and making an alcoholic drink for a party afterwards. 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 neighbor's 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 he murdered the 2 deputies, Hutchins fled the scene in his own car, still armed with his high-powered rifle.