By BOB HIGH
Staff Writer

A 44-year-old woman was stabbed to death in Chadbourn Friday night, and an 85-year-old resident of Old Stake Road southwest of Chadbourn was killed Saturday morning when an oak tree accidentally fell on him.

Barbara Jean Jackson was found dead at 4 a.m. Saturday by Chadbourn police and rescue personnel. She was lying on the kitchen floor of her residence along West Princess Street.

Columbus County Coroner Linwood Cartrette said Jackson had been stabbed in the upper right chest. Her body was sent for an autopsy.

James Linwood “Bubba” Gause, 52, Jackson’s longtime live-in boyfriend, was arrested on a charge of murder, and is housed in the county jail pending a court appearance Monday (today).

Admitted stabbing

“Mr. Gause admitted stabbing the Jackson woman and not calling for rescue or police for a few hours.

We’re not sure when the actual stabbing took place,” said Chadbourn Police Chief Steven Shaw.

“Answering a call at the Jackson-Gause home wasn’t unusual for us. She was cut once before about the neck, and he has also been injured in an acts of domestic violence,” Shaw added.

Investigators, including agents of the State Bureau of Investigation, found a steak knife on the couch in the singlewide mobile home, and Shaw said this was the weapon used to stab the victim.

“We feel the death was much earlier in the night. We’re not sure of what time it happened, but the woman’s body was cold when we were notified,” the chief added.

Cutting firewood

The tree incident killed Ratchford Emory Duncan at 11:20 a.m. Saturday, as he and two grandchildren were cutting and gathering firewood, the coroner reported.

Cartrette related the following events:

Duncan, grandson Brian Heath Strickland of Tabor City, and granddaughter Crystal Lynn McPherson of Chadbourn, and Duncan’s wife, Pauline Nealey Duncan, were about 125 yards behind Duncan’s home in the 9600 block of Old Stake Road southwest of Chadbourn.

Duncan, recovering from recent knee surgery, was seated near his 1999 GMC pickup truck and a log splitter, about 25 feet from where Strickland was cutting an oak tree, about 12 to 15 inches in diameter.

Strickland suggested that his grandfather, grandmother and McPherson move as he stopped cutting with a chainsaw. Strickland saw the tree was falling in the wrong direction and tried to hold it up for a moment, but he was unable to stop the tree.

Died at scene

The trunk of the oak struck Duncan in the head and chest, plus also hit McPherson as they tried to move away. Duncan died at the scene, and McPherson sustained multiple injuries and was taken to the Loris, S.C., hospital. She was transferred to a Charleston, S.C., hospital late Saturday.

Neither Duncan or McPherson were pinned by the tree as it fell partially across the rear of the pickup, plus the trunk was held off the ground by limbs.

Mrs. Duncan narrowly missed injury as the tree limbs brushed her, a sheriff’s report noted.

The death of Jackson is the second homicide in Chadbourn this year. Robert Allen Bellamy II, 35, died on April 14 in a hospital after being shot in the upper left leg where a femoral artery was damaged on April 13 in an argument over $10.

Gary Fennell Robinson, 45, of Jackson Street, Chadbourn, was charged with taking Bellamy’s life.