Burnsville, NC: Yancey County slayings ruled murder-suicide

BY NANCI BOMPEY • OCTOBER 5, 2010

BURNSVILLE — A Yancey County man shot his girlfriend twice in the chest before driving to a nearby fishing pond and turning the gun on himself.



Yancey County Chief Deputy Thomas L. Farmer said Charles Harrison Bennett, 75, and Lila Marie Davis, 56, had a disagreement about breaking up Sept. 27.

The argument led Bennett to shoot and kill Davis with a .38-caliber handgun and leave her body partially covered in the front yard of his home on Green Mountain Drive.

Farmer said Bennett then drove in his 1997 Chevrolet truck several hundred yards behind his house to a fishing pond on his property.

He got out of the truck, and using the same handgun he killed Davis with, Bennett shot himself in his left upper torso. The bullet penetrated his heart and killed him immediately.

Bennett's body then fell into the shallow pond a few feet from the truck, where deputies found him. The handgun was discovered in the water near the body.

“In talking to friends and family of Miss Davis, they apparently had been dating for some time, and there was some discussion that the relationship was going to end. … She was actually planning to move last Monday from Yancey County to (Cleveland County),” Farmer said. “The discussion ending the relationship in addition to the fact that she was planning on moving were contributing factors to some type of dispute.”

Investigators found the bodies of Bennett and Davis on Sept. 27 after receiving a call around 2 p.m. reporting that a woman was lying in the frond yard. Bennett and his truck were discovered three hours later.

The interviews with friends and family, the preliminary autopsy report and consultation with the State Bureau of Investigation made it apparent that the deaths were the result of a murder-suicide, Farmer said.

He said there had been no problems between the two reported to law enforcement before the incident. Neither Bennett nor Davis had any criminal history.

“There were no calls for help,” Farmer said. “It was just a very tragic incident.”