Fallen in the Line of Duty

We have just finished another week of honoring police officers who have been killed in the line of duty. Our family has endured another time of not being able to do so for Davina because her death has been ruled as a 'suicide' by our local District Attorney, even though local, state, and federal benefit hearing panels have ruled it impossible that she could have shot herself in the manner in which she died. The time is coming, Dee, when this injustice to you will be resolved. What is done in the dark DOES come to the light. And it IS coming. Rest easy among your fellow fallen officers. Anyone wishing to leave condolences to Dee may do so at http://www.findagrave.com/ under the name Davina Elaine Jones.

Censorship in Brunswick County?

May 9, 2008
Irony? The two places in Brunswick County where employees may be fired for being found with a copy of Out With Three are Bald Head Island and the Brunswick County Offices. What are the powers that be in those places worried that employees will discover? Censorship in the USA? Who would have thought!

Bald Head Island magazine Haven

May, 2008
This year's BHI magazine Haven has an interesting quote on its inside front page: Do you believe a place can have a soul? If Bald Head Island has one, folks, it's blood stained.

Noted author publicizes our book!

April 19, 2008
True crime author Corey Mitchell noted our book and spotlighted it on his blog Blood of the Scribe. This is before he read it! He is a best-selling author of true crime stories. Thank you, Corey!

Elaine's response

Here is my opinion of Lewis' review.Dear Editor:First, I would like to thank Laura Lewis for her review of my book Out With Three. I would also like to clarify several points from that article. Yes, the book was self published. At present, it has not been picked up by a major press, unless being with Amazon is not a large enough market. Since the book went into press on February 14, 2008, it has sold over 1,200 copies. The fact that it was self published really didn’t have to be repeated twice in the review, but it was as if that cast dispersions on the book itself. The facts are what matters even if they had been printed on construction paper with crayon. Let’s stay with the importance of the book’s material, not who printed it.Second, it was kind of Lewis to point out that the book needed to be proofread and edited. Yes, any publication can make it to print needing the same treatment. I have seen mistakes in many books and newspapers where a better job could have been done. However, in this case, time and editing was not a luxury at my disposal. Although the review implied slinging hashed over clippings from newspapers and whatnot in a mishmash to ‘piece’ together a book, it took almost three years of research dealing with primary sources – not newspapers or hearsay – to build the infrastructure. The book had to come to light before any proceedings took place concerning the sheriff. By the time I was satisfied with my own efforts at proofreading and editing, I did not have time to allow a full editing by the publishing company. That would have held up publication until late or early April of this year. I did not want to be accused of publishing this book after the sheriff was already in trouble. I have had no one else complain that any editing errors have caused them trouble in comprehending the materials in the book.Third, while this book may be categorized more closely as ‘true crime,’ it does not fit neatly onto this shelf. There are approximately five (5) steps in writing a true crime book. The first is to pick an interesting crime. I believe I did that.The second is to investigate. That includes interviewing people involved. Iknew two things as certain. The District Attorney would not talk to aBuff – at least he has not so far. If he did talk, he would say the same thing he has said earlier. The others directly involved are either no longer here or would repeat the same they had said earlier. As late as this fall, Gore did an interview, taped (it can be seen on YouTube under Davina Buff Jones or on her website www.officerdavinabuffjones.com) where he does, in fact, say the same thing. She ‘chose another path’ (suicide). Why waste my time? When the Bald Head Island Police were approached, the officers at the office all ran out the back door while I talked to the secretary who was telling me that the chief was ‘out of town’. The other certainty was that as soon as the first one was approached, they would pick up the phone and alert powers that I did not want to know I was working on this book. After all, I would like to keep breathing and not found somewhere where my case would be ruled suicide. My goal was not a true crime book at any rate. The third step is to build a relationship with the law enforcement officials who are involved in the case. Good luck on that one. The same as above.The fourth step is to attend the trial and speak to everyone you can about the criminal, the victim and other characters. No trial. Yet.The last step is to write. I believe I did that. 1,200 sales worth in less than two months…Now, my purpose was not just to show that Davina did not kill herself. My purpose was to find out what happened. Period. A true crime story is not recommended for an unsolved story. I take issue with the Lewis comment that I used newspapers a great deal. Newspapers relied on what they were given from the police. The public in general never knew much about what really went on. The family itself never knew. It was kept secret. My job was to ferret the details out from among what was there, hidden away in what I found. It was and is my contention that the family had a right to know what happened to their daughter. I believe that any family has that same right when a family member has something traumatic happen to them. Furthermore, if it is in the public’s best interest, they have a right to know as well. You can categorize the book as true crime, true news, true whatever. It is TRUE. It is based on FACTS, not news articles. It is based on police work, expert testimony, SBI lab tests, not MY opinion or MY proofreading mistakes or MY editing errors or MY self publishing through Amazon. It is not MY story – it is DAVINA’s story – it is every Brunswick County citizen’s story who only wants to be safe in their own life - safe from thugs, safe from dishonest drug dealers, safe from dishonest powerful influential landowners, safe from dishonest policemen and governmental leaders. And that’s a run-on sentence. But it’s true. Period

Book Review - Brunswick Beacon, March 27, 2008

Book recalls Bald Head Island police officer's shooting death eight years ago
By LAURA LEWIS, Staff writer
Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of Bald Head Island police officer Davina Buff Jones’ violent death from a single shot from her own gun while she was working an overnight shift near Old Baldy Lighthouse.Local authorities soon determined Jones’ bullet wound to the back of her head was self-inflicted.Her family, however, disagreed, arguing Jones was murdered, most likely at the hands of shady people involved in illegal drug dealings on the posh resort island that’s accessible only by boat.Some people may have forgotten Jones’ untimely death, according to a new, self-published book about the controversial death that occurred minutes before midnight on Oct. 22, 1999. But her family hasn’t.“Out With Three: The Murder and Betrayal of Bald Head Island Police Officer Davina Buff Jones,” by an author using the pen name Elaine Buff, recounts Jones’ life, the events leading up to her fatal shooting on the job at the age of 33, and details, including diagrams and photographs, about the investigations.The self-published book would have benefited from a skilled proofreader and copy editor, along with the guidance of a true-crime writer who knows how to craft a solidly investigated story, based on the book’s premise that Jones was murdered.As it is, the book speaks from a single perspective devoted to shedding more light on events that raise doubts about the local, official assessment that Jones plotted to make her suicide look like an on-the-job shooting by murky suspects who were barely investigated and never charged. Her family maintains it was the other way around.The book’s stance might have been reinforced by including more fresh, quoted interviews with as many parties involved in the case as possible, to accompany its pieced-together, previously reported and compiled information. At times, it offers speculation that is attributed to no one.But the book does provide extra, often engrossing, information for anyone interested in garnering more details surrounding the officer’s mysterious death.The book’s title, “Out With Three,” refers to Jones’ initial transmitted message to the Brunswick County dispatcher about three people she reported encountering in the night just yards from the island’s historic lighthouse and in her final minutes before her fatal shooting.“Show me out with three…Stand by, please,” came Jones’ message via her portable radio to central communications. Seconds later, she could be heard admonishing the mystery persons:“There ain’t no reason to have a gun here on Bald Head Island, OK? You want to put down the gun? Come on, do me the favor and put down the gun.”Those were Jones’ last words before she was found dead facedown on the ground from a bullet wound to the head from her own Glock pistol.Soon, however, as investigative and rescue personnel swarmed the island, it was quickly determined Jones had staged her own shooting and also that she had a history of depression and psychological issues.The book maintains Bald Head’s powers-that-be were more concerned about washing away the shooting as quickly as possible, most immediately for a wedding at the nearby chapel the following day.It also cites several matters that had Jones in the hot seat—her claim of sexual harassment against a local rescue worker, as well as accounts she had been working with a county drug officer, whom witnesses reported seeing on the island the night Jones died, in investigating shadowy goings-on near the lighthouse.Jones’ parents, Loy and Harriet Buff, raised enough questions that even the North Carolina Industrial Commission ruled the cause of Jones’ death as “undetermined” and ultimately awarded her family double benefits.The book offers readers a chance to revisit the scene of a police officer’s tragic death, a site where her family says they still are not allowed to place flowers in her memory.Copies of the book are available at Amazon.com. More information about Jones’ death is also available via www.officerdavinabuffjones.com. Laura Lewis is a staff writer at the Beacon. Reach her at 754-6890 or at llewis@brunswickbeacon.com

Book Review - State Port Pilot April 16, 2008

Book at odds with DA on officer’s death
By Lisa P. Stites Writer
On Friday, October 22, 1999, a single gunshot to the head took the life of Bald Head Island police officer Davina Buff Jones. That fact is not in dispute.But more than eight years after Jones’ death, Loy and Harriet Buff still contest district attorney Rex Gore’s determination that their daughter killed herself. They maintain that she was getting too close to uncovering drug crimes, that her knowledge of what was going on would embarrass or implicate powerful people, and she was murdered.Gore ruled Jones’ death a suicide and closed the case. But the Buffs, not satisfied with his decision, pursued civil remedies and won awards through the N.C. Industrial Commission. Jones’ estate was awarded $25,000, but an appeal by the state led to another ruling that doubled that amount. The U.S. Department of Justice awarded $146,949 through the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Office. Gore looked at the case again, but again ruled Jones’ death a suicide. Loy Buff said the fight has never been about the money, but about the justice he seeks for his daughter’s sake.Out With Three: The Murder and Betrayal of Bald Head Island Police Officer Davina Buff Jones hit the shelves locally about two months ago. The first printing of 700 copies sold out and the Buffs ordered a second printing of the self-published book.Loy Buff said over the years several people have asked to write a book, but none ever followed through with the idea. Out With Three is written by a woman using the pseudonym Elaine Buff. Loy Buff said she was “fairly local” and that after she read about Jones’ death, she knew she had to write the story.“The book gives us some sort of — I don’t like to use the word — closure. You don’t ever get closure, but some satisfaction knowing that the truth is out,” Loy Buff said. Jones was portrayed as depressed and suicidal. She had been complaining about sexual harassment from an EMS worker, and she resented being reprimanded for making waves on Bald Head Island, by refusing to tear up citations and enforcing the law when others might have looked the other way. Days before her death, she learned her boyfriend was returning to his ex-wife to make the marriage work.With two failed marriages in her past, the 33-year-old had sought professional help in dealing with issues. But her mother Harriet said she always encouraged her three daughters to find someone they could talk to when they hit a rough spot. Daughters don’t always turn to their mothers as confidants, and Harriet said she support Jones’ decision to seek help elsewhere.Jones had two Australian shepherds at home, her “babies,” and a to-do list was found in her kitchen after her death, details that the Buffs say prove their daughter wouldn’t have taken her own life.The Buffs continue to refute the claim that their daughter killed herself, pointing out that expert opinions offered in the civil suits showed it was unlikely Jones could have physically shot herself in the back of her head at such an angle.In the process of cooperating with the author on the book, Loy Buff said he learned even more details himself.“There was so much information … we missed things,” he said.He said that one detail particularly surprised him — that State Bureau of Investigation agent Janet Storms had within hours of Jones’ death listed “self-inflicted gunshot wound” on her initial report. Later, Loy Buff said, SBI agent Tony Cummings, who later took a job with the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Department and has since retired, said the agency didn’t make determinations as to cause of death.“And yet his lead investigator did it within hours of (Jones’) death,” Loy Buff said.And to this day, Loy Buff says stacks of papers from his daughter’s home with personal notes, song lyrics, lists and poems, have still not been returned to him from the SBI, though the case has been ruled a suicide and closed twice as far as criminal prosecution is concerned.
Naming names and making counterclaimsThe book is very specific in its effort to discredit the investigation, naming names and making allegations of wrongdoing.The book blasts the way the crime scene was handled, saying officers’ mishandling of it forever hindered any investigation into what really happened that night.“It would seem obvious that the scene recognition stage was crippled from the removal of the body, the moving of the victim’s gun several times and the small size of the crime scene,” the book reads. The book details problems with the way Jones’ death was handled by local law enforcement agencies and agents with the SBI, from the initial medical examiner’s report that listed her weight and height incorrectly and depicted two gunshot wounds when there was only one, the crime scene being washed down without the Bald Head Island police chief’s knowledge or approval, and how witnesses were dealt with after Jones was found dead.“There’s lots of places in there where they didn’t do what they were supposed to do,” Loy Buff said. “If there had been any professionalism in the ‘investigation,’ I probably wouldn’t have pushed so hard.” What really bothers him, he said, is that his daughter’s death certificate will not be changed, and unless someone comes forward and admits to killing Jones, no one will ever be prosecuted in the case.One chapter in the book offers counterpoints to 42 statements and circumstances used to rule the death a suicide.The book also gives a time-line of events, and a possible conclusion of what happened that night. That narrative seems to make the claim that other law enforcement officers were not only complicit in her murder but had a hand in it as well.Loy Buff maintains his stance that influential Bald Head Island developers, along with Gov. Mike Easley, put pressure on the SBI to cover up the murder. He said he’s not concerned about any specific allegations made in the book.“Well, they did it,” he said. “If it’s such a big deal, why aren’t they clamoring on my phone to talk to me?”The book is sold locally at Beach Road Books, Midway Trading Post, Books ’n’ Stuff and other area businesses. It’s also available online through Amazon and through the author’s website, www.officerdavinabuffjones.com. All proceeds from the sale go to the D.B.J. Justice Fund, and the Buffs will not benefit financially from its sale.Though the Buffs say they wanted the book to come out so the truth could be told, the process has been somewhat difficult.“It brings back a lot of hard memories, to know that her peers would treat her the way they did,” Loy Buff said.Bucking the system has not been easy for the Buffs. “The Buffs were painted as semi-hysterical, money-grubbing people unwilling to face the fact that their daughter killed herself,” the book states.But since the book’s release, Loy said they’ve heard from so many people, some of them in tears because they didn’t realize how Jones had been treated. And they say working to clear her name is what their daughter would have expected of them.“We’re just trying to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Harriet Buff said. “That’s what Davina would have wanted.”