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