Carol Ann Brown was shot and killed outside her apartment on Davis Place Drive in Clarkesville on Saturday, October 7.
Funeral services are scheduled Thursday for a Clarkesville woman who was found shot to death outside her home.
54-year-old Carol Ann Brown died in an apparent murder-suicide. The preliminary investigation and official autopsy report reveal James Robert Goeslin shot Brown outside the apartment they shared on Davis Place Drive and then turned the gun on himself. Both died from single gunshot wounds to the head.
Brown’s funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday, October 12, 2017, at Timber Ridge Baptist Church in Hall County. Burial will follow in the church cemetery.
The family will receive friends from 5-8 p.m. on Wednesday at McGhee-Griffin & Stewart Funeral Home in Cornelia.
Click here for complete Carol Ann Brown obituary
Shots fired
Police were dispatched to the scene of the shooting at 8:49 p.m. on October 7. Clarkesville Police Chief Brad Barrett says his department received a call of a possible domestic altercation with gunshots fired. When officers arrived on the scene, Barrett says they discovered two bodies lying on the ground in front of the apartment.
“After a preliminary examination, officers conducted a safety search of the dwelling,” Barrett says in a press release. He says once officers secured the area they obtained a search warrant for the premises.
Preliminary investigation results indicate Brown and Goeslin died around the same time.
Chief Barrett says a .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene by law enforcement. The Clarkesville Police Department asked the GBI to assist with the investigation.
Shock and sadness
Within hours of the shooting, Brown’s family members arrived at the scene. They spoke with law enforcement and consoled each other as investigators attempted to piece together the final moments of her life.
The shooting sent shockwaves through the small neighborhood that sits less than a half-mile from the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office.
“Nobody’s immune to it. Unfortunately, this can happen anywhere.”
Ulous Harris lives nearby and attends Mt. Zion Church which sits directly across the road from where the shooting occurred. His cousin lives in a house adjacent to the crime scene. He says at first he was scared something had happened to her. “I was coming from Cornelia and I saw all those police lights and cars so I shot up here and pulled into the church’s parking lot and I saw the woman’s body.”
Harris says, “It feels like Atlanta, like seeing something in Atlanta. I’m used to seeing stuff on the news like this but not around here. Not nothing this horrible.”
Asked to reflect on such a crime in generally quiet Clarkesville Chief Barrett says, “Nobody’s immune to it. Unfortunately, this can happen anywhere. We don’t see the volume, of course, that most jurisdictions in most areas with a higher population sees but, again, we’re not immune to this type of thing. It can happen anywhere, anytime as long as the means are there to commit such crimes.”
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to please contact Clarkesville Police at (706) 754-5390.
