Niceville shooting victim identified as former Okaloosa Commissioner Doug Hutcheson

The man who was fatally shot Saturday in a domestic violence incident in Niceville has been identified by associates as former Okaloosa County Commissioner Doug Hutcheson.

Though the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office declined to divulge the name of the victim of the shooting citing Marsy's Law, Crestview attorney Gillis Powell was able to do so after word got out within the local legal community.

Powell said he will remember Hutcheson, a fellow attorney, fondly.

"He was a good guy and one of the best bass fishermen in the area," Powell said. "He was always in a good mood and glad to see you. He was just a good guy."

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Deputies received a 911 call to the 100 block of Adams Street at just before midnight Saturday from a woman later identified as Susan Rebecca Cole. Cole told dispatchers she had shot a man.

Investigators arrived to find Cole on the front porch of the home and the shooting victim in a hallway, deceased, with a gunshot wound to the head.

Cole told investigators that Hutcheson had arrived at the home carrying a gun and the two had engaged in what she told police was "a conversation."

Hutcheson left the weapon in the living room when he went to the bathroom and Cole said she followed him and shot him when he made a move toward her.

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Okaloosa County Property Appraiser records show that the Adams Street home was purchased in 2017 by Susan R. Hutcheson and court records indicated Susan Hutcheson and Doug Hutcheson were married in 2013 and divorced in 2018.

Divorce records further show that following the divorce Susan Hutcheson requested her name revert back to Susan Rebecca Cole.

Records show that, though he'd been arrested at least once on domestic violence-related charges, Hutcheson had at one time filed for permission to share the Adams Street home with Cole. Court documents stated he had been operating his law practice from the residence.

Efforts Monday to speak to the family of Doug Hutcheson were not successful.

Doug Hutcheson was elected to the Okaloosa County Commission in 2000, but his term on the commission was cut short by scandal.

About a week following his submitting paperwork to run for office, Pat Hollarn, who was then Okaloosa County's Supervisor of Elections, went to the state with questions about Hutcheson's claim in sworn testimony that he resided at a home in Escambia Farms in the north end of the county.

A handful of witnesses stepped up to say they never saw Hutcheson at the home in question and power company records showed no electricity had been used at the residence during the time Hutcheson claimed to live there.

Hutcheson was ultimately suspended from office in 2001 and in 2002, in the wake of local judges recusing themselves, a jury in Escambia County found him guilty of putting a false address on his voter registration form.

Though the charge carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, the judge in the case declined to adjudicate Hutcheson guilty. That left him eligible to run again for local office, which he did in 2002.

Hutcheson was still considered suspended from office when he decided in 2002 to seek once again the District 3 county commission seat. According to current Okaloosa County Supervisor of Elections Paul Lux, he was required to resign from the office he'd been suspended from in order to run again for that office.

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His second campaign did not go so well as the first. Hutcheson finished third in the voting, and Bill Roberts went on to take the 2002 election.

Hutcheson also made an unsuccessful run at the Supervisor of Elections seat in 2008. Lux emerged victorious from among a group of four.

Though she turned him in for elections violations, Hollarn said she, like Powell, could never recall a time when Hutcheson was difficult to deal with.

"While Doug's personal and political dealings were distasteful, he was never unpleasant," Hollarn said. "Even when I took him to court, he was never hateful to me, and I am sorry that his life had to end this way."

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Former Okaloosa Commissioner Doug Hutcheson shot, killed in Niceville