Eric Bennett Sammons, a 51-year-old White/Caucasian male from Williamson, West Virginia, died on October 7, 2021, after a confrontation on a Mingo County roadway turned violent. Online reports described the shooting as an apparent road-rage incident that unfolded around 2 p.m. near the intersection of U.S. Route 119 and U.S. Route 52 in Williamson.
Sammons was driving a red Chevrolet Cruze, and police said the encounter involved a tractor-trailer driven by James Blaine Armstrong, a 66-year-old truck driver from Yulee, Florida.
According to the criminal complaint described in news reports, Armstrong was traveling north on Route 119 when Sammons pulled in front of the semi at the intersection and blocked it from continuing. The complaint said Sammons got out of his vehicle and approached the driver’s side of the tractor-trailer while yelling and cursing. Reports said Armstrong rolled down his window as Sammons came closer, and the confrontation escalated when Sammons opened the door of the semi. Armstrong then pulled a. 380 Ruger handgun from his pocket and fired one shot.
The shot struck Sammons in the upper chest, and he fell to the ground near the truck. He died from the gunshot wound, leaving the roadway scene as both a traffic confrontation and a homicide investigation. Sammons’ obituary remembered him as a lifelong Williamson resident, born there on October 3, 1970, and described him as someone who spent much of his life working as a heavy equipment operator in the Tug Valley area mines. It also noted his love for the outdoors, side-by-side riding, and working on his Jeep, adding a personal picture of a man whose life had deep roots in the community where he died.
Williamson police arrested James Blaine Armstrong after the shooting, and he was charged with second-degree murder. Early reports said he was taken to the Southwestern Regional Jail, and one local report listed his bond as a $200,000 cash-only bond. Armstrong’s attorney said the shooting was self-defense, arguing that the confrontation placed Armstrong in danger. Prosecutors and police continued forward with the case, and at a preliminary hearing in Mingo County, a magistrate found probable cause to send the second-degree murder charge to a grand jury.
The legal questions surrounding the case centered on whether Armstrong’s use of deadly force was justified. Reports noted that the defense raised self-defense and the possibility that the semi-truck, particularly because it had a sleeper compartment, could be considered under a Castle Doctrine argument. The magistrate did not dismiss the charge at that stage, allowing the case to move ahead for grand jury review. Publicly available online reporting located for this synopsis confirms the arrest, the second-degree murder charge, and the case being sent forward, but did not show a final trial verdict or conviction in the accessible sources reviewed.
