The search for the St. Johns County man accused of fatally shooting his estranged wife and her friend is over.
The Sherriff’s Office says James Colley Junior was taken into custody following a traffic stop late Thursday night in Virginia. A driver called 911 to say she was being followed.
“Harassing her on the road, and she felt attempting to run her off the road and get her to stop,” says SJSO Commander Chuck Mulligan.
Police in that Virginia town matched the car description to the BOLO out of St. Johns County, so multiple units responded to pull it over. Colley was taken in to custody without incident and charged with DUI. Mulligan says several guns were found in Colley’s car, even though he signed multiple affidavits saying he owned neither guns nor ammunition.
Deputies say the search for Colley started after there was an isolated, domestic related shooting on South Bellagio Drive in the Murabella subdivision, outside of World Golf Village. Deputies believe James Colley shot the two victims, with several other people in the home at the time. Sheriff David Shoar says Colley was sentenced Thursday morning to a year of probation and no contact with his wife after he violated an injunction.
Friends tell us the couple was getting divorced.
“At one point, they were in love and they were married, and then things went back to the point where people get killed,” Shoar says.
The victims have now been identified as 36-year-old Amanda Colley and 39-year-old Lindsey Dobbins.
We’ve obtained the injunction for protection against domestic violence obtained by Amanda Colley, who goes by Amanda Cloaninger in the document. The court found that Cloaninger “is a victim of domestic violence or had reasonable cause to believe that he/she is in imminent danger of becoming a victim of domestic violence”, according to the injunction.
Cloaninger said she came home from a weekend away to find her clothes had been burned, and Colley did not contest that he was responsible. She also alleged Colley had threatened to kill her dog, stole her medication, threatened to “cut” her if he caught her cheating, and frequently checked up on her location. The Court further determined Colley had committed “at least one act of domestic assault” and for Cloaninger, there was “a reasonable fear that she will be the future victim of domestic violence”, according to the injunction.
As a precaution, Wards Creek, Mill Creek, and Pacetti Bay were locked down because of the search for the suspect. We’re told one of Colley’s children is at one of those schools, and SJSO had provided extra security in case Colley came looking for the child. The couple had another child in pre-K, who was also being protected.
“He is desperate, he knows what he did,” Shoar says.
SJSO says they didn’t have any clear idea where Colley was heading.
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