The husband accused of murdering his wife in Jacksonville over the weekend had his first court appearance on Monday.<\/p>\n
It was an emotional scene inside the Onslow County Courthouse as the judge announced that 48-year-old Michael Ray Davis will be held without bond for the alleged murder of his wife, Stacy Lee Davis.<\/p>\n
Both of their families were in court today, sitting together in the front row. They declined to speak on camera but say they are remaining unified at this time.<\/p>\n
Davis has a prior felony conviction for involuntary manslaughter in Onslow County dating back to 1997, which legally prohibits him from possessing a firearm. It was a case tried by District Attorney Ernie Lee.<\/p>\n
He is now charged with murder and possession of a firearm by a felon.<\/p>\n
Their neighbor, Greg Payne, requested not to be shown on camera but says the news came as a shock.<\/p>\n
“Michael was a good guy. He cut my grass when I didn\u2019t have time to. I didn\u2019t expect anything like that from him.”<\/p>\n
According to Jacksonville Police, the couple was leaving a friend\u2019s house on Williamsburg Parkway when they got into an argument just before the shooting.<\/p>\n
Police Chief Jarad Phelps says alcohol played a role Saturday night.<\/p>\n
“There was alcohol involved. Therefore, we were not able to speak to him coherently that night.”<\/p>\n
Chief Phelps would not disclose whether their relationship had a history of abuse. However, their neighbor across the street, Patricia Jepson, vividly remembers an incident last year.<\/p>\n
One time I heard them fighting so bad. They had the garage door open, and she was yelling, \u2018Help me! Help me!\u2019 But that was mainly the only thing I\u2019ve ever heard.<\/p>\n
Several neighbors say the couple mostly kept to themselves. The victim\u2019s family says they were together for roughly a decade and share a son.<\/p>\n
Stacy also had an older son from a previous relationship who was visibly distraught in court. Both family members and neighbors say they did not see this coming.<\/p>\n
Jepson says the situation has motivated her to speak up against domestic violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think about other couples and stuff you see going on, and maybe you should say something. Maybe you should try to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief Phelps described this as a domestic incident that is seen far too often here in Jacksonville. He warns those in similar situations to seek help before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The husband accused of murdering his wife in Jacksonville over the weekend had his first court appearance on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-185237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}