From Staff Reports

A woman was found fatally wounded with a screwdriver embedded in her skull and lying in a trash bin, late afternoon Feb. 12 in Asheville. Despite rescue efforts, she died shortly after being found.

Ambulance crews briefly resuscitated Kessinger, but she later died at Mission Hospital, according to Christina Hallingse, a spokeswoman for the Asheville Police Department.

When she was discovered about 4:30 p.m. by a man taking out the trash, the man reportedly said that he ran back into the building to call police, and then returned to the dumpster with a coworker, in an effort to help the victim.

The woman was later identified as Christina Louise Kessinger, 62, who had worked for six months as a real estate agent for Asheville Realty Group. 

As of late February, it remains unclear as to why Kessinger was at the Central Office Park office building at 56 Central Avenue near downtown.

“She was a wonderful person and a real professional. Our whole office is just heartbroken,” Bobbie Baxter, co-owner of the group, told the Asheville Citizen-Times. 

On the afternoon of Feb. 13,  Asheville police charged James Michael Norton, 29, of Marshall with first-degree murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon in Kessinger’s death. 

The arrest of Norton by Madison County sheriff’s deputies occurred after they received an anonymous call regarding a suspicious vehicle.

Just after 9 a.m. Feb. 13, deputies arrived at a home on Ledford & Craine Road in Marshall and reportedly discovered a 2010 Toyota Corolla with no license plates.

While deputies examined the car, Norton approached them from a house across the road. During the ensuing conversation, APD officers alerted Madison deputies that the Corolla was registered to Kessinger.

On Feb. 15, Norton appeared before a Buncombe County district court judge, where he was assigned a public defender and continues to be held without bond in the jail.

An subsequent examination of Norton’s background revealed that he was released from prison about a year ago — Feb. 15, 2015 — for larceny of a motor vehicle and altering a serial number, after serving a sentence of at least 10 months.

Norton’s criminal history shows felony convictions across several counties, including larceny of more than $1,000 and credit card theft in Buncombe County, breaking and entering in Madison County and drug possession in Henderson County, according to Department of Corrections records.

“I’m at 56 Central Office Park on the corner of Central and Elm. I went to throw some trash in the dumpster. There’s a lot of blood out here and somebody’s in the dumpster, not breathing, on and off,” the 911 caller told an Asheville police dispatcher on Feb. 12. 

“A coworker of mine jumped in and was trying to, tried to...” the caller continued, his voice trailing off as the dispatcher said it appeared that officers had reported to the scene.