A 35-year-old man previously convicted in the beating death of a teenager squared off with a hatchet-wielding rival in a Panama City Publix parking lot, both now face aggravated battery charges over a dispute about a woman.
James Gay, 35, walked up to Everette Krichbaum, 52, as Krichbaum sat in his car outside a Publix supermarket in Panama City, Florida, on August 4 and started a verbal confrontation, according to an arrest affidavit filed by the Panama City Police Department. Gay then returned to his own vehicle, grabbed a machete still in its sheath, came back, and struck Krichbaum in the face with it. Krichbaum responded by swinging a hatchet at Gay as the two men squared up in the parking lot.
Both men left the scene bloodied. When officers arrived, Gay had a deep cut on his pinky finger that exposed bone and a puncture wound in his lower abdomen. Krichbaum had multiple lacerations across his hands and face. Paramedics transported both men by ambulance to a hospital, Fox News Digital reported.
The motive was as old as civilization and about half as dignified. Detectives determined the fight stemmed from a dispute over a woman, one Krichbaum is currently dating and Gay previously dated. Gay told police he was "attacked... over his ex-girlfriend."
Stephanie Marshall, who identified herself to Fox News Digital as Gay's girlfriend, offered a different angle. Marshall, listed as a witness on the police report, said she and Gay had been dating since June. She described a feud between the two men that had been building over the woman connected to both of them.
Gay was arrested the same day and charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Detectives named him the "primary aggressor." Krichbaum was released from the hospital on August 5 and promptly arrested by the Washington County Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Marshals Florida/Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force. He was charged with aggravated battery causing bodily harm or disability.
Both men sat in Bay County Jail as of August 7. Gay is listed as representing himself. Whether Krichbaum has retained an attorney remains unclear. Fox News Digital could not reach either man for comment.
Gay's rap sheet makes the parking lot confrontation look like a pattern, not a one-off. In 2011, he was convicted of aggravated battery in connection with the death of a 16-year-old boy near Panama City. Gay used a chain wrapped around his hand to fracture the teenager's skull. Other co-defendants were also charged in the boy's death.
A judge sentenced Gay to 15 years in prison in 2012. Florida Department of Corrections records show he was released early in June 2024, roughly two years before he allegedly grabbed a machete and went after another man in a grocery store parking lot.
The timeline deserves a second look. Gay fractured a teenager's skull with a chain, drew a 15-year sentence, walked out of prison early, and within two years stood in a Publix parking lot swinging a sheathed machete at a man's face. Detectives called him the primary aggressor. He is now representing himself from a jail cell.
When a man convicted of a violent felony that left a child dead gets out early and promptly picks up a bladed weapon in a public parking lot, the system that released him owes the public an explanation, not just another booking photo.
