Woman killed when golf cart hits cable near Spring Lake

Katie E. Sessoms, 20, of Sierra Trail in Spring Lake, was riding with Joseph Johnson, 19, shortly after 9 p.m. when the cart hit a quarter-inch-diameter steel cable stretched across a sandy path amid a stand of pine trees and a tobacco field, authorities said.

The cable snapped, hitting Sessoms in the neck and tearing the top off the golf cart, authorities said.

Sessions was pronounced dead at the scene, and Johnson managed to drive the cart home to call for help.

Johnny Johnson said his son showed up at the house on Critter Creek Lane in Linden with a gash in his head and his mouth bleeding. The boy was so disoriented, Johnny Johnson said, that he had to go into the woods and search for half an hour before finding Sessoms.

"She had a lot going for her. She had very far to go in life," Ginger Sessoms said of her daughter.

The 2010 Overhills High School graduate had recently started dating Joseph Johnson, but the real love of her life was a 1983 Chevrolet C-10 pickup that she was restoring, according to her mother.

"She loved her truck. She bought it herself," Ginger Sessoms said. "It has a name: Fancy."

Katie Sessoms also liked art, country music and fishing, her mother said.

Joseph Johnson was taken to Betsy Johnson Memorial Hospital in Dunn and was later transferred to WakeMed, where he was in good condition Friday.

A neighbor said the cable, which is intended to keep trespassers out, has been across the path for more than a decade.

No charges have been filed, but the incident remains under investigation.