David William MacDougall

David William MacDougall, of Charleston, SC, died September 2, 2025 after a struggle with esophageal cancer. He was 74. He was born February 28, 1951, in Camden, NJ, a son of Howard W. MacDougall and Marjorie Jean Deering MacDougall. He grew up in southern New Jersey and attended Lenape High School.

Surviving are his wife, Kathy Jasch MacDougall, of Charleston; two daughters, Jennifer Oxenford (James) of Lansdowne, PA; Lacey Buff Elliott (Ryan) of Germany; his brother the Rev. Steven A. (Cheryl) MacDougall of Fort Wayne, IN; his sister, Mrs. Joyce Schrank (the Rev. Jeffrey) of Phoenix, AZ. He had two granddaughters, Sophia and Emily, and a grandson due in December.

Before moving to Charleston in 1985, Mr. MacDougall worked as a real estate salesman, an auto mechanic, an alcoholism counselor, and a firefighter in southern New Jersey. He briefly worked for the Charleston Fire Department before being hired as a features reporter at The News and Courier and Evening Post in 1986. He wrote feature stories from 1986 until 1990, when he moved to the crime and public safety beat. He is perhaps best known for his extensive and exclusive coverage of the search for a serial rapist in the early 1990s.

In 1995, helped launch Charleston.net, a website for The Post and Courier. He was in the newspaper’s information technology department until 2009, when he returned to the newsroom as a crime reporter and web editor. He retired from The Post and Courier in 2016.

He was also a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, having maintained continuous sobriety from January 11, 1977, until the day he died. He had many close friends in the recovery community in Charleston.

After having been blessed by God with a positive response to treatment for lung cancer in 2010, David was fond of saying, “No Christian who dies with faith in Jesus intact can be said to have lost a battle with cancer.”

David was raised in a Christian home but wandered away from the faith in his teens. After the prayers of his parents, siblings, and his daughter, Jennnifer, the Holy Spirit rekindled David’s faith in Jesus in 1984. He was a member of Grace Lutheran Church in Summerville and attended Celebrate Recovery at James Island Baptist Church.

We pray that every person reading this knows God’s abundant mercy and grace and the salvation offered through Jesus Christ.

Relatives and friends of the family are kindly invited to attend his funeral at Grace Lutheran Church in Summerville, SC on Sunday, September 28, at 2pm ET. There will be no viewing. Friends may visit family members at a reception after the service in the fellowship hall.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in David’s memory to Grace Lutheran Church, 1600 Old Trolley Road, Summerville, SC, 29485, or to Celebrate Recovery at James Island Baptist Church, 2023 Wappoo Drive, Charleston, SC, 29412.