Trooper First Class Bruce Kenneth Smalls, 30, of the South Carolina Highway Patrol, was shot and killed during a traffic stop on Interstate 95 in Jasper County on a September day in 1985. Smalls, a U.S. Army veteran who had served with the highway patrol for nine years, was survived by his wife and two sons.

Investigators say the vehicle Smalls stopped was occupied by people who had just killed the car’s driver, 52-year-old Daniel Swanson. The shooter was 22-year-old Richard Charles Johnson. Two passengers, Connie Sue Hess and Curtis Harbert, later became state witnesses, testifying that they saw Johnson commit the killing of Trooper Smalls; charges against Hess and Harbert were dropped.

A Jasper County jury convicted Johnson of Trooper Smalls’ murder in February 1986 and sentenced him to death. Johnson also pleaded guilty to Swanson’s murder in March 1986 and received a life term. What can readers who remember that stretch of I-95 or that patrol stop add about the morning Trooper Smalls was killed?