Investigator Steven Paul Bolyard, 37, was shot and killed on June 18, 1990, in Pensacola, Florida, while working a witness-tampering investigation in an auto theft case. Bolyard, who had served ten years with the Florida State Attorney’s Office for the 1st Judicial Circuit and previously four years with the Pensacola Police Department, was interviewing the victim at a home on Maplewood Drive when the murder suspect he had earlier arrested arrived and beat on the front door. Bolyard called for backup; before it arrived the suspect went to the rear of the house and fired through a window, striking Bolyard in the head twice. He retreated, was shot again in the back, and reached a neighbor’s home where he died before help could arrive.

The suspect, identified as Patrick Alan Rusty Salgat, was arrested about 12 hours later in Navarre and charged with Bolyard’s murder. Bolyard is survived by a child, his parents, and three brothers; colleagues remembered him as dedicated, compassionate, and fond of practical jokes and softball.