Eric Slusser was a clerk at a liquor store in Marion, Florida, who was shot in the head and killed during a robbery on December 12, 1979. The man charged in that robbery, identified as Sonny Boy Oats, entered the store with the intent to rob it and fatally shot Slusser. That killing was one of a series of violent crimes attributed to Oats around the same time; on December 20, 1979, he is reported to have robbed another store and shot and killed clerk Jeanette Dyer.

Oats was apprehended and faced multiple charges including first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, and robbery with a deadly weapon. His case produced lengthy litigation: he was sentenced to death in 1981, the sentence was reversed in 1984 because of a sentencing error, and he was re-sentenced to death later that year. Subsequent legal challenges raised ineffective-counsel and mental-health claims, and later developments questioned his intellectual capacity in light of a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision barring execution of individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Does anyone have memories of the Marion stores or information about Eric Slusser that could help build a clearer picture of him and the night of December 12, 1979?