Private Michael Donell Stephenson, 29, was killed in the pre-dawn hours of July 16, 1997, while responding to a burglary alarm at Jamestown Elementary School in Hephzibah, near Augusta, Georgia. Stephenson, an African American officer with the Richmond County Board of Education Public Safety and a U.S. Army veteran of the Persian Gulf War, had detained a subject found on the school grounds and placed him in the back of his patrol car at about 4:30 a.m.

A school custodian and his son arrived and spoke with Stephenson. According to witness accounts, the detainee had concealed a handgun and fired from inside the cruiser, striking Stephenson twice. Stephenson returned fire before the suspect fled; the witnesses later identified the shooter as Bryan T. Williams, who turned himself in the same night. Stephenson left behind a wife and two young sons.

Williams was convicted of the murder in 1999 and sentenced to life without parole after prosecutors sought the death penalty. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the conviction on appeal. Did anyone in the community remember Stephenson’s patrol that morning or have information about the case?