On the morning of December 28, 1976, 41-year-old officer Billy Ray ’Bill’ Watson was killed while working an off-duty assignment at Peachtree Mall in Columbus, Georgia. Watson went into the Final Approach Lounge after it remained open past the 2 a.m. closing and encountered an ongoing robbery. The robber, Ronald Keith Spivey, shot Watson in the head and chest, killing him instantly.

Spivey left the scene with a waitress taken hostage and continued firing, wounding an employee at another nearby business; a restaurant manager who approached the disturbance survived by playing dead. Spivey was captured a few hours later in Alabama carrying two handguns, one identified as Officer Watson’s service weapon, engraved with his name and badge number. Spivey was later convicted of Watson’s murder among other charges.

Did anyone in Columbus have contact with Officer Watson or remember the Final Approach Lounge that night?