Roger W. Van Schaik was a 31-year-old patrolman with the Chicago Police Department who was killed in an ambush on March 3, 1979. He and his partner, Patrolman William Bosak, had completed a traffic stop near 115th Street and May Street in Chicago and were returning to their squad car when a motorist, Kenneth Allen, approached from the opposite direction and opened fire with an M-1 rifle without warning. Both officers were killed in the attack.

Allen was apprehended shortly afterward and later convicted of the murders of Van Schaik and Bosak. He was initially sentenced to death; that sentence was commuted to life without parole on January 10, 2003, when outgoing Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the state s death-row sentences. Prior to the ambush, Allen had been arrested on December 13, 1978, and had his weapons seized; he had also inquired at a locksmith and glazier shop about the bulletproof nature of police car windows on the day of the killings. Van Schaik had served with the department for over nine years and was survived by his wife, two daughters, a son, and a brother.

Did anyone who knew Officer Van Schaik or his family see him on duty in the months before March 1979 or have information about the days surrounding the ambush?