In the early hours of January 7, 1993, Corporal Betty Dunn Smothers, a 36-year-old mother of six and a 14-year veteran of the Baton Rouge Police Department, was fatally ambushed while working a second job as a security guard. She was in her marked patrol car escorting a grocery store manager to make a night deposit on Jefferson Highway when three individuals approached and opened fire without warning. Corporal Smothers was killed and the manager was seriously injured.

All three suspects were arrested. West Paul, identified as the getaway driver, received a 25-year sentence. Kevan Brumfield and Henri Broadway, the two men who fired on the vehicle, were convicted of first-degree murder and originally sentenced to death. The attack was described by investigators as a planned robbery that escalated into homicide. Betty Smothers’ death profoundly affected her family, including her son Warrick Dunn, who was 18 at the time.

If anyone has information about the ambush or remembers that night on Jefferson Highway, please come forward.