Trooper Giles Arthur Harmon, 26, was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Haywood County, North Carolina, on April 9, 1985. Harmon had served five years with the North Carolina Highway Patrol and previously worked as a police officer in Brevard, North Carolina. He was conducting heightened traffic enforcement that day because of recent rock slides.

The driver stopped by Harmon was a 25-year-old man who earlier that day had kidnapped his employer in Kentucky and still had that victim in the vehicle. Two passing truck drivers witnessed the shooting and tried to run the suspect off the road; the suspect escaped, later abandoning the vehicle and releasing the abducted employer nearby. A massive manhunt involving state, local, and federal officers from North Carolina and Tennessee led to the suspect’s capture three days later on the banks of the Pigeon River, about two miles from the Tennessee line.

Harmon is survived by his wife, a Buncombe County sheriff’s deputy, and his parents. The North Carolina General Assembly passed a resolution commending Trooper Harmon the day after his death, and a section of Highway 276 in Brevard was later renamed in his honor. If anyone has information about Trooper Harmon or remembers him and his service, please share what is known.