Leonard Clifford Miller was 21 when he was killed on January 3, 1980, just three days after becoming a full-time patrolman with the Apollo Borough Police Department. Working alone on the midnight to 8 a.m. shift, he stopped a silver sports car on a semi-secluded stretch of Route 66 in Oklahoma Borough, across the river from Apollo. As he approached the vehicle he was shot twice, in the shoulder and the stomach. He radioed for help but was found dead at the scene beside his patrol car.

The shooting was the final act in an eight-day violent spree later called the Kill for Thrill rampage. Two 21-year-olds, John Lesko and Michael Travaglia, were arrested and charged in connection with Miller’s killing and three earlier murders — a 26-year-old single mother and two men, aged 32 and 49 — and were convicted and sentenced to death. Their convictions were overturned at different times in the 1990s and they were later retried; the death sentences were reinstated. Michael Travaglia died in prison on September 3, 2017; John Lesko remains on death row.

Anyone who remembers Patrolman Miller, the stop on Route 66, or has information about that night is asked to share what they know.