Deputy Sheriff James W. Taylor, 50, was ambushed and killed on Wednesday, July 7, 1982, while seated in his patrol car next to the county jail in Double Springs, Winston County, Alabama. Three men walked up to his vehicle and opened fire with a shotgun and a pistol; Taylor was struck multiple times and died at the scene. The attack was an attempt to free a prisoner in the adjacent jail who was the brother of one of the assailants.

Two suspects were captured the day after the shooting; a third fled and was arrested by FBI agents in Nashville, Tennessee, six months later. All three men were later convicted: two were found guilty of murder (one originally sentenced to death, later commuted to life; the other given 18 years), and the third was convicted of manslaughter.

Anyone who remembers the jail area in Double Springs in July 1982 or has information about the ambush is asked to come forward.