James Alexander Hilton, a 40-year-old White/Caucasian truck driver from Southampton, New Jersey, was shot and killed in the early morning of March 22, 2024, at the Love’s Travel Stop on Mountain Road in Upper Bern Township, near Hamburg, Pennsylvania. Troopers were called around 2:48 a.m. for a shooting in the rear parking lot. Hilton had been helping another truck driver park when an argument with a different trucker escalated and he was shot. Emergency responders pronounced him dead at the scene.

Police identified a suspect as Travis Jerell Pugh of Jacksonville, Florida. After the shooting, Pugh reportedly left the truck stop in his tractor-trailer; troopers issued a lookout and located and stopped the truck on Interstate 78 in Lehigh County less than an hour later. Charges filed included first-degree murder along with a long list of weapons- and assault-related counts; investigators reported finding a handgun holster and 9mm ammunition in the suspect’s truck and said he did not have a license to carry a firearm in Pennsylvania or Florida.

Hilton left behind his wife, Poonyawee Polly Hilton, and their young son; family and community members described him as the family’s sole supporter who was killed while helping another driver. Does anyone have information about Hilton’s final hours or witnessed the altercation at the truck stop?