Patrolman John Robert Fallis, 26, of the Pine Bluff Police Department, was killed while on duty on March 4, 1985. Fallis, who had served about two and a half years with the department and was recently married with a child from a previous marriage, was responding to a noise complaint at 700 Walnut Street. He located two men in a vehicle and was giving the license plate to dispatch when one of the men stepped from the car and shot him with a .22 caliber handgun, striking him in the arm and chest. The shooter fled but was arrested the next day in Grady, Arkansas and identified as 29-year-old Samuel Davis Duncan, who reportedly was wanted in Seattle for separate murders from April 6, 1984.

Duncan was charged with the capital murder of Patrolman Fallis and a jury convicted him on November 22, 1985; he was sentenced to death. What gaps remain include why Duncan opened fire during what had been a routine noise complaint and the circumstances that connected him to the Seattle cases. If anyone knew Patrolman Fallis, the people at 700 Walnut Street that night, or has information about the incident, please share what is known.