Patrolman Randy Monroe Basnett, 30, of the Fort Smith Police Department, was fatally shot in the line of duty on September 24, 1976. In the late afternoon at a service station on Kelley Highway, across from the Arkansas State Police barracks, Basnett stopped after seeing a vehicle that matched a police bulletin issued earlier that day. When he approached and asked the driver, John Edward Swindler, for identification, Swindler produced a .25 caliber handgun and shot Basnett twice in the chest. Basnett returned fire, striking Swindler twice and his car four times, and nearby Arkansas State Police troopers pursued and, with Fort Smith officers, apprehended Swindler a short distance away.

Basnett died en route to Sparks Regional Medical Center. Swindler was found with multiple weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and was charged with capital murder. Basnett left a wife, a daughter born shortly after his death, a stepdaughter, a stepson, his parents, a sister, and a brother. Does anyone remember Patrolman Basnett or have information about his final shift or the service station on Kelley Highway?