Matthew Haden Samuels, 42, was the Greenwood County, Kansas sheriff with 21 years at the sheriff’s office and five years as sheriff when he was killed in the line of duty. On the morning of January 19, 2005, Samuels and two deputies went to a residence near Virgil to serve an arrest warrant for 23-year-old Scott Cheever. Three other occupants were taken into custody while Cheever barricaded himself and a standoff developed.

That night the Kansas Highway Patrol Special Response Team joined the effort. When officers moved to apprehend Cheever, he opened fire; in the ensuing exchange Sheriff Samuels was fatally shot and officers’ ballistic shields were struck by rounds. The team ultimately breached the house and took Cheever into custody; investigators later determined Cheever and others had been manufacturing and using methamphetamine at the scene that day.

Cheever was charged with capital murder in Samuels’s death. In October 2007 a jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death; the case went through extended appeals that reached the United States Supreme Court. Does anyone have information about the Virgil-area scene or recall the events of January 19, 2005?