William Ross Stewart was a male agent with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control who was killed during a narcotics operation in Woodward, Oklahoma, on the evening of May 8, 1985. Stewart and a Woodward Police Department detective approached a van in a restaurant parking lot where a suspect was seated; the suspect, identified as Marshall Ellis, fired a 12-gauge shotgun, fatally wounding Agent Stewart and wounding the detective.

Ellis fled the scene and attempted to conceal the murder weapon by burying it; investigators recovered the buried shotgun and took Ellis into custody with assistance from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and the state Highway Patrol. A woman in the van, Marsha Gail Boston, was also wounded during the exchange and was taken into custody. Marshall Ellis was convicted of Stewart’s murder and received a life sentence, while Boston was charged with second-degree murder.

Agent Stewart’s death deeply affected the local law enforcement community. If anyone knew Agent Stewart, the operation that night, or saw activity in that parking lot on May 8, 1985, please share what can help complete the record.