Jimmy Cockrell, 38, was shot and killed on June 28, 1977, on a wooded road near Colfax, Louisiana. He encountered two men on a motorcycle stop who were then on the run after escaping the Oklahoma State Penitentiary five days earlier. Those men, Paul Ruiz and Earl Van Denton, were engaged in a multi-state crime spree of robberies and murders when they encountered Cockrell and shot him.

Ruiz and Denton’s escape on June 23, 1977, was followed by killings in Oklahoma and Arkansas as they traveled. They were arrested on July 8, 1977, in Portland, Oregon, and later extradited to Arkansas, where they were tried, convicted and sentenced to death for murders committed there. They were not tried in Louisiana for Cockrell’s death.

Are there witnesses or local memories of the Colfax area in late June 1977 who can add detail about Cockrell’s last movements or the encounter?