On the morning of September 11, 2009, 63-year-old anti-abortion activist James Lawrence Pouillon was fatally shot while protesting in front of Owosso High School in Owosso, Michigan. Pouillon, who relied on an oxygen tank and had been protesting since 1988, was holding a sign with a graphic image described as an aborted fetus when a vehicle drove past and the driver fired multiple times.

Witnesses recorded the vehicle’s license plate, which led police to 33-year-old truck driver Harlan James Drake of Owosso Township; officers arrested him within an hour. Drake confessed at arrest to killing Pouillon and to killing 61-year-old local businessman Michael Fuoss earlier that day at his gravel pit business; authorities said Fuoss had no connection to the anti-abortion movement and that Drake had intended to kill a third person. Drake’s stated motive for killing Pouillon was offense at the graphic signs being displayed near a school. While in custody he attempted to cut his arm with a piece of a broken television.

Drake was initially found incompetent to stand trial and placed with the Michigan Department of Mental Health, later deemed fit, and during trial his testimony described the killings. On March 11, 2010, a jury found Drake guilty of two counts of first-degree murder; he was sentenced to two life terms without parole and told the court he deserved to be in jail forever.