On the evening of August 29, 1985, off-duty Michigan State Trooper Paul L. Hutchins, 30, was killed in downtown Detroit after being robbed in the Hart Plaza area. Hutchins and a companion had just left a restaurant when two young men accosted them; one brandished a handgun and demanded the victims’ valuables. The robbers forced the pair toward a more secluded spot, then discovered a second wallet in Hutchins’s pocket that contained his badge and police identification.

Hutchins pushed his companion to safety, identified himself as a police officer and began to draw his revolver. He was shot once in the forehead before he could fully react; the assailants fled immediately. A task force of State Police detectives and Detroit officers later secured grand jury indictments in the fall of 1986 charging four local gang members. The four were convicted in Recorder’s Court of second-degree murder and armed robbery and originally received 150 to 300 year sentences, later reduced to 95 to 150 years; one defendant later received a life term for two other Detroit murders.

If anyone remembers Hutchins that night or has information about the robbery and shooting, please share what is known.