On a December afternoon in 1984, Virginia State Police Sergeant James Leroy Biggs, 47, was killed while on patrol on Interstate 64 in Alleghany County. Around 2:30 p.m., two miles from the West Virginia border, he stopped a speeding vehicle at a rest area. As he approached the driver’s side, two shots from a .44-caliber magnum struck him, inflicting mortal wounds. The vehicle fled the scene and left the fallen officer behind.

The driver was 24-year-old escapee Gregory Frye, accompanied by passenger James Henderson Price. After crossing into West Virginia the stolen car was involved in a confrontation that left Price seriously wounded; Frye abandoned the wreck and fled on foot before being captured the next morning. Frye confessed to shooting Sergeant Biggs, was charged with capital murder, and was convicted and initially sentenced to death while Price was acquitted of first-degree murder. The death sentence was later vacated and a Fairfax County jury imposed life in prison.