Eighteen-year-old David William Wilkey was killed during a hunting trip in Bedford County, Virginia, on November 21, 1983. The death was first reported as a hunting accident, but a spring 1985 informant tip prompted the FBI to reopen the case and investigators to treat the death as a planned killing.

Authorities found that David Lee Fisher had taken out a life insurance policy on Wilkey about a month before the trip and named himself beneficiary. Bobby Mulligan later confessed to firing the fatal 12-gauge shotgun shot that struck Wilkey in the back, and said he had been hired by Fisher and promised a share of the insurance payout; Mulligan also alleged that Fisher reached into Wilkey’s wound afterward.

Fisher was convicted of capital murder in 1987 by a Bedford County jury; Mulligan pleaded guilty to capital murder and received a life sentence. Fisher’s conviction and sentence survived appeals, and he was executed by lethal injection in March 1999.