Albert Burt Thomas Jr., 36, was killed by a shotgun blast fired into the Male Box restaurant in Richmond, Virginia, on the night of January 15, 1977. The shooting occurred in a crowded establishment; others were injured in the attack. Investigators determined the killing resulted from a murder-for-hire scheme arranged by James Lachlan Hillier Jr.

Hillier had allegedly hired an accomplice to shoot him at Lachlan’s Tavern as part of a plan to frame someone else, but the hired man instead went to the Male Box and opened fire, killing Thomas. Hillier and the accomplice were arrested and later held legally responsible for Thomas’s death after prosecutions that revealed the plot’s details.

What information do readers have about Albert Thomas’s life or the people who knew him?