Constantine Spanos

From the time he was a teenager hanging out at the local police station, Constantine George “Gus” Spanos knew he wanted to be a police officer. A charismatic and gregarious leader, the 24-year-old White / Caucasian man was remembered by loved ones as someone people naturally flocked to. Born in Pennsylvania, Gus and his younger brother, Lou, both earned full football scholarships to the University of Tulsa. It was there he met his girlfriend, Christie, whom he married at 22. After college, Gus fulfilled his lifelong dream by graduating from the police academy and joining the Tulsa Police Department in Oklahoma, where he had served for a year and a half.

In the early morning hours of Thursday, April 22, 1993, Officer Spanos was on patrol. At approximately 1:48 a.m., he conducted a routine traffic stop in the 5800 block of North Cincinnati Avenue in Tulsa. Just minutes later, a backup officer arrived on the scene to a devastating sight: Officer Spanos was lying on the ground next to his patrol car with a gunshot wound to his head. Emergency services rushed him to a local hospital, where he was placed on life support. His parents, George and Fifi Spanos, flew in from their home in Dormont, Pennsylvania, to be by his side. Tragically, his injuries were too severe, and Officer Constantine Spanos died at 12:26 p.m. the following day, April 23, 1993.

The investigation into the shooting, led by the Tulsa Police Department, quickly identified a suspect who had fled the state. The man, Anthony Lyn Kimbrough, then 23, was located and apprehended in California weeks after the murder. Investigators believed the car Spanos had stopped contained a significant quantity of narcotics. Kimbrough was returned to Oklahoma to face charges. In 1994, he was tried and convicted of first-degree murder for the death of Officer Spanos. The jury recommended a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, which the judge imposed.

The loss of Officer Spanos, the 37th Tulsa officer killed in the line of duty, deeply impacted his family and the community. His funeral service was held at St. Antony's Orthodox Christian Church, with more than 2,000 people, including hundreds of fellow law enforcement officers, in attendance. He was laid to rest at Floral Haven Memorial Gardens in Broken Arrow. In the wake of his death, his widow, Christie, was instrumental in a fundraising effort that raised over $150,000 to equip patrol cars with cameras, which became known as "Gus Busters," to protect other officers. A "Gus Spanos Living Memorial Scholarship" was also established at the University of Tulsa.

His parents remembered him as a "perfect police officer" who could become a best friend to anyone within minutes. "Gus was charismatic, gregarious. People flocked around him. He was a leader," his father, George, recalled. His mother, Fifi, spoke of the enduring pain of losing a child, but also of the family's choice to move forward in a positive way. "We just remember him, and love him, and go forward," she said. "If we’d gone the other way, the shooter would have taken more people with him.”

Anthony Lyn Kimbrough has continued to maintain his innocence throughout his decades in prison. He has filed numerous appeals, claiming an unknown man shot Spanos during the traffic stop. Over the years, he has sought to have his conviction overturned, including an attempt to be released under the Supreme Court's McGirt decision regarding tribal jurisdiction, which was denied. As recently as July 2023, a Tulsa County judge denied his latest request for further DNA testing on evidence from the 1993 crime scene, ruling there was no reasonable probability that it would have changed the outcome of the trial. As of that ruling, Kimbrough remains incarcerated, serving his sentence of life without parole.