In the cold of a South Dakota evening on January 24, 1946, Thomas Matthews, a 48-year-old Special Agent with the state's Division of Criminal Investigation, was just sitting down to dinner with his family. A respected member of the Spearfish community, Matthews was a man of varied and distinguished service. He was a veteran of World War I, had worked with the FBI on anti-espionage matters during World War II, and in his younger days, had been a race car driver.
The son of a local cattleman, he was known for his commitment to his community and his family, which included his wife and two young children. That commitment would cost him his life.
The call came from Butte County Sheriff Dave Malcolm regarding a suspicious person who had just left a gas station in Belle Fourche. The man was driving a stolen black Buick sedan. The two seasoned lawmen arranged to intercept the vehicle. Their chosen spot was a roadblock near Spearfish, at the junction of Highways 14 and 85, a location now near Exit 10 of Interstate 90. Neither officer could have known they were setting up a confrontation with a desperate and dangerous fugitive, a serial killer named George Sidney Sitts.
Sitts, 33, was on the run. Just four days earlier, he and three other men had escaped from a Minneapolis jail where he was awaiting transfer to a state prison. He was already a convicted murderer, having received a life sentence for killing a liquor store clerk, Erik Johansson, during a robbery in December 1945. When Matthews and Malcolm confronted him at the roadblock around 7 p.m., Sitts responded with immediate violence. He opened fire, first wounding Sheriff Malcolm. He then turned his gun on Matthews, missing with the first shot but finding his mark with the second, causing the agent to fall face-down. Sitts then fired another, fatal shot into Matthews before walking over to the wounded Malcolm and killing him at close range.
The double murder of two beloved law enforcement officers sparked an intensive manhunt. Sitts fled the scene, later stealing another car in the town of Deadwood and kidnapping a gas station attendant, forcing him at gunpoint to drive into Wyoming. He released the attendant unharmed just over the state line. For eleven days, Sitts managed to evade capture, his flight stretching across the region. The search finally ended on February 5, 1946, near the small ranch town of Lysite, Wyoming, when a citizen recognized the stolen license plates on Sitts' car and alerted authorities. A posse converged on the area and arrested him.
Returned to South Dakota, Sitts faced justice in the Lawrence County Courthouse in Deadwood. He was tried first for the murder of Special Agent Thomas Matthews. The prosecutor was George T. Mickelson, who would later be elected governor of South Dakota. The evidence was overwhelming, and after a trial in March 1946, the jury took less than three hours to return a guilty verdict. Sitts was sentenced to death. Given the sentence, the state chose not to pursue a separate trial for the murder of Sheriff Dave Malcolm.
On April 8, 1947, George Sitts was brought to the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls for his execution. In a moment of grim irony, the agent who flipped the switch on the electric chair was Floyd Short, a fellow DCI agent and a personal friend of both Matthews and Malcolm. Sitts became the first and only person to be executed in South Dakota's electric chair. His final words to the 41 official witnesses were a wry joke: "This is the first time authorities helped me escape prison."
Thomas Matthews was laid to rest at Rose Hill Cemetery in Spearfish. His sacrifice, and that of Sheriff Malcolm, has not been forgotten. Their names are inscribed on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. In May 2021, on the 75th anniversary of their deaths, memorial signs were unveiled along U.S. Highway 85, near the site where they gave their lives, ensuring that the memory of their courage and dedication endures.
