In the late autumn of 1933, a disturbance call on Piedmont Avenue would tragically cut short the life of Piedmont's Chief of Police, Charles R. Smith, a male veteran of the United States Army who had served his community for five years. On Saturday, October 28, 1933, Chief Smith and Officer Augusta Kimberly were leaving a house they had been called to when they encountered a man brandishing a shotgun.
When the Chief inquired what the man was doing, he was met with two blasts from the firearm.
Though both officers returned fire, the suspect was not hit. Chief Smith was rushed to a doctor but succumbed to his injuries the following day. His assailant was apprehended a short time later. The man arrested for the shooting of Chief Smith would not face a trial. Following his preliminary hearing, he took his own life by hanging himself with bed sheets in his cell.
A relative of the suspect later revealed his name as Angram Coker and shared that Coker's own family had disowned him after the murder. In a strange turn of events, the man who killed Chief Smith is buried directly across a narrow street from the police chief in a Piedmont cemetery. The proximity is such that both of their headstones can be seen at the same time.
