In the quiet dark of a Pine Bluff, Arkansas evening on March 4, 1985, Patrolman John Robert Fallis, a 26-year-old male officer with the Pine Bluff Police Department, was responding to a seemingly routine noise complaint at 700 Walnut Street. He had been with the department for two and a half years and was known for his gentle spirit and kind eyes. That night, what began as a simple investigation into loud music escalated into a tragedy that would cut his life short.
Upon his arrival,
Patrolman Fallis found two men sitting inside a vehicle, the source of the disruptive music. As he was relaying the vehicle's license plate information to dispatch, one of the men emerged from the car. Without warning, the man opened fire with a. 22 caliber handgun, striking Fallis in the arm and chest. The shots proved to be fatal, and the young officer, who was recently married and had a child from a previous marriage, succumbed to his injuries.
The man who fired the fatal shots fled the scene, sparking a swift and intensive manhunt. The following day, the suspect was apprehended in Grady, Arkansas. He was identified as 29-year-old Samuel Davis Duncan. At the time of the shooting, Duncan was already a wanted man, sought in Seattle, Washington, for the murders of two teenagers that had occurred on April 6, 1984.
Duncan was charged with the capital murder of Patrolman Fallis. On November 22, 1985, a jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death. However, the legal proceedings were far from over. In 1986, he was extradited to Washington to face trial for the two teenage murders. He was convicted of those crimes in 1989 and received a life sentence. The following year, he was returned to Arkansas for a retrial in the Fallis case. In 1993, his new sentence was life without parole.
