In the pre-dawn hours of April 12, 1987, a sense of routine duty filled the air for 25-year-old White / Caucasian male, Daniel Scott Wasson, a dedicated police officer with the Milford Police Department in Connecticut. A U.S. Air Force veteran, Wasson had been with the department for two years, earning three commendations for his outstanding performance.
That Sunday, while on patrol with his K-9 partner, General, he initiated a traffic stop on the Boston Post Road near the Orange line around 2:30 a.m. for what appeared to be an expired registration. It was a stop that would tragically be his last.
After radioing in the license plate number of the vehicle he was pulling over, Officer Wasson approached the car. The driver, Thomas Hoyesen, was in the midst of a three-day cocaine binge. During the encounter, Hoyesen fired a single, fatal shot from a. 44 caliber handgun, striking Wasson in the chest. A passing motorist discovered the fallen officer lying on the side of the road and alerted authorities. Despite being rushed to Yale New Haven Hospital, Daniel Wasson was pronounced dead shortly after 3:00 a.m. His K-9 partner, General, was found unharmed in the patrol car.
The investigation moved swiftly. Approximately 25 minutes after the shooting, officers from the Bridgeport Police Department took 33-year-old Thomas Hoyesen into custody. At the time of his arrest, he was found in possession of the murder weapon, which had one bullet missing from its chamber. It was also revealed that Hoyesen had a prior criminal record that included shooting at police officers.
Thomas Hoyesen was charged with the murder of Officer Daniel Scott Wasson. He initially pleaded not guilty, but later changed his plea to guilty of capital murder, a decision that spared him a potential death sentence. A panel of three judges acknowledged that his judgment was severely impaired by heavy cocaine use at the time of the killing. On June 10, 1988, Hoyesen was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In the years following his death, Officer Wasson's memory has been honored in numerous ways, including the naming of a connector road and a ball field in his honor, and the retirement of his badge number, 60. His locker, number 43, remains empty in the Milford Police Department as a lasting tribute to the only officer in the department's history to be killed in the line of duty.
