William G. “Billy” Giacomo was a 28-year-old White/Caucasian male serving as a deputy sheriff with the Nicholas County Sheriff’s Department when he was fatally shot in Summersville, West Virginia, on September 11, 2000. Giacomo had devoted much of his young life to public service. Born August 27, 1972, he graduated from Gauley Bridge High School and later earned associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in criminal justice from West Virginia State College. He joined the Boomer Volunteer Fire Department as a teenager and eventually became a captain, participated with the Fayette Fire Investigation Team, and assisted with special projects involving the West Virginia State Fire Marshal’s Office.
He also served with the Gauley Bridge Police Department in 1997 and 1998, attaining the rank of corporal, before graduating from the West Virginia State Police Academy and joining the Nicholas County Sheriff’s Department on October 16, 1998.
The events that led to Giacomo’s death began as a drunk-driving arrest. Giacomo had taken a DUI suspect, later identified in published accounts as David Morris, into custody and brought him to the Nicholas County Sheriff’s Department for processing. Morris was described in law-enforcement memorial records as a parolee. After being placed in a holding cell, he was brought back out so Giacomo could administer a breathalyzer test. What appeared to be a routine arrest then changed abruptly.
While preparing to conduct the test, Giacomo temporarily turned his attention away from Morris to answer a telephone call. Morris had apparently managed to enter custody with a small. 22-caliber handgun concealed inside his boot. When Giacomo turned back toward him, Morris produced the weapon. A struggle followed inside the sheriff’s department. During the confrontation, Morris fired the handgun and struck Giacomo in the head. The shooting and the events surrounding it were recorded by the department’s internal monitoring system.
Morris escaped from the sheriff’s department after the shooting, leaving Giacomo critically wounded inside the building. Several minutes later, fellow Nicholas County Deputy Thomas E. Baker III entered and discovered what had happened, then summoned assistance. Giacomo was transported to a local hospital, but the gunshot wound proved fatal and he died later that day. Baker, who was among the officers confronted with the aftermath of Giacomo’s killing, would himself be killed in the line of duty more than two decades later, in June 2022.
Morris’s escape triggered an extensive search involving personnel from more than 16 law-enforcement agencies. Authorities spent four days searching for him before taking him into custody. His capture brought the immediate manhunt to an end, and he was jailed in connection with Giacomo’s killing. Because Morris died while awaiting resolution of the case, however, there was never a murder trial, verdict, or criminal sentence for Giacomo’s death.
Information subsequently reported about Morris revealed a troubled history predating the shooting. Published accounts stated that he had experienced hallucinations beginning in his teenage years and that his mother, Mona Jean Butler, had previously sought assistance for him. In 1996, Morris was convicted in an earlier shooting and incarcerated at the Mount Olive Correctional Facility. While imprisoned, he was reportedly diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and received medication and therapy, with his behavior improving during treatment.
Morris was released from prison in 1999 and went to live with his mother. Accounts concerning his history state that two prison officials attempted to have him committed to a psychiatric institution around the time of his release, but a judge declined to order the commitment. His mother also reportedly attempted to persuade him to seek hospitalization. His condition deteriorated, and she later tried to secure hospital treatment for him, but a bed was reportedly unavailable before the events that culminated in Giacomo’s killing.
Exactly two months after the shooting, on November 11, 2000, Morris was found dead in his jail cell. He had hanged himself using a bedsheet attached to a writing desk. A subsequent state investigation determined that his death was a suicide. His death ended any possibility of prosecuting him through trial for Giacomo’s killing, leaving the case without the type of conviction and sentencing that normally follows the apprehension of a homicide suspect.
Giacomo’s death had a lasting impact on the Nicholas County law-enforcement community. He had married his high school sweetheart, Staci Foster, on July 13, 1996, and was remembered not only for his police work but also for his involvement in firefighting, photography, outdoor activities and community service. He was also an organ donor, allowing others to benefit after his death. In later years, West Virginia lawmakers formally recognized his service and sacrifice, including action seeking the dedication of the William “Billy” Giacomo Memorial Vista near Gauley Bridge. A memorial at the Nicholas County Sheriff’s Office in Summersville also commemorates Unit 219 and the sacrifice he made in the line of duty.
