On a crisp autumn day, September 20, 2008, Kristine Marie Fairbanks, a 51-year-old White female, was on patrol in the vast expanse of the Olympic National Forest in Washington. A dedicated U.S. Forest Service Officer with 22 years of experience, she was known for her love of the outdoors and her passion for her work, which included being a K-9 officer. On this particular afternoon, Fairbanks radioed dispatch at 2:40 p.m. to report that she was stopping a suspicious van that lacked license plates near the Dungeness Forks campground. It was a routine check, the kind she had likely performed countless times in her career.
When dispatchers were unable to re-establish contact with Fairbanks, a sheriff's deputy was sent to her last known location. The deputy arrived at a grim scene, finding Officer Fairbanks deceased from a single gunshot wound. Her loyal K-9 partner, Radar, was found physically unharmed inside her patrol vehicle. The man she had stopped, Shawn M. Roe, 36, had fled, leaving a manhunt to ensue in the dense forest. Roe was a convicted felon who was wanted for a probation violation.
After abandoning his van in a wooded area, Roe's desperation led him to commit another heinous act. He went to the home of 59-year-old Richard Ziegler, where he shot and killed him before stealing his pickup truck. Later that evening, Roe drove the stolen truck to a convenience store east of Sequim. It was there that his violent spree came to an end. Two Clallam County sheriff's deputies spotted the vehicle and confronted Roe. He drew a pistol and fired at the deputies, who returned fire, fatally wounding him. The death of Shawn M. Roe brought the immediate search for a suspect to a close, but the investigation into the tragic events that unfolded that day continued, leaving a community to mourn the loss of a dedicated officer and a beloved community member.
