On the night of April 19, 1978, a 30-year-old White/Caucasian male named Dennis Allred was nearing the end of his shift as a Kitsap County Sheriff's Deputy in Port Orchard, Washington. He was on patrol along Illahee Road in East Bremerton when he noticed a pickup truck towing a Chevrolet Malibu and initiated a traffic stop. The Malibu, which was later found to be stolen, had broken free from the tow cable.
What began as a seemingly routine stop would tragically be his last.
As Deputy Allred was speaking with two of the men from the truck, James Stemkowski and Steve Richards, a third man, Nedley G. Norman Jr., emerged and ambushed the unsuspecting deputy. Norman fired his. 357 handgun, striking Allred in the back. As the deputy fell, Norman shot him again, this time in the chest and head. A passing nurse discovered the fallen deputy in the middle of the road and used his radio to call for help, but his injuries were fatal, and he died at the scene.
An exhaustive manhunt ensued, leading to the capture of all three suspects a few days later. In the subsequent legal proceedings, Norman was convicted of first-degree murder in October 1978 and was initially sentenced to death. His accomplices, Stemkowski and Richards, were both convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to prison.
Norman's death sentence, however, would not be carried out. In 1981, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled the existing death penalty law unconstitutional, and his sentence was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. A decade later, a federal appeals court re-sentenced Norman, making parole a possibility after serving 50 years. Despite multiple parole hearings over the years, Norman has been denied release, in part due to the continued opposition from Deputy Allred's family and the law enforcement community.
