On a November night in 1976, Virginia State Trooper Garland West Fisher Jr., a 33-year-old White male, was nearing the end of his shift. As he patrolled Interstate 85 south of Petersburg, Virginia, he spotted a vehicle heading the wrong way and pulled it over. This routine traffic stop would tragically be his last. The driver, 32-year-old Reuben S. Conley, was wanted for a prior kidnapping, a fact unknown to Trooper Fisher at the time.
During the encounter, Conley managed to overpower the trooper, disarming and shooting him before forcing him into his own patrol car.
With the wounded trooper as his hostage, Conley commandeered the police vehicle and began driving towards Atlanta, Georgia. Despite his injuries, Trooper Fisher was able to use his radio to alert headquarters about the abduction, initiating a multi-state pursuit. Virginia State Police, joined by the North Carolina Highway Patrol, trailed the car as it crossed state lines.
The chase came to a dramatic and violent end approximately 10 miles north of Durham, North Carolina, where law enforcement had set up a roadblock. As the patrol car approached, shots were fired from within the vehicle toward the officers. The assembled officers returned fire, wounding Conley and bringing the car to a stop. When they reached the vehicle, they found Trooper Fisher in the back, deceased.
Reuben S. Conley was taken into custody and subsequently charged with murder and kidnapping. He was convicted of the charges and sentenced to serve 80 years in a North Carolina prison. Conley remained incarcerated until his death in prison on January 26, 2022. Trooper Garland West Fisher Jr., a U.S. Army veteran who served in the Vietnam War and a 12-year veteran of the Virginia State Police, was survived by his wife and daughter. In 2015, a bridge over Interstate 85 in Dinwiddie County was named the 'Trooper Garland West Fisher Jr. Memorial Bridge' in his honor.
