In late February 1902, Deputy Sheriff J. S. Smith, a male deputy with the Russell County Sheriff’s Office, set out from Lebanon, Virginia, as part of a posse moving in on a man already suspected in a separate killing.
When the moment came to confront the suspect, the encounter turned sudden and lethal. Smith faced the man at close range, and the suspect fired a revolver shot into Smith’s chest, killing him.
Some records mark the line-of-duty death as occurring on Saturday, February 22, 1902, while another memorial listing places the loss on February 24, 1902.
In the immediate aftermath, the posse surged into pursuit, but the gunman slipped away and avoided capture. In the sources available, the suspect is not identified by name, and no later arrest, charges, trial, or conviction is documented in connection with Smith’s killing—only the stark note that the shooter fled and managed to evade the men who came after him.
