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 2
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