Trooper Fred Walker was shot and killed while on a traffic stop.

On Tuesday, December 2, 1941, Trooper Walker stopped a newer model car near Bloomsdale in St. Genevieve County. Unbeknownst to him, the vehicle had been stolen near Bonne Terre. The occupants of the car, George Alvin King, age 17, and Norman Votaw, age 20, both of Centralia, IL, were quickly handcuffed by Trooper Walker and placed in his patrol car for transportation to Festus approximately 25 miles away. Less than one-half mile into the trip one of the prisoners drew a concealed pistol and shot Trooper Walker. The subjects threw Trooper Walker from the patrol car and took his service revolver, then fled south from the shooting scene in Trooper Walker’s patrol car. Trooper Walker crawled part of the way to a farm near where the stolen vehicle had originally been stopped, and was transported in the stolen car by the owner of the farm to Crystal City. Trooper Walker told him that he had been shot with a gun he had missed on during a search of the two subjects. Trooper Walker was transported by ambulance from Crystal City to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. Less than an hour after the shooting Trooper Walker’s patrol car was recovered abandoned with his Patrol issued shotgun and rifle still in the vehicle. Trooper Walker succumbed to his wounds including gunshot wounds to the right lung, liver and stomach, and died on December 3, 1941 at 10:45 am.

An intense 20-hour manhunt resulted in the capture of the two killers in Perryville, MO, just prior to Trooper Walker’s death. The suspects confessed their crime, but initially stated Trooper Walker had been accidentally shot in a scuffle for his revolver. They later admitted that they decided to, “fight it out" and escape using a gun Trooper Walker had overlooked in searching. On January 17, 1942, George Alvin King and Norman Votaw were each sentenced to 99 years in prison after they pleaded guilty to second degree murder. In a plea to the court their attorney “blamed their poor environment for their crime. He asserted their home life had not been conducive to good morals and character.”

Trooper Walker was the second trooper to die in the line of duty. He was laid to rest in Lathrop, MO, on Saturday, December 6, 1941. Trooper Walker attended Missouri Wesleyan College in Cameron, MO, and Baker University in Baldwin City, KS. as an outstanding track and football athlete, then served as a football coach at Gallatin High School before joining the Highway Patrol on August 2, 1937. The Patrol became a family tradition when Trooper Walker's younger brother Herb and Herb's son, Charles, also became members of the Highway Patrol. Interred: Lathrop Cemetery, Lathrop, MO.