Trooper Ross Creach was struck by a car while directing traffic.

On Sunday, December 12, 1943 at approximately 8:00 pm, Trooper Creach was directing traffic with a flashlight and flares deployed as a trucking company attempted to remove a trailer from the ditch on U.S. Highway 36, five and one-half miles west of Shelbina, Missouri, in Shelby County. The trailer had been pulled from the ditch and was on the westbound lane with tractor trailers. As a westbound vehicle approached at a high rate of speed Trooper Creach began waving his flashlight to signal the driver to slow down but was struck by the passing car and killed instantly. The suspect driver, Theodore Roosevelt Kendrick, exited his 1936 Ford Roadster and approached the group of truck drivers who stated he was apparently intoxicated and wanted to fight. Suspect Kendrick was sentenced to four years in prison.

Trooper Ross S. Creach, 24, was the fifth trooper to be killed in the line of duty and the first to be killed by an intoxicated driver. He survived by his wife, two-year-old son, and a second son born several weeks after his death. Interred: Macks Creek Cemetery, Mack's Creek, MO.