Inspector Austin Dewey Gay, 61, was abducted from his inspection station on U.S. 441 just south of the Florida-Georgia border on April 14, 1979, and his body was found seven days later on a Brooks County, Georgia, farm. He had sustained a single gunshot wound to the head and was found stripped of his uniform and duty weapon. Gay had been an inspector with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Office of Agricultural Law Enforcement, and had served with the department for 14 years; he was also a military veteran.

The investigation tied Gay’s killing to a wider scheme. The month before, another inspector at a nearby station had uncovered a load of marijuana being smuggled by a group of corrupt Chicago police officers; those officers had allegedly handcuffed that inspector to a tree and left him, and then hired a hitman to prevent him from testifying. The hired killer mistakenly targeted Inspector Gay. In 1983 six corrupt Chicago police officers were convicted of charges related to Gay’s murder; the alleged hitman was acquitted.

Did anyone who knew Inspector Gay or worked at that border station then have information that could shed more light on what happened in April 1979?