Special Agent Robert M. Kirk, 38, was killed in the line of duty on August 29, 1988, in Panthersville, Georgia, after stopping to question a suspicious person in his neighborhood. What began as a routine check revealed the person was planning a violent attack on his ex-girlfriend and her new partner; the suspect turned on Kirk and fatally shot him.

Police quickly apprehended the suspect, but he escaped from the county jail in November 1988. A manhunt ended in December 1988 when a Thomson Police Department officer and a GBI Special Agent in Charge located the armed fugitive; the officer fired when the suspect produced a shotgun, killing him at the scene.

Kirk’s intervention prevented a planned attack but cost him his life. If anyone knew Robert Kirk, the people he protected, or has information about the events that summer and fall of 1988, please come forward.