On the evening of January 15, 1987, gunfire in a Lorton, Virginia, townhouse complex left two men dead. Off-duty Virginia State Trooper Alexander McKie ’Al’ Cochran, III, 27, had just returned from the grocery store and was unloading groceries when a domestic dispute between Larry Lynn Gill, his wife Pamela, and her brother Gregory B. Jividen erupted nearby. Gill shot Jividen in the back as he stood by his truck.

Hearing the shot and a woman’s scream for an ambulance, Cochran retrieved his service revolver and went outside to radio for help. As he reached the front of his police cruiser, Gill fired from a second-floor window, striking Cochran in the back and head; the trooper died instantly. Army Sergeant Dennis R. Kief, 27, who ran outside after hearing the commotion, was also killed by a shotgun blast.

Larry L. Gill was arrested at the scene and charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of malicious wounding for the shooting of Jividen, and three counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony. Cochran had served two years with the Virginia State Police and was a member of the Virginia Army National Guard, with ambitions to fly helicopters for the state police.

Did anyone in the neighborhood at the time notice signs of trouble before the shooting?