On April 1, 1984, former Washington County Sheriff Clyde E. Nichols Jr., 47, was shot and killed outside Salem United Methodist Church on East Market Street in Salem, Indiana. Nichols was leaving the service with his wife and two teenage daughters when a man stepped forward and fired an automatic revolver, striking him once in the abdomen and twice in the neck. Nichols was taken to Washington County Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead.

The shooter, 51-year-old Arthur C. Whitt, was apprehended at the scene by an Indiana State Police sergeant who had been attending the same church service. Whitt reportedly held a long-standing grudge against law enforcement and the courts over a prior tax sale, and had a history of encounters with Nichols related to criminal and domestic matters. Whitt was charged with murder, tried in Bartholomew County, found guilty but mentally ill, and sentenced to the maximum term of 60 years; the jury recommended against the death penalty. Whitt died in prison in 1994.

Nichols had served two terms as sheriff and later as a captain. He was survived by his wife, a son, two daughters, his mother, a brother, and four sisters.