50 years ago: Two Cape Girardeau police officers fatally shot


Two bullet holes in the windshield, noted in the above picture by small cracks, were caused by police bullets as the officers battled two fugitives on Highway 61 Friday night. (Don Kremer Studio)
(Published Saturday, March 11, 1961, pg. 4B)


Friday, March 10, 1961

It was shaping up to be a quiet Friday night.

A crowd was gathered at a local sporting event at Houck Stadium, where Cape Girardeau Police Department Patrolman Don Crittendon was on duty and committed to carrying out his last two hours with the force.

Auxiliary Sgt. Herbert Goss, among other officers, was with Crittendon, checking the score and keeping the peace at the game. Goss took the radio call that broke the evening's silence.

Two men loitering near Kroger in Town Plaza had caused the store owner to grow suspicious and several officers pursuing a suspect vehicle needed assistance from Crittendon and Goss.

The chase, which would culminate in under an hour not far from the entrance of Arena Park on Kingshighway, resulted in gunfire and ultimately the death of two dedicated officers.

Crittendon, 27, and Goss, 67, led the chase, following the suspects -- later identified as Sammy Aire Tucker and Douglas Wayne Thompson, two escaped convicts from a jail in San Luis Obispo, Calif. -- from William Street toward U.S. 61. Stopped near Arena Park, Goss approached the vehicle from the driver's side and Crittendon approached the car's passenger side.

Both men were shot and Goss, according to Al Moore, a volunteer police officer in 1961, bled to death at the scene. Crittendon spent 11 days in a Cape Girardeau hospital before dying of complications from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

Moore, now 70 and a reserve officer with the department, remembers being at the police station when he heard about the shooting. Like so many nights before, Moore almost rode along with Crittendon March 10, 1961, but didn't because he said he had been riding too regularly.

"I had been riding quite a bit trying to get on the police department; I wasn't 21 at the time," Moore said.

Although Crittendon had less than two hours left as a member of the Cape Girardeau force, Moore said he was dedicated to his job and wouldn't have abandoned a call just because his time with the department was up at midnight.

"He was the type that if he had an obligation he would do it," Moore said. "He was committed up until midnight; he was very dedicated to law enforcement."

Moore said he didn't know Goss too well, but rememebered he enjoyed helping out as an auxiliary officer whenever he had the chance.

Goss' death was the first at the department since chief of police Nathaniel Jefferson Hutson was killed in October of 1922. Hutson was killed while seeking to arrest an escaped convict.

The 1961 shooting deaths were also the last time a Cape Girardeau police officer has been shot and killed in the line of duty.

Saturday, March 11, 1961

After they gunned down Goss and Crittendon, Tucker and Aire led other officers on another chase and left police searching for them through the morning.

They also stole a car from a group of college students at the university and beat up a farmer in Glen Allen, Mo., where they took his car. Additionally, Tucker and Thompson exchanged gunfire with the sheriff in Greenville, Mo., and a state trooper.

Tucker was arrested by 8 a.m. Saturday, when police found him in a wooded area in Bollinger County. He'd also been injured in Friday's incident, suffering from gunshot wounds in both legs and his left arm.

Thompson wasn't captured by authorities until March 17 near Poplar Bluff, Mo.

Sentencing

Tried in a Jackson courtroom in July 1961, Tucker was convicted of murder and given the death penalty. He was executed in Missouri in July 1963.

Thompson's case stayed with the court much longer; he was tried for the murder of Goss and Crittendon three times. A conviction in Bollinger County and in Mississippi County were both overturned and he was convicted again in 1984 by a Scott County jury. His second and third conviction resulted in life sentences. He was paroled, however in 1987.

Moore said Thompson has since died, but he didn't know the year.

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