Detective Briggs Chumley

Briggs Chumley

Detective Chumley was shot and killed while arresting a suspect for robbery at the corner of 4th Street and Olie Street. Detective Chumley and his partner confronted the suspect just minutes after a robbery. The detectives searched the suspect and after finding no weapon, the detectives holstered their weapons. The suspect then pulled a gun from inside his coveralls and shot both detectives, killing Detective Chumley.

The suspect escaped the scene, but was later captured and sentenced to life imprisonment. On July 30, 1931, Governor W. H. Murray granted the suspect a one year parole because the suspect was the first to be convicted on an admission of guilt after being given a newly developed truth serum. Governor Murray considered the serum to be no more than circumstantial evidence that needed to be studied more. Four months later the suspect was arrested in Fort Worth, Texas, for burglary. After serving a prison term in Texas he was returned to the Oklahoma Penitentiary and paroled in 1943. On June 2, 1949, he was arrested for armed robbery in Lynwood, California. He was also connected to two more robberies in California and two more in Arizona. He was sentenced in California for life as an "habitual offender". In 1952 he was seriously injured when he fell from a rope while attempting to escape from Folsom Prison.