Sheriff Questioned Over BOLO, Woman Murdered

An off-duty Franklin County (Virg.) sheriff’s deputy is accused of driving his patrol car into a gas station, shooting his ex-wife to death with a patrol rifle, shooting a pursuing state trooper, and then engaging two other troopers before being shot and arrested. But now that Jonathan Agee is in custody, attention—and criticism—has been re-focused on Franklin County sheriff Ewel Hunt, who personally handled notifying an involved police department to be on the look-out for Agree, rather than have dispatchers issue a state-wide alert. Hunt received a call from Agee’s father at 11:04 a.m. on Memorial Day alerting him that Jonathan was “agitated.” Hunt tried to call Dep. Agee, but left voicemail when he didn’t answer. At 11:12 a.m. dispatchers notified Hunt that Agee’s current wife called the comm center, saying Agee had left their house with guns, and said he was enroute to kill his ex-wife. At 11:18 a.m. Hunt called the Salem police asking to speak to a supervisor, and left his number. But Hunt never told the Salem dispatcher he had an urgent situation, nor did he give the dispatcher any information. At 11:31 a.m., a Salem patrol supervisor returned Hunt’s call, at about the same time that Agee was shooting his ex-wife in the city of Roanoke, about eight miles from Salem. Read more about the incident here, and about Hunt’s actions and his defense of how he handled the incident.

According to transcripts of radio traffic just after Agree’s ex-wife called 911, the on-duty Franklin County sheriff’s sergeant immediately told dispatchers to contact Salem and Roanoke PDs and have them be on the lookout for Agree. However, a dispatcher then called sheriff Hunt to tell him of the threat, and Hunt said he wanted to notify Salem and Roanoke PD himself. The dispatcher specifically asked if she should notify Roanoke PD, and Hunt replied, “No, let me call them.” [timeline released later]

Download (pdf) the FCSO CAD log of the incident.

Sheriff Hunt then called Salem PD after talking to his dispatcher. His call indicated no urgency, and he did not provide the dispatcher with any BOLO information. Listen to the sheriff’s telephone call:

About 27 minutes after the 911 call from Agee’s wife, Agee allegedly shot his ex-wife. Within two minutes a Roanoke police dispatcher called FCSO to obtain information about a possible sheriff’s K-9 unit involved in the shooting. During the call, the sheriff’s dispatcher was reluctant to confirm anything.

In the map below, the distance between pins #1 and #2 indicate the distance that Agee drove from his home to the Sheetz gas station in Roanoke where he shot his wife, a distance of about 14 miles. Driving at the speed limit, it would take 20 minutes, but it’s not clear how fast Agee was driving. During this time, sheriff Hunt had called Salem PD and was waiting for a call-back from a supervisor. Roanoke PD had not been notified and given information about Agee’s threat, target or destination.

It’s not clear how Agee located his ex-wife at the gas station in Roanoke, since his told his wife that he was headed to his ex-wife’s home in Salem (yellow pin).

View Roanoke Deputy Shooting in a larger map