The Nation: Lost Samaritan

On Feb. 12, 1973, a pickup truck traveling on an Alabama highway at high speed went round a curve, spun out of control, and turned over into a ditch. The driver, Kenneth R. Barton, lay helpless, bleeding from an artery. State Trooper Kenyon M. Lassiter happened by in his patrol car and quickly applied a tourniquet. He eventually got Barton safely to a hospital, and was credited with saving his life.

Not long ago, Trooper Lassiter stood by the side of a car he had stopped and was writing the driver a ticket when a pickup truck swerved across the road, struck the car Lassiter had stopped, and killed the trooper as he tried to duck behind his patrol car. The pickup truck bounced off the patrol car and kept on going. The next day the truck’s driver turned himself in to the Covington County sheriff. He admitted he had been out the night before visiting several bars, but was unable to remember going home or who drove the truck. He was later charged with manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident. The truck turned out to be the same one involved in the 1973 accident, and it also had the same driver: Kenneth R. Barton.