‘He thought he was going to die.’ New details in fatal encounter between veteran, police
In the hour or so before he died, Steven Lewis Finfrock was on the phone with his real estate agent. He sounded upset.
Two days earlier, Finfrock had put his Titusville, Florida, home up for sale. As soon as it hit the market, he and the agent were in frequent contact.
But that wasn’t why Finfrock was distressed.
Finfrock, 63, had bought a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch house on the famed Space Coast in 2019. But now he was selling it, moving away for good. He packed his belongings in his 2010 Chevy Camaro with his dog, Chloe, in tow. As best anyone can tell, he was returning to his native Ohio.
Last Wednesday evening as he traveled north through Macon on Interstate 75, he pulled over in an emergency lane near the Bass Road interchange and stopped.
It was about 5:15 p.m. when Finfrock, on the phone with his real estate agent in Florida, mentioned that he had a flat tire.
“He told me he was broken down on the side of the road and thought he was gonna die — all kinds of stuff,” the agent, Ashley Conner, told The Telegraph by phone Tuesday. “He was very distraught.”
Less than two hours later, Finfrock was dead.
Law enforcement officials have said that a Georgia Department of Transportation roadside-assistance worker stopped to help Finfrock but that he did not respond to the worker.
Several cops later arrived, and in the 7 o’clock hour Finfrock — after reportedly firing gunshots inside his car — stepped outside and, police say, aimed a gun at the officers.
Finfrock, shot multiple times by the officers, died.
Officials have said that nine Bibb County sheriff’s deputies fired their weapons at him. It was unclear if officers from the Georgia State Patrol and neighboring Monroe County sheriff’s department, who were also on the scene, shot at Finfrock.
Late last week, a relative of Finfrock’s told The Telegraph that Finfrock may have been in the early stages of dementia.
“He would call me about three or four times a day — not knowing or remembering he called me 20 minutes ago,” a nephew of Finfrock’s said.
What set Finfrock’s life-ending events in motion remains a mystery.
One official has described Finfrock as a disabled veteran. Investigators have not publicly commented on whether he had been diagnosed with a medical condition that may have been a factor in his fatal encounter with the police.
From what Conner, the real estate agent, said, Finfrock may have been parked along the interstate for as long as two hours.
“He was very hard to understand. He said that he had called the cops and nobody was coming to help him and AAA wasn’t working,” she said. “And I could literally just hear the cars, like, speeding past him. And he said he was scared he was gonna get hit and die on the side of the road.”
Conner said Finfrock had called her at about noon that day and mentioned that at some point on his trip north, possibly on Tuesday, that he had been in a minor wreck and “hit a cement pole and was getting his car fixed.”
“He said he was fine, just had to get a couple of stitches,” Conner recalled.
She thinks she may have been the last person to speak to Finfrock before the police arrived.
Conner said that before hanging up at about 5:30 p.m. or so on Wednesday, “I just couldn’t really understand him or hear him. So I texted him to call me when he was safe, and I never heard from him.”
This week, after receiving multiple offers from prospective buyers interested in his house, Conner grew concerned when she couldn’t reach Finfrock. She thought he might have suffered a heart attack.
“I was worried something had happened,” she said. “I Googled his name and saw that he was killed.”
Information from Telegraph archives was included in this report.