Former agents honor FBI service martyr in Kalispell

Members of the Montana chapter of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI met at Kalispell’s Glacier Memorial Gardens Cemetery Tuesday to honor the bureau’s only service martyr buried in the state.

Former Special Agents Sue Borrego, Marian Strong, Bruce Cartwright and Mickey Clark helped mark the grave with an American flag and small tag that identified Terry Hereford as an FBI service martyr, after which fellow former Special Agent Warren Little recounted some details of Hereford’s life and service to his country.

“As we think about Terry and the other FBI agents who have fallen, our hearts break for their families and for the comrades they left behind,” Little said. “We wish to honor them today with our prayer and also wish to thank Terry and his law enforcement brothers who made the ultimate sacrifice. We pray their efforts will not be in vain.”

A Vietnam War veteran of the U.S. Army who had received a Purple Heart, Hereford, along with three other FBI Special Agents and a bank detective were killed in a plane crash on approach to Cincinnati's Lunken Airport Dec. 16, 1982, while accompanying bank fraud suspect Carl Henry Johnson. Johnson also was killed in the crash.

The crash report later found the plane was 11 miles from Lunken Airport when its altimeter indicated false readings, leading the pilots to believe they were at a higher altitude.

According to a Washington Post article from 1982, Hereford and Conners were piloting the twin-engine Cessna 411 when it struck a telephone pole and exploded in a fireball as it crashed into a bookstore in a three-story building in the suburb of Montgomery.

Four people in the bookstore were injured, two critically.

The crash remains the second deadliest disaster in the history of the FBI. The most deadly event was the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on Washington D.C. and New York in which 17 FBI agents perished.

The men accompanying bank fraud suspect Johnson were hoping he would lead them to $50,000 of the $615,000 he had embezzled from a Chicago bank seven years earlier. The FBI recovered $194,000 of the embezzled money, but the location of the $50,000 allegedly buried in Cincinnati and the remaining $371,000 was lost with Johnson’s death.

Hereford, who fell in love with Montana while visiting his wife’s family here, was buried in Kalispell. At age 34, he had served three years with the FBI at the time of his death and was survived by his wife and four children.

Reporter Jeremy Weber may be reached at 758-4446 or jweber@dailyinterlake.com