LOS ANGELES -- The U.S. Secret Service is offering a $100,000 reward for leads in the 1980 shotgun death of Special Agent Julie Cross, the only woman in the agency's 117-year history to be killed in the line of duty.
'This is the largest reward ever offered by any Treasury agency and it will continue in effect for 30 days,' Special Agent Clint L. Howard told reporters during a Tuesday news conference.
Howard said $25,000 of the money is from the Treasury and is an ongoing reward. The additional $75,000 came from 'anonymous donors who stipulated (the money is available) for 30 days,' he said.
The initial reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killers was posted the day after Ms. Cross was shot and killed by apparent street robbers who stumbled onto a Secret Service stakeout in the nearby community of Westchester on June 4, 1980.
Ms. Cross was hit twice by blasts from a 12-gauge shotgun that one of the suspects grabbed from the seat of the unmarked sedan in which she and her partner were seated during a routine surveillance assignment near Los Angeles International Airport.
She was shot while her partner, Lloyd Bulman, struggled with the other man outside the car. A shotgun blast was also fired at Bulman, who fell stunned but was not hit.