MARIETTA – Washington County Sheriff’s Deputy Rodney K. Kinzy did not know as he neared the Noble County line on April 17, 1990, that he was to lose his life that night, but he knew it was a possibility.

“He was a great guy because there were shots fired, and he went right into the situation. He didn’t go away from it. He went to it. That was him. That was Rod,” recalled Lt. Jeff Seevers, who at the time was a deputy sheriff with Kinzy.

Today marks 25 years since Kinzy was killed in a multi-agency shootout with attempted murder suspect Robert Egnot in Noble County. He was the last Washington County officer to be killed in the line of duty.

Before that night, Kinzy and his family had not thought of his four-year job as a deputy with the Washington County Sheriff Office as particularly dangerous, recalled Beverly Zimmer, of Warren Township, Rod’s former wife and mother of his three children.

The dangers of working in law enforcement are well-known, but the small department in Washington County seemed less precarious than his previous profession.

“Coming out of the coal mine, you thought the coal mine would kill you. You didn’t think of the sheriff’s office that way,” noted Zimmer.

Only 30 at the time of his death, Kinzy left behind three children, all in elementary school.

Though they were young at the time of his slaying, Kinzy’s three children-37-year-old Dana Kinzy, 33-year-old Adam Kinzy and 32-year-old Nate Kinzy-still carry vivid memories of their father.

Many of them revolve around Rod’s passions as an outdoorsman and as a deputy.

“My dad was a tremendous hunter and really loved the outdoors…He would take us on walks through the woods,” recalled Dana.

And all of the children were exposed quite a bit to Rod’s job as a deputy, which he approached with the utmost pride, Nate recalled.

“He was impeccable when it came to having his cruiser washed. His uniform needed to be pressed. He did not go to work without his uniform looking top notch,” said Nate, who now lives in Ashville.

Despite the rigidity of his work ethic, Rod was an easy-going guy, a character attribute which led to him being both well-liked and sometimes teased by his colleagues.

“We’d give him a hard time because he came from Monroe County and not Washington…He was just a nice guy. If you couldn’t get along with Rod, you couldn’t get along with anyone,” recalled Joe Rauch, who served as a Washington County Sheriff’s Deputy from 1984 to 1993 and was one of Rod’s close friends.

He once got a good ribbing for performing his patrol duties with a feline companion after the family cat snuck into his patrol cruiser, Dana recalled with a chuckle.

But it stings that Rod’s life was cut short so early, a realization that has hit harder as all three of Rod’s children passed the age of 30.

“One of my biggest regrets is my dad didn’t get the chance to realize his potential. He was really young…I’m coming up on 40 in a few years and I’m just figuring out who I want to be. He never got the chance to gain the insights of growing older,” said Dana, who works in student support services and serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The loss was a hard hit also for the sheriff’s office. The department had not experienced a line of duty loss since Lt. Ray “Joe” Clark was murdered in 1981. Though Clark was off-duty when shot and killed, his death is considered in the line of duty by most because it is believed by investigators to have been related to his work.

When Seevers got the call to go to Noble County that night, Rod had already been shot. Egnot had barricaded himself inside a barn on his parents’ property and begun a firefight with then-Noble County Sheriff Landon Smith after Smith had attempted to arrest Egnot on a warrant for attempted murder.

Smith and Egnot’s father were also wounded by gunfire in the shootout. Kinzy was shot in the head while still in his cruiser.

In a controversial move hours later, Smith ordered the barn be set on fire in an attempt to smoke Egnot out before daylight provided him more opportunity to shoot at officers. Egnot died in the fire.

The shootout and Kinzy’s death marked a time when law enforcement was rapidly changing, said Seevers.

“At that time in the United States things were really changing. The bad guys were carrying better weapons than we were. We were still carrying revolvers,” said Seevers.

Washington County had just recently passed the permissive sales tax, which went into place soon after and provided funding for better pay, better training and more officers. There were eight road deputies in the county at the time of Rod’s death, Zimmer said.

“After Rod’s death, they started thinking more of protective gear. They started thinking of a SWAT team. It wasn’t much later that they got the sales tax increase and hired more people in,” she said.

Kinzy’s family and friends will celebrate his life today with quiet, contemplative recollections. Phone calls will be made. Family will be appreciated, even more than normal. And Rod’s legacy will be shared with his six grandchildren.