CLAYTON — More than five decades have passed, but the memory of Officer Charles Hubert Lee lives on, the Police Department said in a recent Facebook post.
On Dec. 2, 1972, Lee was shot and killed while trying to arrest a drunk-driving suspect in a parking lot at the intersection of South Lombard and Second streets in downtown Clayton.
The shooter was sentenced to death, though his sentence was later reduced to life in prison, where he died.
“Officer Lee was a smiling face in this community, a true hero and loved by so many,” the Police Department said in its post.
A U.S. Air Force veteran, Lee, 25, had been with the Clayton Police Department for two years. He left behind a wife, a son and an 8-month-old daughter.
The daughter, Angela Lee Perry, remembered her father in a December 2023 post to a website that pays tribute to fallen police officers. “You left us way too soon,” she wrote. “Not only did I lose my father … but my mama lost her sweetheart, her first love. I miss you both but take comfort in knowing that you are together again in heaven. I picture you holding hands and smiling.”