On January 8, 1969, FBI Special Agents Anthony Palmisano and Edwin R. Woodriffe were shot and killed in Washington, D.C. while attempting to apprehend escaped federal prisoner, Billie Austin Bryant.

In 2019, the FBI and the city of New York honored Special Agent Woodriffe with a street renaming ceremony, recognizing his service and sacrifice.

On August 23, 1968, Bryant escaped from the District of Columbia Department of Corrections Reformatory in Lorton, Virginia, by using a car he was working on in the automobile shop to drive through a temporary fence at the prison.

On January 8, 1969, the Citizens Bank and Trust Company of Maryland in Fort Washington was robbed by a man who escaped in a maroon Cadillac.

Upon knocking at the door, an individual told them the woman they were looking for was not there and refused entry to the agents when they asked if they could wait.

D.C. Metropolitan Police and the FBI surrounded the building, but after a siege of the apartment, it was found that the suspect had fled through a window using a nearby tree.

He was subsequently charged with bank robbery and murder and placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List as #295.

[3] At 6:50 p.m., only around 2 hours after the shootings, the D.C. Metropolitan Police received a call from a concerned citizen about noises in his attic on Mississippi Avenue, only four blocks away from Bryant's apartment.

After graduating from Fordham in 1962, he married Ella Louise Moore, whom he had met in a Christian confirmation class as a teenager.

On January 8, 1969, he was shot and killed by Billie Austin Bryant while pursuing him for escaping prison at the age of 27.

[1][12] Lee would go on to write a book about her father, detailing his life and murder in an effort to ensure his legacy called Memorial Star: The story of Edwin R. Woodriffe, the first African-American FBI agent killed in the line of duty.