At about 5:05 a.m. on Sunday, July 29, 1984, Ken Spoonheim reported picking up a fare outside the Deluxe Central taxi office on Third Street SE. Five minutes later the radio transmitted his last message to all the cabs in the fleet: "I've been stabbed!" While the dispatcher called police driver Jim Sulz, who had just passed Mr. Spoonheim's cab, wheeled around and was the first on the scene. He found Mr. Spoonheim slumped in his seat with "blood all over the place". Mr. Spoonheim was trying to speak but couldn't, said Sulz. Mr. Spoonheim died soon after being admitted to hospital. Witnesses gave police a good description of the suspect. They arrested a 21-year-old man two days later and charged him with murder.

Mr. Spoonheim, 57, was a former school teacher and Lutheran pastor. He had joined Deluxe Central as an owner-driver less than a year earlier. He and his wife had two sons aged 18 and 16. At the time of his death his family was in Vernon BC where his younger son was attending an army cadet camp.