Brandon Paudert
Bill Evans
"We're already short on manpower. I don't know what we're going to do," he says.
Paudert says he remembers clearly when the radio call came in saying two officers were down near a specific mile marker on I-40. He knew Bill Evans and Brandon were working.
Evans is also a family member of Paudert's; his nephew.
"I left them less than an hour before that," Paudert recalls.
In this video, Paudert mechanically describes finding his son lying on the pavement, his gun clutched in his hand.
"Worst day of my life, ever," Paudert says. "I hope no parent has to suffer through what we've been through."
The driver of the van that Evans and Paudert pulled over, Jerry Kane, 45, of Forest, Ohio, and his son Joseph, opened fire on them.
Police killed the two during a shootout about 90 minutes later in which the Crittenden County sheriff and his chief deputy were injured.
Sheriff Richard Busby is recovering Monday at home. Deputy W.A. Wren is still in the hospital.