William Ramsey

William R. Ramsey was born in London, Kentucky in October 1903. After completing his studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, he entered federal service and began a career defined by steady dedication to public safety. Ramsey joined the Bureau of Investigation as a special agent on January 30, 1933, and over the next several years served in multiple field offices — including postings in Oklahoma City, San Francisco, and Peoria — carrying out investigative work that took him into communities across the region.

Colleagues remembered Ramsey as an agent who answered the call of duty during a turbulent era for law enforcement. In late 1937 he was part of an investigation into a series of safe and bank burglaries that had affected towns in Indiana and Illinois. That work led to coordinated efforts with state and local officers to locate and arrest those believed responsible. On May 2, 1938, while taking part in an operation near Penfield, Illinois, Ramsey was mortally wounded in an exchange of gunfire. He was taken to a hospital and died the following morning, May 3, 1938.

Ramsey’s death was recorded by the Bureau and in federal records as one of the service’s losses in the line of duty. Official memorials note that he had entered the Bureau after his university graduation and that he left behind his widow and a nine‑month‑old child. Though public details about his private life are limited in surviving records, the documentary record conveys that he was a working father and husband whose career involved postings across the country and steady public service during the 1930s.

Remembered now on the FBI’s Wall of Honor and in contemporaneous federal memorials, William R. Ramsey’s life is preserved as that of a man who pursued law enforcement as a profession and who made the ultimate sacrifice while performing his duties. This remembrance aims to acknowledge his roles — as a graduate, an agent who served multiple communities, and a family man — keeping the focus on the human life behind the historical records rather than the violent circumstances in which it ended.