Marshal Hughey Kitchens was shot and killed while investigating a disturbance call.

On April 17, 1943 at 4:30 pm, Marshal Kitchens investigating a disturbance at Burnett's Cafe on Main Street. The owner, H.H. Burnett, 61, killed Marshal Kitchens when he attempted to arrest his son. Marshal Kitchens sustained a gunshot wound to the neck with the bullet exiting his shoulder and another entering the face below is right eye and exiting above the right year. The owner told officers who later arrested him that he shot Marshal Kitchens because he did not want anybody coming into his place and taking his 25 year-old son. In September 1943, H.H. Burnett was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the killing by a jury in Charleston, Missouri.

Marshal Kitchens was elected to his first term of office only eleven days before he was killed and had been a former guard at the Missouri State Penitentiary. He was the second town marshal killed in Parma in front of the same cafe in two years. He was survived by his wife, Norma and a five year-old son.
Interred: Bernie Memorial Cemetery, Bernie, Missouri.