William D. "Bill" Stewart (1941 – June 20, 1979) was an American journalist with ABC News who was murdered by Nicaraguan government National Guard ("Guardia") forces while reporting on the Nicaraguan Revolution as Sandinista rebel forces were closing in on the capital city of Managua in 1979. Footage of his execution was repeatedly broadcast on network television, resulting in an uproar in the United States against the Somoza regime. Life and career Stewart was from West Virginia and was a 1963 graduate of Ohio State University. While at Ohio State, he was active in many extracurricular activities including the Student Senate and the Sphinx honorary society, as well as a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. He came to ABC News from WCCO-TV in Minneapolis. He was an experienced foreign correspondent, and his assignments included coverage of the Iranian Revolution in February 1979. He had been in Nicaragua for 10 days reporting on the civil war between the Somoza dynasty and the leftist Sandinistas. Death On June 20, 1979, Stewart was traveling in a press van in the eastern slums of the capital city of Managua with his camera and sound crew when they were stopped at a roadblock run by the Nicaraguan Guardia, President Anastasio Somoza Debayle's main force. The van was clearly marked as a press vehicle as a precaution, which had become standard practice as the insurgency and revolution increased in intensity. On the previous day, the government newspaper Novedades had run an editorial describing foreign journalists as "part of the vast network of communist propaganda". Stewart and his 26-year-old Nicaraguan interpreter Juan Francisco Espinoza exited the vehicle and approached the barricade. Stewart presented official press credentials issued by the office of the Nicaraguan president. When they were a few meters away from the soldiers, cameraman Jack Clark began filming from inside the van. A guardsman ordered the men to separate, and Stewart was ordered first to kneel and then to lie face down on the ground. A soldier approached him, kicked him once in the ribs, then stepped back and shot him behind his right ear, killing him instantly. Espinoza was shot to death off-camera by a different soldier, apparently before Stewart was killed, after he approached the guards to ask their permission for an interview. Pablo Tiffer López was driving the ABC van, and he testified that a soldier remarked of Stewart, "I'm sure