correspondent. In the film, Stewart's death is presented differently: Hackman's character is shot in the chest while standing up, and his death is captured in a series of still images by Nolte's character, who escapes from the scene in a hail of gunfire. As in Stewart's case, the images are shown to television audiences around the world, and the public outcry signals the end for the embattled Somoza dictatorship. After the fall of Somoza, the new Sandinista government created a park in his honor in Managua. The park, established at the site in Barrio Riguero where he was killed, featured a cement monument and a plaque with the inscription "In memory of Bill Stewart. He did not die in a strange land, and we will cherish his memory because he is part of Free Nicaragua." By 1984, the park had fallen into disrepair as the government diverted funds from municipal budgets to the war effort against the Contras, and the park was maintained only by the volunteer Ricardo Gonzalez, an elderly man who lived nearby and witnessed Stewart's murder. That year the American internationalist engineer Ben Linder, who lived in the area, and American nun Nancy Hanson persuaded the Committee of U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua to donate tools to Gonzalez and pay him a monthly stipend for his work. In 1987, Bill Stewart Park was described as "not unlike the hundreds of street-corner memorials that pay tribute to neighborhood martyrs of the insurrection." Joan Kruckewitt in The Death of Ben Linder provides an account of Stewart's death and its impact, as well as the creation and maintenance of Bill Stewart Park. See also Ben Linder References Bibliography Kruckewitt, Joan, The Death of Ben Linder: The Story of a North American in Sandinista Nicaragua, Seven Stories Press, 1999. External links Bill Stewart on WCCO-TV, August 4, 1975 ABC-TV News report of the murder of Bill Stewart, June 20, 1979 President Carter's statement on Stewart's murder 1941 births 1979 deaths 1979 crimes in Nicaragua 1979 murders in North America 1970s murders in Nicaragua 20th-century American non-fiction writers ABC News personalities American people murdered abroad Assassinated American journalists Deaths by firearm in Nicaragua Filmed assassinations Journalists from West Virginia Maria Moors Cabot Prize winners Ohio State University alumni People murdered in Nicaragua 20th-century American journalists American male journalists 20th-century American male writers