Officer Lowell Clayton Tribble

 

OBITUARY TRIBBLE Lowell Clayton. Police Officer of Farmers Branch. Survived by wife, Frances, Farmers Branch. Son Brian Tribble, John Tribble, Daughter, Sheila Tribble, all of Farmers Branch. Mother Florence Lippincotl, step father, Joe Lippincotl, Bellview, TX. Two brothers, Larry Lippincotl, Dallas, Ron Lippincotl, Wichita Falls. Sister Jolene. Services Monday 2:00 Marsh Lane Baptist Church. Rev. Dennis Henderson officiating. Interment Hilltop Cemetery. Pallbearers: Officers of FB Police Dept. J. H. Crewl, P. R. McLeskey, J. N. Nail, R. R. Scrottins, N. W. Young, J. R. Evans, Lewisville Police Dept. Honorary Pallbearers will be Chief & Majors. RHOTON-WEILAND   ARTICLE Officer's '83 death remains mystery - Lack of clues in case frustrates authorities in Farmers Branch The Dallas Morning News - September 13, 1993 Author: Tony Hartzel, Mid-Cities Bureau of The Dallas Morning News FARMERS BRANCH - For 10 years, Officer Lowell Clayton Tribble 's picture has hung on the police station wall, reminding officers of their fallen friend - and their inability to find his killer. The department's only officer ever killed on duty, Officer Tribble was found shot to death inside his patrol car in August 1983. Since then, scores of officers, including the Texas Rangers and FBI agents, have followed every lead to the same result - nothing. "Most officers see it several times a week," Police Chief Jimmy Fawcett said of the picture of "L.C.," as everyone called him. "It's really discouraging to see his picture hanging there and know the crime hasn't been solved." The calls and clues still come in, but the flow of leads in the case has slowed to a trickle. Chief Fawcett said they are no closer to solving the murder than they were shortly after Officer Tribble 's death. The chief said he and others can't forget how dedicated the officer was or how tragically he died. What they don't know is why someone shot him once in the head in the early morning of Aug. 27, 1983. "We're carrying the loss of a friend, and additionally, the murder of a police officer," he said. "It's never out of the minds of any of us here." While on duty about 1 a.m., Officer Tribble stopped at his apartment to deliver medicine to his son. His daughter, Sheila Schaack, remembers saying goodbye to her father as he left and then going to her room. Minutes later, gunshots and a loud crash broke the night's silence, said Mrs. Schaack, who was 18 at the time. She ran to her window and saw the flashing red lights of her father's patrol car. "It was just a major scene," she said. "Minutes later, I found out he had been shot." The 38-year-old officer was found slumped over in his car. He had his service revolver in his hand and got off one shot that went through the roof of his vehicle, the chief said. Ten years has dulled the pain of losing her father, but Mrs. Schaack still thinks about him every day. She believes her father was ambushed rather than being killed when he surprised criminals, as was first believed. "It still hurts," Mrs. Schaack said. "I can still think about that night and cry. I can remember dropping to my knees when I heard he died." The former Bowie police chief joined the Farmers Branch Police Department as a patrolman in 1974. Chief Fawcett had joined the department a year earlier as a patrol officer. Detectives sought clues from everyone, including Dallas County jail prisoners, who police believed might have heard rumors from fellow prisoners. They had sketchy descriptions of two men wanted for questioning but were never able to find them. "From time to time, we still get calls from people who think they may have information," he said. "We even get calls from out of state." Only a third of Farmers Branch 's present 67 police officers were on the force in 1983, said Chief Fawcett. The lead investigators have changed several times and the FBI and Texas Rangers have halted their investigations, but the 3-inch case file always sits in a detective's desk awaiting review. "If a new investigator comes into the division, the case is not assigned to them, but they are asked to go through the file to see if there is anything that has been overlooked," Chief Fawcett said. "I couldn't begin to tell you how many eyes have looked at this file, both inside and outside the department." The father of three children started out bagging groceries after getting married, but joined the Bowie Police Department several years later. Although he had been on the Farmers Branch police force for more than 15 years, Officer Tribble often worked extra jobs after his late-night shift to support his family, Mrs. Schaack said. The officer's daughter said that she laments not having her father around to enjoy his three grandsons - Ryan, Eric and Lee Clayton, who was named for the grandfather he never knew. If the killers are ever caught, the 28-year-old woman said she would avenge her father's death. "They took away a good man," Mrs. Schaack said. "If they were to catch them today, they wouldn't make it to trial."   ARTICLE Mystery mixes with tribute to slain officer - Nearly 25 years later, unsolved case brings 'painful feeling' Dallas Morning News, The (TX) - May 16, 2008 Author: STEPHANIE SANDOVAL, Staff Writer   MICHAEL AINSWORTH/DMN A memorial for Officer Lowell Clayton 'L.C.' Tribble will be located in front of the Farmers Branch Justice Center. Yet as the community prepares today to dedicate a memorial to the fallen officer, the mystery of who pulled the trigger remains unsolved.   Farmers Branch Deputy Chief of Police Mark Young reflected on the memorial: 'We certainly pray that no other Farmers Branch officer suffers that fate and has to make that sacrifice. This is a reminder that it can happen.' "It just brings all of us to a very somber and painful feeling," Deputy Chief Mark Young said. "We certainly pray that no other Farmers Branch officer suffers that fate and has to make that sacrifice. This is a reminder that it can happen." It's been almost 25 years since Farmers Branch Police Officer Lowell Clayton "L.C." Tribble was shot to death shortly after 1 a.m. in a dark parking lot outside his apartment. Yet as the community prepares today to dedicate a memorial to the fallen officer, the mystery of who pulled the trigger remains unsolved. And that fact chafes at those who served with the only officer killed in the line of duty in the city's 62-year history. "It just brings all of us to a very somber and painful feeling," Deputy Chief Mark Young said. "We certainly pray that no other Farmers Branch officer suffers that fate and has to make that sacrifice. This is a reminder that it can happen." The memorial is being dedicated one day after National Peace Officers Memorial Day, a tribute to officers killed or disabled in the line of duty, and during National Police Week, which honors the service of men and women in blue across the nation. The Farmers Branch monument will also honor the city's other officers - past, present and future. Businesses and residents donated the roughly 6- by 3-foot granite slab, plus its base and the construction. "It makes it that much more special that the community built this monument," Police Chief Sid Fuller said. For years, Officer Tribble's picture has hung on the wall of the Farmers Branch Justice Center - a constant reminder to the more senior officers of their slain friend and colleague. And recently a private drive on the north side of the center was named for him. But about a year ago, police employees decided to do more, and a group was convened to come up with ideas. When they asked North Dallas Funeral Home about designs and costs, owner John Brooks offered to donate the engraved monument. It now stands inside the northernmost decorative stone ring near the Justice Center's front entrance at Valley View and Marsh lanes. "I think it's great," said Officer Tribble's daughter, Sheila Schaack. "Every time a police officer is killed, I feel so bad because they're out there risking their lives." She said she was the last person to see her father before the shooting, which occurred on Aug. 27, 1983. Officer Tribble, 38, was on patrol but had stopped at the family's apartment to drop off medicine for his 2-year-old son, Brian, who had the flu. Ms. Schaack, who was 18 at the time, said she was a little aggravated when she arrived home that night to find her father's patrol car parked crooked, taking up both spaces in front of the apartment. "I met him at the door and he whispered to me to be quiet because Frances [his wife] and Brian are asleep," she recalled. "He said, 'I love you.' He seemed very preoccupied, because he went ahead and locked the [apartment] door, and I was standing right there. I said, 'I love you, too.'" She said she went to her room to get ready for bed, then heard a "huge noise." It woke her stepmother, and the two of them peered out the window to see flashing lights in the drainage ditch. "She said, 'Oh my God, Sheila, I think your father had a wreck,'" Ms. Schaack recalled. By the time they dressed and reached the ditch, then-Officer Young had arrived and others from the apartment complex had come out. Officer Tribble was slumped in the car, shot in the face. Two other bullets had hit the car door. One shot had been fired from Officer Tribble's gun. "That was the first night me and Brian did not walk him to the car," because the boy was sick, said Frances Tribble, who plans to be in Farmers Branch for the memorial dedication. "Any other time, we would have been out there." Some residents of the complex reported seeing a couple of men running away, but none saw the shooting, and the descriptions weren't enough to point to a suspect. "It's frustrating," Chief Young said. The early leads went nowhere quickly, he said, but "the department has never stopped investigating." Each new detective to join the force reviews the file to see if a fresh pair of eyes might spot something others have missed. When Chief Fuller came on board in 2006, he assigned an investigator who worked on the case nearly full time for a while. And recently, the file went to yet another detective. "We will be exploring other avenues, maybe Crime Stoppers," the chief said. "There are cold case squads around the state. "We'll do everything we can to solve this case."   Texas man indicted 27 years after Farmers Branch officer killed By JEFF CARLTON ASSOCIATED PRESS DALLAS — Exactly 27 years after a suburban Dallas police officer was shot dead in his patrol car, authorities said Friday they have indicted a man for capital murder. Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins announced that Gary Wayne Pettigrew, 63, faces a capital murder charge in the 1983 slaying of Farmers Branch Police Officer Lowell Tribble. Pettigrew’s bond was set at $5 million, according to online court records. Tribble’s case was the oldest unsolved police officer killing in Texas, Watkins said. It was reopened in 2007 by investigators from the DA’s office and Farmers Branch police. Pettigrew was arrested Friday morning as he was being discharged from a Fort Worth hospital. His lawyer, Jim Shaw, said Pettigrew had a stroke and several heart attacks in recent weeks. “I do know he is very sick and was taken from the hospital against medical advice,” Shaw said. “They took him out of the cardiac unit in the hospital. They took the tubes out of his arm and said, ‘We’re taking him to Dallas.’ ” Watkins said Pettigrew was not surprised by the arrest. “He seemed that he expected it to come,” Watkins said. Police and prosecutors declined to discuss details of the investigation. In June, divers searched a pond in Dallas for evidence they said was related to the killing, but authorities would not say Friday if a weapon or any other evidence was found. The suspect and victim had no relationship to one another, and authorities declined to say what the motive was. An arrest warrant affidavit was not available Friday in the clerk’s office. Tribble was 37 and married with children when he was killed, police said. He remains the only fallen officer in the history of Farmers Branch, a suburb immediately north of Dallas. A granite monument in Tribble’s memory sits outside the police station and a private street on the property bears his name. The memories of his death are still vivid to those who worked that day. Police say Tribble had returned home to his apartment complex to bring medicine to his sick son when he was shot. Mark Young, now the deputy chief in Farmers Branch, began crying as he talked about putting out the “officer down” call over the scanner. A former Farmers Branch officer, David Warnock, said the squad car that Tribble died in remained in use for about two years after he was killed. Officers had “a sinking feeling” every time they had to use the vehicle, knowing the murder was unsolved, he said.   Notes: Link to Fallen Officers Memorial for Officer Tribble Carrollton - Farmers Branch Law Enforcement Index Page