Man indicted 27 years after cop murder

DALLAS (AP) - 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. His 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 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.

"The years of not knowing wear on you," Warnock said. "It's been a long 27 years."

Shaw said his client has been a suspect for two decades but had passed a polygraph exam.

"Do you know how long they have been investigating this thing, or how much quality time he has spent with the police department?" Shaw said, adding that he was unaware of police having any new evidence.

"I'm not sure what has changed," he said.

Pettigrew has a rap sheet dating back to the 1960s, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety . His convictions include driving under the influence, burglary, resisting arrest, drug charges and auto theft.

He has been free for the last five or six years, Shaw said, and worked in a tree trimming and stump removal business. He said his client is a sick man who has been weakened by recent health problems.

"His cognitive skills are diminished right now," Shaw said. "If they came in and said Santa Claus is out there, I'm not sure how he would have reacted."