Lowell Clayton Tribble, a 37-year-old male officer with the Farmers Branch Police Department, tragically lost his life on August 27, 1983. Tribble was shot and killed in an ambush while on patrol. He was driving through an apartment complex on Villa Creek Drive in a marked patrol car when a man opened fire on him. Four shots were fired, with one striking his left temple. Responding officers found his crashed patrol car in a drainage ditch.
Two men were seen running from the complex after the shooting, but a suspect was never apprehended.
For years, Tribble's picture hung on the police station wall, serving as a reminder of the department's inability to find his killer. On August 27, 2010, exactly 27 years after Tribble's death, a suspect named Gary Wayne Pettigrew was arrested and charged with capital murder. However, in April 2011, charges against Pettigrew were dismissed, and the investigation remains open.
Tribble had served with the Farmers Branch Police Department for 13 years and previously served with the Bowie Police Department as the chief of police for two years. He was survived by his wife, daughter, two sons, mother, two brothers, and a sister. The case remains one of the oldest unsolved police officer murders in Texas.
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