Death Takes Ex-Detective
Detective Lieut. Luther E. Phillips, 63, one of the men who solved the famous $1,000,000 Jackson Street post office robbery in 1921, died about midnight Friday at his home, 311 South Brighton.
Phillips retired from the police department in 1941. He lived for a time near Lake Dallas hoping to recover from his health, but the last years of his life were spent quietly at his home in Western Oak Cliff.
Phillips was a Baptist and a Mason. He served for twenty years in the detective division of the Dallas police department. He was one of the first officers to reach the scene of the Jackson Street post office robbery one cold, dreary winter evening in 1921. He joined in the wild chase through Fort Worth and finally to Lake Worth that led to the capture of Shilo Scrivener, and the recovery of part of the stolen money. A postal clerk was killed in the robbery, one of the most spectaculars of the 1920’s.
For more than ten years Phillips was head of the theft and burglary division of the detective department, and helped recover thousands of dollars worth of stolen property. Before that, he has started as a patrolman with the department in 1916. His beat in the early days was in Little Mexico and on the Central tracks.
Phillips was born in Smith County, Tenn. He came to Dallas when a small boy, and attended public school here. Phillips was one of the city detectives assigned to investigate Ku Klux Klan floggings in the 1920s.
Surviving are his wife; a son, Robert S. Phillips, Dallas; two daughters, Mrs. T.V. Brown, Dallas, and Mrs. Glynn A. Lawson, Lubbock; two brothers, Forest L. Phillips, Dallas, and Jesse A. Phillips, Henderson, Rusk County; and two sisters, Mrs. Etha L. Hamilton, Los Animos, Colo., and Mrs. Phoebe Akers, Clamath Falls, Ore.
Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Monday at the Calvary Baptist Church with Dr. W.O. Barnett, pastor, officiating. Burial will be in Laurel Land Memorial Park.
Source: The Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas, Sunday, July 17, 1949; Pg. 9
