NEWS 8 EXCLUSIVE
FORT WORTH — Gary Wayne Pettigrew has been branded a "cop killer."
He was arrested and thrown in jail for a year.
Now, the Dallas County district attorney's office has dropped a capital murder charge against Pettigrew. And while the D.A. won't go on camera to talk about it, the Pettigrew family will.
Stacey Pettigrew and Patty Robles worked tirelessly to clear the name of Gary Wayne Pettigrew. His arrest on charges that he killed a police officer shocked the family.
"It's probably the most devastating thing that has happened to me in my life, next to losing my brother," said Stacey Pettigrew, the accused man's daughter.
Last August, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins held a news conference to say that Pettigrew was the man who killed Farmers Branch police Officer Lowell Tribble. Watkins held the news conference 27 years to the day that Tribble was killed.
Now the DA's office says it doesn't have the evidence needed to convict Pettigrew.
His family says the D.A. never did. "He uses people's lives for his career benefit," said Robles, Pettigrew's girlfriend. "I wouldn't expect him to come out and say that he's wrong."
Watkins declined an offer to go on camera to talk about this case. The family says the DA's case was so weak they offered Pettigrew a plea bargain. They wanted him to confess, and in exchange, they would give him a two-year sentence for the murder of a cop.
Pettigrew declined.
"He's not going to admit to something he didn't have anything to do with," Robles said.
In a jailhouse interview last year, Pettigrew insisted he didn't kill Officer Tribble. He said he was at a motel doing a drug deal when the officer was killed.
"I never killed nobody in my life," Pettigrew said. "I never.. I swear to God I haven't."
Pettigrew's family said he's not a perfect man, but he is not a cop killer.
For two decades, he has cared for his children and grandchildren. He now has severe heart disease.
Pettigrew's family said he is suffering in jail while the real killer is a free man. Pettigrew is being held on a drug charge out of Tarrant County, so he hasn't been released.
"The whole time my dad has been in there, he has felt really bad for the Tribble family," Stacey Pettigrew said.
The Pettigrews say they want an apology from Craig Watkins. The DA will only say this is an ongoing investigation.
E-mail rlopez@wfaa.com
