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Glenn Elliott
In
East Texas, two words equal law enforcement: Glenn Elliott. Jim Ray,
retired Texas Ranger captain and former chief of the Department of Public
Safety’s Criminal Law Enforcement Division, says of him, “Glenn is one
of the greatest, if not the greatest, field Ranger that has ever
lived.”
On
August 26, 1987, the day of Glenn’s retirement, Paul Harvey reported
on his national radio program, “I don’t know what you know about the
Texas Rangers, but they are an elite corps of lawmen, respected at all
levels of law enforcement and revered in their home state. And if you
had to pick one to represent the best of the best, that one would be
Ranger Glenn Elliott.”
Glenn
was born just south of Windom in Fannin County, Texas, on August 1,
1926. His birthplace was directly across the road from the former home
of Fannin County’s most famous citizen, speaker of the United States
House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn, known universally as Mr. Sam.
While still a youth, Glenn’s family moved to his grandparents’ farm
just north of Windom. He lived there until he graduated from Windom
High School in 1942, married his high school sweetheart Katherine, and
joined the Army.
 In
1944, Glenn found himself in the South Pacific as an MP. He is quick
to point out that his duty in the Military Police had nothing to do
with his later career in law enforcement. He wasn’t asked if he wanted
to be an MP. Like millions of other soldiers, he was told what his duty
would be. In September 1945, he landed in Kobe, Japan, as part of the
U.S. Army’s occupation force. As soon as he was discharged in 1946,
he headed for Windom and his wife and daughter. Glenn and Katherine
eventually had two children: Diane and Dennis.
For
the next several years, Glenn worked at a tractor plant in nearby Bonham.
After the plant’s closure, he went to work for a local telephone company.
During this time, he attended the funeral of the mother of his former
high school coach, Jim Riddle. Coach Riddle had left teaching and become
a member of the Texas Highway Patrol. He encouraged Glenn to apply for
entry in the Department of Public Safety. He said the department was
looking for some good men—men like Glenn. Glenn followed his coach’s
advice and made an application to the Highway Patrol. Glenn was atop
a telephone pole when he got a message to call Austin.
He had been accepted. When asked if he always wanted to be a lawman,
he said he had never given it a thought one way or the other. “All I
was doing was looking for a job. I’ve always been thankful that the
opening was with the department.”
On
April 3, 1949, Glenn Elliott entered the Highway Patrol School at Camp
Mabry in Austin. On June 1, 1949, he pinned on a badge and started his
career in Longview. It would be thirty-eight years before he would take
the badge off.
Glenn
served as member of the Highway Patrol until his promotion to the Texas
Rangers in 1961. In those years, it was highly unusual for a person
being promoted to the Rangers to remain at their current duty station.
Glenn was an exception to the rule, and he stayed in the Gregg-Harrison
County area.
Hard
work is Glenn’s trademark, and it is a reputation he well deserves.
He says that it doesn’t matter where a Ranger is stationed, whether
it is a teeming metropolitan area or a sparsely settled rural county,
if a Ranger wants to work there won’t be enough hours in the day.
During
his career, Glenn worked a multitude of cases that covered just about
every imaginable crime: murder, kidnapping, strikes, oil-field thief,
bank robbery, and everything in between.
Glenn
had barely pinned on his Ranger badge when he was initiated in a big
way—the slant-hole business in the East Texas Oil Field in the Kilgore
area. Fortunately, he had Ranger Jim Ray, from adjoining Smith County,
as his mentor and guide during this trying time.
In
the early 1960s, crooked oil-field operators were reworking worn-out
wells and tapping into nearby producing wells. This wasn’t a nickel
and dime operation; millions of dollars were involved. It was so big
that, by the time it was finally brought to a successful conclusion,
almost every Ranger had worked on the case. Glenn and his fellow Rangers
were rewarded in that thousands of illegal wells were shut down.
In
1967, Glenn found himself in another situation that required the assistance
of almost every Ranger: the Lone Star Steel strike—a strike gone mad.
Glenn, Bob Mitchell, and Red Arnold headed the Ranger efforts. Month
after month, the strike went on. Countless cars and trucks were shot
up or blown up. Innocent families had their homes attacked and vandalized
by unknown gunmen. A young teenage boy who was making a simple delivery
to the steel plant was severely beaten by a striker. A bomb was planted
in the plant’s cafeteria, set to go off at noon when the cafeteria would
have been packed. Fortunately, Glenn was able to assist in the disarming
of the bomb minutes before it would have exploded. The worst incident
involved a worker named Smitty Blackburn, who was shot to death while
going to work. This murder still doesn’t set well with Glenn because
the Rangers were never able to bring this case to a successful conclusion.
In
1975, Inez Phillips was brutally murdered in her home in Gladewater,
Texas. Mrs. Phillips was a kindly, elderly lady who had never harmed
anyone. For two years, Glenn doggedly worked on this case. His never-say-quit
attitude finally paid off when Stanley Faulder was arrested, convicted,
and sentenced to death for Ms. Phillips’ murder.
Unfortunately,
it would be years before the Phillips murder case would be brought to
a satisfactory end. For twenty-two years, Faulder twisted and delayed
with every legal trick in the book. Time after time, he would receive
a reprieve at the last hour. Faulder was a convicted felon from Canada
who was in this country illegally. As a last desperate attempt to save
his life, his lawyers claimed that the Canadian consult should have
been notified when he was arrested. (Faulder’s criminal record had originally
been obtained from Canadian officials.) This appeal was rejected by
the United States Supreme Court.
Even
this didn’t end the case. Former Secretary of State Madalene Allbright
got involved and asked that Faulder’s life be spared. Never mind that
he had murdered Mrs. Phillips by crushing her head with a blunt instrument
and then, claiming that he didn’t want her to suffer, had slammed a
butcher knife to the hilt into her chest. It seems everyone had forgotten
or ignored the brutality of Faulder’s act—everyone, that is, except
Governor George W. Bush. He refused the appeals and in April of 1999,
the execution of Stanley Faulder was carried out.
August
31, 1987, was the end of the line for Glenn. After thirty-eight years
of devoted service to the citizens of the state Texas, he retired. His
retirement party was attended by over 400 of his friends.
Just
because Glenn retired didn’t mean he slowed down any. Today he spends
several days a month in Windom, where he still owns the farm where he
grew up.
He
has written two books. His first, Glenn Elliott: A Ranger’s Ranger,
has gone through four printings. His newest book, Glenn Elliott:
Still A Ranger’s Ranger will be available this November.
During
his professional career, Glenn has had many things to be proud of. From
1949 to 1987, he had six captains. He says that his proudest honor was
that every one of those six told him, “You don’t have to work as hard
as you do.” Yes, he did. Glenn Elliott doesn’t know how to do it any
other way.
-
Robert Nieman
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