Trooper Phillip A. Black

Trooper Phillip A. Black | Florida Highway Patrol, Florida
Florida Highway Patrol, Florida
Trooper Phillip A. Black

Florida Highway Patrol, Florida

End of Watch Friday, February 20, 1976

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Phillip A. Black

Trooper Phillip Black was shot and killed while investigating a suspicious vehicle that contained narcotics at a rest stop on I-95 south of Hillsboro Boulevard in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

During the stop at least one of the subjects in the car opened fire, killing Trooper Black. Corporal Donald Irwin, of the Ontario Provincial Police, Canada, was riding along with Trooper Black while on vacation. When Corporal Irwin went to assist Trooper Black he was also shot and killed.

One of the subjects in the vehicle was on parole.

Two men and a woman were arrested and charged with their murders. One of the men was convicted of capital murder and executed on May 4th, 1990.

Trooper Black had served with the Florida Highway Patrol for nine years.

Bio

  • Age 39
  • Tour 9 years
  • Badge Not available

Incident Details

  • Cause Gunfire
  • Weapon Handgun
  • Offender Executed in 1990

narcotics, parolee, suspicious vehicle

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This is the first time I have ever seen this page.

It's been a number of years since I last read any articles on the death of Donald Irwin that happened in February 1976. I was doing my usual daycare of 9 children and it was a PD day for them. I also remember that it had to have been the coldest day so far that winter in Oshawa Ontario. My husband came home from working in Toronto and shocked me with the news of Don's murder at a rest area in Deerfield Beach.

I knew Don from my childhood days. I was placed in a foster home, one of many back then. Don and his brother Douglas lived on an 85 acre farm outside of Peterborough Ontario. It had an assortment of animals and crops that kept everyone very busy, seven days a week.
I walked a mile everyday to a one room school in all kinds of weather. Living in the country, you learn a lot about nature, predicting the weather and how to grow your own food.

Some years later I went back for a final walk down the back lane. The property had many changes made. The siding on the house had been removed and little did I know, that I had been living in a log house years earlier.

This is just a little bit of the memories I had of that time and place.

Anne Armstrong
a foster sister to Donald and Douglas Irwin back in the 1950's

May 12, 2020

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