At least one of the questions on the minds of people following the Doris Phillips kidnapping-murder has been answered: The suspect in Mrs. Phillips’ murder was not an illegal, or even an amnestied, formerly illegal immigrant.
On late Tuesday afternoon, Lt. Clint Tims of the Ellis County (TX) Sheriff’s Department told this reporter that suspect Miguel Arciba was born “in the state of Texas.”
Doris Phillips, the 81-year-old paternal aunt of NBC Dateline anchor Stone Phillips, and who lived between Waxahachie and Ennis, in Ellis County, Texas, was reported missing on July 26. Her body was found on Saturday in an abandoned farmhouse near the town of Bardwell.
On September 3, 49-year-old Miguel Arciba was arrested in the case. Arciba may have unwittingly confessed to Mrs. Phillips’ murder. He led lawmen to Mrs. Phillips’ body, and confessed to burglarizing her home, but insisted that he had had nothing to do with the victim’s kidnapping and murder, maintaining that an “accomplice” had actually kidnapped and murdered the kindly cotton farmer.
Lt. Tims told this reporter that “[Arciba's] been charged with aggravated robbery, aggravated kidnapping, and burglary of a habitation.” No other suspects are currently in custody.
According to Lt. Tims, because of the kidnapping charge, and the denial by Texas state law (as in many other states) of a difference in culpability for an accomplice to murder, the kidnapping charge will – eventually – encompass a murder charge, as well. (The classic case is of a bank robbery, in which one of the robbers inside the bank kills someone, and the getaway driver is charged with the same murder count as the shooter.)
Lt. Sims said that Arciba has a long list of prior offenses, but as to whether he has served time in prison, “can’t tell you that.”
According to a report by the Dallas Fort-Worth Star-Telegram’s Jack Douglas Jr., “Beginning when he was about 17, Arciba lived on Phillips’ farm for a time while several members of his family worked for the victim as farm hands.”
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