On December 13, 1926, gunfire broke out in the tiny community of Greasy Creek, Deputy Sheriff Frank Phillips, the son of the late Frank Phillips of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, and Roland Branham. Branham, it was alleged, had attacked Phillips, yelling that “I understand you are the worst **** man in town.” (Other news reports just ignored the apparent profanity.) Both men fired, with Branham suffering a wound to his chest and left leg, and another man, not involved in the dispute, J.H. Ricker (or possibly Richard), was also wounded, having been shot by Branham. Deputy Phillips, in the meantime, was shot twice and killed with his own revolver by Branham’s brother Sylvan, who had snatched the gun away from the deputy after throwing him to the ground.
At trial in July, 1927, both men admitted that they had “drunk some whisky,” which was of course illegal at the time, but argued that Phillips had accosted them first. Sylvan, who actually killed Phillips, claimed that Phillips had “thrown his hand to his pocket” and he thought he was reaching for another gun. Ricker, who had just returned from hunting and was carrying a shotgun, testified that he had tried to leave the area when Branham ordered him to stop. Branham then shot him twice, and also shot a mule (perhaps inadvertently.) Witnesses claimed that Phillips fired first and that his reputation was “bad,” Rorland and Sylvan Branham each received a life sentence, after only a short deliberation. However, in July, 1930, a large fire at the Frankfort Penitentiary led to the Governor offering clemency to the inmates who had assisted in fighting the fire. For the Branham brothers, that meant a commutation of their life sentence to 21 years, with at possibly of parole in six years. That did, in fact, lead to the parole of both. Roland, however, did not stay out of trouble. In 1938, he was shot and seriously wounded by Tobe Salisbury, the brother of County Sheriff Dial Salisbury, Floyd County, but survived. Salisbury, at the time, was already under a bond for a “warrant in which he swore against himself at his brother’s request,” in the shooting of another man in Maytown the previous week. Sylvan Branham, for his part, died a few years later of tuberculosis.
Deputy Sheriff Frank Phillips, age 36, was survived by his wife and one child. He is buried in the Phillips Cemetery in Kimper, in Pike County. His wife’s name, however, is unknown, as per the custom at the time, her name, even on his death certificate, is simply, Mrs. Frank Phillips.
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