Clifford Phillips was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Iris Siff
According to court documents Clifford Phillips, who was previously convicted of manslaughter in the death of his three year old child, would go the office of Iris Siff who he would rob before murdering
Clifford Phillips would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Clifford Phillips would be executed by lethal injection on December 15 1993
Clifford Phillips Photos
Clifford Phillips Case
A former security guard at a Houston playhouse was executed by injection early today for strangling the theater’s director during a holdup.
The convict, Clifford X. Phillips, 59, went to his death hours after the Supreme Court refused to block the execution.
It was the 71st execution in Texas since the state resumed use of the death penalty in 1982. That is nearly one-third of the executions in the United States since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume.
Mr. Phillips was convicted in the 1982 murder of Iris Siff at the Alley Theater. Mrs. Siff, 58, was working late on a government grant application when she was strangled with a telephone cord
Mr. Phillips had been dismissed as a guard a few weeks earlier for sleeping on the job.
His lawyers had argued that Mr. Phillips, who is black, was a victim of racial discrimination. The jury was all-white and the victim was white.
Mr. Phillips had served seven years in prison in New York State for killing his 3-year-old son in 1970 by forcing water down the child’s throat. The child’s body was found in a suitcase. He was also accused of beating his daughter into a vegetative state.
“Enough is enough is enough,” Joseph Siff, Mrs. Siff’s son, said on Tuesday. “This man has had three strikes. As far as I’m concerned he’s given up his rights to the potential for rehabilitation by his own actions.”
Mr. Phillips gave a rambling final statement that lasted nearly five minutes. In it he expressed love for his wife, gave thanks to Allah and expressed remorse for the slaying.
