Railroad Detective Harry Murphy was shot and killed while he investigated trespassing and the setting of fires to railroad cars in the Southern Railway yards in Princeton.

   Upon hearing a suspected tramp shortly after midnight and climbing onto the caboose, a subject inside opened fire and struck Detective Murphy in the chest and leg. The subject dropped his revolver and fled the scene.

   A 20-year-old male later confessed to burning the railroad cars as well as an unrelated burglary and sentenced to two to 14 years in prison.

   Detective Murphy, from St. Louis, Missouri, was single and survived by his parents.

The responsibilities of the Southern Railway Police Department (1894–1982) are now under the jurisdiction of the Norfolk Southern Railway Police Department.

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This officer, discovered in 2017, has not been submitted for consideration as an eligible line of duty death to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund by the Norfolk Southern Railway Police Department.