Who Killed Karen Tipton?

WEBVTT

1
00:00:40.119 --> 00:00:46.000
March twelfth, nineteen ninety nine,
doctor David Tipton approached his home in Decatur,

2
00:00:46.039 --> 00:00:51.200
Alabama, a little bit earlier than
usual. He and his housewife Karen,

3
00:00:51.240 --> 00:00:54.280
had plans to go to the theater
that evening. As he hung up

4
00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:57.799
his coat in the fouryer, he
shouted to let Karen know that he was

5
00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:00.920
home. This is a big house. He later explained, I did call

6
00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:04.359
for her. She should have been
there with the children. At that point,

7
00:01:04.359 --> 00:01:07.959
I saw a drop of blood,
one small drop of blood on the

8
00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:12.000
foyer, on the tile. The
next thing I saw was more blood in

9
00:01:12.040 --> 00:01:17.120
the foyer toward the door, and
I walked up the stairs and was the

10
00:01:17.200 --> 00:01:19.920
most surprised person on the face of
the earth to get to the top and

11
00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:26.840
find a dead body there that looked
somewhat like Karen. Through the shock and

12
00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:30.040
gore of it all, David Tipton
had a hard time recognizing the body of

13
00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:36.400
his thirty nine year old wife,
but it was unfortunately Karen. She had

14
00:01:36.439 --> 00:01:40.959
been stripped and stabbed over twenty eight
times, and then her throat had been

15
00:01:40.959 --> 00:01:45.359
cut. She was in the prime
of her life. David later said she

16
00:01:45.519 --> 00:01:49.519
was prettier than she'd ever been in
her life Decayur had never seen quite a

17
00:01:49.599 --> 00:01:55.159
murder like this, and the brutality
that had been Karen's final moments shocked the

18
00:01:55.200 --> 00:02:00.040
community. Investigators rushed to the scene
to immediately begin looking for clue, desperate

19
00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:05.920
to put Karen's surviving family indicate a
residence back at ease by ridding the streets

20
00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:10.039
of a savage killer. David was
left to pick up the pieces. The

21
00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:14.639
worst day of my life was about
a week after the murder, he said,

22
00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:17.800
and that was when Catherine, then
three years old, asked me when

23
00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:23.800
mommy was coming back from heaven.
The investigators honed in on their prime suspect

24
00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:30.039
at the time, David himself,
but David had an alibi. Karen answered

25
00:02:30.039 --> 00:02:34.639
a phone call around one o'clock and
usually picked up the children around two thirty,

26
00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:38.240
but she hadn't that day. That
gave the investigators the window of about

27
00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:43.280
an hour and a half that they
believed Karen was killed and David was in

28
00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:46.759
his office until around three point thirty. David was ruled out as a potential

29
00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:52.960
suspect and was actually allowed back into
their home to continue living there while the

30
00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:58.000
investigation played out. By removing the
husband from the pool of suspects. The

31
00:02:58.039 --> 00:03:01.840
investigators had ruled out the usual perpetrator
in most cases like this, but they

32
00:03:01.879 --> 00:03:07.240
did also manage to narrow that pull
down quite a bit. There were no

33
00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:10.599
signs of forced entry at the home, meaning that Karen had more than likely

34
00:03:10.719 --> 00:03:16.240
known her killer. However, the
Decatur community at large were unimpressed with this

35
00:03:16.400 --> 00:03:22.199
nugget of information, and the police
department began to feel the mounting pressure building

36
00:03:22.280 --> 00:03:28.960
on all sides. High profile rich
doctor's wife. Defense lawyer Sherman Powell later

37
00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:32.919
said, beautiful lady brutally slain.
I think there was a lot of pressure

38
00:03:32.919 --> 00:03:38.120
on them. They had to have
something. About A month after Karen was

39
00:03:38.199 --> 00:03:42.840
murdered, the police caught a break
when a man named Sparky Moore walked into

40
00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:46.360
the station with a startling confession.
He claimed that he had just had a

41
00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:53.759
chilling conversation with his nephew, Daniel
weighed More, a conversation where Daniel said,

42
00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:57.639
you know the Tipton murder, the
doctor's wife that was murdered on Chapel

43
00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:03.319
Hill Road, Well, I was
there during this now infamous conversation. Daniel

44
00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:08.680
did not admit to killing Karen,
but did say that he was there during

45
00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:12.639
the time of the murder, and
that was enough for the investigators. They

46
00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:15.720
honed in on Daniel and brought him
down to the station where this case witnessed

47
00:04:15.800 --> 00:04:21.480
another shocking turn of events. When
the officers left Daniel alone in the interrogation

48
00:04:21.639 --> 00:04:27.920
room, Daniel whipped out a pocket
knife from his jacket and began stabbing himself.

49
00:04:28.519 --> 00:04:31.839
For the investigators, Daniel trying to
kill himself was as good as a

50
00:04:31.879 --> 00:04:36.759
confession, and they arrested him then
and there. They believed that Daniel was

51
00:04:36.800 --> 00:04:42.639
simply trying to avoid his punishment because
deep down, Daniel knew that he was

52
00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:46.439
guilty of murder. But it didn't
take much to start finding a few holes

53
00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:53.879
in this theory. Daniel has since
denied any involvement in Karen's murder and has

54
00:04:53.959 --> 00:04:59.399
only ever confessed to his uncle during
that one conversation. During that conversation,

55
00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:02.360
he claim aimed that he and some
other men had broken into the Tempton household

56
00:05:02.759 --> 00:05:08.839
and that Karen had been killed downstairs
while Daniel had been upstairs. But as

57
00:05:08.879 --> 00:05:14.040
the investigation itself proved, Karen had
been killed upstairs. In fact, they

58
00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:17.279
even found blood in the bed,
suggesting that Karen had first been attacked there

59
00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:21.279
before escaping. Her killer had then
caught up with her at the top of

60
00:05:21.319 --> 00:05:27.600
the stairs and finished killing her there. And then there's the crucial fact that

61
00:05:27.639 --> 00:05:31.240
the investigators found no signs of forced
jury at the home, But both the

62
00:05:31.279 --> 00:05:36.360
prosecution and David Tipton argued that Daniel
would not have needed to force his way

63
00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:41.639
in. He'd actually been there a
few months before as part of the team

64
00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:46.199
that installed the Tipton's new home security
system. It was possible that Karen recognized

65
00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:50.680
him, and it was possible that
Daniel had bluffed his way in by stating

66
00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:55.279
that he was there to check up
on the system, but that still would

67
00:05:55.360 --> 00:06:00.360
not explain why Daniel was confused about
the details of Karen's murder, why he

68
00:06:00.399 --> 00:06:04.000
would even confess to his uncle in
the first place. Daniel himself had an

69
00:06:04.040 --> 00:06:09.720
explanation for that quote. I'd been
on drugs for a while. I'd pretty

70
00:06:09.759 --> 00:06:13.439
much given up on life. I
wanted to get my grandfather and my uncle

71
00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:18.000
to leave me alone time and distance. That is what Daniel claimed he lied

72
00:06:18.040 --> 00:06:23.720
about the murder to get He wanted
the space to take drugs without being bothered

73
00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:27.759
by his family, and so he
had said what he said his lawyer,

74
00:06:27.959 --> 00:06:31.879
Sherman Powell, argued at court that
Daniel had never confessed to anything that he

75
00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:36.360
couldn't have read in a newspaper,
and even the details weren't exactly accurate.

76
00:06:38.319 --> 00:06:43.480
Sherman Powell did, however, point
the finger at another suspect. This was

77
00:06:43.519 --> 00:06:47.720
not something a burglar, robber,
or rapist or anybody does, he said

78
00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:53.120
in court. Not even a contract
killer does it. This was a crime

79
00:06:53.160 --> 00:06:59.519
of passion period. According to Sherman
Powell, it was actually David Tipton who

80
00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:03.920
had killed his wife. The prosecution
argued against this claim and continued to put

81
00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:09.480
the blame on Daniel Moore, but
even the presiding Judge, Glenn Thompson,

82
00:07:09.600 --> 00:07:14.639
had his doubts. Upon receiving the
jury's written verdict, the judge recalled a

83
00:07:14.680 --> 00:07:17.720
former law partner saw my reaction,
he said, he saw the blood drain

84
00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:21.040
out of my face. He said, I just turned white from the top

85
00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:26.720
down. I was that surprised.
I didn't think the state had proven it.

86
00:07:27.079 --> 00:07:30.879
Too many unanswered questions, it never
got to the point beyond a reasonable

87
00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:35.319
doubt. But for the jury it
had, and they found Daniel Wade More

88
00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:41.560
guilty of murder. Judge Thompson was
given no other alternative than to follow the

89
00:07:41.639 --> 00:07:46.279
law and to punish Daniel as harshly
as he could. It's not that I

90
00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:49.639
wanted to sentence him to death,
but I did. During the appeals,

91
00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:55.879
a now infamous and case breaking piece
of information came to the surface, one

92
00:07:55.920 --> 00:08:01.639
that involved Karen herself. It turned
out that Karen had had a secret life,

93
00:08:01.759 --> 00:08:07.720
one that included extramarital affairs. Was
it possible that one of Karen's lovers

94
00:08:07.759 --> 00:08:11.800
had turned on her and killed her
in her own home? Is that why

95
00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:15.680
the attack had started in the bedroom
and then ended with Karen naked at the

96
00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:20.920
top of the stairs. Spurred on
by this new information, Sherman Powell continued

97
00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:24.879
to dig for anything that could spare
Daniel from his sentence, and then Sherman

98
00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:30.639
found Pam Smith, a neighbor who
claimed to have seen Karen out and abouts

99
00:08:30.680 --> 00:08:33.879
at three point thirty on the afternoon
that she was murdered. If this was

100
00:08:33.919 --> 00:08:39.559
true, that would completely shift the
timeline of Karen's killings away from when the

101
00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:45.960
investigators believe it happened and open up
the possibility of other suspects. The prosecution

102
00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:52.120
discredited Pam's testimony, but one person
did find it compelling, Judge Glenn Thompson.

103
00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:56.080
Two years after sentencing Daniel to death, the very same judge overturned his

104
00:08:56.200 --> 00:09:01.320
conviction and set him free. Quote, I thought I'd committed political suicide.

105
00:09:01.639 --> 00:09:05.080
I really did. I did it
anyway. It was the right thing to

106
00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:13.480
do. Daniel went from awaiting execution
to complete freedom for four whole days anyway

107
00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:18.720
determined, the authorities re arrested Daniel
and got to work trying to make sure

108
00:09:18.799 --> 00:09:24.200
that this time he stayed behind bars. Nine whole years after Karen was killed,

109
00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:28.919
Daniel faced charges for her murder for
the second time. After six days

110
00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:33.879
to review the evidence, the jury
shockingly came back empty handed. We tried

111
00:09:33.240 --> 00:09:37.840
very, very hard, a juror
later set outside the courtroom, and we

112
00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:43.679
just couldn't do it. Daniel's second
trial was a mistrial that meant that Daniel

113
00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:46.759
would face a third. This time, the jury took seven days, and

114
00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:52.600
this time they came to a decision. Daniel was found not guilty, a

115
00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:56.879
verdict that was a victory for some
and a loss for others. David and

116
00:09:56.919 --> 00:10:03.200
his daughters believed that Daniel is Karen's
killer. Sherman Powell and others still point

117
00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:07.320
the finger at David, but Karen's
case remains open, and after so many

118
00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:11.679
years, with so little evidence,
it's difficult to say whether her killer will

119
00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:28.120
ever be brought to justice. That's
ten minute Murder for today, brief and

120
00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:31.720
bingeable true crime. I'm Joe,
I'm the host, and thank you for

121
00:10:31.759 --> 00:10:35.720
taking the time to listen to ten
Minute Murder. If you are a brand

122
00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:39.639
new listener, first of all,
welcome in and make sure you hit subscribe

123
00:10:39.759 --> 00:10:43.799
wherever you're listening right now. That's
going to more easily help you catch up

124
00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:48.000
on all the back episodes you can
binge away at your leisure. And also,

125
00:10:48.159 --> 00:10:52.279
if you're a subscriber, you can
more easily find the podcast. Every

126
00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:56.039
time there's a new episode released.
You can just open the app that you

127
00:10:56.159 --> 00:10:58.759
like to listen in and then boom, it's going to be right there at

128
00:10:58.759 --> 00:11:03.000
the top. Easy for you to
check out my website address ten minute Murder

129
00:11:03.080 --> 00:11:07.039
dot com. There you'll find blogs, you'll find all the ways that you

130
00:11:07.080 --> 00:11:11.840
can listen, all the places you'll
find social media links, and also my

131
00:11:11.919 --> 00:11:16.159
email address Joe at ten minute Murder
dot com. If you've got friends and

132
00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:20.799
family and they happen to be into
true crime stories, maybe brief ones like

133
00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:24.320
ten Minute Murder. Let them know
about the podcast, and that's it.

134
00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:28.240
That's your episode for today. Thank
you so much for listening to Ten Minute Murder.