Mary Tipton, an unsolved murder mystery.

Chapter 1, The Phone Call

It was a cold, eerie night, and the heavy fog blanketed the road like a ghostly silhouette. The rain fell like tears from the eyes of the clouds. Mary left her hotel room that evening for some much needed fresh air. Her cell phone rang shortly there after with a familiar ring tone. Her lips curved upwards and her cheeks dimpled as she looked at who was calling. It was Ralph.  

“What do you think about having a baby?” hinted Ralph. 
   Mary jogging towards the nearest stripes store stopped to answer, “I like the idea very much” 
   “Do you think we should have a boy or girl?”
   “I think I would like a girl” she said. 
   “What do you think about naming her Archayall Elizabeth Tipton? from the word Archangel”
   “I think that would be a beautiful name, let me call you right back since I’m running out of minutes, and we can talk about it some more, love you” said Mary. 

She continued trotting at medium pace trying to purchase extra minutes on her prepaid cell phone at the gas station since the thoughts of raising a family rushed through her head.  Along the road she walked on only the sound of crickets filled the air for there was no other soul in sight.  As she continued there was a blinding light coming towards her direction but it was after all on the opposite side of the road to which she needed not to worry.  She took four extra steps and it seemed as of that moment time slowed down, kind of like watching a movie at 1/4 the speed when out of nowhere a car slammed into the back of her.   The force of the initial impact was so great, that when the car clipped her left leg, it was like taking a piece of ham and slicing it in half.  Mary was immediately thrown backwards into the air like a rag doll, causing her to hit her head on the windshield,  shattering it like a broken crystal ball.  The car continued to push forward and Mary’s body fell over to a ditch lying motionless.  The car never did stop and it vanished into the night. These were the final moments of Mary Elizabeth Tipton.

Chapter 2, The “Animal”

“911, What is your emergency?”
A distressed Alex answers “My mother…. she hit an animal”
“A skunk sir?” the police dispatcher responds and shakes her head trying to make sense of things
“Yes mam, an animal”
“Alright, we’ll send someone over to check things out”, the dispatcher then alerts everyone on radio about possible roadkill.

A few moments later a police officer stops by the home of Alex to investigate.  To Alex’s surprise, he knows the police officer, “Hey Nino, good to see you, I’m surprised they sent you”, Nino smiles and hugs his old pal, “I was stopping someone by Sunrise Mall and nobody responded but I heard your mom’s name over the radio so I came over.”   After conversing for a minute or two with Alex, the police officer started looking towards the white Volkswagen Jetta parked in the driveway. He pulls his flashlight for inspection and notices small pieces of pink flesh still embedded in the headlight and spots also strands of black hair.  Officer Nino scratches his head in confusion as he notices the big crack in the windshield and asks “Bro, how big was this animal?” Alex replies , “I don’t know, my mom just told me she thought she hit an animal so before I called 911 I tried looking for it but didn’t find anything.” 

Chapter 3, Detective Clipper

Thomas is a barrel chested, bullneck, stocky, burly man, and who’s arms look like Popeye’s.    At work, they call him “the mutt” being that he’s half black, quarter white, quarter Mexican.  The son of a former World War 2 Navy veteran, Thomas F. Clipper grew up all his life in Brownsville.   Graduating from Pace High School in the early 80’s he grew into a die hard Cowboys fan and wished he played for them under the great Tom Landry, although being good in High School didn’t really transition well into professional sports and so he settled as being a police officer with the City of Brownsville.  The following Monday after the initial incident, Det. Clipper found himself at Shipley’s ordering a dozen jelly filled donuts when his radio went off “Clip, where you at?”, this was none other than the chief of Police, Orlando Rodriguez and if he called you up personally, you had to make sure to answer right away.  “I’ll be back for these”, said Clipper to the cashier as he hurried and got into his unmarked vehicle parked in the handicap spot.   “What’s going on chief?”.   “Well Clip, they found a body, that missing lady named Mary Gonzalez down by 803 in a ditch”, said the chief. “Roger that, I’ll get to it as soon as possible, just need to pickup something I forgot when you called me”, replied the detective. Clipper finally arrived at the location, crime scene tape littered the location along with rookie cops.  “Alright boys, what do we have here?”, asked the detective, “Well apparently it looks like the victim got struck by a bull, since the leg is all fucked up and gored” answered a police officer with a smirk “Have some damn respect, this was a man’s wife”, Clipper yelled out.  Trying to make a sense of everything and how the victim landed in the ditch, something caught Det. Clipper’s eye and to the corner was a red light coming off a security camera in a warehouse building.  Immediately realizing what this meant, he went inside and asked for a copy of the surveillance footage.  At the office after checking out the camera’s recording, he called Ralph Tipton and gave him the details of his wife’s death. 

Chapter 4, Getting out of jail for murder for a half a stack

While the investigation was going on, the killer was still on the loose.  There was no remorse, no sympathy, no regard for human life, she was out there laughing.  Her close knit of political friends granted her immunity to roam free.  It took one whole week to finally have Ms. Govea go with her attorney down to the police station to turn herself in.  Immediately walking into the slammer, she was out within the hour as a judge set her free with a $500 bond and a wink of an eye.  

Chapter 5, the evidence.

A couple of days later Det. Clipper had to stop by Govea’s house to get evidence from the car used in the slaying . He noticed the killer washing the car and removing the blood, “Hey, what are you doing, stop that right now!!”  Clipper yelled out and tried frantically to have Govea turn the water off, but by the time he was able to step in, she was able to finish washing the car and get rid of the evidence, at least what the naked eye could see. Forensics was still able to find DNA, blood, flesh and brain matter on Marisa Govea’s vehicle. This evidence was found on the grill and under carriage. Human hair matching Mary Tipton’s DNA was found embedded in the cracks of the broken windshield. 

Chapter 6.  Court Hearings and aftermath. 

One would expect with all evidence available, any competent legal system would be able to handle this case  in a reasonable amount of time.  It’s been almost 2 years since the death of Mary Tipton and yet the killer is still out there.  Why hasn’t the district attorney done something about it? Why do they keep postponing hearings?  As of right now the hearing has been postponed 20 times for bogus reasons.  It seems as the killer and everyone is conveniently buying time for the statute of limitations to run out so that Ralph Tipton is unable to sue and who knows, maybe the case gets put on the back burner indefinitely. Other similar cases in an around town have been handled in 3 months or less, why is this case any different?  How is Marissa Govea a killer able to roam free while people who get caught for smoking weed are put in jail immediately? Something has to change.  If you believe justice needs to be done, then stand with Ralph Tipton tomorrow at the FBI building in Brownsville.