Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Murder of Laura Danka: The “Good Samaritan”
Transcript
- 0:01The Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter. Listener discretion
- 0:06is advised. In the February eleventh, nineteen eighty three edition of the Corpus
- 0:12Christi Caller Times Very Deep, on page twenty five in the newspaper's Living section,
- 0:19an article features the story of a New York City Police detective's mission to
- 0:24help keep women drivers safe from men who prey on them at their most vulnerable
- 0:30when they're alone. Lucille Burrescano, who the article's writer insists titling miss as
- 0:37opposed to detective, had almost been the victim of a man trying to run
- 0:42her off the road in order to do god knows what, and eventually made
- 0:46her way to the NYPD's crime Prevention Unit. Detective Buriscano was frequently sought after
- 0:53to give lectures about what women who were driving or returning to their cars alone
- 0:58could do to keep safe. Coller Times staff writer Lorie Sheen took the opportunity
- 1:03to write an accompanying article detailing the fact that big city crimes against women such
- 1:11as those seen in New York City were also happening in Corpus Christi, Texas,
- 1:17and she came with receipts in late nineteen eighty two, For example,
- 1:22in the parking lot of the Sunrise Mall, a man accosted a twenty three
- 1:26year old woman at knife point and raped her. Just a month before that,
- 1:32at Padre Staples Mall in town, the articles writer said a man had
- 1:37raped a fifteen year old girl after luring her in by asking for her help
- 1:41jump starting his car. Murder was also becoming more a commonalty in similar cases,
- 1:48particularly as the city's homicide rate had been climbing since the latter years of
- 1:53the previous decade. Though Lorie Sheen didn't use the case in her article's exam
- 2:00the murder of thirty year old Estella Montoya in the early morning hours of March
- 2:05fifth, nineteen eighty one easily fit the reporter's narrative as it approached midnight.
- 2:12On March fourth, Estella was dropped off by a friend in the back lot
- 2:15of the Wide Lounge in Corpus. Immediately after she was a man in a
- 2:21nineteen seventy five Monte Carlo called out to her approaching That vehicle was the last
- 2:28time Estella was seen alive. At eight am the next morning, a passing
- 2:34motorist discovered her unclothed body in a roadside ditch. She'd been stabbed at least
- 2:39eleven times with a small bladed knife. The overall violent crime rate in the
- 2:46year nineteen eighty in Corpus Christi showed a dramatic rise, and shockingly, it
- 2:52was the rise in homicides that heavily skewed that likely incomplete data. One murder
- 2:59that occurred that year was featured in the article by Laurie Sheen comparing big city
- 3:04crimes to those being seen in the modest sized city of Corpus Christi and the
- 3:09region for which it serves as the administrative center, New Ace's County. In
- 3:15April of nineteen eighty, a crime took place that not only appalled locals,
- 3:21but that also left law enforcement baffled and scrambling to make sense of. After
- 3:27seemingly being the object of a good Samaritan ruse, young mother and professional Laura
- 3:32Pippin Danka was viciously murdered, and the killer left no clues behind other than
- 3:39witness descriptions. Laura Pippin was born on September twenty eighth, nineteen fifty three,
- 4:09in Fremont, North Carolina, a small community that to this day has
- 4:15yet to exceed two thousand residents. The second oldest of the four children born
- 4:20to parents Anez and John Lafayette Pippin, Laura was raised on the family's eighty
- 4:26nine acre farm and by all known accounts, lived a normal, though active
- 4:30childhood and adolescence. Her father, John, a World War II veteran who
- 4:35served aboard the USS Tangier in the Asiatic Pacific Theatre, was the postmaster of
- 4:43Fremont, or, as he modestly put it, a glorified window clerk.
- 4:48Everyone in town knew him, and its doubtful they'd have agreed. Along with
- 4:54her older brother, Johnny, with whom she was close, Laura was an
- 4:58enthusiastic member of of her local four H Club, an organization centered on the
- 5:03development of life skills, including citizenship, responsibility, and leadership. Though the
- 5:11organization eventually expanded to cover experiences far outside the rural communities where chapters were generally
- 5:18based, there's little doubt Laura's chapter, the Fremont Green Hornets Club, was
- 5:24still concentrated on the farming and homemaking practices on which it was originally founded.
- 5:30Laura gained leadership positions within Fourah with hard work, and reached the status of
- 5:36North Carolina State Vice president by nineteen seventy. The following year, she was
- 5:43among four individuals chosen to represent North Carolina in Washington, d C. At
- 5:47the four h National Conference. In her eight year stint with the club,
- 5:53Laura had completed an impressive one hundred and three educational projects, given one hundred
- 5:59and fifty one one talks, presented two hundred and twenty three demonstrations, and
- 6:03won one hundred ninety one ribbons at Charles b Acock High School in Pikeville,
- 6:10North Carolina. The adeptly athletic teenager was among the few Falconet basketball players to
- 6:15be recognized as All Tournament and All Conference after the team's championship win her sophomore
- 6:23year. But Laura Pippins's talents reached far beyond the court. Throughout her high
- 6:29school years, she was active in both the Latin Club and Future Teachers of
- 6:33America. The outgoing and friendly girl was also president of the Library Club.
- 6:41She received praise and accolades from classmates, friends, and teachers for her readiness
- 6:46and willingness to help anyone with anything. Laura graduated from Aycock High in nineteen
- 6:53seventy one and enrolled at North Carolina State University. Soon thereafter, she met
- 7:00a man named William Earl Danka and fell head over heels in May of nineteen
- 7:04seventy three. The two love birds tied the knot that same year. In
- 7:11fact, that same month, William joined the US Navy. His military service
- 7:15took the couple to a few different cities in the United States before finally landing
- 7:20them in Corpus Christi, Texas. William and Laura Danka's family grew to include
- 7:27a boy, Kenny, and a girl, Jennifer. While William continued his
- 7:31military career, Laura got a job at the credit reporting bureau that essentially began
- 7:38that line of business as a corporate practice, Equifax Services. At the time,
- 7:43the company's clients for whom they investigated folks backgrounds, among other services,
- 7:48were largely insurance companies. But everything didn't turn out hearts and flowers for the
- 7:55young couple. In November nineteen seventy nine, their divorce became and not long
- 8:01after that William remarried. Laura, on the other hand, continued to thrive
- 8:07at her place of employment and her bungalow in a quaint working class neighborhood was
- 8:13convenient, a short drive to work and virtually anywhere else she needed to go
- 8:18for necessities for recreation. Her house was less than a mile drive to a
- 8:22scenic part of Corpus Christie Bay. Because she and William were splitting custody of
- 8:28the kids their divorce, it appears amicable, Laura had time to date a
- 8:33round some In the spring of nineteen eighty, she was seeing a man from
- 8:39nearby Bishop, a small town to Corpus Christie's southwest that probably reminded her of
- 8:43home. At twenty six years old, Laura Pipindanka had her whole life ahead
- 8:50of her and the future looked good. On Easter Sunday, April twenty sixth,
- 8:58nineteen eighty, Laura had a busy day. Although the precise order of
- 9:03her movements is unclear, the chores and errands she performed that day show that,
- 9:07besides it being a holiday, it was a relatively normal one. Laura
- 9:13attended church. She either dropped the kids off at their dad's after or they'd
- 9:20spent the night with him. At this time, their boy Kenny was almost
- 9:24five, and girl Jennifer was two before church, Laura threw a load of
- 9:30laundry in the washing machine and took two packages of chicken out of the freezer
- 9:35and placed them in the refrigerator to thaw, either that morning with coffee or
- 9:39perhaps the day before she began writing what was described as a long intimate letter
- 9:46to her mother. After church, Laura went by her place of employment,
- 9:50Equifax Services, presumably to pick up a check as will become evident. At
- 9:56noon, she phoned her friend and coworker, Lynn Albert, from Equifax.
- 10:01Laura asked her to come eat dinner with her and the kids. Later.
- 10:05She was running by Albertson's supermarket when she left Equifax, Laura told Lynn.
- 10:11At the corner of South Padre Island Drive and Everhart Road, just over a
- 10:16mile from home and along the same street as Equifax Services. On the way
- 10:22to the grocery store, Laura stopped by a convenience store where she cashed a
- 10:28check and bought a bag of chips and a coke. Sometime before one pm,
- 10:33probably not by much, Laura Danka arrived at Alberson's to pick up a
- 10:37few items and a little something for the kids too. It was a quick
- 10:43shopping trip. When she got back out to the car, a gold nineteen
- 10:48seventy eight Mercury Zephyr, Laura discovered her right front tire was flat. Then
- 10:54she disappeared. When Laura Pipendanka didn't show up at her ex husband William Danka's
- 11:13house at six pm on Easter Sunday nineteen eighty to pick up their children,
- 11:18he knew right away something was off. The loving and doting mother was about
- 11:22as punctual and reliable a person as they come. She was rarely late for
- 11:28anything, let alone picking up the kids. Something important must have come up,
- 11:33William told himself, But when the minutes turned to hours, he could
- 11:39no longer placate himself with situations that made no sense. If something had come
- 11:43up, William knew Laura would have called immediately. He phoned the Corpus Christi
- 11:50Police and reported her missing at nine forty five pm. Then William called her
- 11:56parents back in North Carolina to let them know what was happening. While they
- 12:01were beside themselves with worry, the cops didn't seem too bothered. After all,
- 12:07Laura Danka was a twenty six year old woman. She was allowed to
- 12:11disappear. The following morning, Laura's supervisor from Equifax was immediately alarmed when she
- 12:18didn't show up for her shift. Both he and William Danka called the police
- 12:24first thing to emphasize how unlike her the situation was, how unusual it was.
- 12:31Something was terribly wrong, both men told them. About an hour later,
- 12:37police received another call from Laura's boss. He'd driven past Albertson's supermarket and
- 12:43seen the missing woman's car parked in the lot there. Now the cops were
- 12:48listening. Officers arrived at the store not long after and located the nineteen seventy
- 12:56eight Zephyr. The car was locked up tight. When they finally got in,
- 13:01they found a grocery sack on the passenger side floorboard. Inside was a
- 13:05bottle of hair setting lotion, some candy, a melted half gallon of ice
- 13:11cream, and a toy for her kids, a plastic water pistol. They
- 13:16observed the vehicle's right front wheel a spare that hadn't yet been driven on.
- 13:22Police officers deduced that the gold mercury hadn't been moved since the flat tire was
- 13:28replaced with the spear. It was also secured using only two lug nuts instead
- 13:33of four, and its wheel cover was nowhere to be found. The scene
- 13:39didn't look good. Later it got worse when police took the flat tire to
- 13:46a local auto garage. Mechanics there found something disturbing, a slice near the
- 13:50tire's rim that appeared to have been made using a knife. In their next
- 13:56move, the cops drove to Laura's home on the six hundred of John Lee
- 14:01Street. They found the damp load of clothes in the washing machine Laura had
- 14:05put on earlier on the day she vanished, and the packages of chicken she
- 14:09left thawing in the fridge. Then there was the unfinished letter to her mother
- 14:15back in Fremont, North Carolina. The house appeared as if the victim just
- 14:20stepped out to run some errands, planning to return at any time, but
- 14:24she hadn't. Laura's family was struck with panic, and her coworkers and friends
- 14:31feared the worst. The rest of the day passed with no leads, and
- 14:35then the next At about two thirty pm on Wednesday, April ninth, nineteen
- 14:43eighty, two young men, one a Delmar College student and the other a
- 14:48bartender, stopped atop the bridge at Weber Road and Cedar Pass, also known
- 14:52as County Road twenty six. Back then, this was the far south end
- 14:58of Corpus Christi New Wayce's county line. It was a beautiful day for a
- 15:03ride, in the low seventies and sunny, with only the bright, fluffy,
- 15:07scattered clouds that usually float above the bays and beaches. The motorcyclists,
- 15:15men named Tom Tyler and Philip Daily, got off their bikes and lit cigarettes.
- 15:20Likely on any other day, the men would talk about the ride,
- 15:24perhaps where they were off to next. But this wasn't any other day,
- 15:30far from it. Almost as soon as they rested their elbows against the railing
- 15:35of the bridge, their heads straight down into the drainage ditch below. As
- 15:39they drew from their smokes, they noticed what they thought was a mannequin partially
- 15:43floating in about two feet of water. The figure wore an Easter Sunday dress,
- 15:50colorful and brightly printed. Philip went down first to check it out.
- 15:54When he made it clear this was no mannequin, Tom hurried down. The
- 16:00deceased woman's pantehose were pulled down around her ankles for reasons never explained, perhaps
- 16:07a sheer loss of the ability to rationalize, or perhaps just to be certain
- 16:11they were seeing what they were seeing. Tom and Philip flipped the body over.
- 16:18They ran back up. The goalie jumped on their motorcycles and raced to
- 16:22call police. New Acey's County Sheriff's detectives emerged on the scene promptly. The
- 16:29cause of death was obvious. The woman had died of multiple stab wounds to
- 16:33her chest. The body was soon identified as twenty six year old Laura Pippendenka.
- 16:41After she was removed, detectives began combing the area and found pieces of
- 16:45Laura's jewelry strewn about. Deputies quickly began damning the drainage ditch using sandbags,
- 16:52hoping to keep any evidence that might remain from being washed away. About fifty
- 16:59feet downstairs of where Laura was found to her south, caught among other debris
- 17:03both natural and man made, deputies found one of Laura's shoes and a kitchen
- 17:10carving knife which have serrated blades. Where Laura Danka's body had been discovered was
- 17:15approximately three and a half miles south of the Alberson's grocery store where she was
- 17:21last seen, and a little under four and a half miles from her home.
- 17:26At autopsy the morning following the discovery of her body, Nueces County Medical
- 17:32Examiner Joseph C. Rupp found a total of nine three quarter inch thick stab
- 17:37wounds circling Laura's left breast. Her left lung was penetrated four times and her
- 17:45heart five times. The deep wounds were inflicted by a right handed person passing
- 17:51from left to right at a slightly downward angle. Because Laura was in water
- 17:56in the moist, bacteria laden gold, decomposition was accelerated and doctor Rupp could
- 18:03not determine a time of death, although it was theorized to have been soon
- 18:07after she was last seen alive. The medical examiner told the media there was
- 18:14no evidence of sexual assault, a carefully worded statement. Perhaps there was no
- 18:19physical evidence, but there were certainly signs she'd been raped, the most obvious
- 18:25being Laura's pantyhose pulled down to her ankles. Neither the Nuace's County Sheriff's office
- 18:32nor the medical Examiner's office ever released the results of sexual assault tests that were
- 18:37performed on unspecified pieces of evidence on the night of Friday, April eleventh,
- 18:45nineteen eighty Nuacey's County Sheriff's detectives raced to the Albertson's supermarket where Laura's car was
- 18:52found, where she was last seen alive. An employee of the store walked
- 18:57into a men's bathroom stall there and was shocked to find a cryptic and disturbing
- 19:03message. On the partition was a drawing of a bird, accompanied by the
- 19:07words the bird at the creek Nose. On the wall facing the message was
- 19:12the drawing of a face alongside a knife dripping with blood. The man in
- 19:18charge of the store's maintenance told the cops that when he cleaned the restrooms earlier
- 19:22in the day, the stall was bare of drawings and writings. After processing
- 19:29the Alberson's bathroom, detectives only came up with a couple smudged palm prints,
- 19:33and later dismissed the morbid scrawling as nothing more than a prank left by someone
- 19:40who had just read or heard news reports about Laura's murder. The next day,
- 19:45Saturday, April twelfth, nineteen eighty, Laura Pippendenka was buried at Elwood
- 19:51Cemetery in her hometown of Fremont, North Carolina. After services at the Shackelford
- 19:56Funeral Home Chapel as his standard protocol, those closest to Laura Danka were interviewed.
- 20:06Her ex husband, William was on this list, but his alibi was
- 20:08solid and he had absolutely no motive to murder Laura. They were navigating their
- 20:15separate but also inseparable lives cooperatively. Laura's boyfriend, the man from Bishop,
- 20:22was also questioned. De man had last seen Laura the day before she disappeared.
- 20:29The cops had nothing After finding only smudged, unusable prints on Laura's gold
- 20:34nineteen seventy eight Mercury Zephyr, they had no suspects, and after the knife
- 20:41found about fifty feet from Laura's body could not be confirmed to have inflicted the
- 20:45wounds, they had no real evidence. New Acey's County Sheriff, Solomon Ortez
- 20:52put out a public plea through the local newspaper and television stations. He asked
- 20:57for anyone who'd helped Laura with their flat tire in the parking lot of Albertson's,
- 21:03or anyone who could provide a description of someone who had to call the
- 21:07Sheriff's office immediately. The lawman's request for assistance did not go unanswered. Within
- 21:26a few days of the discovery of the body of twenty six year old Laura
- 21:30Pippendenka, and after Newacey's County Sheriff Solomon Ortees pleaded for the residence of Corpus
- 21:37Christy to come forward with what they knew. The investigation had taken a turn
- 21:41for the better, if only briefly. A few folks came forward with solid
- 21:47and as far as a potential suspect description corroborating information. As she left Albertson's
- 21:53just after Laura had a thirty two year old woman saw the victim standing near
- 21:59her car, staring at the flat tire. The woman and her husband veered
- 22:03toward her to see if they could assist, but as they did, a
- 22:07man came out from behind another vehicle parked close by a blue station wagon.
- 22:14He offered to help change the wheel. Also parked adjacent to Laura's gold Zephyr,
- 22:19this woman noticed was a white pickup truck. After seeing she got help,
- 22:26the woman and her husband veered back toward their own vehicle. They loaded
- 22:30their groceries up and backed out their car. As her husband began shifting from
- 22:36reverse to drive. The woman locked eyes with Laura, who'd turned to look
- 22:41at the moving car. She considered at that moment rolling down her window and
- 22:45asking Laura if she needed anything, but it appeared the man was already beginning
- 22:51to change the tire, so she opted not to. This couple described the
- 22:56Good Samaritan as a light complexioned white male at thirty years old, with light
- 23:00blonde hair. He was wearing a blue down vest or a puffy vest as
- 23:06they were also known, over a white T shirt and brown pants. His
- 23:11face was clean shaven and broad shoulders sat atop what the couple described as very
- 23:17muscular arms. The thirty two year old woman noticed what she described as a
- 23:22slight roll around his middle as the man bent down to begin work on the
- 23:26flat tire, meaning he had a bit of a belly in love handles what
- 23:32might be called a dadbod these days. His build was stocky, and the
- 23:37approximately five feet ten inch tall man weighed about one hundred and seventy five pounds.
- 23:42This scene and man's description were corroborated by several other witnesses who'd been coming
- 23:48in and out of Alberson's supermarket, oddly to detectives. However, the Times
- 23:55in which this man was seen assisting Laura Danka ranged from one piece two forty
- 24:00five PM, an enormous span of time to simply change a flat tire.
- 24:07Another witness had told police that he saw the man helping Laura when he arrived
- 24:11and again after he was finished grocery shopping. The tire change was taking an
- 24:17unusually long time, this man thought to himself. With these and other witness
- 24:23accounts in mind, it didn't take detectives long to come up with the working
- 24:27theory of what happened to Laura Danka while she was inside the store. They
- 24:33believed the man who'd later offered her his help punctured her tire with a large
- 24:37knife. Likely he also loosened and pocketed two of the four lug nuts at
- 24:44this point. When she came out and saw the flat, the man quickly
- 24:48offered his help. Perhaps he put on quite the act and pretended to try
- 24:53and resolve the problem of the missing lug nuts, only to finally tell Laura
- 24:59that her car was a unsafe to drive with only the two holding the wheel
- 25:03on. But he probably told her he'd be glad to take her up the
- 25:07street where she could purchase a couple replacement lugs. The New Ace's County Sheriff's
- 25:14detective's theory was simple, the likes of which they'd certainly seen before. All
- 25:19this type of predator had to do was get their prey inside their vehicle.
- 25:25That was the most difficult part. After they collected the statements of several eyewitnesses,
- 25:32six were asked to help a police artist create a composite sketch. The
- 25:37drawling hit the local TV news on Sunday, April thirteenth, exactly one week
- 25:42from the day Laura vanished and was likely slain Earlier. That same day,
- 25:48a handful of folks who had seen the apparent flat tire rus were shown a
- 25:52photographic lineup of nine individuals. Four of them identified a twenty seven year old
- 25:59local as being the person, presumably pretending to be a good samaritan to Laura
- 26:04Danka. The man was someone detectives that questioned prior to this identification because he
- 26:11lived near the bridge under which Laura was found. Presumably he matched the description
- 26:18provided by witnesses, but it is unknown if this man was also identified and
- 26:22included in the photo line up because of some type of past infraction or suspicion
- 26:27he was involved in any type of similar crime. He was never publicly named,
- 26:34but he is known to have had a white pickup truck, one that
- 26:37matched the description of the white truck parked adjacent to Laura's car the day she
- 26:42disappeared. This suspect refused to undergo a polygraph examination, an undeniably intelligent move
- 26:52whether or not you're guilty, and in another smart move either way, the
- 26:56man also refused to take part in a physical line up, contrary to the
- 27:02witness's identification of him. This twenty seven year old man's alibi statement that he
- 27:07was home all day Easter Sunday and could not have abducted and killed Laura,
- 27:11was checked out and verified. His truck, the man said, was being
- 27:17used out of town that day as well. The suspect was released and put
- 27:22on the back burner. The composite sketch of the suspect and the murder of
- 27:27Laura Pipindenka was printed in the Corpus Christi Caller Times the next day, Monday,
- 27:33April fourteenth, nineteen eighty From its release on TV news the day before,
- 27:40the drawing had already inspired about one hundred calls to the New Wace's County
- 27:45Sheriff's office, prompting detectives to remark that they were making progress in the investigation.
- 27:51By Wednesday the sixteenth, the number of callers with leads as to the
- 27:55suspect's possible identity increased to around two hundred. The following day, a local
- 28:02minister came forward with information that detectives thought, if only briefly, might break
- 28:07the case. The preacher told the cops he'd recently accepted a man into his
- 28:12mission, but had also become suspicious of him because he dyed his hair from
- 28:18blonde to red and admitted to having killed someone. Detectives, who had had
- 28:23a few other solid leads to follow in the interim, couldn't track this man
- 28:29down for weeks until in May, when he was arrested in Kansas on a
- 28:33warrant for a probation violation. After getting word of the arrest, detectives quickly
- 28:40traveled to where he was being held and hooked the suspect up to a polygraph
- 28:44machine. He passed, it was reported, and they all but cleared him.
- 28:49At the point in between this man's identification and his being located, desperation
- 28:56had entered the equation. Detectives brought Laura's AD's husband and her boyfriend back in
- 29:02on April twenty eighth to undergo polygraph exams, to which they both readily agreed.
- 29:07Neither man showed any signs of deception, what the authorities referred to as
- 29:12passing the test. Then the Sheriff's office brought the witnesses back in for hypnosis
- 29:19sessions, hoping to learn something new, anything interestingly, And though hypnosis is
- 29:26most often completely useless in police investigations, they did learn something new. Although
- 29:33they'd been working under the assumption that Laura Danka probably knew or was at least
- 29:38familiar with the man who played good Samaritan and subsequently killed her, these sessions
- 29:45changed their mind completely. Turns out, according to the hypnotized witnesses, Laura
- 29:52had been standing quite away's back from the man as he helped her, keeping
- 29:56a cautious distance as he swapped out the wheels. This certainly suggested she was
- 30:03not at all familiar with him. It would be nearly a year after Laura's
- 30:07murder, however, before detectives collected the evidence they needed against the man.
- 30:14They'd come to consider their most viable suspect. When seven months had passed since
- 30:32the abduction and stabbing murder of twenty six year old Laura Pipendanka, her close
- 30:37friend and coworker Lynn Alberst, told a Corpus Christi Caller Times newspaper reporter that
- 30:42she was losing hope the killer would ever be found. As her eyelids swelled
- 30:48and tears ran down her cheeks, Lynn expressed the overwhelming frustration she felt about
- 30:53the investigation. She didn't believe the new Wacey's County Sheriff's office was trying as
- 31:00hard as they ought to be. Lynn said she didn't want her friend to
- 31:03have died just for nobody to give a damn In fact, she didn't believe
- 31:07Sheriff Ortiz or his men, Lynn angrily said, were doing a damn thing
- 31:12about the murder. It was obvious Laura's unsolved murder had weighed on her all
- 31:18those months. It had weighed on all of her loved ones. But something
- 31:23was in the works. Exactly a year after the murder of Laura Danka,
- 31:30after they'd quietly collected the evidence they thought they needed against a guy they thought
- 31:34was responsible, detectives were ready to make their move on Monday, April sixth,
- 31:41nineteen eighty one, a New Wacey's County judge signed off on a murder
- 31:45warrant against a twenty seven year old man named David Kent Brammer, a man
- 31:52with whom they'd had no contact with before the following arrest. Sheriff's detectives Lewis
- 31:59Hoyt and Whad Treyhoe immediately boarded a plane and traveled to where they believed Brammer
- 32:04was living with his father, a small landlocked town in North Florida called live
- 32:09Oak, about halfway between Tallahassee and Jacksonville. Early on in the investigation,
- 32:16the department had received a tip about Brammer and his alleged involvement in Laura's murder.
- 32:22After the informant's tip, five witnesses picked the man out of a photo
- 32:28lineup. Brammer, detectives were told, was well known for wearing a blue
- 32:32down vest like the one identified by witnesses who had seen the man changing Laura
- 32:38Danka's tire in the parking lot of Albertson's, but immediately after the murder.
- 32:45Apparently he never wore it again, from what detectives Treyhoe and Hoyt could gather
- 32:52Brammer had been living in Corpus Christie for about four years prior to Laura's murder,
- 32:57and left the city at some unknown point after eventually ending up in Florida,
- 33:02where his father lived. About three hours after arriving in Live Oak,
- 33:07fla. At about four pm, Hoyt and Treyhoe visited a grocery store alongside
- 33:14local law enforcement Suwanee County Sheriff's deputies, where a man worked who could tell
- 33:20them Brammers whereabouts. In a strange twist of fate, upon asking the man
- 33:25where they could find their suspect, he pointed to where two other men were
- 33:30standing and talking in that very store and told the lawman that one was David
- 33:34Kent Brammer. As he left the grocery store, the local deputies arrested Brammer
- 33:39on the murder warrant out of Corpus Christi, Texas Police there began extradition proceedings,
- 33:45which they told the Corpus Christie collar times were expected to take thirty to
- 33:51sixty days. No new evidence had been collected by new Aces County, Texas
- 33:57detectives in Live Oak, Florida, but Sheriff's Shlaman Ortiz said he had no
- 34:00doubts a grand jury would choose to indict the man on what they already had.
- 34:06From there, however, things fell apart. After being held in a
- 34:13Suwannee County, Florida jail for nearly two months, Brammer was released on his
- 34:16own recognissance on June one, nineteen eighty one, because he was not extradited
- 34:22within thirty days, and because he had not committed a crime in Florida that
- 34:27state's law required he be released. Brammer had been fighting extradition, which apparently
- 34:34prolonged the process. According to Nwace's County District Attorney Bill Mobley, sheriff's detectives
- 34:40had enough evidence to make an arrest in April, but evidence at this point
- 34:45was insufficient to convict the man or even to bring before a grand jury for
- 34:52indictment they thought d a. Mobley explained that additional evidence would be forthcoming after
- 34:59Brammer's arrest, but it never came. Mobley refused to say exactly what the
- 35:05evidence he expected to materialize was. The district attorney said that David Kent Brammer,
- 35:12who had no criminal record prior to this arrest, and also none in
- 35:16the more than four decades since was still the prime suspect in the case.
- 35:23News about the murder of Laura Danka, and any effort at all on the
- 35:28part of the media to hold the new Wace's County Sheriff's Office feet to the
- 35:32fire ensuring the case still got the attention Laura deserved abruptly stopped and for good.
- 35:40On Tuesday, February second, nineteen eighty two, Crime Stoppers featured a
- 35:45reenactment of the murder on their Crime of the Week segment, which aired on
- 35:51the local television nightly newscasts as well as local radio stations. A standard one
- 35:57thousand dollars reward for information leading to the arrest and grand jury indictment of a
- 36:01suspect in the case was offered during the segment. Tips, they said had
- 36:07to be called in to Crime Stoppers within the next six days to be eligible
- 36:13for the reward. That was the last media attention Laura's unsolved murder received until
- 36:19May of twenty twenty four, when Dateline NBC featured a short article about the
- 36:23case. Interviewed was her brother, John Pippin, who still longs for justice.
- 36:30Their mother, Inez Lofton Pippen died in two thousand and one, and
- 36:36their father, John Lafayette Pippen, the following year. The dateline piece,
- 36:40written by Veronica Fulton, also includes quotes from the chief Deputy of Operations for
- 36:46the New Aces County Sheriff's Office, David Cook. Cook had been with the
- 36:52Corpus Christi Police Department for forty years before coming on to the Sheriff's office.
- 36:58He was a rookie patrolman in night Teith teen eighty when Laura Danka was murdered,
- 37:01and was unfamiliar with the case. He was also unfamiliar with the other
- 37:07six or so unsolved crimes New Ace's County had. However, Cook said someone
- 37:13there was now pulling those files so they could determine if there are any leads
- 37:17they might be able to pursue. As far as Laura's case is concerned,
- 37:22The chief Deputy told the Dateline reporter that no new information or leads to follow
- 37:28up on have come into the department, which has no dedicated cold case unit.
- 37:35Whether physical evidence still exists in the case, evidence that might be tested
- 37:40using the latest technological advancements in forensic science, wasn't a topic that was explored
- 37:46in the Dateline article. If you have any information about the murder of Laura
- 37:52Pippindenka, please call the New Ace's County Sheriff's Office at three sixty one eight
- 37:58eight seven two two two to two or crime Stoppers at three six one eight
- 38:04eight eight eight four seven seven. If you like gon Cold's mission to renew
- 38:10the public's interest in cold cases, you can support the show at Patreon dot
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- 38:36we appreciate it more than words can express. You can find Gone Cold
- 38:40online at goncold dot com or on nearly all the social media platforms by searching
- 38:46at gone Cold podcast. You can also find a link in bio in the
- 38:52episode's description. Thanks for listening, y'all.