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Who Killed Karen Tipton? · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:40
  March twelfth, nineteen ninety nine, doctor David Tipton approached his home in Decatur,
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  Alabama, a little bit earlier than usual. He and his housewife Karen,
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  had plans to go to the theater that evening. As he hung up
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  his coat in the fouryer, he shouted to let Karen know that he was
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  home. This is a big house. He later explained, I did call
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  for her. She should have been there with the children. At that point,
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  I saw a drop of blood, one small drop of blood on the
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  foyer, on the tile. The next thing I saw was more blood in
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  the foyer toward the door, and I walked up the stairs and was the
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  most surprised person on the face of the earth to get to the top and
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  find a dead body there that looked somewhat like Karen. Through the shock and
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  gore of it all, David Tipton had a hard time recognizing the body of
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  his thirty nine year old wife, but it was unfortunately Karen. She had
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  been stripped and stabbed over twenty eight times, and then her throat had been
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  cut. She was in the prime of her life. David later said she
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  was prettier than she'd ever been in her life Decayur had never seen quite a
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  murder like this, and the brutality that had been Karen's final moments shocked the
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  community. Investigators rushed to the scene to immediately begin looking for clue, desperate
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  to put Karen's surviving family indicate a residence back at ease by ridding the streets
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  of a savage killer. David was left to pick up the pieces. The
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  worst day of my life was about a week after the murder, he said,
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  and that was when Catherine, then three years old, asked me when
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  mommy was coming back from heaven. The investigators honed in on their prime suspect
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  at the time, David himself, but David had an alibi. Karen answered
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  a phone call around one o'clock and usually picked up the children around two thirty,
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  but she hadn't that day. That gave the investigators the window of about
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  an hour and a half that they believed Karen was killed and David was in
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  his office until around three point thirty. David was ruled out as a potential
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  suspect and was actually allowed back into their home to continue living there while the
• 2:53
  investigation played out. By removing the husband from the pool of suspects. The
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  investigators had ruled out the usual perpetrator in most cases like this, but they
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  did also manage to narrow that pull down quite a bit. There were no
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  signs of forced entry at the home, meaning that Karen had more than likely
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  known her killer. However, the Decatur community at large were unimpressed with this
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  nugget of information, and the police department began to feel the mounting pressure building
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  on all sides. High profile rich doctor's wife. Defense lawyer Sherman Powell later
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  said, beautiful lady brutally slain. I think there was a lot of pressure
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  on them. They had to have something. About A month after Karen was
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  murdered, the police caught a break when a man named Sparky Moore walked into
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  the station with a startling confession. He claimed that he had just had a
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  chilling conversation with his nephew, Daniel weighed More, a conversation where Daniel said,
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  you know the Tipton murder, the doctor's wife that was murdered on Chapel
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  Hill Road, Well, I was there during this now infamous conversation. Daniel
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  did not admit to killing Karen, but did say that he was there during
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  the time of the murder, and that was enough for the investigators. They
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  honed in on Daniel and brought him down to the station where this case witnessed
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  another shocking turn of events. When the officers left Daniel alone in the interrogation
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  room, Daniel whipped out a pocket knife from his jacket and began stabbing himself.
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  For the investigators, Daniel trying to kill himself was as good as a
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  confession, and they arrested him then and there. They believed that Daniel was
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  simply trying to avoid his punishment because deep down, Daniel knew that he was
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  guilty of murder. But it didn't take much to start finding a few holes
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  in this theory. Daniel has since denied any involvement in Karen's murder and has
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  only ever confessed to his uncle during that one conversation. During that conversation,
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  he claim aimed that he and some other men had broken into the Tempton household
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  and that Karen had been killed downstairs while Daniel had been upstairs. But as
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  the investigation itself proved, Karen had been killed upstairs. In fact, they
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  even found blood in the bed, suggesting that Karen had first been attacked there
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  before escaping. Her killer had then caught up with her at the top of
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  the stairs and finished killing her there. And then there's the crucial fact that
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  the investigators found no signs of forced jury at the home, But both the
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  prosecution and David Tipton argued that Daniel would not have needed to force his way
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  in. He'd actually been there a few months before as part of the team
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  that installed the Tipton's new home security system. It was possible that Karen recognized
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  him, and it was possible that Daniel had bluffed his way in by stating
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  that he was there to check up on the system, but that still would
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  not explain why Daniel was confused about the details of Karen's murder, why he
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  would even confess to his uncle in the first place. Daniel himself had an
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  explanation for that quote. I'd been on drugs for a while. I'd pretty
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  much given up on life. I wanted to get my grandfather and my uncle
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  to leave me alone time and distance. That is what Daniel claimed he lied
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  about the murder to get He wanted the space to take drugs without being bothered
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  by his family, and so he had said what he said his lawyer,
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  Sherman Powell, argued at court that Daniel had never confessed to anything that he
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  couldn't have read in a newspaper, and even the details weren't exactly accurate.
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  Sherman Powell did, however, point the finger at another suspect. This was
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  not something a burglar, robber, or rapist or anybody does, he said
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  in court. Not even a contract killer does it. This was a crime
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  of passion period. According to Sherman Powell, it was actually David Tipton who
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  had killed his wife. The prosecution argued against this claim and continued to put
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  the blame on Daniel Moore, but even the presiding Judge, Glenn Thompson,
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  had his doubts. Upon receiving the jury's written verdict, the judge recalled a
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  former law partner saw my reaction, he said, he saw the blood drain
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  out of my face. He said, I just turned white from the top
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  down. I was that surprised. I didn't think the state had proven it.
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  Too many unanswered questions, it never got to the point beyond a reasonable
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  doubt. But for the jury it had, and they found Daniel Wade More
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  guilty of murder. Judge Thompson was given no other alternative than to follow the
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  law and to punish Daniel as harshly as he could. It's not that I
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  wanted to sentence him to death, but I did. During the appeals,
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  a now infamous and case breaking piece of information came to the surface, one
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  that involved Karen herself. It turned out that Karen had had a secret life,
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  one that included extramarital affairs. Was it possible that one of Karen's lovers
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  had turned on her and killed her in her own home? Is that why
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  the attack had started in the bedroom and then ended with Karen naked at the
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  top of the stairs. Spurred on by this new information, Sherman Powell continued
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  to dig for anything that could spare Daniel from his sentence, and then Sherman
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  found Pam Smith, a neighbor who claimed to have seen Karen out and abouts
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  at three point thirty on the afternoon that she was murdered. If this was
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  true, that would completely shift the timeline of Karen's killings away from when the
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  investigators believe it happened and open up the possibility of other suspects. The prosecution
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  discredited Pam's testimony, but one person did find it compelling, Judge Glenn Thompson.
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  Two years after sentencing Daniel to death, the very same judge overturned his
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  conviction and set him free. Quote, I thought I'd committed political suicide.
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  I really did. I did it anyway. It was the right thing to
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  do. Daniel went from awaiting execution to complete freedom for four whole days anyway
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  determined, the authorities re arrested Daniel and got to work trying to make sure
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  that this time he stayed behind bars. Nine whole years after Karen was killed,
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  Daniel faced charges for her murder for the second time. After six days
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  to review the evidence, the jury shockingly came back empty handed. We tried
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  very, very hard, a juror later set outside the courtroom, and we
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  just couldn't do it. Daniel's second trial was a mistrial that meant that Daniel
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  would face a third. This time, the jury took seven days, and
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  this time they came to a decision. Daniel was found not guilty, a
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  verdict that was a victory for some and a loss for others. David and
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  his daughters believed that Daniel is Karen's killer. Sherman Powell and others still point
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  the finger at David, but Karen's case remains open, and after so many
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  years, with so little evidence, it's difficult to say whether her killer will
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  ever be brought to justice. That's ten minute Murder for today, brief and
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