Sex, Lies And The Doctor's Wife

Was Karen Tipton's Murder A Crime Of Passion Or A Robbery Gone Wrong?

(CBS) 
At trial, the defense suggested there were a number of possible killers. But Sherman Powell believes the most likely suspect is the man cleared by police, Karen’s husband. “She would not have run from him if he assaulted her on the couch. There’s no evidence that she tried to escape or tried to call. It had to be someone she was familiar with,” he says.

Powell says that the driveway pavers working next door told police they saw Tipton’s truck at the house at least an hour before officers arrived.

But why would Dr. Tipton want to kill his wife? Powell says it could have been jealousy. “There is some indication of extramarital affairs that were ongoing at this point in time,” he says.

Crime reporter Baggs believes Karen Tipton was having at least one affair, and thinks that could have led to her death.

At trial, the defense called a neighbor who said she often saw a light-colored pickup parked at the Tipton house during the day. And on the stand, David Tipton admitted that just weeks before the murder his best friend, Mike Ezell, had e-mailed Karen suggesting they swap spouses.

“I was offended by that. I was offended not only by Mike but by Karen, as well,” says Tipton.

“What do you mean?” asks Moriarty.

“That she had carried on a silly conversation with a friend of mine,” says Tipton.

Powell says Karen may have had reasons of her own to be angry. An expert testified Karen was on the family computer the day she died and Powell believes she may have made a shocking discovery. According to the expert, its hard drive was loaded with pornography.

“The majority of the stuff in there was gay men interacting and I have never seen a lady yet who would sit down and look at that kind of stuff,” says Powell. He speculates that Karen could have discovered the porn and confronted her husband, sparking a fight.

“Nobody that knew me would consider me capable of doing such a crime. Am I capable of killing somebody? Yup. Am I capable of killing a loved one? No. Am I capable of torturing my wife to death? That’s crazy,” says David Tipton. “It’s easier for people to think of me being a killer than it is for Daniel Moore to be a killer. It scares people to think that some stranger off the street could show up in your house and the next minute you’re in a torture chamber. But in the end you really kind of need to look at the evidence.”

Prosecutors believed they had all the evidence they needed. Although none of Moore’s blood or fingerprints were found at the scene, police discovered two tiny hairs in the Tipton bedroom, hairs they believed belonged to Daniel Moore.

Standard DNA tests were inconclusive, so the state called in Dr. Sudhir Sinha from ReliaGene Labs, who tested the hairs for mitochondrial DNA, a less discriminating test.

Mitochondrial DNA cannot pinpoint one person. It can only pinpoint a group of people. Dr. Sinha says that the hair does not belong to either the victim or the husband, but it is consistent with the hair of Daniel Moore. That means, he stresses, that he can’t definitively identify Moore as the source but cannot exclude him.

“It rules out 99.8 percent of the population, leaving two tenths of one percent, and he’s in that two tenths,” says David Tipton. So are many other people but, Tipton says, “He’s the only person in that group who had the means, motive and opportunity to do the crime.”

Means, motive and opportunity. According to the prosecution, Moore had all three. The jury deliberated for two days, and found him guilty.