By Kenneth C.
Rossignol
ST. MARY’S
TODAY
HERMANVILLE —
The St. Mary’s Sheriff’s
Department says a month
after finally finding the
body of the long missing
Mark Tippett that they have
concluded that since that
they can’t prove the man’s
death was attributed to
murder that it must have
been a suicide, which is
likely a disappointment to
Tippett’s family and a
victory to whoever may have
had a hand in his death.
Tippett
disappeared on Sept. 3, 2006
and an exhaustive grid
search of the area near his
home was not conducted.
Last month
St. Mary’s Sheriff Tim
Cameron marshaled over 60
law officers from several
different agencies and after
several hours, found
Tippett’s body.
Family
members had sought the help
of the public in finding
their missing brother while
Tippett’s wife, a curious
subject of various criminal
backgrounds including being
charged with the 2008 arson
of the home owned by her and
her missing husband,
propelled the idea of
suicide as the reason for
Tippett’s disappearance.
Sources
report that the police began
the search after being told
by Lisa Tippett where she
had dumped his body after
killing him. Sheriff Cameron
said that investigators had
not been told by Tippett
where to look that they
simply were following up on
a grid search when they came
across the body.
On Friday, Capt. Ricky
Burris, the commander of the
joint Maryland State Police
and Sheriff’s Department
criminal investigation unit
issued this statement:
"The
investigation into the
disappearance and death of
Mark Alan Tippett has been
closed by the St. Mary’s
County Bureau of Criminal
Investigations Cold Case
Unit, in cooperation with
the States Attorneys Office,
and no criminal charges will
be filed."
Burris went
on to report that there was
no evidence recovered which
would support a homicide had
taken place.
"In February
of 2008 Mark Tippett’s
disappearance was
reclassified as a homicide,
based on statements made by
Tippett’s wife and
suspicious circumstances
surrounding his
disappearance. Further
investigation revealed the
statements of Tippett’s wife
were not true, based on the
condition and location of
the remains."
Sheriff
Cameron told ST. MARY’S
TODAY that the investigators
had determined that Lisa
Tippett and her boyfriend
Ian Simpson were persons of
interest in the murder.
Now, Capt.
Burris says that the case is
no longer a murder case.
"The totality
of the circumstances points
to a suicide or an
accidental death. This
conclusion is supported by
the condition of his
remains, evidence found with
his remains, evidence found
shortly after Tippett’s
disappearance, circumstances
of the Tippetts’ lives
before Mark went missing,
statements made by Mark
Tippett and examination by
the State Medical Examiner’s
Office."
The reason
that the first 48 hours
after a murder has taken
place or a person is
reported missing is so that
crucial evidence needed to
support a murder charge
continues to erode and the
only evidence available to
police in this case
disappeared, thus they now
cite, not their own failure
to properly conduct a search
which may have yielded
significant clues, but they
now mysteriously assert that
since they can’t prove it
was a homicide it must have
been a suicide.
Perhaps
Tippett was skydiving
without a parachute, but
then again, after more than
two years even a missing
parachute could be missing,
unless of course, a
parachute was present but
simply failed to open.
Tippett was
reported by his strange wife
to have left their home
located in Cedar Cove, just
south of Lexington Park,
with a rifle and was likely
to have killed himself.
Cameron would not say
whether any gun was found
with the body.
Family
members say that Tippett was
not despondent or depressed
and had been enjoying a long
period of recovery prior to
his disappearance.
But, still,
even as the police attempt
to convince folks that
Tippett was not murdered, a
cryptic end to their press
release on Friday left the
door wide open.
"Detectives
from the Bureau of Criminal
Investigations met with the
Maryland State Medical
Examiner’s Office in
Baltimore and the official
cause of death is listed as
undetermined. Toxicology
could not be performed on
Tippett’s remains, however
extensive forensic
examination by the Medical
Examiner’s Office failed to
reveal any signs of trauma."
Perhaps the
Sheriff can turn to CSI
Miami for help as the
detectives of his squad took
more than two years to find
a body which was only a mile
from the missing man’s
house.
Cadaver dogs
should have been able to
find him, the buzzards
surely did.
One of the
Bowles brothers who had been
breaking into homes and
stores in the Chaptico and
Seventh District areas was
slain one night as he broke
into Chaptico Market. The
gun and bike that Bowles had
were left on the scene while
the merchants who shot
Bowles hauled his body to a
nearby swamp and dumped him,
circling back in their van
to the nearby liquor store
to laugh at the cops who
were scratching their heads
trying to find out what
happened.
While the
shooting of Bowles removed
some of the worst scum from
the earth the ineptness of
the police led the citizens
to take the law into their
own hands.
The police
still did not find Bowles
body until six months later
despite their ample budgets
used to secure training,
technology, manpower and
skills of modern police
agencies.
Sometimes
they just need Sherlock
Holmes as solving crimes can
often be "Elementary, my
dear Watson".
