McClatchy-Tribune Regional News (USA)
February 22, 2008
Brutality of slaying indicates drug use: Pathologist also says crime clues suggest
Tipton, killer didn't have relationship
Author: Sheryl Marsh, The Decatur Daily, Ala.
Feb. 22 A forensic pathologist testified that Karen Tipton's death was torturous and the
mutilation of her body was consistent with the actions of someone on crack cocaine.
Also, he said, clues from the crime scene indicate Tipton, 39, did not know her killer.
Dr. Stephen Pustilnik testified Thursday during Daniel Wade Moore's capital murder trial
in Morgan County Circuit Court.
Pustilnik conducted an autopsy on the victim's body a day after she was murdered at her
home March 12, 1999.
He said Tipton had 28 stab wounds and multiple blunt-force trauma injuries.
Pustilnik described the wounds, which included three slashes to the throat.
He and state Assistant Attorney General Will Dill showed autopsy photographs of
Tipton. Stab wounds covered her left chest. Pustilnik said a puncture in her heart
indicated that the killer twisted the knife.
Tipton's lung and spleen were punctured, and Pustilnik said she was sexually assaulted.
When the victim's husband found her, Tipton was lying nude on her back. Her legs were
spread open and her arms were back.
The pathologist said if a person has a relationship with his victim he tries to cover her up,
but if he does not know his victim he does not.
Pustilnik said the way the killer left Tipton indicates that her assailant did not know her.
Pustilnik said two marks across the bridge of the victim's nose were consistent with a
fireplace poker that investigators collected from the crime scene. He said it appeared that
someone put the poker across Tipton's nose to hold her down so she could not move.
He said cuts on her hands were defensive wounds, meaning she tried to block or grab the
knife.
The pathologist said Tipton was killed with a single-edge knife, which had one sharp side
and the other was flat or round, not for cutting.
Pustilnik said he has conducted about 3,000 autopsies and has seen injuries like Tipton's
"multiple times" and they were inflicted by someone on crack cocaine.
Authorities said Moore was a known crack addict at the time of Tipton's murder.
A man testified earlier this week that he sold Moore crack several times. One of the times
was March 12, when Moore gave him $100 and a camcorder.
Decatur police investigators said Tipton's purse and a camcorder were taken from the
home when she was killed.
Defense attorney Sherman Powell Jr. argues that Moore only traded new, not used
camcorders.
Paver testifies
A man whom police once considered a suspect also testified Thursday.
Martin Scott Lane, who helped pave Tipton's and her neighbor's driveways, told the jury
that police questioned him and co-workers the day of the murder.
Dark long hair
Lane said they were working at the neighbor's home, but he was going back and forth to
the Tipton residence, cleaning up materials from paving there. While he was cleaning up
at the Tipton home that afternoon, Lane said, a man about his size, with dark long hair,
came up to him and asked if anyone was home.
Lane is thin, not tall, and has dark hair.
"He said he had left some tools there," Lane said of the man. Lane said he did not pay
attention to the guy.
Under cross-examination by the defense, Lane said he didn't tell investigators about the
man when they questioned him March 12. He said he told them he had not seen anything.
He said he told Decatur police Investigator Barry Hamilton about the man when he and
Sgt. Mike Pettey interviewed him in Illinois at a detention center.
Lane is in a county jail in Illinois for driving under the influence and flew here Thursday
to testify. He was under police guard.
Lane said he never went inside the victim's home but had seen her with her two daughters
outside.
"Did you go into Karen Tipton's house and kill her, Martin?" Assistant Attorney General
Don Valeska asked.
"No sir," Lane answered.
Pettey said he and Hamilton ruled Lane out as a suspect after talking with him in Illinois.
Moore, 34, became their sole suspect based information his uncle asked an assistant
district attorney to give to the investigators.
Pettey said Moore recanted the statement he made to his uncle about being with two
friends in the victim's home when one of them killed her. Moore said he made up the
story and he never named the friends.
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Record Number: 11F006A18CFFF120