Regardless of how a lot time has handed, John Pippin Jr. won’t ever cease considering about his youthful sister Laura who was murdered 44 years in the past in Corpus Christi, Texas.
“We have been shut,” John stated. “We each have been in 4-H collectively. We grew up on the farm and every part.”
The Pippin kids, 4 in all, have been raised in North Carolina. Laura was the second eldest. “She was at all times outgoing. Anyone that may be round her –. She was very, very pleasant,” John stated. “So keen to assist anyone do something.
After graduating from highschool, Laura headed off to check at North Carolina State, which is the place she met a person and fell in love.
“She met her husband at North Carolina State when she was there, and he joined the Navy, I believe it was,” John stated. “I believe they stayed in, if I’m not mistaken, Arizona, and a pair different locations, and so forth, earlier than they wound up in Corpus Christi.”
After all, the Pippins missed Laura when she left North Carolina. “We missed her horrible,” John stated. “However life carries you completely different locations typically.”
The couple settled down in Corpus Christi and began their household. “She had a boy and a lady,” John stated.
Laura received an excellent job within the space, too. “She labored with one of many insurance coverage corporations, a serious insurance coverage firm,” John stated.
However the marriage didn’t work out.
“I didn’t understand she was divorced at the moment. Daddy and Mom saved a variety of –. It was sort of, I reckon, a stigma,” John stated of divorce again then. “Didn’t discuss these issues.”
John instructed Dateline that he needs he stayed in contact together with his youthful sister extra. “We stayed in contact, however not as shut as most likely we must always have,” John stated.
He by no means would have imagined the destiny his sister would meet in April of 1980.
“Nicely, we received a phone name,” John stated. “[Laura’s] ex-husband was on the cellphone and stated one thing about, ‘Laura was lacking.’”
John defined what he discovered in regards to the day Laura disappeared. “It was Easter Sunday, and he or she glided by and picked up some work that she was going to try this afternoon at dwelling, after which she was alleged to run by and decide up the youngsters,” he stated. “However she had stopped off on the retailer.”
That’s when 26-year-old Laura Pippin Danka vanished.
Dateline spoke with David Prepare dinner, the Chief Deputy of Operations for the Nueces County Sheriff’s Workplace, in regards to the case. “April 6, 1980, was the final time our sufferer was seen alive,” he stated. On the time, Prepare dinner was a rookie police officer with the Corpus Christi Police Division in Nueces County. Prepare dinner labored there for 40 years, earlier than retiring. “After being out a yr, the sheriff requested me to come back and work for him,” he stated. “I’ve been right here with the county for 3 years.”
Chief Deputy Prepare dinner has not labored instantly on Laura’s case, however studied the case file earlier than talking with Dateline. “The final place she was seen was a grocery retailer parking zone,” in Corpus Christi, he stated. The grocery retailer was situated within the 4900 blk of South Padre Island Drive. Prepare dinner believes the shop was an Albertsons on the time.
“We saved praying that, , she’d be discovered and every part,” John Pippin Jr. remembered of the times following his sister’s disappearance.
They didn’t have to attend very lengthy for solutions. “It was three days later that we received the decision that she had been discovered,” John stated.
“Her physique was found in Nueces County,” Chief Deputy Prepare dinner stated, at roughly 3 p.m. on April 9, about 11 miles from the parking zone the place she was final seen. She was discovered “on Nation Highway 26, 1 mile east of Weber Highway in a drainage ditch by some little boys who have been using their bicycles.” Laura’s physique was “dumped exterior of town limits, however nonetheless inside Nueces County,” Prepare dinner stated. The Nueces County Sheriff’s Workplace took over the investigation.
“The post-mortem indicated a murder,” Prepare dinner famous. He stated the medical expert’s report said that Laura’s loss of life was attributable to “9 stab wounds to the left chest.”
“Clearly, to us, there was foul play, with the stab wounds that she succumbed to. However so far as anything to comply with up on, there simply isn’t—there’s nothing,” Chief Deputy Prepare dinner stated.
Prepare dinner instructed Dateline that not lengthy after the homicide, an individual of curiosity was arrested in connection to the case. “The individual of curiosity that was arrested was the final one that supposedly noticed the sufferer,” he stated. “Apparently there have been some witnesses who have been spoken to and so they recognized the gentleman.” Nevertheless, attributable to a scarcity of proof, “he was by no means charged with the murder and it seems he was launched shortly after,” Prepare dinner stated.
After Laura’s physique was discovered, her two kids went to dwell with their father. “They grew up — completed rising up — with their dad and their stepmother,” brother John instructed Dateline.
Regardless of the ache of discovering out Laura had been murdered, John recollects telling his spouse that he was relieved they a minimum of had closure. “So we didn’t need to maintain via life questioning, , the place she was,” John stated. However now — 44 years later with the case nonetheless unsolved — he realizes that sense of closure was fleeting.
Chief Deputy Prepare dinner instructed Dateline that Laura’s case will stay open, regardless of there being restricted info to research right now. “There’s completely no further info, no further leads, nothing that we are able to comply with up on to pursue any further info in regard to this case,” he stated. “If anyone have been finally to come back ahead or, by probability, there was some proof that got here to our consideration that we had not initially checked out or addressed, we would definitely do this.”
The sheriff’s workplace doesn’t have a devoted chilly case unit. “When this case was dropped at my consideration, my subsequent query was, ‘Oh, my gosh, what number of chilly circumstances do now we have?’” Chief Deputy Prepare dinner stated. “And I imagine the rely was seven.”
Prepare dinner stated the Nueces County Sheriff’s Workplace is now pulling the information for these seven circumstances and might be following up on any leads that they’ll.
During the last 44 years, John Pippin Jr. has considered what occurred to Laura that April day in 1980. “You’ll be able to provide you with all these completely different theories,” he stated. However on the finish of the day, he has no thought what occurred to his sister.
4 years in the past, on the fortieth anniversary of his sister’s homicide, John wrote a letter to the Nueces County Sheriff’s Workplace. “I hoped we would get some closure at some point earlier than I cross that Laura’s killer could be discovered,” John wrote. “If not, I take peace that the nice Lord is aware of.”
When you have any details about the homicide of Laura Pippin Danka, please name the Nueces County Sheriff’s Workplace at 361-887-2222.
When you have a narrative to share with Dateline, please submit it here.
