Events Surrounding the Death of Mary Elizabeth Tipton in February 2015 Raise Many Questions About Justice System in Cameron County

Mary Elizabeth Tipton

Ralph Tipton last spoke with his wife Mary on Friday, February 27, 2015.  Mary told him her cell phone was running out of charge or minutes. It was the last time they would ever talk.  The next day Mary was struck by a white Volkswagen driven by Marisa Govea Hernandez, while walking on FM 803, sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 PM.

To this point, Marisa Govea Hernandez, has suffered no legal penalty, not for her hit-and-run accident causing death, not for leaving the scene, not for failing to render aid.  She was released on $500 bond over a year ago, followed by a number of peculiar, shadowy actions by the Cameron County District Attorney's office.  We will detail those incidents in future stories.  

Ralph Tipton,  was still living at the family's residence in Port Arthur, Texas, while his wife Mary visited relatives in Brownsville in February 2015.  While in Brownsville, Mary stayed at the Deluxe 6 Motel, on frontage road at I-69 and FM 511. Saturday night, February 28, 2015 she evidently walked around the block containing Deluxe 6. Couch Road runs along the north side of the motel, connecting the frontage road with FM 803. Three or four warehouses are clustered together along that first block of FM 803 just past FM 511. 

Deluxe 6 Motel on I-69 Frontage Road

Mrs. Marisa Govea Hernandez, the driver of the white Volkswagen, and a passenger never identified, did not stop to see what they had hit. They were only a very short distance from Marisa Govea Hernandez' home, causing one law officer to speculate that the Volkswagen had not reached full speed before hitting Mary Tipton.  Mrs. Hernandez son, Mauricio Hernandez, a deputy sheriff with the Cameron County Sheriff's Department, admitted to Detective Thomas Clipper of the Brownsville Police Department that he'd been out during the night of the accident with a flashlight, hunting for what his mother had hit. At first he told Officer Clipper his mother had hit an "animal," but later speculated that animal was probably a "skunk."

His mother, the driver of the hit-and-run vehicle, was not interviewed by BPD Detective Clipper, only opening the front door a crack to hand out her ID.  Her son, the deputy sheriff, did all the talking for her with Detective Clipper.

Multiple pictures of the mother's white Volkswagen showed a smashed windshield and damage much larger than a skunk could cause.

Three days later, a construction worker, walking down FM 803, discovered the body of Mary Tipton, face down in a ditch, close enough to the seen from the Hernandez home.  She was directly under a street lamp. The autopsy did not indicate whether Mrs. Tipton died immediately from impact or during her three days in the ditch along FM 803.


Ralph and Mary Tipton had been together nineteen years, raising together Ralph's twenty year old son.  The plan was to move back to Brownsville with Ralph working for his brother, Francisco Tipton, an attorney specializing in immigration law.  Mary, who'd been active for several years in advocating for battered women, hoped to start her own non-profit after settling in Brownsville.

Today's phone conversation with Ralph was primarily to learn more about Mary.  Her husband explained that Mary loved to write poetry and sent us a sample:

Why exist

if existing means loving with conditions?

LIVE, don't just simply exist

and be universally satisfied......

Subsequent stories will deal with actions by Detective Clipper, his transfer to a desk job while on the case, the inept prosecution of the case by District Attorney Luis Saenz' office,  lead prosecutor Guzman, possible malpractice by Attorney Oscar Alvarez of McAllen, a secret hearing to arrange a plea deal without Mr. Tipton's knowledge and many, many irregularities in the handling of evidence, erasing of video and a number of untruths told by the public servants involved in the case.  

We will also detail how Rachel Kram, Court Reporter, responded to Mr. Tipton's legal request for a transcript of the plea hearing.