Hit-and-Run Death of Mary Tipton is the Brownsville Observer 2016 Story of the Year

Entry	Pageviews
Fiesta Supermarket to Occupy Old K-Mart Building A... Aug 12, 2016, 15 comments	26554
2015 Hit-and-Run Accident Death Reveals Ineptitude... Aug 6, 2016, 26 comments	19973
Events Surrounding the Death of Mary Elizabeth Tip... Aug 7, 2016, 26 comments	17333
The Real Focus Has To Be On The Fact That Marisa G... Aug 8, 2016, 46 comments	9454
Downtown Live Music Event Shut Down by Assistant F... Jan 6, 2016, 30 comments	4248

Mary Tipton

The five stories above led the Brownsville Observer in pageviews for 2016, but two of the stories, both about the death of Mary Tipton and on consecutive days, totaled 37,306 pageviews.

The hit-and-run death of Mary Tipton is the Brownsville Observer 2016 story of the year, not just because of tremendous public interest, but also the insight it gives us into the way cases are investigated, prosecuted and judged in Cameron County.  Our so-called judicial system is on display.

A tragedy of errors, mishandling, destruction of evidence and, even favoritism has marred the case.

Rather than, review the case now, let's allow our original two articles and six subsequent articles to tell the story:

Saturday, August 6, 2016

2015 Hit-and-Run Accident Death Reveals Ineptitude, Corruption by Cameron County Justice System Including DA's Office, BPD and Division of Records

Ralph Tipton

Ralph Tipton is profoundly sad, incredibly hurt, but most of all, mad as hell, about the death of his wife, Mary, on February 28, 2015 in a hit-and-run accident and the mishandling of accident by the Cameron County District Attorney, bungling of the accident report by the Brownsville Police Department, silencing by reassignment of the BPD detective originally assigned to the case and, even, refusal to share legally mandated records by the Cameron County Department of Records.

Mary Tipton, Found Dead in a Ditch on FM
803 Within Sight of the Hit-and-Run Driver
Marisa Govea's Home

At every turn, Ralph Tipton, has been stifled, stymied and squelched in his effort to get to the truth of his wife's death and the justice of adequate prosecution of the person responsible.

On July 28 retired reporter Emma Perez-Trevino shared this much on her Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/staremma.pereztrevino/posts/997962970316951

Detective Thomas Clipper,  Told
to "Stand Down & Stay Out" of
Hit-and-Run Case.  "Let the DA
Handle It!"

Since Emma shared that report, Mr. Tipton contacted us seeking further help in getting his complete story out in his pursuit of justice for his wife.  He also shared dozens of pictures of the vehicle that struck his wife, pictures of his wife at the crime scene and other tape recorded and written evidence. 

The hit-and-run driver came to be identified as 

Marisa Govea Hernandez, Hit-and-Run Driver

Marisa Govea Hernandez, the mother of a Cameron County Deputy Sheriff. Her house is in eyesight of where Mary Tipton's body was found, but her son, a Cameron County Deputy Sheriff, according to Tipton, unethically spoke for her, giving a largely misleading and totally inaccurate report of the accident to the Brownsville Police Department. He claimed his mother had hit a skunk and incorrectly stated her direction of travel.  

Height of Damage to Suspect's Vehicle

We will not presume at this point to know the entire story, but we will do our best to find out why this case was handled as it was.  

According to Mr. Tipton, efforts have been made to keep him out of the process every step of the way.

As stated above, there are many elements of this story.  We will endeavor to isolate the individual stories within the story in subsequent days.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

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.

Monday, August 8, 2016

The Real Focus Has To Be On The Fact That Marisa Govea Hernandez DID NOT Stop and Render Aid to Mary Tipton After Striking Her With Her Vehicle

Maria Elizabeth Tipton

Yes, the Cameron County Justice System is inept, corrupt.  Tell us something we don't know.  From the phony "Operation Bishop," where District Attorney Luis Saenz pretends to fight crime by closing down eight-liners, then sells the confiscated machines to a company connected to Carlos Masso, to Sheriff Omar Lucio covering again and again for the drunken Lieutenant Gus Reyna, damaging one county vehicle after another while getting kisses blown his way by Lucio.

County Sheriff Omar Lucio

None of this dumbass bullshit by ethically-challenged politicos killed Maria Elizabeth Tipton. Sheriff Omar Lucio did not strike her with his much-larger-than-needed county vehicle and leave her for dead in a FM 803 ditch.  

District Attorney Luis Saenz

Even District Attorney Luis Saenz' cowardly handling of the prosecution of the mother of a Cameron County Sheriff's deputy, who left the scene of a hit-and-run and then sent her son to the door to answer BPD questions, was not the killer.

Marisa Govea Hernandez killed Mary Tipton, striking her with her white Volkswagen, then leaving the scene without rendering aid or even reporting the accident.  Mary lay face down in a ditch for three days before discovered by a construction worker walking along FM 803.

Detective Thomas Clipper

According to Ralph Tipton, Mary's husband, BPD Detective Clipper, at first very supportive of the investigation, totally changed his mindset after being reassigned to work cold cases. Yes, maintaining employment makes men turn into cowards.

Yes, there is evidence of malpractive by McAllen Attorney Oscar Alvarez, hired by Ralph Tipton. Lawyers react just as BPD Detective Thomas Clipper reacted when confronted by pressure from his "superiors."  They cave.

The bottom line is that Marisa Govea Hernandez must take personal responsibility in the death of Mary Tipton.

Footnote:  The two articles we've written about the hit-and-run accident leading to the death of Mary Tipton have set records for individual, singular articles at the Brownsville Observer.The first article had over 15,000 page views with the second at 11,000 and growing. Obviously, this incident struck a nerve with Brownsville, Cameron County.

All of the above is only worth shit unless it results in justice for Mary Tipton.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Kind Gesture by Sheriff Omar Lucio, But No Flowers for Mary Tipton

No Flowers for Mary Tipton

Those who swear to protect us, the police, also protect themselves and their brothers. Almost weekly, our national news outlets share shaky video from handheld cell     phones showing police firing bullets into fleeing, unarmed black men, then facing wrist slaps from the judicial system.

Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio

82 year old Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio understands the wherewithal needed to maintain the so-called thin blue line.  His men must know he has their collective backs. Rumors that old man Lucio suffers from dementia or some other old age infirmity are overrated, simply wishful thinking by someone not getting a promotion or the mother of a suspect roughed up in jail.

Gus Reyna (Photo by Jason
Hoekema of the Brownsville Herald)

This blog has detailed how Lucio's right hand man, Gus Reyna has wrecked police vehicle after police vehicle in drunken binges, gone through rehab, but still functions at the top of the sheriff department's food chain.  Lucio is loyal to his boys.

Considering that Sheriff Lucio has kept nearly 400 employees  in the Cameron County Sheriff's Department relatively content, is it any wonder that, when he learned that the mother of one of his deputies, Marin Hernandez,  had allegedly been involved in a hit-and-run accident, he sent a floral arrangement to comfort the man and his mother? The card with the flowers may as well have read: "Hernandez, we have your back!" 

Remember, Mrs. Hernandez heard this huge "thud" as she traveled southbound on FM 803 back on February 28, 2015.  

"Perhaps, it was an animal," she may have thought to herself.  Her deputy son speculated later, in responding to a Brownsville police officer, that his mom may have hit a skunk.  Dozens of police photos show Mrs. Hernandez hit an object tall enough to smash her windshield, but whatever.

While the deputy son was answering questions from BPD, Mary Tipton was lying face down in a ditch just across FM 803.  Her body was under a street lamp.  Who knows where Deputy Hernandez searched that night with his flashlight, but he evidently didn't search across the street.

Mary Tipton got no flowers.

Friday, August 12, 2016

The Disturbing Contrast Between the District Attorney's Public Photo-Op on Domestic Violence and his Actual Performance As Prosecutor

2 “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. 3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ 4 The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, 5 but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’"

Saint Luke 18:2-5

District Attorney Luis V. Saenz at Domestic Violence Photo-Op

Mary Tipton Received No Justice
from District Attorney Luis V. Saenz

District Attorney Luis Saenz gives lip service in the above advertised photo-op that portrays him as the ultimate advocate for battered women, victims of domestic violence and crime in Cameron County.

If the once-beautiful Mary Tipton, victim of a hit-and-run accident on FM 803 in February 2015 could still speak, she would disagree with DA Saenz' grandiose portrayal of himself.  

Yes, Saenz met with Mary's family, including her husband, Ralph Tipton, Ralph's dad and son, Mary's two sisters and two brothers.  He comforted one of the crying sisters and promised the family that he personally would prosecute this case.  That lovefest occurred in March 2015.

After meeting with the family, DA Saenz decided he had too much on his proverbial plate and assigned the case to Oscar Guzman, a prosecutor in his office. 

Meanwhile Brownsville Police Department Detective Thomas Clipper discovered security video in a warehouse on FM 803 that covered the entire accident.  Clipper watched the video for "three days," as noted in his report, the video covered the accident from beginning to end, showing Marisa Govea Hernandez' white Volkswagen striking Mary Tipton while southbound on FM 803.  

Inexplicably, when Prosecutor Oscar Guzman received the video from the Brownsville Police Department, it had been reduced to a mere 30 seconds.  Guzman found the video "inadequate" evidence to prosecute and arranged a plea hearing. That plea hearing was set for June 28, 2016.

Ralph Tipton showed up for the hearing, despite not being directly notified by the DA's office or his lawyer, Oscar Alvarez from McAllen. Prosecutor Guzman was a no show, as was Attorney Alvarez, prompting Judge Rene De Coss to say, according to Ralph Tipton, that "he'd never seen anything like this in 20 years. . . no DA, no evidence, nothing and no one knows what's going on." 

When Ralph Tipton approached Court Reporter Rachel Kram for a transcript of the incredible hearing, he was told that "the machine was down" for the hearing and there was no transcript.

A reader commented that the handling of this case resembles the Keystone Cops, but likely few in this reading audience are old enough to remember Abbott and Costello.  Actually, we've reported just a glimpse of the DA's office participation, not said much about BPD Officer Clipper or Attorney Alvarez.

Mary Tipton

The fucking irony is that Mary Tipton may very well have been one of those victims proclaimed so publicly he would protect, a victim of domestic violence. Her husband, Ralph Tipton, told me that she was a member of three battered women advocacy groups, and, that she spent considerable time on the phone assisting victims before her death.  

None of us lived with Ralph and Mary Tipton. We don't know if she was, in any sense, a battered woman.  We do know she was struck by Marisa Govea Hernandez on February 28, 2015 and Hernandez did not stop to render aid.

We also know that District Attorney Luis Saenz, a blowhard, not embarrassed to advertise his accomplishments, has been totally impotent in prosecuting Mary Tipton's case.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Public Pressure Forces City Attorney Mark Sossi, Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez to Finally Release Police Procedure Manual to Ralph Tipton

City Attorney Mark Sossi, the ill-advised hire during Pat Ahumada's last term as mayor, is the gift that keeps on taking, blocking governmental tranparency at every possible turn, resisting democratic principles as if they were carriers of the Zika virus.  Sossi has morphed into the city's enabler, including the unethical mayor, the weak-minded city commission and the challenged,but overpaid, city manager.


Sossi's resume' is littered with theft, malpractice and incompetence, including a $167,363 judgement for pocketing funds intended for his previous employer, the Willette & Guerra Law Firm, stealing another $20,711.66 from the Texas Workforce, intended for employee unemployment benefits, a $100,000 tax lien from the I.R.S. as well as two malpractice lawsuits from Brownsville residents who thought retaining the City Attorney in private practice might be a good idea.

Sossi's magnum opus, however, has to be his highschoolish power point, at Mayor Martinez behest, against the broadcast of the public comment of Brownsville taxpayers at City Commission meetings.  Sossi, perhaps possessed by some despot's demon, argued that blocking the broadcast of public comment would lead to a greater diversity of commenters.  Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler all applauded from their graves!

Ralph Tipton

Enter Ralph Tipton, the husband of hit-and-run victim, Mary Tipton, who likely knew little about Sossi's bio when he asked the city to view a copy of the Brownsville Police Department manual, outlining proper, acceptable police procedure.

Tipton, not a police officer, had legitimate questions about the way his wife's case had been handled.  Why did Detective Thomas Clipper not even interview the woman who killed his wife with her vehicle, but, instead, allow the woman's son, a Cameron County Deputy Sheriff, to speak for his mom?  Why did the BPD not search for a body, but instead, accept the deputy's theory that his mom had likely struck a skunk, when the damage to the vehicle included a busted windshield?  Why did the BPD reduce a security camera's tape of the entire incident to a mere 30 seconds, allowing a District Attorney flunky, Oscar Guzman, to decide there was "insufficient evidence" to prosecute? 

District Judge Arturo Cisneros Nelson

Eight months ago, after Brownsville Police Chief Orlando Rodriquez denied Tipton's request to peruse the police department manual, the matter came before District Judge Arturo Cisneros Nelson. Judge Nelson seemed mystified as to why the matter was before him, telling City Attorney Sossi and Tipton: "You two should be working together on this."  Sossi replied by saying that Police Chief Rodriguez did not want the document released to Tipton and that he agreed.  As Gomer Pyle used to say:  "Surprise! Surprise!"

What dangerous secrets did this police procedure manual hold that Police Chief Rodriguez and City Attorney Sossi so desperately want to hide from the taxpayers?  Did it authorize waterboarding, demonic chants or hexes?  

Sossi continued to stonewall until this past week when the publicity created on this blog and Ralph Tipton's incessant use of Facebook and every option he could muster to publicize the nature of his wife's death, that Sossi finally relented, telling Tipton that "his superiors had ordered him" to share the police manual.

We will reprint below, without commentary, copies of a Facebook discussion between Tipton and Sossi about the manual:

Sossi was offering the elusive manual to Ralph Tipton, if Tipton would meet him in Hidalgo. Ralph was being a bit coy, because, unbeknownst to Sossi, Tipton already had the manual.

Of course, all of this back and forth means nothing unless Mary Tipton gets justice, despite all facets of the local representation of the so-called justice system seriously underperforming.