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Marsa Gipson case now a question of conscience
This Saturday, Aug. 27 will mark 25 years since as heinous, cowardly and despicable an act as can even be imagined claimed the life of a 28-year-old Arcadia woman whose only mistake was picking that precise moment to be driving on Interstate 70 through Putnam County in the wee hours of the morning.
It's a quarter-century now without closure for the family of Marsa Gipson who died instantly that day when a 22-pound chunk of riprap was maliciously tossed off the Manhattan Road overpass and came crashing down on the windshield of Gipson's Chevrolet Camaro, killing her instantly.
The case has remained unsolved with the statute of limitations running out on anything but a murder charge now.
Approaching the 33-mile marker about 1:15 a.m., Marsa was driving westbound, flanked by a male companion, en route to Terre Haute to pick up her young children (ages 9 and 10 in 1991). Those children are grown adults now with children of their own that Marsa Gipson never got to see, kiss or hold as her grandchildren.
For 25 years Putnam County residents have driven over, under and around that overpass, staring at its cold, innocent nature yet knowing it was the scene of perhaps every interstate driver's worst nightmare. A senseless, random act of violence that could have happened to anyone behind the wheel.
And over those same 25 years, a cadre of culprits has kept mum on the matter. Silence can't be bought -- investigators and criminals alike will tell you -- it can only be rented. Yet 25 years later, lips are still sealed.
From a handful of people suspected of being on that bridge that night, over the years the investigation has really focused on two young men, suspects who would be in the their mid to late 40s now. Suspects, who authorities have long thought might have caved in to a guilty conscience by now, or who might at least been fingered by others who had been up on that bridge in previous incidents, as investigators have discovered.
Putnam Superior Court Judge Denny Bridges was an Indiana State Police corporal at the Putnamville Post on Aug. 27, 1991. He and others investigated those suspects, taking a trip to Evansville to interrogate one and having both of them at the post simultaneously, hoping one or the other would spill his guts when he saw his would-be accomplice walked into the room by detectives.
"If the two of them indeed did it," Bridges told the Banner Graphic last week, "that's the best job of keeping their mouths shut of anybody I've ever witnessed."
That's 25 years of keeping tight-lipped. Not sharing the story in a bar. Not whispering details during pillow talk. No bragging to a cellmate.
Twenty-five years of not allowing a guilty conscience to get to them.
Prosecutor Tim Bookwalter thinks there's good reason for that.
"I guess if you're a psychopath, it's all right," he said. "You don't have a conscience. But if you have a conscience like the rest of us, I don't know how you sleep at night knowing you were involved in something like this.
"But they've held firm all these years."
Judge Bridges is of like mind. He suggested the suspects likely have been "playing it off as accident" in their own mind, thus never having to deal with a guilty conscience that way.
Bookwalter says the fatal piece of rock and another 11-pound piece that bounced off the car hood, missing the windshield on the passenger's side, are still at the Putnamville Post. They have been tested for DNA but only came back with "unknown female," presumably from Gipson.
A 2008 State Police re-enactment and some new publicity generated a few more witnesses but "nothing to put us over the top," Bookwalter added.
Bookwalter recalled that in the weeks before the fatal rock-throwing incident some eight instances of items being thrown off overpasses were reported, including six involving the Manhattan Road overpass.
"Over a 30- to 45-day period," he said, "it was the scene of items like corn cobs, PVC pipe, small rocks and more" being tossed down upon unsuspecting drivers.
There was even one report of a rock crashing through the windshield of a semi, resulting in a broken leg for a passenger.
Several persons had been known to frequent that I-70 overpass, the prosecutor said. Several will admit to being up there on previous occasions, but nobody will admit to being on the bridge or knowing who might have been there that fateful night. At least two people, possibly three, were seen on the overpass the night Marsa Gipson was killed.
"We've had a number of people say, 'We think these people did it,'" Bookwalter said, "but we don't have any firsthand information."
His office has interviewed more than 100 people over the course of the investigation. While many have been helpful or led to interviews with others, the smoking gun has escaped authorities.
"The police feel like they know the persons and the group involved," the prosecutor added.
Bookwalter has been wanting to take the evidence collected over the past 25 years to a Grand Jury. He said that in 2008 and in 2011 and he said it again last week. But he knows there has to be enough evidence to convict the perpetrators. Just one shot at justice -- a murder charge at that -- remains now.
"We have persons of interest," Bookwalter assured, "that's where we're at with it.
"We're just going to need somebody with a conscience that will get to them and have them come forward."