Judge raises concerns in Kiplyn case

PROVO — Everyone agrees that 15-year-old Kiplyn Davis is gone, but attorneys can't agree on what happened to her.

Prosecutors believe the only reasonable option is that she was killed by two of her classmates, and have charged them with murder.

Defense attorneys argue that just because someone disappears doesn't mean they were killed — especially without hard evidence to back up the state's argument.

In 4th District Court on Friday, Judge Lynn Davis raised serious concerns about the future of the 14-year-old case.

"There's no body, no forensic evidence, no DNA," Davis said. "There's no blood evidence, bloodstains, no clothing or other article, no strand of hair, there are no fingerprints. There's no murder weapon or instrument, there's no eyewitness testimony, no physical evidence of a struggle. No site or scene evidence, how or even where. And this accused is not even the last person to have been seen with her alive. Am I correct in stating all of that?"

"Yes," prosecutor Mariane O'Bryant acknowledged.

"I'll give you 10 days to see if there are any other cases as unique as this," Davis said.

Christopher Jeppson is scheduled to stand trial in May and June, although his attorney Scott Williams argued that the murder charge should be dismissed based on lack of "corpus delicti." The Latin phrase means prosecutors must present a "body of evidence" — enough corroborating evidence of a crime, rather than a confession alone.

Davis said he wouldn't rule on the issue — which could potentially end the case — until after he hears similar arguments from co-defendant Timmy Brent Olsen in April.

Prosecutors are basing their case on circumstantial evidence, inlcuding the fact that Kiplyn Davis, a sophomore at Spanish Fork High School, never returned home on May 2, 1995.

"Her makeup and retainer were left in a school locker, circumstantial evidence that her intent, before the end of the day, was to return to the school locker," O'Bryant said.

Her death couldn't be suicide or accidental, as dead bodies can't hide themselves, and the city has been searched extensively, she said. O'Bryant also believes alleged confessions from Jeppson and Olsen constitute circumstantial evidence.