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Hernando Today

Manslaughter Reduced To Felony Battery

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By KYLE MARTIN

Hernando Today

Published: June 8, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - Once a year Rick Bernard and Diane Hampshire light a lantern in their memorial garden.

It burns for three days, a reminder of how long their daughter's body lay in her home before her friends discovered her.

It was not a natural death. Two bullets struck her thigh, abdomen and nearly severed a pinkie.

After suffering the fatal wounds, Tiffany Hampshire staggered over to a recliner in her bedroom, collapsed and died. She was 32.

The man blamed for her death, Jeffery Sipple, covered her with a blanket, but did not call 911.

He's out on probation now.

Five years into his 12 year prison sentence, an appeals court gave him a new trial on the grounds that Sipple's attorney objected to an erroneous jury instruction.

Last month, the State Attorney's Office offered him five years probation if he would plead guilty to a lesser charge of aggravated battery. Sipple, now 63, accepted.

Hampshire's parents call it a slap in the face.

"I feel they let a murderer go free," Bernard said.

Attempts to reach Sipple and his family were unsuccessful.

Signs Of Abuse

Those close to Hampshire describe her relationship with Sipple as tempestuous. Diane Lundh met Hampshire through their work at Walgreens in Brooksville.

In an e-mail following a phone conversation with a reporter, Lundh writes that Hampshire "seemed scared of him", but never really explained why at first.

But in the days leading up to her death, Hampshire opened up.

She talked about a pact made with Sipple that she would never call 911. She broke that deal a few weeks before her death when Sipple strangled her with a phone cord. When the cops showed up, Hampshire told them she dialed the wrong number.

She told Lundh she was scared Sipple would begin drinking again and kill her. He implied she would never escape because he had "big friends" in a motorcycle gang.

In Internet chat messages, Hampshire wrote "I feel like a prisoner in my own home."

A few days later, "I got the other phone and tried to call the cops, but he hung it up and called me a crack whore, broke everything in the house. He wants to kill me."

'Scariest Day Of My Life'

Sometime between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. the morning of Jan. 31, 2006, Hampshire called her friend from outside a Brooksville feed store. That was the last time anyone heard from her.

For three days, Hampshire's friends called and shouted her name through the chain-link fence that surrounded her property. There was no response.

Finally, they swallowed their fear of Sipple finding them on the property and hopped the fence. The back door was open. Her room was a mess; the lamp was overturned. Only the muted sound of a TV left on broke the quiet. They didn't see the blood on the wall.

In Hampshire's room, they could just make out a human shape beneath the heavy Indian blankets. They peeked under the bottom edge and found Hampshire's socked feet. Panicking, they ran outside and called 911.

"It was the scariest day of my life," recalled Lundh.

Investigators arrived. They were examining the grim scene, when Detective Billy Beetz got a call. Sipple was at the jail; he wanted to talk.

He told Beetz that Hampshire pulled the gun on him, they struggled for it, the gun went off, Hampshire was shot. It was an accident. As to why he never called authorities, Sipple could only say he panicked.

Handwritten Appeals

The suspect was charged with second-degree murder. It went to trial a year later. A jury found him guilty of a lesser offense of manslaughter. The judge sentenced him to 12 years in prison.

From his jail cell, Sipple began hand-writing his appeals, first to the trial judge, Jack Springstead. His claims of incompetent counsel were overruled.

So Sipple wrote to a higher authority, the appeals court. They found fault in a jury instruction that stated the self-defense argument could not be used if Sipple was attempting to commit another crime. Sipple was only charged with one crime, second-degree murder, but his lawyer did not object to that instruction.

The appeals court granted Sipple a new trial in December.

On Friday, prosecutor Sherry Byerly explained that the appeals court had also taken away her right to invoke the Williams Rule in the new trial. That rule basically allows witnesses to speak on behalf of a dead victim and provide testimony that would otherwise be considered hearsay.

"Without that evidence to prove his motive and intent, (I would be) hard pressed to avoid any judgment of acquittal," Byerly said.

She emphasized that it was not a situation that her office was happy with and it was clear that the family was not pleased either.

But "when your evidence is basically eviscerated, you take what you can get."

Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or kmartin@hernandotoday.com.

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