The Disappearance of Kiplyn Davis: Keep the Porch Light On
Kiplyn Davis was a typical fifteen-year-old girl in Spanish Fork, Utah. She had plenty of friends, and was very active in planning and participating in weekly church activities with her youth group. Kiplyn had a unique appearance with her beautiful curly red hair, and like most teenage girls, was really into how she looked and how she presented herself to others at school. So on the morning of May 2, 1995, when Kiplyn woke up later than usual, she was beside herself with frustration that her parents wouldn’t let her miss her early morning’s driver’s education class just so that she could put her makeup on before school. Kiplyn insisted it would be totally fine if she missed “just one class,” could she please just get ready for school without having to fly out the door??? Of course, knowing how important driver’s ed was and how much his daughter couldn’t wait to drive, her dad, Richard, insisted she goes and there’s nothing to argue about. So off Kiplyn went - getting into the car with her mom, Tamara. Tamara is quoted on “Nightmare Next Door - Stealing Beauty (S8E1),” saying that she didn’t know why Kiply was upset when she got into the car to go to driver’s ed, but assumed it was because she woke up late and didn’t have time to get ready. She didn’t think anything more of it. By the time Kiplyn was dropped off, she went to class and up until around 4th period, it seemed like a normal day.
When we fast forward to the end of that day, Richard arrives home from work and Kiplyn isn’t home. On this same episode of Nightmare Next Door, he talks about how you could “set your watch” to Kiplyn being home from school by 3:30 p.m. He assumes that maybe she stayed at school late to work on the upcoming drama club production or that she was at Church. A few hours go by and he still hasn’t heard from her. Even though it was 1995, Kiplyn and her family all had cell phones and when Richard hadn’t even heard from her about where she was going to be or when she’d be home, he started to worry. He and Tamara called around to see if anyone had seen her. In all of this, the school left a message on their answering machine saying that Kiplyn had missed her afternoon classes. Richard and Tamara’s hearts sank. This was not like Kiplyn at all and something felt very very wrong.
Being that she was 15, when her parents went to police, they refused to file a missing person’s report and insisted that they issued a “Be on the Lookout,” and they were sure Kiplyn would be back soon, as she was probably with a boy or friends or just ran away because she was so upset that morning. This is within hours of her disappearance, and her family is already printing and distributing posters around the area. They knew how bad this was from the very beginning. I can’t imagine not having support of the police because they’re so used to missing person cases turning out just fine (as truly most of them do), but knowing in your heart that this is so so bad.In the mean time, they continue to call around to friends. One of those friends recalls seeing Kiplyn dancing in the auditorium with a senior, Chris Jepson. This friend, made it very clear that he wasn’t a fan of this kid, Chris. I want to note, that when a senior is schmoozing a 15-year-old, it just seems wrong to me. The difference between 15 and 18 is so much bigger than a few short years. So much growth happens in that time and it just feels so wildly inappropriate to me. Maybe it’s because my parents never would have let me date anyone practically three years older than I was, but it just feels wrong. This friend also indicates that he saw her leaving the school with this kid, Chris. It would later be found that her journal makes mention of a relationship that seems like a little bit more than just friends through theatre, but that she was very excited to have hugged and kissed Chris.
As any parent would, Richard drives over to Chris’s house where his sister insists that he was likely at play practice after school. By this time, it’s about 10:30 at night when Richard arrives at the school. Not knowing that Chris actually had a key to the school so that he could work on the theatre production set whenever he wanted. The school appeared empty and dark, so Richard left. Eventually, he ends up back in front of Chris’s house around 1 or 1:30 in the morning and at that time, he sees a truck that he recognizes Rucker Leifson’s truck, another classmate of Kiplyn’s. Even though he sees lights on and it would appear that someone was probably up, he didn’t go to the door. Now, a lot of you may think how could he not go to the door? He later says that there are just some rules you don’t break, no matter what’s going on, and that’s disturbing someone at that hour of the night. I totally disagree with this logic, however, I believe what he truly means is that he was terrified that Kiplyn wasn’t there alive or that he would find out something horrible had happened and he wasn’t prepared for that, so he neglected to go to the door - so he was lead by his worst fear, which ultimately would come true.
The school resource officer gets involved, Sergeant Warner, and he has a feel for a lot of the students. His job is literally to build a rapport with the kids and to be able to help in situations like this one because of his presence in the halls hearing and witnessing so much student interaction. When Chris’s name was brought up by Kiplyn’s friend, Eli, detectives thought it would be a good idea to talk to him. He says that he was in class, and even that he was there the other night at the school when Kiplyn’s dad came by, but he just didn’t realize it because the building was dark. While he was working on the set for the play, he was visited by Timmy Olsen and Rucker Leifson. Chris claims to have been tossing a football around the auditorium with them. When both Timmy and Rucker back his story and the police have nothing else to go on, they have no reason to continue to pursue Chris, Timmy, and Rucker.
It wouldn’t be long though, before students point to another male student, Brandon Meyer. This kid really takes the cake of sucking. He’s like a Scott Peterson on the phone with your mistress while at your missing wife’s vigil, kind of suck. He asked Kiplyn to go on a date with him at the end of that week, on a Friday. Despite her parents strict rule of, “no dating before 16,” Kiplyn happily accepted. Not long after she accepts though, this jackass, Brandon, approaches her and calls the date off because his girlfriend caught wind of it and it was shut down. So that obviously doesn’t make him a suspect - he also was missing from fourth period class on May 2nd, and even went so far as to ask his girlfriend to fudge the record to show that he was actually there. I’m assuming she worked in the attendance office as a student leadership type of thing, and had access to the attendance records? Either way, she declined to do so - I mean hopefully she was breaking up with him after he was asking other girls out despite dating her. Anyway, Brandon claims that he went straight home, and that he had even had a tire blowout on the way home, and called and asked a friend to help him out with that. Said friend could not corroborate Brandon’s story, but police still didn’t think that he was involved at all.
In July of 1995, the FBI gets involved to hopefully aid in the investigation by adding more resources and expertise to the table. However, it doesn’t seem to help, as no further progress is made in finding Kiplyn dead or alive.
Nearly a year later, Chris Jeppson goes to visit Kiplyn’s parents and tells her dad, “I want to get this off my chest, I wanted to tell you that I had nothing to do with Kiplyn’s disappearance.” And when you watch the documentary, oh my LORD does your heart break for her dad. You can see and feel the pain in Richard’s eyes and in his heart. Instantly, he’s enraged and grills him to know where she is and Chris swears he really doesn’t know. Now the police call all three in again - Chris Jeppson, Timmy Olsen, and Rucker Leifson and this time, they have all of them take a polygraph. They volunteered to take this polygraph. Chris passed his polygraph when asked if he had anything to do with the disappearance of Kiplyn, and Rucker passed his polygraph as well.
Before taking the test, Timmy writes a statement identifying Rucker as the last person to be seen with Kiplyn. He witnessed them walk over a hillside in Spanish Fork Canyon and Rucker returned without her. There are so very many things wrong with this scenario, that it makes me crazy. While I read this information and process it, I can see a different scenario taking place. What’s really cool about the way this works for me, is that while yes, I like to go into it completely cold with no facts outside of name and photo to begin with, I love that while I read, listen, or watch something, I can see the story playing out differently. It’s like a little cue in my head that “no, this isn’t accurate,” or, “Yes, this is exactly as it happened…” And in this instance, when I watched this on the documentary, I felt very strongly that Rucker and Timmy both walked over that hill with Kiplyn. I can see them guiding her over the side of the hill and disappearing to a more private area off of a trail. Once there, I think that Timmy and Rucker both played an equal part in what happened to her that day. Details are not necessary, but I will say that I believe she was hit in the head with a nearby object and I can see her laying on the ground and killed by that blunt force trauma. I see her being dragged by her feet further down the path and into a more dense area of brush/trees off the path. However, this is where I think things start to get tricky. But, back to what we do actually know.
Regardless, Rucker denies knowing what Timmy is going on about, but is later spotted by others in the area, threatening Timmy about what he wrote in his statement. To follow up on what Timmy had written in his statement, the police brought out scent hounds, and dug where Timmy said she likely was. When I read that there was “a dig” for a body, what I always assumed was a few detectives and some shovels, but when you watch “Stealing Beauty,” what you’re shown is heavy machinery out there digging. I’m sure there were people out there with shovels too, but this was no small feat. They were out there in droves searching for Kiplyn’s body. When nothing was found, Kiplyn was finally declared legally dead and a memorial was erected in her honor.
Fast forward to 2002, a much more well-known case is in the headlines. Recognize the name Elizabeth Smart? At this point, Kiplyn’s dad is furious that her case didn’t get and isn’t getting the same treatment. He wrote to everyone who had any weight in the state of Utah. He wrote to the US Attorney General, the Attorney General for the state of Utah, as well as his county attorney and the Police Chief of Spanish Fork. He would get this investigation to be taken to a grand jury. He knew that they could uncover enough evidence there to bring charges against these “boys,” who were now men with lives of their own and families of their own. Here’s what made my jaw drop. When I first felt into this case, I heard a couple of things that fit into what Richard also felt about what happened. I feel first of all, that two of the boys were directly involved with what happened to Kiplyn. I believe there was a sexual assault and that the two of them share guilt in it. However, like Kiplyn’s father, I also feel that a third person was brought into it. However, I think there was sort of a fourth involved. I’ll explain. After Rucker & Timmy left Kiplyn’s body behind, they were in a panic. I’m not sure if they even knew if she was dead, but they knew they couldn’t get away with what had happened. Now, I haven’t sleuthed hard enough to see if I could find any information about Rucker’s dad and his character, but I feel that he was involved. In fact, “adult male,” was one of the things I picked up on during my cold read into the case. I feel he was brought in to help cover up what they did. I think little shithead, Rucker, knew he could go to his good old dad and get help, and I believe dad stepped in to help get rid of Kiplyn’s body. I do not believe that Rucker or Timmy know where Kiplyn’s body actually is, nor does Chris. Where is she? I believe that there was fire involved in the disposal of her body. I think that Rucker’s father, David, took her and disposed of her in a way that he didn’t tell the kids, and that they were protected from actually knowing.
So what is Chris’s involvement? Timmy bragged to Chris about what happened. I think that they used the possibility of seeing Chris as part of how they got her to go with them to begin with.
If you do more digging into this one, multiple podcasts and sources will talk about how Chris’s wife once asked him what the worst thing he ever did was, and he responded, “What if I told you I killed Kiplyn Davis?” She obviously freaked out and he said he was kidding. However, I do believe he was messing with her - super fucked up, but 100% I think he knows what happened, but had zero involvement in it. I think it sits in the forefront of his mind the majority of the time and that’s why it came out when she asked that question. I state again, I do not think he had anything to do with it, though he knows what happened.
Following the grand jury, Timmy is sentenced with 15 counts of perjury and 12.5 years in federal prison. Chris is found guilty of perjury as well, but I believe 1 count and sentenced to five years while Rucker is found guilty of perjury and sentenced to only four years. Timmy was able to be charged and sentenced for the most simply because he had the most witnesses able to testify against him. The grand jury also allows for Chris and Timmy to be charged with first degree murder. Chris was likely an accessory while Timmy, they were sure was involved in the actual crime itself. I’m telling you, watch “Stealing Beauty,” it hands down has the most information about this case and seeing the faces of these people really helps to bring it all together. In May 2009, Timmy plead guilty to felony manslaughter and served his sentence in concurrence with his perjury sentence. Timmy claims that he witnessed the crime, but didn’t kill her. I believe that’s probably true, but I don’t believe he was innocent of the crime alotgether. I believe Rucker delivered the blow that killed her. Chris plead no contest to a the charge of “Obstruction of Justice,” and was able to because there was no body. Whether he was there or not, I do not believe he saw the murder happen.
I’m not the only one who thinks Rucker had ore involvement than has been brought to light. His sister, Nicole, believes that the men in her family (3 brothers and her father) are all silent over what they know about Rucker’s involvement. Others have speculated that this is a simple family feud, but I think that there’s truth to this. I absolutely think they know more, and they will all take it to the grave with them.
While awaiting sentencing, Rucker was also accused of threatening his ex-girlfriend. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, “Rucker violated his pre-sentencing release conditions by allegedly threatening an ex-girlfriend and then failing to appear in court on phone harassment charges.” What a winner winner. The article says that he texted his ex, saying that he was on his way to her to with the intent of doing her harm. Because he is so cooperative, when his ex called the police, and they contacted him to come to them to fill out a statement, he of course failed to do so. He was then issued a summons to appear in court for the phone harassment charges, did not show and a warrant was then issued. He clearly has not stayed on the fair side of the law in his adult life either. Look his ass up on FB. His profile is super private, but I so badly want to dig through it.
Something that was said in the documentary absolutely shattered my heart - he talked about how he would leave his porch light on for his daughter until the day she was home, and the light has been left on every night since her disappearance. My mom always left the porch light on for us when one of us kids wasn’t home yet at night. I can only imagine this level of grief.
If you or anyone you know have any insight as to the disappearance of Kiplyn Davis, please contact the FBI, Utah State Police, or Spanish Fork Police.
https://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/news/ci_7913100
ID - Nightmare Nextdoor - Stealing Beauty S8E1
https://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/news/ci_7913100
