Opinion ID: 4556845
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prosecution’s Case in Aggravation

Text: The prosecution’s aggravation case included evidence of Kipp’s extensive history of violence against women, including the murder of another young woman, Antaya Yvette Howard. The jury first learned that three years before Frizzell’s murder, Kipp had choked and raped June Martinez, whom he had met at a bar in Long Beach. Kipp lured her to his truck, turned on the stereo, and had her shut the door. As she did so, Kipp drove off, hitting a car on his way out, and stopped in a residential area. Martinez asked to be taken back, but he refused, at which point she noticed that there was no inside door handle on the passenger side. Kipp pushed her into the back of the truck, which had been covered with a windowless shell, and started to remove her clothes. After she began to scream, he put his hand in her mouth. Kipp began to strangle her when she bit him. He finished removing her clothes and raped her. Her body had gone limp and she was unable to breathe. Kipp demanded that she orally copulate him, and she said she would if he gave her some fresh air. As soon as he opened the door, she ran out, flagged down a motorist, and reported the incident to the police. Martinez had severe bruises on her neck and wore a neck brace for two weeks after the attack. Kipp was convicted of felony rape. In November 1983, shortly after Frizzell’s murder, Kipp had violently assaulted and threatened to kill his then- 8 KIPP V. DAVIS girlfriend Loveda Newman. During an argument one morning in the motel room where they had been staying, Newman had refused to have sex with Kipp; he responded by punching her in the head and choking her. She told him she needed to go to the bathroom because she was going to vomit. When she got to the bathroom, she locked the door and climbed through the window, although Kipp kicked down the door as she was escaping. Kipp was later arrested, but Newman did not press charges because Kipp threatened to kill her and her son if she did. Finally, in December 1983, just three months after he raped and murdered Frizzell, Kipp sexually assaulted and murdered Antaya Yvette Howard. Howard, who was 19 years old, was seen drinking champagne with Kipp at a restaurant in Newport Beach, California. A few days later, a woman called the police because a foul odor was emitting from a car that had been parked in an alleyway for several days. The police arrived and found Howard’s badly decomposed body covered by a blanket in the back of the car. Her blouse was open and missing two buttons, and her bra had been rolled up, exposing her breasts. Kipp’s fingerprints were found on the window of the car’s front doors, and on a beer can in the front passenger floorboard. Howard died of asphyxiation due to strangulation, with trauma to the head contributing to her death. Kipp denied having known Howard but could not explain the presence of his fingerprints. In addition to evidence of Kipp’s violence, the jury heard that he tried to escape through a hole in the ceiling of the Los Angeles County jail in January 1988. Upon being detained, he threatened to kill a sheriff’s sergeant. An officer testified that Kipp “swore to me and his savior, Satan, [the sergeant] would be killed in a very big way and a very humiliating KIPP V. DAVIS 9 way. Humiliating to him and his family.” In the ceiling area, investigators found sharpened objects that could be used as tools or weapons. The prosecution also presented expert testimony to explain the term “dim mak,” which Kipp had used in the September 15th letter to explain how he killed Howard. The expert explained that the term “dim mak” literally means “death touch,” referring to strikes at pressure points to cause unconsciousness or death.