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n 1995 Kiplyn Davis was a typical 15-year-old girl who lived in Spanish Fork, Utah with her parents, Richard & Tamara, & her three siblings. She had a large group of friends, she was very active within the drama club at her high school as well as her weekly church group meetings & activities. Because of her head of fiery red curls, Kiplyn was a girl that couldn’t be overlooked. Like most teenage girls, she was very much into how she looked & spent time on getting herself ready before she headed out the door to school where she was a sophomore at Spanish Fork High School.
The community of Spanish Fork was connected by their shared Mormon faith. Kiplyn was exceptionally social, close with her siblings & always the center of community & school activities.
Kiplyn was born on July 1, 1979 & since she was only two months shy of her 16th birthday, she was enrolled in driver’s education courses that she attended very early, before school started. This put her up & moving at about 4:30 am each morning. However, on the morning of Tuesday, May 2, 1995, Kiplyn hit the snooze button on her alarm one too many times & didn’t wake up until 5 am, far later than she planned. She pleaded with her dad to allow her to skip her driver’s ed class that morning so she could have the time she needed to get ready for school, putting her makeup on & styling her hair.
Despite her continued pleas to miss just one class, Richard insisted that she was going & there was nothing more to argue about. By the time she climbed into her mom’s car to head the eight blocks to her high school where driver’s ed was held, Tamara had no idea why her daughter was even upset at the time & assumed it was because she didn’t have the time she liked to get ready. Regardless, she thought little of it as she dropped her daughter off & handed her lunch money as by this time, Kiplyn had already calmed down.
As she climbed out of the car wearing an off-white crewneck with a beige stripe, a light blue denim vest with beige stripes, dark blue denim shorts & leather sandals Tamara would have no way of knowing that it would be the last time she ever saw her daughter. Tamara headed back home & the day went on just like any other typical weekday.
Her family later learned that Kiplyn attended her morning classes as scheduled up until fourth period & was last seen sitting in the school cafeteria with her friends around lunchtime. When Richard came home from work at 3:30 pm, he was surprised to see that Kiplyn wasn’t home yet since according to Richard, you could set your watch to her walking through the door by 3:30 pm. At the time, he wasn’t worried & just assumed she’d likely stayed late to work on an upcoming drama club production or maybe stopped by the church.
It wasn’t until he checked the home’s answering machine when Richard listened to a message left by the school earlier that day that indicated Kiplyn had missed her fourth period class & the remaining classes for the day. Despite the fact that it was only 1995, members of the Davis family had cell phones so Richard checked voice messages to see if she’d called to explain why she’d missed her afternoon classes, but she hadn’t. After he called & spoke with Tamara about the fact that their daughter seemed to be missing, she immediately had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
By 5 pm when Kiplyn still wasn’t home, Tamara & Richard called around to friends & drove down to the high school & the church at about 7:30 pm as their worry continued to grow. No one had seen Kiplyn since that afternoon & they were running out of ideas as to where to look.
When Richard & Tamara reached out to police about the fact that their daughter was missing, they refused to file a missing person’s report & would only issue a be on the lookout, insisting that Kiplyn would likely come home soon. Authorities tried to assure her family that since she was a teen, she’d likely left school early to hang out with a boy or some friends or had even ran away since she was upset about the argument they’d gotten into that morning. Tamara & Richard knew in their hearts that Kiplyn had not run away; she was excited about turning sixteen & getting her driver’s license as well as her sister’s upcoming wedding.
Because they felt sure something was truly wrong, the Davis family would not be deterred by the police’s inaction & began printing & distributing fliers & posters around the area within hours of Kiplyn’s disappearance.
As Tamara continued to call around to anyone her daughter was associated with, she spoke with Kiplyn’s close friend, Eli Henson. According to Eli, he’d seen Kiplyn that day shortly after lunch when she was dancing in the auditorium with a senior, Chris Jeppson. Eli elaborated that he was not at all fond of Chris & when he saw them together, hoped that she wasn’t getting involved with him. However, he believed he saw Kiplyn leaving with Chris sometime around lunch.
When Richard & Tamara looked through their daughter’s journal, they came across an entry that Kiplyn wrote that suggested that she & Chris were likely more than just friends through theater since she wrote about being excited about hugging & kissing Chris.
It was theater that had brought Kiplyn & Chris together since they were both part of the stage crew & handled the set up for the lighting while Kiplyn was gearing up to be a prompter for the upcoming play.
With this information, Richard drove over to Chris’s house & spoke with his sister who said he was likely at the school for play practice, something that was highly unlikely since by this point it was already 10:30 pm. Out of any other ideas, Richard headed over to the high school, but left after he found it dark. At the time, Richard was unaware that Chris actually had a key to the school so he could come & go as he pleased to work on the theater production set.
At about 1 am, Richard drove back to Chris’s house & this time, a blue pickup truck was parked out front that he recognized as belonging to another classmate of Kiplyn’s, Rucker Leifson, who had previously asked Kiplyn out on a date. He saw some lights on in the house, but because it was so late, Richard decided not to go to the door.
The next morning, School Resource Officer, Morgan Warner, learned of Kiplyn’s disappearance & decided to go from classroom to classroom asking students to come forward if they had any insight or information of where she could be. He spoke with faculty & students, including Chris, who was known to have attendance issues & he indicated that he’d seen Kiplyn during lunch, but not since.
By this time, police started to get involved since they agreed that perhaps Kiplyn wasn’t a runaway. When they visited the school, Chris was pulled out of social studies & told detectives that he’d stayed at school until about 11 pm the night before & he’d been in the auditorium with his friends, Timmy Olsen & Rucker Leifson. He explained that they were stringing up lights, hanging out & tossing a football around & maintained that he hadn’t seen Kiplyn since lunchtime.
Police spoke with Rucker & Timmy separately & their story matched Chris’s so police began searching elsewhere. During this time, there was mention of a boy named Brandon Meyer, who’d asked Kiplyn out on a date for the Friday after she went missing.
Kiplyn had mentioned the date to her mom, but according to Richard, their house rules didn’t allow dating until age sixteen. Being a crafty teen, she told her dad that she was so close to sixteen, but he was firm on the fact that until she officially turned sixteen, she couldn’t go. Regardless of the rules, Kiplyn happily accepted Brandon’s invitation for a first date. However, as the school day went on that Tuesday, Brandon approached Kiplyn a second time that day & explained that he wouldn’t be able to go on the date after all. Apparently he was seeing another girl who found out about him asking her out & had gotten angry.
Police wondered if despite his other girlfriend, Brandon may have taken Kiplyn out anyway & when they checked attendance records, they learned that he’d also missed the last classes on Tuesday, just as Kiplyn had. Investigators learned that he also asked his girlfriend if she could manipulate the attendance records, but she was unable to do so & he was marked absent.
When police spoke with Brandon at his family’s house about the missed classes, he explained that after he spoke with Kiplyn about cancelling their dates, he’d felt so terrible about it that he tried to track her down to apologize. Unable to find her, he decided to just drive home since he was already late for class anyway. To solidify his story, he told investigators that he’d gotten a flat tire on his way home & called one of his friends to help him.
However, when police contacted the friend in question, they were unable to confirm Brandon’s story. However, without further evidence, there was nothing more they could do with Brandon at that point. When resource officer Morgan Warner had spoken with Brandon, he indicated that the boy had readily answered questions concisely & he didn’t feel that he was involved in Kiplyn’s disappearance.
When investigators searched Kiplyn’s locker, they saw she had left all of her belongings behind, including her retainer, school books, make-up & purse which suggested that she had not intended to be gone long.
Days continued to tick by & investigators were running out of leads & ideas. With each passing day, it seemed less & less likely that Kiplyn would be coming home. Regardless, the Davis family left the porch light on as they always did until all of their children were home, as they hoped & prayed she would safely return.
By July 1995, Kiplyn had been missing for two months when the FBI got involved to assist with the investigation, but regardless, no further progress was made. Meanwhile, businesses in town kept Kiplyn’s poster up in their windows, hoping she would be found. There was no body & no evidence that suggested foul play as police continued to comb through any & all leads, all of which led to a dead end.
As the one year anniversary of Kiplyn’s disappearance was looming, Chris Jeppson stopped by the Davis home out of the blue & told Richard that he needed to get something off his chest. He told him that he had nothing to do with his daughter’s disappearance. Richard was incredibly confused by this interaction since he hadn’t had any interaction with the boy for over a year. He was left convinced that Chris was hiding something & decided to go to the police.
With this, Chris, Timmy Olsen & Rucker Leifson were brought back to the station for an interview. The three boys maintained that they had been tossing a football around the auditorium on the night that Kiplyn vanished, each maintaining that they had nothing to do with whatever happened to her & insisted they didn’t know where she was.
They told investigators that they were willing to take polygraph tests as well as recount their version of events from the day that Kiplyn went missing. During the test, Chris was asked point blank if he had anything to do with Kiplyn’s disappearance & investigators were shocked that the test indicated he passed.
However, this was not the case with the investigator’s interaction with Timmy. During his written pre-test for the polygraph test, he admitted to seeing Kiplyn outside school on the afternoon of May 2, 1995 so he & Rucker took her to Spanish Fork Canyon. He said he watched Rucker & Kiplyn walk over the hillside, but only Rucker came back.
When Timmy asked him where she was, he told him, Don’t worry about it. Investigators were shocked as this was the first real break in the case. After investigators read his statement, he was asked to give more details, but he quickly lawyered up & refused to answer further questions. He crumpled up his written statement, threw it in the trash & walked out of the police station.
Rucker was confronted with Timmy’s statement & he insisted that the story was entirely made up; he passed his polygraph test & was allowed to go.
Richard believed in his heart that what Timmy told investigators likely held some truth. The following morning, the Davis family, alongside investigators & canine units, scoured the area of the canyon that Timmy referenced, but found nothing.
It was at this time when the Davis family made the terribly difficult decision to declare their daughter legally dead. They had a headstone created which was placed in a cemetery for the family to visit. As six more years went by, the porch light remained illuminated at the Davis home until 2002 when Richard heard about a similar case from Salt Lake City, 52 miles north of Spanish Fork. This was the kidnapping of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart.
In Elizabeth’s case, she returned home to her family & the couple who had kidnapped her & held her for nine months were arrested. However, in Kiplyn’s case, there was zero proof that a crime had even been committed so charges were unable to be brought forth to Chris, Timmy or Rucker.
Richard hoped that a grand jury could bring charges forth as her family was determined to get more information about these three boys. They were sure that one or all three had something to do with Kiplyn’s death as they fully believed in their hearts that she’d been murdered.
By this time, eight years had passed since Kiplyn vanished, it was Richard’s belief that his daughter was killed in the canyon by two of the boys & the third got involved to help cover the crime. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lambert agreed & decided to approve the request to begin the grand jury investigation. With the threat of perjury, the Davis family hoped that someone who knew something would be forced to give the truth under oath.
The process was slow & took years as police handed out subpoenas to hundreds of the three boys’ friends, family & colleagues & unearthed a lot of buried secrets.
As the 10th anniversary of Kiplyn’s disappearance approached, the indictments began. By this time, the three boys were adults with families of their own. One witness told investigators that she saw Rucker threaten Timmy for mentioning his name in the written statement before his polygraph test.
Chris’ ex-wife came forward & said that they were watching So I Married an Axe Murderer & she playfully asked Chris what the worst thing he’d ever done. Chris flippantly replied, What if I told you I killed Kiplyn Davis? When she gave him a shocked reaction, he quickly told her he’d only been joking.
Friend’s of Timmy’s said that while they were at a party together, Kiplyn’s story came up & Tim made mention that he knew where she was, that she deserved everything that happened to her & that he killed her. He said he knew her body had been buried in the tunnels in Spanish Fork Canyon under the train tracks. He’s admitted multiple times to friends that he raped, killed & buried Kiplyn. In December 2004, he told a coworker that he buried her in a sandy grave because she would sink to the bottom. After hearing this story, investigators were positive that Kiplyn was deceased & Timmy was responsible, something the Davis family agreed with.
Piecing together the story based on witness statements, police believe that Kiplyn was kidnapped, raped & murdered while her body was buried in an unknown location.
Chris, Rucker & Timmy took the stand & each maintained their innocence while the judge felt there was enough to charge the trio with lying to the grand jury. Because the witness testimonies against Chris & Rucker were lacking, they got off easy while 28-year-old Timmy Brent Olsen faced 15 counts of perjury. He was accused of lying when he denied his admission of guilt that he murdered Kiplyn or was with her & another man when she disappeared. He was also accused of perjury for denying ever having raped a woman or being violent with his wives after four women testified to assaults. He was found guilty on every count & sentenced to 12 ½ years in federal prison.
28-year-old Christopher Neil Jeppson, who was also friends with Kiplyn within the high school drama department, allegedly lied when he said Timmy visited him twice on the day of Kiplyn’s disappearance while he spent 12 hours preparing the school auditorium for a show. He also allegedly lied when he denied hearing someone else say something about disposing of her body.
A 2001 informant said that Chris admitted that he, Timmy & Rucker got drunk & Kiplyn was killed or died accidentally. They took her body to a building that was under construction & buried her in an area that was going to be poured in concrete the following day. Although in other instances, he indicated that her body had been dumped in Spanish Fork Canyon.
Chris was charged with murder in 2007, but charges were dropped in 2009 after he reached a plea deal with prosecutors, pleading no contest to obstruction of justice & in return, he could no longer be charged in connection to Kiplyn’s case.
In 2008, he was found guilty of perjury & was sentenced to five years plus two years probation due to his refusal to answer one simple question; Where were you on the night Kiplyn Davis disappeared? He always claimed to be setting up lights in the auditorium, tossing a football around with Timmy & Ruck, but this was a lie. It came to light that the auditorium had actually been in use for a community choir practice on the night he claimed to be there with Timmy & Rucker.
28-year-old David Rucker Leifson never faced murder charges. He had been a close friend of Kiplyn’s at Spanish Fork High School where they connected within the drama department. He is accused of lying when he denied confronting Timmy about rumors that were cycling around about a year after Kiplyn’s disappearance, angry at him for implicating him. He also allegedly lied when denying forcing a friend’s girlfriend to have sex with him. His sister was also outspoken about the fact that her brother & her father acted suspiciously after Kiplyn vanished, leading her to believe that her family helped cover up her brother’s involvement in Kiplyn’s murder. He was convicted of perjury in 2008 & faced five years.
Prosecutors believed that the damning witness testimonies from the grand jury were enough to take the case a step further. Rucker was off the hook while Timmy & Chris were charged with first-degree murder. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lambert believed that Timmy was responsible for Kiplyn’s murder while Chris had been an accessory.
In May 2009, Chris Jeppson pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of obstruction of justice & maintained that he had nothing to do with Kiplyn’s death. Because there was no body & no evidence, a judge accepted his plea which spared him from additional jail time.
Two other men were also indicted on perjury charges; 26-year-old Garry Blackmore, who was accused of lying when he said he never heard a friend say anything about what happened to Kiplyn as well as 28-year-old Scott Brunson, who is accused of lying about providing a false alibi for Timmy. He told investigators that they’d been building a shed in his backyard all day on May 2, 1995 & admits that he did so because Timmy asked him to say this to anyone who asked, something he says he now regrets.
In February 2011, Timmy Olsen was willing to accept responsibility, fully aware of the witnesses who were willing to testify against him. Despite the fact that he’d originally pointed the finger at Rucker, investigators believe this was only a ploy to divert attention from himself. He continued to refuse to admit responsibility for causing her death, but said that he witnessed her murder. He said he saw an individual knock Kiplyn down, hit her with a softball-sized rock, stand on her & hit her a second time in the head with the rock. As part of the plea agreement, he was not required to identify the other person.
He said they returned to this location hours later in order to move her body to a second location where she was buried. He refused to name the location which was heart wrenching for the Davis family. as Richard begged
Timmy pleaded guilty to felony manslaughter & was sentenced to 1-15 years in the Utah State Prison which would run concurrently with his 12 ½ year perjury conviction. During his first parole hearing, Richard Davis continued to plead with the man to tell him where to find his daughter’s remains so they could lay her to rest. He told him he would help him in any way that he could & advocate for his release if he would only tell him but he continued to refuse. Because of his refusal to cooperate, the Utah Board of Pardons & Parole voted to keep him in prison until his sentence expires on February 10, 2026.
Despite the fact that they’ve gone as far as they can in the legal system, the Davis family refuse to give up their fight until Kiplyn is found. Richard has since written a book, When An Angel Leaves Your Life, & all proceeds will go toward the Kiplyn Davis Scholarship fund. Richard vows to continue to leave the porch light on until his precious daughter’s body is recovered & laid to rest.
References:
- YouTube: Nightmare Next Door – Stealing Beauty S8 E1
- Kathryn Ann Intuitive: The disappearance of Kiplyn Davis: Keep the porch light on
- Medium: 15-year-old Kiplyn Davis disappeared & her body has not been found
- Stories of the Unsolved: The disappearance of Kiplyn Davis
- The Salt Lake Tribune: A brief history: The disappearance of Kiplyn Davis
- Deseret News: Kiplyn murder charge filed
- Deseret News: Kiplyn defendant gets 5 years
- ABC 4: Sister claims family covered up brother’s role in Kiplyn Davis murder
- Deseret News: Man sentenced for lying to investigators in Kiplyn Davis case
- Deseret News: ‘I did it, I raped & killed Kiplyn’
- Kiplyn Davis.com
- Deseret News: Man who refuses to say where he buried Kiplyn Davis ordered to serve full sentence
