Former Carson, California, council member Mike Gipson is opening up a new chapter in his life, as a California Assembly member. His ceremonial swearing-in happens at CSU Dominguez Hills, Sat. Feb. 7.
His wife, Lacresha, however, has never found a way to close a part of her life that happened nearly twenty-six years ago. She and her husband keep hoping the hit-and-run driver that killed her three-year-old son, D’Ancee Barnes, will be apprehended.
In 2008 Justice For Murdered Children publicized the cold case with a billboard in Carson.
“Anytime I hear of another child being killed it’s like opening a wound,” Lacresha Gipson pleaded at the time. “I visualize it all over again.”
In 2012 a KCAL-9 "Crimestoppers" episode featured the case and pleaded for leads. Neither the billboard nor the broadcast resulted in anything new.
It's still possible to bring some heat to this cold case. Possibly someone who knows the suspect’s secret will finally speak. Maybe the case's one weak lead--a description of the car that hit the boy--could mean a trail for an especially diligent investigator.
Before the Gipsons courted and married, Lacresha had D’Ancee by another relationship. On March 18, 1989, about 8:55 p.m. the mother was visiting her brother on Van Ness Avenue, south of Gage Avenue, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
She left the boy with relatives inside the house while she was talking to a tow truck driver about a flat tire on her car. Before anyone could stop him, her son ran out of the house and into the street, trying to join his mother on the other side.
A 1974-1985 two-door white (or light brown) Cadillac (an Eldorado?), travelling north, hit him, killing him.
The driver stopped momentarily, got out of the Cadillac, looked at the boy laying lifeless on the pavement, then jumped back in the Cadillac and continued northbound. People familiar with the case speculate she may have panicked, she may have been incapacitated, or she may have had an outstanding warrant.
She was described as a Black female, 32-34, approximately 5’6” tall, weighing 110-120 pounds. The tow truck man provided the description of the car and its driver to the police--Lacresha was too distressed. If the man guessed the woman's age correctly and she's still alive, she'd be in her fifties now.
Here's the clip of the KCAL-9 re-enactment:
https://www.youtube.com/...
In 2012 the LAPD arranged for a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator. At the time Jim Render of the LAPD explained the suspect would face charges of manslaughter and leaving the scene of a crime.
“Whoever did this may have passed this information to someone,” he said, “and the reward may be a motivation to come forward.”
Sometimes I wonder how diligently the LAPD cared to search for the vehicle. In gang-ridden 1989 Los Angeles, the LAPD may have given a routine hit-and-run a low priority and failed to check all possible DMV records.
LAPD tip line: 1-877-LAPD-24-7.