On December 6, the Tipton family is enjoying their first holiday season in their new home.
Dean and Heather have already put up the Christmas tree, and their children rearrange the girls’ bedroom into a ‘movie theater’ so they can have a Christmas movie marathon.
Heather finds Koral, Lily, and Dakota’s beds pushed together, with Logan and Aiden on the lower part of a trundle bed, as she puts them to sleep before heading to her overnight shift.
Dean also turns in, expecting his brother to return from work around 4 a.m.
Dakota, 7, heads downstairs in the middle of the night for a glass of water. Dakota thinks she hears her uncle coming home after a late shift, but seeing a man she doesn’t recognize, Dakota drops to the floor behind a kitchen counter.
The stranger hears a stool shift where Dakota is hiding and immediately lunges for the little girl. Dakota barely escapes his grasp, booking it back to the bedroom she shares with her sibling.
Pulling the covers over her head doesn’t make this monster go away.
After stabbing Dakota through her bedsheets, throwing her to the floor, and stomping on her head, Ronald Exantus turns the Tipton’s kitchen knife on 6-year-old Logan, sleeping on the floor. Dakota comes to, and see Exantus stabbing Logan in the head, and her brother’s blood-curdling screams wake up her older sisters.
Lily manages to slip past Exantus downstairs to her parents’ room, while Koral tries to turn Exantus’ attention away from Logan.
Once Dean Tipton understands Lily truly has seen a stranger, he dashes upstairs, coming face-to-face with blood-covered, knife-wielding Exantus on the top landing. Dean tells Koral to get her siblings to safety and call 911.
Koral grabs Dakota and Aiden, telling Logan she’ll come back for him. With Lily, Dakota, and Aiden locked safely in their parents’ room, Koral calls 911, telling the operator her dad is wrestling with a burglar.
Dean Tipton holds Ronald Exantus until police arrive, but first responders can do nothing to help Logan.
Ronald Exantus, the man who attacked the Tipton family in their sleep, killing 6-year-old Logan, is released from prison more than 10 years early. The surviving Tiptons and the nation are outraged, calling Exantus’ release a gross miscarriage of justice.
Members of the Parole Board have been receiving death threats but claim the decision did not lie with them, blaming the state’s ‘Mandatory Supervised Release’ law.
State representatives are now pushing to enact ‘Logan’s Law,’ which would require hospitalization for the criminally insane.
Joining Nancy Grace today:
Additional Guests
- Dean Tipton – Father
- Koral Tipton – Sister
- Greg Morse – Criminal Defense Attorney of Morse Legal, Author of “The Untested,” Found on Amazon
- Sydney Sumner – Investigative Reporter, ‘Crime Stories’
“Crime Stories with Nancy Grace” on Fox Nation is also a national radio show on SiriusXM channel 111, airing for two hours daily starting at 12 p.m. EST. You can also subscribe and download the daily podcasts at iHeart Podcasts.
[Feature Photo: Logan Tipton/ School photo via Heather Tipton]
