CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — On April 6, 1980, Laura Pippin Danka, a 26-year-old mother of two, vanished from a parking lot in Corpus Christi, Texas.
In 2024, Dateline featured Laura’s story in our Cold Case Spotlight series. At that time, John Pippin Jr. told Dateline about the day his sister disappeared. “It was Easter Sunday, and she went by and picked up some work that she was going to do that afternoon at home, and then she was supposed to run by and pick up the kids,” he said. “But she had stopped off at the store.” That’s when Laura went missing.
John, who lived in another state, told Dateline he remembers hearing Laura was missing. “We kept praying that, you know, she’d be found and everything,” he said.
Three days later, she was found. Laura’s body was located about 11miles from the store’s parking lot. In 2024, the Nueces County Sheriff’s Office told Dateline Laura’s death was ruled a homicide and that she had been stabbed nine times.
Laura’s case quickly became cold — and stayed cold. In 2024, the Nueces County Sheriff’s Office said they had no information or leads to follow up on in the case, but if new evidence came to light or someone came forward with information, they’d look into it.
In October 2024, a few months after Dateline published the story about Laura, Sergeant James Rackley with the Nueces County Sheriff’s Office reachedout to Dateline, stating that he had been assigned to review all the cold cases the agency had.
More than a year later, the sheriff’s office has now officially closed Laura’s case, stating they have identified her killer. In December 2025, Sgt. Rackley told Dateline that person is now deceased.
Natalie Williams, the public liaison for the Nueces County Sheriff’s Office, told Dateline that, “Unfortunately, due to the fact that the suspect is deceased, the DA’s office will not be indicting. Although the Nueces County Sheriff’s Office believes we have the perpetrator identified, we will not be releasing the name since no further legal action is being taken.”
Williams said the office has discussed their findings with Laura’s family and that “they have acknowledged that they are content with the case being closed.”
Laura’s brother, John, sent Dateline a statement via email on behalf of his family. “I would like to say a big thank you to Sgt. Rackley and the Sheriff’s [Office] for the hard and dedicated work they have done with their Cold Case Unit over the last several years in solving my sister’s murder,” he wrote.“I am sorry that the murderer passed and I will not be able to tell him that he took the life of a beautiful human being that only wanted to help people.”
“Our family now has peace that the case is solved and we have closure,” John stated.
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