After 20 years in prison, parole board refuses to free Lipscomb

LIPSCOMB A once prominent Gaffney optometrist serving life imprisonment for killing his wife will be known as state inmate "00151602" for at least another two years.

The state Board of Paroles and Pardons denied parole for Dr. Nathan O. Lipscomb, now 67, who was among about 110 inmates from across the state up for parole hearings Wednesday.

Lipscomb, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988, was accused of beating his wife, Claudia, to death and trying to cover it up with a staged car accident.

He just recently marked his 20th year of incarceration, having been imprisoned since Nov. 2, 1988.

A spokesman for the state Board of Paroles and Pardons said Lipscomb will now have to wait another two years before he can be considered for parole again.

While it's not standard practice for someone from the 7th Circuit Solicitor's Office to be present at such parole hearings, it is common practice for the local solicitor's office to oppose parole in writing.

Solicitor Trey Gowdy, who said he believes in truth in sentencing, sent a letter to the State Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services to express his office's formal opposition to parole for all of the prisoners from Cherokee County and Spartanburg County who had applied for parole and were scheduled for hearings Wednesday.

Wednesday's parole hearing was Lipscomb's first.

Claudia Lipscomb was pronounced dead at the scene of a March 11, 1988, car accident on Thompson Street where the Lipscomb's Volvo had crashed into a tree.

At the time, Nathan Lipscomb had claimed his wife had cut her hand while washing dishes and fell in their kitchen, striking her head. He said he dragged her into their car to take her for medical help when she slumped over, causing him to lose control and run off the side of the road into a tree.

Questions arose almost immediately, however.

Police detectives found no blood in the car and they noted that her head was "real puffy."

One of the many witnesses at Lipscomb's second trial, which was held in Manning because of a mistrial in Gaffney, testified he was passing by the accident scene and stopped to offer assistance. Claudia Lipscomb's head felt "spongy" and he saw no damage to the windshield or dashboard to coincide with her head injuries, according to The Gaffney Ledger's archives.

A nurse who ran to offer assistance testified there was discoloration around Claudia Lipscomb's mouth and ear lobes. No CPR was administered, the nurse said, because she felt Claudia Lipscomb had been dead too long.

A pathologist, Dr. James Mijanovich, would subsequently testify at the trial that he found bruises on seven distinct areas of Claudia Lipscomb's body, including wounds on her forearms and the backs of both hands, signifying she had tried to defend herself from an attack.

The fatal blow was to the back of her neck, the doctor testified, and it also happened to be the biggest bruise he found.

A three-inch cut on her wrist, which her husband had explained as the cut she sustained washing dishes, was determined by Mijanovich to have occurred either after she died or at the moment of death since there was almost no blood loss from the wound.