Man faces 2 murder charges

John E. Lipinski has gone from murder suspect to wanted man in connection to the death last August of his fiancee and the later death of his infant daughter.

Deputy Spokane Prosecutor Steve Garvin filed arrest warrants against Lipinski for two counts of second-degree murder. Spokane police detectives received those warrants Thursday but have not yet located Lipinski, Lt. Scott Stephens said.

“At this point, we would encourage him to turn himself in,” Stephens said.

Lipinski, 21, is charged with the August 2004 death of 19-year-old Melissa Saldivar, who was seven months pregnant with Lipinski’s daughter.

Saldivar died Aug. 11 from injuries consistent with being pushed from a car the day before, according to court records. Doctors restarted her heart and kept her on life support so they could deliver Mataya Shanelle Saldivar, who only weighed 2 pounds, 13 ounces.

Mataya, who was brain dead, died on Oct. 1 after Lipinski made the decision to remove his daughter from the life-support machines.

Melissa Saldivar’s uncle, Dennis Mitchell of Spokane, said the family is pleased that detectives were able to bring charges against Lipinski.

“It’s been really hard on us as a family,” Mitchell said. “For a time, we feared justice was not going to be done.”

Stephens credited the work of Detective Tim Madsen for continuing to pursue leads on the case for eight months.

“From the very beginning, it was one of those things where (Lipinski’s) story didn’t make sense,” Stephens said. “It’s just highly unusual that a pregnant woman would jump out of a moving vehicle, causing her own death and then causing the death of her baby.”

The investigation began at 4 a.m. Aug. 10 when Lipinski dropped off Saldivar at Sacred Heart Medical Center. She had a fractured skull and her heart was not beating, Madsen wrote in court records.

Lipinski first said Saldivar fell down stairs. He later told police that they argued, she dropped him off at a gas station, drove away and then jumped from the driver’s side of the car. Later, Lipinski told Madsen that he and Saldivar argued, and then she jumped from the passenger side of the car.

Lipinski – who was charged with domestic violence assault against Saldivar in July 2003 – never showed detectives where Saldivar’s body hit the pavement, Stephens said, so they were forced to investigate a homicide without the benefit of a crime scene.

During the past several months, Madsen contacted collision reconstruction experts to test Lipinski’s stories based on Saldivar’s injuries.

“It takes time to do proper testing,” Stephens said. “The experts advised Detective Madsen that it is highly, highly unlikely that this individual went out of the car under her own power.”

The autopsy showed that Saldivar had bruising to her uterus prior to her death, according to court records.

“The injuries that were sustained cannot be explained the way Mr. Lipinski described them,” Stephens said. “There was most likely some sort of blow to her that caused some injury prior to her going out of that car.”

Lipinski’s attorney, Scott Richard Hill, said last week that his client no longer lives with his parents in Cheney, but he refused to say where he lives other than “in the area.” Hill could not be reached Thursday for comment.

Mitchell said his family is sure that Lipinski will be caught.

“We may never know exactly what happened,” Mitchell said. “But there is no way John didn’t contribute to Melissa’s death.

“The question is did he do it maliciously? Or, did he do it as an accident? Either way, he needs to be held accountable because there are two beautiful people who are gone from our lives forever.”