Birmingham Trucker Murder Suspect: Trump Made Me ‘Kill a White Lady’

A naked and bloody suspect in the beating death of a female trucker on a Birmingham street told officers who arrested him that he had “killed a white lady” and President Trump made him do it, according to testimony Wednesday in a Jefferson County courtroom.

Charles Levester Gipson, 39 is charged with murder in the Aug. 19 killing of 53-year-old Christine Summers. Summers was driving a truck for RTR Transportation in Tennessee. She was a wife, mother, grandmother and had been driving a truck for about 30 years.

Summers was found dead about 3:20 a.m. that Wednesday on the side of Interstate 59/20 near the Valley Road exit. Her dentures had been knocked out of her mouth, and she suffered a fatal head injury. Gipson was taken into custody just over an hour later after callers reported seeing a naked man on Allison Bonnett Memorial Drive.

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{snip} Attorney Victor Revill is representing Gipson. {snip}

State Bureau of Investigation Agent Vincent Cunningham testified to the chain of events that happened that day. He said he arrived at the I-59/20 scene about 6:15 a.m. to find Summers on her back and covered up near her tractor-trailer with multiple other law enforcement agencies on site, including the Jefferson Count Sheriff’s Office, Alabama State Troopers and Hueytown police. Scrawled in the dirt on the back of the tractor-trailer, Cunningham said, was “Trump 2020.”

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Gipson was taken into custody about 4:30 a.m. by Hueytown police after they had received calls of an unclothed Black male in the roadway. Cunningham testified that arresting officers reported that Gipson was sweating profusely and made “spontaneous” statements about “killing a white woman” and that President Trump had made him do it. {snip}

When Hueytown officers tried to move Gipson from a padded cell to an interview room to speak with SBI agents, testimony showed, he fought and injured the two officers – Cpl. Alex Humphries and Officer Justin Hickey. {snip} Gipson is charged with second-degree assault in the attack on the two officers. {snip}

Hickey said Gipson “seemed to be very disgruntled with our race…as a white person, he felt we were there to hurt him,” he said under cross examination by Revill. Hickey said Gipson called them “white mfers” and “said he wanted to kill us.”

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Revill said should Gipson be indicted he will plead not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental defect. Jail and court records list addresses for Gipson in Birmingham, Bessemer and Tuscaloosa. He has previous arrests on rape, burglary, and animal cruelty but all of those charges were dismissed.