Suspect charged in brutal death of female trucker on Interstate 59/20
Published 1:29 pm Monday, August 31, 2020
A suspect is being held on more than $1.5 million bond in the beating death of a female truck driver on Interstate 59/20.
Charles Levester Gipson, 39, is charged with murder in the killing of 53-year-old Christine Summers.
In the early morning hours of Aug. 19, Summers was talking to her husband on her headset as she was traveling I-59/20 and told him she thought she may have hit someone.
Summers reportedly stopped her truck to check and had called 911 before getting out of her truck. Summers was reportedly still on the phone with a 911 operator when she was brutally attacked by Gipson. The killing was reportedly captured on the 911 call.
Summers’ lifeless body was soon discovered after 3 a.m. on the side of the Interstate 59/20 near the Valley Road exit. A truck driver was driving on the interstate on the way to deliver a load when he saw another 18-wheeler on the side of the road. The truck driver then noticed a woman on the ground near her truck. He stopped and approached her to ask if she was OK, but she was unresponsive.
Several different law enforcement agencies responded to the scene, but the State Bureau of Investigation took over the investigation.
Summers was driving a truck for RTR Transportation in Tennessee.