Court docs: Fremont County man arrested for allegedly shooting his sleeping dad

FREMONT COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- 36-year-old Joseph Tippet is in the Fremont County Jail facing a first-degree murder charge after court records show Tippet told police he shot his sleeping dad twice in the back of the head.

At around 10 p.m. Saturday, the Fremont County Sheriff's Office, their SWAT team and Canon City police officers responded to a call for service on South Raynolds Ave. in Canon City. That call came from a woman who said Joseph Tippet told her he killed his dad.

She said the first instance of violence that Saturday was a domestic violence situation.

Court records show Tippet confirmed what the woman told sheriff's deputies. He told detectives he did get into a physical altercation with the woman Saturday afternoon, and he "punched, slapped, and pulled" her hair.

After the fight, the woman told detectives she left. She told investigators that Tippet started calling her cellphone, and when she didn't answer, he left a series of voicemails.

Those messages included the statements, "my dad is dead in his bead," "I left Dad's dead body sitting here" and "I shot my dad."

When investigators got to the house, they found William Tippet, Joseph Tippet's father, lying in a bed with two gunshots to the back of his head.

Tippet told detectives that William had been living at his house for two years.

According to court records, when detectives asked Tippet why he shot William, Tippet told them William was "not a good dad" and was an "absentee father."

Tippet also told detectives about a grudge he held against his dad for an incident 10 to 15 years ago. Tippet said his dad asked the woman to give him sexual favors "in exchange for co-signing on a vehicle."

Tippet told police the shooting was not pre-meditated, and he did not wake up that morning planning to kill his dad.

He is currently in the Fremont County Jail, where he is being held on a one-million-dollar bond.