Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of our series about the
Speaker 1: disappearance of Tommy Gibson. Let's jump right back into the case. So,
Speaker 1: two weeks after Tommy went missing, investigators were approached by
Speaker 1: Janette Klein, who happened to be the mother in law
Speaker 1: of Jennifer Kleine, the neighbor whose cat was shot. So
Speaker 1: Jeanette claimed that on the morning of Tommy's disappearance, she
Speaker 1: was driving down the end of her driveway and saw
Speaker 1: an older modeled gold or tan colored pickup truck pass
Speaker 1: by on the road, and after Janetta turned right, she
Speaker 1: tailed the truck for a short distance and noticed that
Speaker 1: the silhouettes of two figures inside the cab. And she
Speaker 1: also said that the most distinctive feature is that the
Speaker 1: truck had its license plate in the back window rather
Speaker 1: than on the rear bumper, which is why she remembered
Speaker 1: this event so distinctly. And then she noticed that the
Speaker 1: truck soon turned right and headed down the lengthy driveway
Speaker 1: which led to the Gibson residence, which was located far
Speaker 1: away from the main road in a very remote spot.
Speaker 1: And while Jeanette didn't think much of it at the time,
Speaker 1: once she learned about Tommy's disappearance. She came forward and
Speaker 1: shared this siding of the truck and put the idea
Speaker 1: in investigator's heads that maybe this was a stranger abduction
Speaker 1: and maybe the people driving this truck had something to
Speaker 1: do with it. But it does not sound like law
Speaker 1: enforce and put much credence into her story, as during
Speaker 1: her initial interview with FBI, she never even mentioned the
Speaker 1: truck and it only just seemed to pop up into
Speaker 1: her head a couple weeks later, So they're wondering she's
Speaker 1: not really lying, but maybe she drove behind this truck
Speaker 1: on a prior occasion before Tommy went missing and is
Speaker 1: just misremembering the date.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds likely to me. But I also find
Speaker 2: it strange that you're going to pursue this truck because
Speaker 2: you think that his presence is very atypical and there's
Speaker 2: something off putting about it. And you notice the placement
Speaker 2: of the license plate while you're following this truck, but
Speaker 2: you don't manage to take note of any of the
Speaker 2: digits on the license plate. It seems like if you
Speaker 2: were that worried that you're going to pursue this vehicle,
Speaker 2: you're going to notice that the license plate is in
Speaker 2: the actual truck, like on the window, rather than where
Speaker 2: a license plate typically is. But you're not going to
Speaker 2: take note of even the first few digits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is weird. So it just sounds like this
Speaker 1: was a rather mundane event which had no significance, and
Speaker 1: because Tommy just happened to go missing, she's suddenly thinking, ooh,
Speaker 1: this could be a potential clue, even though it may
Speaker 1: not have actually happened on the date Tommy went missing.
Speaker 1: But I do find it kind of amusing that this
Speaker 1: story was provided by the mother in law of Jennifer Klein,
Speaker 1: the woman whose cat was shot by Larry. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of ironic that she's providing a story that almost
Speaker 1: kind of supports Larry's innocence and presents an alternate scenario
Speaker 1: where he was not responsible for Tommy's disappearance. Three months
Speaker 1: after Tommy went missing, Larry contacted the authorities and said
Speaker 1: that his four year old daughter, Karen, had informed him
Speaker 1: that she actually witnessed Tommy get abducted from the front
Speaker 1: yard by an unidentified couple. According to Larry, Carrie just
Speaker 1: completely out of the blue told him this story about
Speaker 1: how she had been looking for a shoe inside her
Speaker 1: bedroom Clauset that morning when she looked out the window
Speaker 1: and saw what she described as an ugly yellow pickup
Speaker 1: truck pulling into the driveway. And she also shared the
Speaker 1: same detail about the license plate being attached to the
Speaker 1: back window rather than the rear bumper, so on the surface,
Speaker 1: it seemed to match the story that Janette Climb provided.
Speaker 1: And then Karen supposedly said that she saw a dark
Speaker 1: haired white man with a beard and scruffy clothes and
Speaker 1: a white woman with long blonde hair in a braid
Speaker 1: or a ponytail exiting the truck and they proceeded to
Speaker 1: take Tommy from the front yard and then put him
Speaker 1: in the truck before they drove away. Apparently was so
Speaker 1: frightened by this that she blocked it from her memory
Speaker 1: for the next few months, and that's why it took
Speaker 1: so long to come forward. But it does not sound
Speaker 1: like investigators put much credence into Karen's story because she
Speaker 1: convenely did not share this detail about the truck until
Speaker 1: Jeanette Klein already came forward providing a description of a
Speaker 1: truck that was pretty similar. So they started to think
Speaker 1: that when Larry learned about Jeanette's story that he decided
Speaker 1: to coach Karen and asked her to tell the authorities
Speaker 1: this story about a similar looking pickup truck with these
Speaker 1: mysterious couple abducting Tommy in order to take suspicious off himself.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that children don't disclose these things later,
Speaker 2: but I think a four year old's memory unless you're
Speaker 2: having a psychologist question this child in a very gentle
Speaker 2: manner right after the events have transpired, and doing so gradually,
Speaker 2: trying to get to the truth of what that child
Speaker 2: did or did not see. And in this case, it
Speaker 2: feels exactly like you said, Larry is seeing what Jeanette
Speaker 2: has said about this pickup truck and thinking, oh, well,
Speaker 2: if I coach Karen and I tell her that you know,
Speaker 2: this is what you saw, you very easily can manipulate
Speaker 2: a child and to make them believe that that is
Speaker 2: indeed what happened. So it wouldn't be a difficult thing
Speaker 2: to do. But the fact that it took this long
Speaker 2: for these details to emerge, it is very fishy. And
Speaker 2: it seems in alignment with Larry coaching her and this
Speaker 2: poor little girl. I can't imagine how difficult it would
Speaker 2: be having your little brother just disappear and then be
Speaker 2: manipulated potentially by your father into saying that you saw
Speaker 2: it happen. So she likely believed that she saw it happen.
Speaker 2: Even if that did not happen, she is going to
Speaker 2: then believe that this is what she saw because her
Speaker 2: father is painting that picture. So not only is he
Speaker 2: likely responsible for the death of his son, but he's
Speaker 2: then going to take response for traumatizing his daughter and
Speaker 2: making her believe that she witnessed the events.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like children are so impressionable at that age,
Speaker 1: at age four, So she probably legitimately believed this was
Speaker 1: what happened at first, just because her father's telling her that,
Speaker 1: because at that age, you're going to believe everything that
Speaker 1: your parents tell you. And she had also been interviewed
Speaker 1: like three times during the original stages of the investigation,
Speaker 1: but then just suddenly came out with this story three
Speaker 1: months after the fact, completely out of the blues. So
Speaker 1: that's why law enforcement didn't believe it. And if you
Speaker 1: look at the geography of the area, like the Gibson
Speaker 1: residents is literally out in the middle of nowhere and
Speaker 1: from what I can tell, their driveway was so long
Speaker 1: that if you were driving on the road where Jeanette
Speaker 1: saw this pickup truck, you wouldn't be able to see
Speaker 1: a child playing out in the front yard of the
Speaker 1: Gibson residents because there are a lot of trees and
Speaker 1: it's so far away. So it's not like this couple
Speaker 1: is just cruising around this remote area and saying, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a child playing unsupervised out on the front yard,
Speaker 1: let's just go and kidnap them. So you would actually
Speaker 1: have to turn up the driveway and see that Tommy
Speaker 1: was there. And it's like, even if like this couple
Speaker 1: had set their eyes on Tommy in a previous occasion
Speaker 1: and wanted to kidnap him directly, it's like, how could
Speaker 1: they have known that he would just happen to be
Speaker 1: playing outside alone on the front yard at that particular
Speaker 1: time of day, because they're not going to notice them
Speaker 1: until they take that drive up the driveway, and of
Speaker 1: course that only runs the risk of them being seen
Speaker 1: by Tommy's parents. So that has always been the biggest
Speaker 1: hole in the idea that Tommy was the victim of
Speaker 1: a stranger abduction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like in order to have the scenario
Speaker 2: be present where Tommy is unattended and playing in the
Speaker 2: front yard, where you've got this clear line of sight
Speaker 2: and you're able to abduct him, it would take staking
Speaker 2: out the property and it would take probably a bunch
Speaker 2: of practice runs because you would show up, there would
Speaker 2: be a parent there, and you wouldn't be able to
Speaker 2: proceed with the abductions, so your vehicle would be seen
Speaker 2: multiple times, Like this is the middle of nowhere. These
Speaker 2: things don't go unnoticed. So the probability, like you said,
Speaker 2: of them, these potential strangers, being able to pull up
Speaker 2: and get Tommy at this perfect moment when there's nobody around,
Speaker 2: it just seems so unlikely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I could believe this if this was
Speaker 1: a suburban neighborhood, that just a complete a child could
Speaker 1: be abductive from it by a complete stranger while playing
Speaker 1: in the front yard, but not in rural Oregon, like
Speaker 1: right out in the middle on this remote country road.
Speaker 1: So in October of nineteen ninety one, seven months after
Speaker 1: Tommy originally went missing, the case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 1: and in Larry's defense, he was apparently the one who
Speaker 1: approached the show and asked him to feature his son's
Speaker 1: disappearance and agreed to be interviewed, which is a very
Speaker 1: raising thing to do when you're guilty. But this is
Speaker 1: not the first documented case where someone who was suspected
Speaker 1: in a murder decided to approach unsolved mysteries and ask
Speaker 1: them to feature the story. And it could just be
Speaker 1: pure narcissism where they figure, well, if I get on
Speaker 1: TV give my side of the story, Everyone's going to
Speaker 1: believe me, and I'm going to be this very sympathetic
Speaker 1: figure who has lost his son. But unfortunately it backfired
Speaker 1: on Larry because, like I said, he gave this very unemotional,
Speaker 1: monotone interviews, so that everyone who watched it just had
Speaker 1: a very unfavorable impression of him. Like who goes on
Speaker 1: national TV and says, I'm going to admit that I
Speaker 1: pulled out a gun and shot a straight cat in
Speaker 1: my yard and think that a nationally televised audience is
Speaker 1: going to like me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that speaks to somebody who really doesn't understand how
Speaker 2: he's perceived by the rest of the world, which would
Speaker 2: lend credence to the idea that maybe he was putting
Speaker 2: up red flags for law enforcement while he was a
Speaker 2: sheriff's deputy, which is why they then went ahead with
Speaker 2: charging him and were able to basically accept that a
Speaker 2: member of the sheriff's department could be capable of doing this.
Speaker 2: Is if he was already maybe rubbing people the wrong way.
Speaker 2: Somebody that can just so openly speak about murdering cats
Speaker 2: just tells me that this is a person who probably
Speaker 2: in the workplace would manage to irk multiple people.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking. That he'd already done something prior
Speaker 1: to Tommy's disappearance to rub his fellow coworkers the wrong way,
Speaker 1: which is why they believed he might have been capable
Speaker 1: of something like this. And of course, during his interview,
Speaker 1: he's not necessarily sending out a public plea for information
Speaker 1: saying please come forward if you have information about my son,
Speaker 1: I want to find him. He's spending a lot of
Speaker 1: time complaining that law enforcement is looking at him as
Speaker 1: a suspect, so parts of his interview are all about me, me, me,
Speaker 1: rather than about my missing son. And they did interview
Speaker 1: Judy on the segment, and she did defend Larry. She
Speaker 1: still at that point said that she did not believe
Speaker 1: he had anything to do with Tommy's disappearance and believed
Speaker 1: that he had been abducted by a stranger. And the
Speaker 1: segment had this really intriguing piece of evidence where Robert
Speaker 1: Stack appeared on camera holding a letter saying that it
Speaker 1: had been sent to law enforcement and was signed by
Speaker 1: an anonymous person referring to themselves as Spot in the Road.
Speaker 1: And they wouldn't release the contents of this letter, but
Speaker 1: they said it might have been important information about Tommy's disappearance.
Speaker 1: So Robert Stack was urging this letter writer to come forward.
Speaker 1: And I know, for so many years, like unsolved mysteries,
Speaker 1: fans were intrigued of who was spot in the road?
Speaker 1: What information did they have? And when I heard that
Speaker 1: spot on the road, I kept thinking, is someone implying
Speaker 1: that Tommy's body maybe buried at a spot in the
Speaker 1: road somewhere, like at a construction site or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really interesting, And I mean it could mean
Speaker 2: multiple things, especially when you're out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Technically anywhere off the road could be a spot in
Speaker 2: the road. So is it a clue or is it
Speaker 2: just like this vast generalization.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I will reveal what it was later on.
Speaker 1: But I remember when I watched this on television back
Speaker 1: in the day, I was just very intrigued by this
Speaker 1: and wondered who this mysterious author was. So it was
Speaker 1: in January of nineteen ninety two, only a few months
Speaker 1: after the Unsolved Mysteries segment aired, where Larry decided to
Speaker 1: formally resign from the Douglas County Sheriff's office and said
Speaker 1: that he wanted to move out of Oregon because the
Speaker 1: stress of the whole situation was making it too difficult
Speaker 1: for he and his family to live there, so they
Speaker 1: decided to return to their native Montana, and believe it
Speaker 1: or not, they actually went on to have more kids
Speaker 1: because they had two more daughters named Lisa and Christina,
Speaker 1: and Tommy's case would get some more national attention in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three when his photo was featured in the
Speaker 1: Soul Asylum video Runaway Train, and by the time nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four rolled around, the marriage between Larry and Judith
Speaker 1: finally fell apart. She decided to move away from Montana
Speaker 1: with her three daughters, and interestingly enough, she went to
Speaker 1: the town of Persian, Iowa, and moved in with Larry's
Speaker 1: half sister, Debbie, which is very unusual that someone would
Speaker 1: break up in a marriage and then move in with
Speaker 1: their ex husband's relative one of their siblings. While this happened,
Speaker 1: Larry remained in Montana and moved in with his grandmother
Speaker 1: and started working as an insurance salesman. But Judith would
Speaker 1: say that pretty much the big breaking point is that
Speaker 1: they were constantly having arguments about Tommy's disappearance, and they
Speaker 1: finally had a confrontation where Larry started blaming Judy for
Speaker 1: Tommy's disappearance and accused her of not watching him closely
Speaker 1: enough while he was out jogging, and that's what made
Speaker 1: her finally decide I'm getting away with him, and I'm
Speaker 1: leaving with my three daughters and I'm going to move
Speaker 1: in with his half sister.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems like they've formed some kind of support
Speaker 2: group for people that have been wronged by Larry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much. So that's what makes me think of
Speaker 1: the dynamic between Larry and his family, because it seems
Speaker 1: obvious his half sister didn't like him too much, and
Speaker 1: of course Larry tried to throw his half brother Michael
Speaker 1: under the bus during the original investigation so finally, in
Speaker 1: April fourteenth, nineteen ninety four, Larry was indicted by an
Speaker 1: Oregon grand jury on the charges of intentional murder and
Speaker 1: murder by abuse, and even though Tommy had still not
Speaker 1: been found. The rain reason that Larry was arrested because
Speaker 1: his daughter Karen had changed her original story about seeing
Speaker 1: Tommy get abducted by an unidentified couple with a pickup truck.
Speaker 1: According to Judy, only eleven days after she and her
Speaker 1: children relocated to Iowa and moved in with Larry's half sister, Debbie,
Speaker 1: Karen suddenly shared a new story about how on the
Speaker 1: morning of Tommy's disappearance, she looked out her bedroom window
Speaker 1: and saw Larry get angry at Tommy and physically abuse him.
Speaker 1: She said that Larry pushed Tommy hit him across the
Speaker 1: cheek while holding his hands behind his back, and then
Speaker 1: he proceeded to hit the boy three more times before
Speaker 1: he went limp and fell to the ground. And then
Speaker 1: Larry put Tommy's body into the back of his patrol
Speaker 1: car and drove away, and when he returned to the
Speaker 1: car port sometime later, Tommy was no longer in the vehicle,
Speaker 1: and then Larry broke a branch off a tree in
Speaker 1: order to sweep away the tire marks and the dirt,
Speaker 1: and Karen said that she was left so frightened by
Speaker 1: witnessing this that she hid inside the bedroom closet and
Speaker 1: stayed silent about what she had seen until a couple
Speaker 1: months later when her father told her to share this
Speaker 1: story about the couple in the pickup truck. But once
Speaker 1: Karen shared this story with both her mother and Larry's
Speaker 1: half sister, Debbie, they contacted the Oregon State Police and
Speaker 1: they finally decided this is the one key piece of
Speaker 1: evidence we finally need to file charges. So Larry was
Speaker 1: indicted and then extradited from Montana back to Oregon.
Speaker 2: What an absolute nightmare, poor little Karen having to witness
Speaker 2: this and being so scared that she's got to go
Speaker 2: and hide in a closet, and then to have her
Speaker 2: father manipulate her into lying and saying a whole other
Speaker 2: story about Tommy being abducted, knowing full well what she
Speaker 2: saw and if who knows which parts she was conflating
Speaker 2: in her own mind because she's so young. It's horrific
Speaker 2: to think that Larry would put her in this position.
Speaker 2: But I guess it's no surprise. If you're willing to
Speaker 2: do that to your son, then you're willing to do
Speaker 2: almost anything in order to cover it up, it seems,
Speaker 2: including traumatizing your own daughter and then exposing her to
Speaker 2: all of these big scary people in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember how shocked I was by this update
Speaker 1: when it originally happened, because back when I first saw
Speaker 1: Larry on Unsolved Mysteries, I still disliked him, but I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if he did cover up his son's disappearance, at least
Speaker 1: it was a legitimate accident by a stray bullet and
Speaker 1: he didn't mean to harm anyone. But here we have
Speaker 1: a story that paints him in an even worse light,
Speaker 1: where he like physically abused a two year old and
Speaker 1: beat him up, and then disposed of his body and
Speaker 1: covered up the whole thing, and then manipulated his terrified
Speaker 1: daughter into coming up with a fake cover story until
Speaker 1: she finally got brave enough to finally share the truth.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that's a coincidence that like Karen
Speaker 1: suddenly came out with this story after her mother finally
Speaker 1: got her away from her father and she was in
Speaker 1: a safe space like thousands of miles away from him
Speaker 1: and could finally come forward. So that's why, even though
Speaker 1: she was only four years old at the time she
Speaker 1: allegedly witnessed this, that law enforcement was able to believe her.
Speaker 2: I think it's a miracle that Karen was able to
Speaker 2: remember those details, because our memories are so fallible, and
Speaker 2: when we're young, traumatic memories and they may become repressed,
Speaker 2: we might remember them. There's so many factors that go
Speaker 2: into what we can recall and what we can't. And
Speaker 2: as somebody who personally does remember several traumatic memories from
Speaker 2: being three or four years old, I know how concrete
Speaker 2: they feel. I don't know how solid they actually are.
Speaker 2: They're just the perception of my little three year old brain.
Speaker 2: And so the fact that Karen was able to hold
Speaker 2: onto this memory, especially in the face of being manipulated
Speaker 2: by her father who's trying to implant a completely different memory,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure that he spent a great deal of
Speaker 2: time doing so, so for her to be able to
Speaker 2: hold onto that, to want to get justice for Tommy,
Speaker 2: and to be able to share that with her aunt
Speaker 2: and her mom, when, like you said, Robin, she was
Speaker 2: in a safe space, because I'm sure when she was
Speaker 2: around Larry there was nothing safe about that space.
Speaker 1: Oh definitely, Like when we talk about Larry's trial, a
Speaker 1: number of their stories are going to come out about
Speaker 1: and paint him in an even more horrible light, if
Speaker 1: that's possible, so you can understand why a four year
Speaker 1: old would have been absolutely terrified of him back in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. So Larry's trial would begin in Douglas
Speaker 1: County Circuit Court in January of nineteen ninety five. But
Speaker 1: it sounds like opinions in the community were still very
Speaker 1: divided that even though these horrible things came out about Larry,
Speaker 1: it sounds like he still had some supporters who did
Speaker 1: not believe he would have been capable of doing something
Speaker 1: like this to his son. I guess because he had
Speaker 1: been a sheriff's deputy and maybe there was still enough
Speaker 1: respect for authority that they didn't believe someone in that
Speaker 1: position would have been capable about this. But I know
Speaker 1: that when the trial took place, they interviewed a local
Speaker 1: resident named Terry Reid, who shared this quote. Quote it
Speaker 1: used to be a saying that you don't talk about
Speaker 1: sex and religion here. Well, in this town. You don't
Speaker 1: talk about sex, religion, and Larry Gibson. It gets into
Speaker 1: some pretty heated discussions. End quote.
Speaker 2: Ooh, I can imagine Larry would be one of those
Speaker 2: people where at the dinner table if you brought him up,
Speaker 2: I'm sure he was polarizing, But I've got to imagine
Speaker 2: that he wouldn't have that many ardent defenders.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking, Like, it's not like he had
Speaker 1: lived in the area his whole life. He had grown
Speaker 1: up in Montana, and I think he'd only been living
Speaker 1: there for about three years at the time Tommy went missing.
Speaker 1: So even though he could have made some friends, I
Speaker 1: don't think he's going to have some like old childhood friends.
Speaker 1: There's people like that, or have like a family living
Speaker 1: in the community who would want to go out of
Speaker 1: their way to defend him. But I guess it's just
Speaker 1: because maybe back then in the small town communities there
Speaker 1: was more of an innocent view of law enforcement than
Speaker 1: they figured well, if they wore a uniform and were
Speaker 1: an officer of the law, they couldn't do something like
Speaker 1: kill their own child.
Speaker 2: And I also think for like dinner party conversation in
Speaker 2: the nineties, are you really bringing up missing and potentially
Speaker 2: murdered children.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess I could see it because
Speaker 1: in that particular area, they didn't have like a lot
Speaker 1: of missing children's cases. Like this was the first time
Speaker 1: this area got national headlines. So I can only imagine
Speaker 1: after it was featured on Unsolved Mysteries that there were
Speaker 1: a lot of heated discussions about it.
Speaker 2: But like, it makes me wonder, were the heated discussions
Speaker 2: or was it like not in our town. Let's sweep
Speaker 2: it under the rug and pretend that it didn't happen,
Speaker 2: because true crime conversations in the nineties are not like
Speaker 2: they are now. They're not like these acceptable conversations that
Speaker 2: we have out in the open. There were things that
Speaker 2: were done kind of in the corner, hush hush, like, oh,
Speaker 2: you find true crime interesting, you like forensic files? Me too.
Speaker 2: I mean I was a child, But I'm assuming that's
Speaker 2: how it went at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely, I'm sure. Because there were so few
Speaker 1: true crime shows on that time, it was still more
Speaker 1: of a taboo subject, and a lot of these small
Speaker 1: towns would talk about it unless it directly affected them
Speaker 1: and happened in that particular place. So when Larry went
Speaker 1: on trial, obviously, the police had to change their original
Speaker 1: theory about Tommy being killed by a stray bullet. They
Speaker 1: suspected that when Larry left his home to go jogging
Speaker 1: that morning, Tommy attempted to follow him, but Larry told
Speaker 1: him to go back to his house and play outside
Speaker 1: and wait for his sister to come out. But shortly thereafter,
Speaker 1: Larry then fired his shot into the cap. So the
Speaker 1: prosecution speculated that after hearing the noise, Tommy walked out
Speaker 1: into the woods to see what was going on, and
Speaker 1: when Larry spotted his son, he became angry at him
Speaker 1: for disobeying him, so he picked up Tommy, took him
Speaker 1: to the car port, and flew into such a violent
Speaker 1: rage that he hit Tommy multiple times and wound up
Speaker 1: killing him while Karen witnessed it from her bedroom window.
Speaker 1: And when Larry noticed that Carry had been watching him,
Speaker 1: he decided to place Tommy's body inside his patrol car,
Speaker 1: drove it behind a woodpile on his property, and then
Speaker 1: he proceeded to put Tommy's body inside a large white
Speaker 1: plastic garbage bag and placed it inside the trunk before
Speaker 1: he headed out jogging to create an alibi for himself
Speaker 1: so that his wife wouldn't find out what she had
Speaker 1: done to their son. And they theorized that Larry used
Speaker 1: this forty seven minute window to come up with a
Speaker 1: scenario for how he's going to cover up the whole
Speaker 1: thing where he was going to dispose of Tommy's body.
Speaker 1: Then he returned home and when Judy told him that
Speaker 1: Tommy was missing, that's when he contacted the authority, and
Speaker 1: at his first available opportunity, he drove the patrol car
Speaker 1: off the property and disposed of Tommy's body in a
Speaker 1: remote area.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if I should be disgusted
Speaker 2: or impressed that he was able to find a place
Speaker 2: to dispose of Tommy's body where it's never been found.
Speaker 2: But you, like you said, this is such a vast,
Speaker 2: unpopulated area that it would create so much, so many
Speaker 2: square miles to search, and it's not like these are
Speaker 2: all well worn hiking paths. So if Larry's was familiar
Speaker 2: enough with the area, which he lived there for several years,
Speaker 2: so he would have been he would know that there
Speaker 2: would be spots that even if you're searching for a
Speaker 2: missing child, you're not going to look here, So it
Speaker 2: could have been a situation where he could have just
Speaker 2: dumped the body somewhere. He didn't even have to have
Speaker 2: buried Tommy necessarily. We're assuming that he likely did more
Speaker 2: cover up than just dump a body in that white
Speaker 2: plastic bag out in the open somewhere. But he could
Speaker 2: have just Scott Lucky. I don't know how much of
Speaker 2: this is organization and how much is just dumb luck.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, enough, the prosecution would push forward a theory about
Speaker 1: what he did with Tommy's body. He might recall that
Speaker 1: when he finally admitted to taking the patrol car off
Speaker 1: the property, he said that he searched a nearby rest
Speaker 1: area on Interstate five, and it turned out that Larry
Speaker 1: had a past history of whenever he shot stray cats
Speaker 1: on the property, he would actually go to the rest
Speaker 1: area and put them in the trash bin there. So
Speaker 1: they were beginning to wonder it could he have been
Speaker 1: brazen enough that he thought he was going to go
Speaker 1: to this rest area and even put Tommy's body inside
Speaker 1: the trash bin while he was inside a plastic bag.
Speaker 1: But of course nothing was found there, and they theorized
Speaker 1: that maybe Larry did originally go there but decided against
Speaker 1: disposing of his son's body because he discovered there were
Speaker 1: too many people or too many cars there. But there
Speaker 1: was also a nearby logging road known as Swamp Creek Road,
Speaker 1: which had a remote gravel pit, and investigators claimed there
Speaker 1: was one occasion when they took Larry to this spot
Speaker 1: and he reportedly acted nervous and upsets. All they wondered,
Speaker 1: maybe this is where he actually disposed of Tommy's body.
Speaker 1: And even though he did search this area, it was
Speaker 1: known for having bears around. So one possibility is that
Speaker 1: even if Tommy's body was there, a bear may have
Speaker 1: carried it off somewhere or disposed of the remains, and
Speaker 1: Larry just got incredibly lucky that by the time they
Speaker 1: searched there there was nothing left to find.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, a gravel pit could
Speaker 2: make sense, but yeah, if you bury the body just
Speaker 2: under the surface, the chance of animal predation in an
Speaker 2: area that's known for having lots of bears is pretty great.
Speaker 2: So he may have just gotten lucky, and it could
Speaker 2: have nothing to do with him being well organized, because
Speaker 2: I would think it would be a really poor move
Speaker 2: to put Tommy's body in the garbage at the rest area,
Speaker 2: if it was a known pattern for him to dispose
Speaker 2: of dead cats there, and maybe because he was in
Speaker 2: law enforcement, he at least had the foresight to go, oh,
Speaker 2: I've done this before, So of course they're going to
Speaker 2: look into this as being a possible dump site for Tommy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it seems ridiculous, like if you put
Speaker 1: your son's body in a public trash band, they are
Speaker 1: going to find it, Like, I think who's ever gonna
Speaker 1: collect it is going to notice a child's body in there.
Speaker 1: But I think it says a lot about Larry's mentality
Speaker 1: where he has no qualms. I'm gonna shoot straight cats
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to go to a public rest
Speaker 1: area to dispose of them rather than just burying them
Speaker 1: on the ground or something, which just kind of shows that,
Speaker 1: regardless of what he did to Tommy, he was already
Speaker 1: a very weird person. So, since they did not have
Speaker 1: Tommy's body and there was no physical evidence to prove
Speaker 1: any of this, the case against Larry would pretty much
Speaker 1: rely heavily on Karen's testimony, and the prosecution really went
Speaker 1: all out to try to make Karen look like a
Speaker 1: very sympathetic, believable witness. At this particular point, she was
Speaker 1: eight years old, even though she was four at the
Speaker 1: time of Tommy's disappearance. But when she went on the
Speaker 1: witness stand, she was actually clutching a teddy bear in
Speaker 1: her arms because it made her feel more comfortable. And
Speaker 1: she said that when Larry realized that she had seen
Speaker 1: him kill Tommy, he told her that if she did
Speaker 1: not keep her mouth shut, she would either go to
Speaker 1: jail or the same thing and happen to might happen
Speaker 1: to her as well, which is why she was able
Speaker 1: to remain silent about it until a few months later,
Speaker 1: when Larry ordered her to tell the police a completely
Speaker 1: different story about Tommy getting abducted by a couple in
Speaker 1: a pickup truck. And of course, she said that I
Speaker 1: was too afraid to share this until I moved to
Speaker 1: Iowa with my mother a thousand miles away. It was
Speaker 1: in a safe space where I could finally come out
Speaker 1: with this story. And when asked under cross examination if
Speaker 1: she still loved her father, Karen simply replied, no.
Speaker 2: Wow, poor Karen, She's been put through so much. It's
Speaker 2: one thing to lose your brother, but it's a whole
Speaker 2: other thing to be put into this untenable position by
Speaker 2: this person that you are supposed to trust, supposed to
Speaker 2: protect you. And it's very clear that Larry did not
Speaker 2: protect Karen. He put her in harm's way multiple times.
Speaker 2: He manipulated her, and it sounds like he gas lit her,
Speaker 2: and he really tried to form this narrative and in
Speaker 2: the end it didn't work, and everybody seemed to unite
Speaker 2: against him, which is at the very least, it seems
Speaker 2: like everybody in his life saw him for who he
Speaker 2: truly was.
Speaker 1: Oh, definitely. And the thing is that they would bring
Speaker 1: his half sister, Judy to testify in the stand, and
Speaker 1: she gave what I think is more damning testimony, saying
Speaker 1: that a few months after Tommy went missing, she actually
Speaker 1: received a frantic, tearful phone call from Larry, who said
Speaker 1: that this was the very day when he was confronted
Speaker 1: by law enforcement about having potentially been responsible for Tommy's disappearance,
Speaker 1: and he apparently made a tearful confession to Debbie that
Speaker 1: he had killed his own son and he was worried
Speaker 1: that Judy would never forgive him for it, and he
Speaker 1: told Debbie so that he might need money to post
Speaker 1: bail if he was arrested. And years later, when Judy
Speaker 1: and the children moved in with Debbie, she claimed there
Speaker 1: was an incident where they were watching an episode of
Speaker 1: The Flintstones on television which showed a picture of a
Speaker 1: large hole, and upon seeing this, Karen supposedly said that
Speaker 1: she didn't want her daddy to put her in a
Speaker 1: large hole like he did with Tommy. And shortly thereafter
Speaker 1: that's when Karen finally came clean shared her whole story
Speaker 1: about having witnessed her father killed Tommy. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: that made a major impression on the jury that Larry's
Speaker 1: own half sister was willing to share this story on
Speaker 1: the witness stand and paint him in a damning light.
Speaker 2: To think like this little four year old child she
Speaker 2: was put in a position where she saw this happened
Speaker 2: to her little brother, Tommy, who I'm sure she loved
Speaker 2: very much, and then to live in fear. We don't
Speaker 2: know what Larry had said to her. Did he threaten
Speaker 2: that he was going to put her in a hole,
Speaker 2: or that if she told anybody that he would do
Speaker 2: the same thing to her. We can't know exactly what
Speaker 2: Larry said to Karen. But it was obviously he either
Speaker 2: demonstrated with his actions or with his words, or with
Speaker 2: both that it wasn't in her best interest to come
Speaker 2: forward while she was in the home with Larry, But
Speaker 2: once she was in that safe space and once she
Speaker 2: started sharing after seeing that hole like that is just
Speaker 2: so heartbreaking, this little girl watching the Flintstones and being
Speaker 2: triggered by this of a whole and thinking about her
Speaker 2: little brother and how she doesn't want to have the
Speaker 2: same faith before her.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, definitely. And this pretty much would get corroborated
Speaker 1: when Judy took the stand to testify, because she acknowledged
Speaker 1: that at the outset, she legitimately did not believe that
Speaker 1: Larry had anything to do with Tommy's disappearance until she
Speaker 1: heard Karen's story, but she would also share some horrific
Speaker 1: stories of physical abuse that her and her children experienced
Speaker 1: during the marriage. She said at the time Tommy went missing,
Speaker 1: Judy had been taking some college classes on the side,
Speaker 1: and this apparently made Larry angry because he had to
Speaker 1: watch over the kids much more frequently than usual, and
Speaker 1: this apparently caused his stress levels to rise and could
Speaker 1: explain why he just lost it on Tommy on that
Speaker 1: particular day. She also recounted an incident before Tommy went
Speaker 1: missing when she came into the kitchen and found Tommy
Speaker 1: screaming and lying on the floor next to his fallen
Speaker 1: high chair with Larry standing over him, and he also
Speaker 1: had red marks on his face, and when Judy told
Speaker 1: Larry not to hit the children so hard, he repl well,
Speaker 1: I did hit Tommy, but I didn't hit him bath hard,
Speaker 1: so he's just over exaggerating. And she also said that
Speaker 1: Larry would get aggressive with Tommy, pushed and whenever the
Speaker 1: boy got into his way, and there was also an
Speaker 1: additional incident where Larry pushed Care into the ground because
Speaker 1: she was interfering with his television watching. And after they
Speaker 1: moved away to Montana and Judy had two more daughters,
Speaker 1: she said that there were accounts of abuse for Katrina
Speaker 1: and Lisa, even though they were also both just infants
Speaker 1: at the time. She actually said that after returning home
Speaker 1: from the hospital after giving birth to their youngest daughter, Katrina,
Speaker 1: she noticed red marks on the leg of Lisa, and
Speaker 1: when Larry tried to say the remarks were rugburns, Judy
Speaker 1: said that she later witnessed him hit Lisa when she
Speaker 1: got in his way and it left similar looking red marks.
Speaker 1: So this is painting picture of Larry as someone who
Speaker 1: never should have had children to begin with, because he
Speaker 1: just has this huge temper he is set off by
Speaker 1: like the literalist infractions, So it sounds more and more
Speaker 1: believable that he could have just snapped and killed Tommy
Speaker 1: on the he went missing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's sounding like somebody who gets very frustrated by
Speaker 2: children and who acts out physically and in an aggressive manner,
Speaker 2: and somebody who lacks the patience and the fortitude to
Speaker 2: be able to go okay, like some of the inner strength.
Speaker 2: Children are difficult, you accept that, And it sounds like
Speaker 2: he wasn't the type of person who was going to
Speaker 2: accept that his children were going to be difficult or
Speaker 2: his wife would be quote unquote difficult if people didn't
Speaker 2: act in alignment with the way that Larry believed that
Speaker 2: they should. It seems like he went all corporal punishment
Speaker 2: on them, which is just not an acceptable way to
Speaker 2: treat your wife for children.
Speaker 1: Especially at that age, like getting so angry at like
Speaker 1: a two year old just because they interfere with your
Speaker 1: television watching and the way he's just trying to pawn
Speaker 1: it off on his wife's saying, well, it's your fault
Speaker 1: because you're taking college classes, so now I have more
Speaker 1: responsibilities and I just can't handle that. I just don't
Speaker 1: have the patience. So he definitely sounds like a narcissist
Speaker 1: where nothing he ever does is ever wrong.
Speaker 2: Well, and I feel like the fact that his wife's
Speaker 2: attention is directed outwards at bettering her future, bettering their future,
Speaker 2: he should be excited about that, but what it's doing
Speaker 2: is taking time away from the home and time away
Speaker 2: from attention that could be put squarely on him. And
Speaker 2: I feel like he's just the type of person where
Speaker 2: he needs to be that focal point. He needs to
Speaker 2: be the center of the family, the center of everything,
Speaker 2: and if anything deviates from that, then he's going to
Speaker 2: act out like a petulant child.
Speaker 1: Yep. And that totally sounds like it would fit his
Speaker 1: personality there And as you can imagine, this whole trial
Speaker 1: did not paint him at all any flattering light. But
Speaker 1: to be fair, the alternate scenario pushed forward by the
Speaker 1: defense is that they thought that Karen may have been
Speaker 1: coached again by her mother Judy after she separated from Larry,
Speaker 1: and that because she wanted to get back at him,
Speaker 1: she pushed forward this false scenario about Karen witnessed Larry
Speaker 1: kill Tommy and then went forward to the authority so
Speaker 1: that he could finally be arrested and sent to jail.
Speaker 1: And it is it is true that shortly after following
Speaker 1: her brother's disappearance, Karen have been placed under hypnosis by
Speaker 1: law enforcement in order to improve her memory. And she
Speaker 1: never said anything about seeing your father hit Tommy. And
Speaker 1: even though we know that hypnosis is not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent reliable, I do wonder, like with a four year old,
Speaker 1: if you have witnessed such a traumatic event, would you
Speaker 1: be able to keep it inside and not say anything
Speaker 1: about it if you were subject to hypnosis at that
Speaker 1: young age.
Speaker 2: Hypnosis is such a gray area, and that there are
Speaker 2: practitioners and hypnotherapists that are extremely skilled and are able
Speaker 2: to get information out of people. And it seems it's
Speaker 2: just like psychics right in that there are some that
Speaker 2: are incredibly skilled, but there are others that they feel
Speaker 2: like snake oil salesmen in that what they're giving is
Speaker 2: just these broad generalizations and they're not actually able to
Speaker 2: give anybody anything definitive. They're more reading the signals that
Speaker 2: somebody's given off and then giving them what they want
Speaker 2: to hear. Whereas I feel like the same thing with hypnotherapy.
Speaker 2: It was a very popular thing in that was used
Speaker 2: by law enforcement in the nineties, but there's a huge
Speaker 2: margin for error, and there's a lot of things that
Speaker 2: can go wrong, and you can also implant information while
Speaker 2: you're trying to extract information, so it can really muddy
Speaker 2: the waters in a lot of ways. So to think
Speaker 2: that it was like a popular thing to be doing
Speaker 2: this to small children like Karen was howled at this
Speaker 2: time when this was being.
Speaker 1: Done four years old.
Speaker 2: She was not even five years old yet, So wow,
Speaker 2: is a lot to think, like this poor little girl
Speaker 2: has been through, She's really run the gamut of these
Speaker 2: really negative experiences and then trying to get this information.
Speaker 2: It's just it's kind of boggling my mind.
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, I mean, I do acknowledge that this
Speaker 1: is a legitimate point by the defense because Larry apparently
Speaker 1: consented to the hypnosis and at the time Tommy went missing,
Speaker 1: she also allowed Karen to be questioned by police detectives
Speaker 1: a child welfare worker and a therapist, And even though
Speaker 1: he had scared her pretty good allegedly and made her
Speaker 1: like stay silent about having witnessed him kill Tommy, it
Speaker 1: still makes you wonder if he would be willing to
Speaker 1: allow her to be interviewed by all these people by
Speaker 1: herself when there's a danger because she's a four year old,
Speaker 1: that she could finally let loose what she has seen
Speaker 1: and then implicate Larry. So that was the argument the
Speaker 1: defense made, is that if this story was true, then
Speaker 1: there's no way Larry would allowed his daughter to be
Speaker 1: interviewed on supervised by this many professionals.
Speaker 2: I mean, unless Larry is that narcissistic that he believes
Speaker 2: that he's done such a number on Karen that she
Speaker 2: wholeheartedly believes his narrative that he's spun. He sounds like
Speaker 2: I could go either way. I think that if you
Speaker 2: are a risk averse person and you are responsible for
Speaker 2: what happened to Tommy, and you know that Karen has
Speaker 2: seen it, it would be absolutely asinine to will then
Speaker 2: allow your four year old daughter to go in undergo
Speaker 2: hypnosis and then just take take a chance that she
Speaker 2: wouldn't remember things. The way they actually happened. But Larry
Speaker 2: seems like the type of guy where he maybe could
Speaker 2: take that gamble and think I'm just that good that
Speaker 2: I've convinced my daughter that this is truly the way
Speaker 2: that things are and not the way that she originally
Speaker 2: thought that they things played out. So either scenario is
Speaker 2: possible in my mind, But I'm more inclined to think
Speaker 2: most people would avoid having their child sit down with
Speaker 2: the hypnotherapist because they'd be extremely nervous about what they
Speaker 2: could share.
Speaker 1: That is true. Yeah, Like it is possible that Larry
Speaker 1: was just arrogant enough to think that he could get
Speaker 1: away with it and maybe just got incredibly lucky that
Speaker 1: Karen was able to remain silent and not come out
Speaker 1: until she moved thousands of miles away from him. And
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the most controversial elements of
Speaker 1: this case is because many of the vast majority of
Speaker 1: people believe that Larry was guilty and that he did
Speaker 1: something to Tommy. But they're wondering, is the scenario involving
Speaker 1: the bullet the stray bullet true? Did he actually beat Tommy?
Speaker 1: Is Karen's story reliable? Because some people have been unwilling
Speaker 1: to discount the possibility that, yes, it could be true
Speaker 1: that Judy coached Karen into sharing the story, and that
Speaker 1: even though Larry did something to Tommy, it was not
Speaker 1: exactly the truth and Karen never actually witnessed it. So
Speaker 1: I can see why there is so much controversy surrounding
Speaker 1: this case. So additional testimony was provided by a former
Speaker 1: babysitter of the Gibsons who claimed that she looked after
Speaker 1: Karen shortly after Tommy went missing and heard her make
Speaker 1: a statement that her father had quote unquote broken her brother,
Speaker 1: which could be seen as damning as well. And the
Speaker 1: trial finally provided a resolution for the infamous spot in
Speaker 1: the Road letter as a resident who lived in Azalea,
Speaker 1: Oregon named Moran Doschler took the stand to reveal that
Speaker 1: the anonymous writer was likely his wife, who had passed
Speaker 1: away in nineteen ninety three, so she wasn't able to
Speaker 1: testify about it herself. But I will say that after
Speaker 1: all the hype from the unsaw mystery segment, this resolution
Speaker 1: was a bit of a disappointment because it turned out
Speaker 1: that Doschler and his wife had been camping on the
Speaker 1: Oregon coast on the day of Tommy's disappearance, but she
Speaker 1: claimed that she had a psychic vision of the event
Speaker 1: and decided to write an anonymous letter to the authorities
Speaker 1: recounting what she had seen. As far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: the contents of the letter what she wrote has still
Speaker 1: never been released publicly, so we don't know what she
Speaker 1: put in there. But it does not sound like the
Speaker 1: Dosler's had any connection to the Gibsons or any personal
Speaker 1: knowledge of what happened to Tommy. So it turns out
Speaker 1: that this much hype Spot in the Road letter was
Speaker 1: probably nothing more than a red herring written by someone
Speaker 1: who just wanted to interject into the case because they
Speaker 1: had a so called psychic vision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds about right, and I think that that
Speaker 2: is pretty much par for the course. When we look
Speaker 2: at a lot of nineties cases, you often will see
Speaker 2: somebody who had a psychic vision insert themselves far more
Speaker 2: than you would in today's cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So I still wouldn't want to know, though,
Speaker 1: what they wrote in the letter, But I still want
Speaker 1: to know what Spot in the Road actually means, if
Speaker 1: it has any insight into what could have happened to Tommy.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like it just has no real relevance
Speaker 1: to the case. So Larry's trial went the last six
Speaker 1: weeks before it went to the jury, and after deliberating
Speaker 1: for a total of fourteen hours over the course of
Speaker 1: two days, they did find Larry guilty. But this is
Speaker 1: what is very controversial about this case. If he had
Speaker 1: been convicted on the charges of intentional murder and murder
Speaker 1: by abuse, which is what he was originally charged with,
Speaker 1: he could have received a sense of at least ten
Speaker 1: years in prison for each charge. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: the jury decided to convict him on the lesser charge
Speaker 1: of second degree manslaughter, which meant that the maximum sentence
Speaker 1: that Larry could receive was only three years. So after
Speaker 1: all this, it turns out that Larry was going to
Speaker 1: spend no longer than three years in prison for killing
Speaker 1: his own to and a half year old son.
Speaker 2: I wonder what it was with the jury. I guess
Speaker 2: it was. There is really no evidence that this would
Speaker 2: be premeditated. It seemed very much like this was a
Speaker 2: heat of the moment thing where something happened, Larry was
Speaker 2: in a rush to cover it up. But if he
Speaker 2: beat his son, then there's a point where you could
Speaker 2: have stopped. Do you know what I mean? If this
Speaker 2: was at the hands of Larry, it wasn't like a
Speaker 2: stray bullet while he was trying to kill a cat.
Speaker 2: If that was the case, then I can understand manslaughter.
Speaker 2: But the other scenario that Karen pointed out, it just
Speaker 2: it seems so egregious that he would get three years
Speaker 2: for this. This is a human being whose life has
Speaker 2: been snuffed out, who the rest of the world doesn't
Speaker 2: get to see what they would amount to, like what
Speaker 2: they would contribute to this world. He was stolen from Karen,
Speaker 2: from Judy, from everybody who loved him. And to think
Speaker 2: that the penalty is three years, it just it doesn't
Speaker 2: feel satisfactory.
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. And like I really wish that the jury
Speaker 1: had explained their verdict because, like I said, one of
Speaker 1: the original charges was murder by abuse, and that's exactly
Speaker 1: what the scenario is. If you beat up your two
Speaker 1: year old son and wind up killing him, I think
Speaker 1: that qualifies where a second degree manslaughter would be more
Speaker 1: logical if the scenario involving the stray bullet was true,
Speaker 1: because that wasn't a plan crime, that was just a
Speaker 1: freak accidence in which he caused someone's death. So makes
Speaker 1: me wonder why they chose second degree manslaughter because that
Speaker 1: was not one of the original charges. It makes me wonder, Well,
Speaker 1: we believe that Larry did kill Tommy, but we don't
Speaker 1: believe Karen's story. But so this is kind of a
Speaker 1: compromise where we don't necessarily believe he beat Tommy to death,
Speaker 1: but we want to convict him of something. So that's
Speaker 1: why we're giving him second agree manslaughter even though like
Speaker 1: that wasn't one of the original charges.
Speaker 2: What I in my gut, I've got nothing to back
Speaker 2: this up. But what I think happened is you probably
Speaker 2: have a jury, you know, full of twelve people, and
Speaker 2: imagine you've got ten people that are ready to say, okay,
Speaker 2: this is murder by abuse, and then you've got a
Speaker 2: couple other people to say, we don't have the evidence
Speaker 2: of that. We have a four year old girl who's
Speaker 2: been incredibly troubled and she's giving testimony about what happened.
Speaker 2: We can't be sure. And so when you have a
Speaker 2: jury who could potentially be hopelessly deadlocked, but everyone wants
Speaker 2: to go home to their families. Nobody wants to sit
Speaker 2: and have to go through this day after day, presenting
Speaker 2: the case again and again and again, and they know
Speaker 2: that nobody wants to do a retrial, So perhaps for
Speaker 2: the jury that was the compromise for them was the
Speaker 2: manslaughter rather than charging him with murder by abuse.
Speaker 1: That makes sense to me, because, like I said, they
Speaker 1: deliberated for fourteen hours over the course of two days,
Speaker 1: so they were obviously debating this a long time, so
Speaker 1: I'm guessing there were probably maybe a handful of jurors
Speaker 1: who still thought there was a bit of reasonable doubt
Speaker 1: where they thought Larry did something but didn't necessarily believe
Speaker 1: Karen's story. So this was the compromise, second degree manslaughter.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, the end result was a very light sentence
Speaker 1: for the severity of the crime, because Larry had already
Speaker 1: spent nearly a year in jail at that point to
Speaker 1: wait trial, and this would count as time served towards
Speaker 1: a sentence, so he was sent to the Oregon State Penitentiary.
Speaker 1: He still got additional times shaped off for good behavior,
Speaker 1: and he was finally released in September of nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: six after only having served a total of eighteen months
Speaker 1: there so eighteen months for a father like beating his
Speaker 1: two year old son to death. And of course people
Speaker 1: were hoping now that Larry has finally been convicted, he
Speaker 1: can't be charged with the same crime again. Maybe he'll
Speaker 1: finally confess to what he did and reveal the location
Speaker 1: to Tommy's body. But no, even after he was released
Speaker 1: from jail, even after he was found guilty, he continued
Speaker 1: to maintain his innocence and say he was railroaded.
Speaker 2: Of course he did. He just sounds like the stereotypical narcissist.
Speaker 2: He's never going to give those people that love Tommy
Speaker 2: what they want the most, and that's the chance to
Speaker 2: reunite with his remains and to be able to bury
Speaker 2: him or cremate him, whatever they choose to do to
Speaker 2: give them that resolution. He's not giving that to anybody.
Speaker 2: And that doesn't surprise me at all based on what
Speaker 2: we've heard about from Larry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And it gets even worse, like, why do
Speaker 1: you get a load of this story. After he was
Speaker 1: released from prison, he did start up a website in
Speaker 1: which he said he was going to spread away fareness
Speaker 1: about Tommy's disappearance and hope that he was found because
Speaker 1: he's still trying to give up the pretense that his
Speaker 1: son was abducted and he had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: But later on this website would be converted a web
Speaker 1: into a personal blog for himself because he wanted to
Speaker 1: further his country music career. Oh God, yeah, I believe
Speaker 1: it or not yet, Larry. He moved to Montana, and
Speaker 1: he didn't become like a country music star, but he
Speaker 1: actually produced some CDs and toured and did a couple
Speaker 1: live shows in Montana and started up a website for himself.
Speaker 1: And it was kind of funny because the photograph of him,
Speaker 1: he's almost completely recognizable for how he looks on Unsolved
Speaker 1: Mysteries because he's wearing a cowboy hat. He's grown a
Speaker 1: gray beard, so on the surface, you wouldn't guess that
Speaker 1: this was the same guy who spent time in prison
Speaker 1: for killing his son, because he obviously wants to put
Speaker 1: this part of his life behind him and then just
Speaker 1: move on. And for years he actually had a YouTube
Speaker 1: channel where he showed like handheld recordings of his live
Speaker 1: performances on stage where he's playing songs like Eastbound and Down,
Speaker 1: the song from the movie Smokey and the bandit. But
Speaker 1: one thing I noticed is that the comments were conveniently
Speaker 1: turned off on all these videos because I think he
Speaker 1: doesn't want people recognize him and leaving discrete comments accusing
Speaker 1: him of murdering his son because he just wants to
Speaker 1: move on and hopefully become this big country stars. So
Speaker 1: at first he was acting like a concerned father about
Speaker 1: wanting to find the real truth about what happened to
Speaker 1: his son. But then I think the country music career
Speaker 1: took precedence.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's so embarrassing. I'm so embarrassed for him.
Speaker 2: Second hand embarrassment. Yeah, I mean, if somebody has a
Speaker 2: passion for music, I'm all for them following it. It
Speaker 2: takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there.
Speaker 2: But I'm not congratulating Larry on anything that he does,
Speaker 2: especially when we harken back to the beginning of this
Speaker 2: case when he put out that song about his son
Speaker 2: being missing, about Tommy's disappearance, and it's like, was your
Speaker 2: objective ever to find Tommy? Likely not, it was to
Speaker 2: further your own music career. And the fact that you've
Speaker 2: transitioned this website about your son into your music website
Speaker 2: is just so weird. It's such a weird thing. He's
Speaker 2: such a strange man.
Speaker 1: He is. Yeah, Like I remember a light bulb went
Speaker 1: over my head when I found out about this, and
Speaker 1: then I remembered like the early stages of the investigation
Speaker 1: where he recorded that song for Tommy and it played
Speaker 1: on the local radio and television, and I'm like, eugh,
Speaker 1: this guy probably is guilty and caused his son's disappearance,
Speaker 1: and he's capitalizing it because he probably had this dream
Speaker 1: that he wanted to be a country music singer and
Speaker 1: is thinking, oh, I'll use this as an opportunity to
Speaker 1: release a song with the media and maybe it'll help
Speaker 1: my career. And then he tries it once again after
Speaker 1: he has already served time in prison, and I tried
Speaker 1: to give like the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe
Speaker 1: this is a completely different Larry Gibson, because he does
Speaker 1: look a lot different after all these years. But then
Speaker 1: I watched the YouTube video and him introducing one of
Speaker 1: his songs and I recognize that monotone on emotional voice,
Speaker 1: and then like, that is totally the same guy here,
Speaker 1: and here he is just trying to start this second
Speaker 1: life and pretend that he didn't do this horrible thing
Speaker 1: thirty years ago. One other thing I wanted to mention
Speaker 1: is that there was a poster on the Unsolved Mysteries
Speaker 1: message board at the Sitcoms Online for him who wrote
Speaker 1: that about sixteen to seventeen years ago. He actually found
Speaker 1: Larry on Facebook and actually took the initiative to message
Speaker 1: him and ask him about Tommy's case, and he said,
Speaker 1: I was totally expecting him to block me and like
Speaker 1: not want to talk to me, But surprisingly Larry responded
Speaker 1: within twenty four hours and was surprisingly cordial and open
Speaker 1: about talking about Tommy's disappearance. But he also still maintained
Speaker 1: his innocence, saying that his attorney screwed him during the
Speaker 1: original trial and that he was wrongly convicted. And he
Speaker 1: also said, well, I've reconciled with my three daughters and
Speaker 1: we have a great relationship now, but we technically only
Speaker 1: have his word on that. I somehow have doubts that
Speaker 1: he would reconcile with Karen after she testified against him
Speaker 1: at the trial. And I've been unable to find any
Speaker 1: hard information about Judy or any of the three daughters
Speaker 1: whereabouts today. But it just shows kind of his narcissism
Speaker 1: here where I think he knows that no matter what
Speaker 1: I say, I've served my time, I can't be convicted
Speaker 1: of the same crime again. So I'm totally going to
Speaker 1: talk to this random stranger about my son's disappearance on Facebook.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds about right, And yeah, I would call
Speaker 2: into question how close these relationships with his daughters actually are.
Speaker 2: Will never truly know because being he's probably of the
Speaker 2: mind that if he says it, no one's going to
Speaker 2: come out publicly to refute him because they can't be bothered.
Speaker 2: So he can essentially say whatever he wants further, whatever narrative,
Speaker 2: and they're likely not going to oppose it. So he
Speaker 2: can paint himself to look like he's this great, reformed
Speaker 2: guy and that his family loves him and nobody's going
Speaker 2: to say otherwise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, So he's doing whatever he can to help
Speaker 1: his image. But obviously the Unsolved Mystery segment is still
Speaker 1: out there, so he still comes across pretty badly to
Speaker 1: like a nationally televised audience. I guess the last thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about is Judy's original interview on
Speaker 1: Unsolved Mysteries, because the story she told is that at
Speaker 1: that time she recorded it, she legitimately believed that Larry
Speaker 1: was innocent and wouldn't had any responsibility for Tommy's disappearance.
Speaker 1: But then she comes out at the trial saying that
Speaker 1: she had already seen like Larry allegedly hit Tommy even
Speaker 1: before this happened, and that there was a history of
Speaker 1: domestic abuse in the homes. So when she's recording it,
Speaker 1: he kind of sense now that she has kind of
Speaker 1: this fear in her eyes, that she's saying what her
Speaker 1: husband wants her to say, and that even if she
Speaker 1: does not have any direct knowledge or involvement, she's still
Speaker 1: pushing forward this narrative because she's terrified that if she
Speaker 1: says the wrong thing, then he might take it out
Speaker 1: on her after the cameras have stopped rolling. So I
Speaker 1: do believe that once she finally got the courage to
Speaker 1: separate from Larry move away, and then Karen came forward
Speaker 1: this story, that's when a big light bulb came over
Speaker 1: her head and she realized that Larry probably killed my son.
Speaker 1: But of course the narrative push forward by Larry and
Speaker 1: his defense team was that Judith wanted to get revenge
Speaker 1: on Larry by getting coaching Karen to share this false
Speaker 1: story about having witness Larry kill Tommy. But I don't
Speaker 1: think very many people believe that.
Speaker 2: No, I really highly doubt that. And the dynamics in
Speaker 2: a relationship where somebody is abusive, where it sounds like
Speaker 2: Larry was very abusive to the kids and to Judy,
Speaker 2: and she must have been incredibly terrified. And so you
Speaker 2: know when they said that, yeah, she technically passed that polygraph,
Speaker 2: but she probably knows more. She likely suspected more. And
Speaker 2: if you know that your husband is a violent man,
Speaker 2: then there's a strong likelihood that he could have had
Speaker 2: something to do with what happened to Tommy, especially if
Speaker 2: you're seeing that things aren't lining up. So my heart
Speaker 2: really goes out to her because I can't imagine what
Speaker 2: it would be like in a situation where you're afraid
Speaker 2: for Karen. Right, So if you go and speak out
Speaker 2: against Larry, who you know is a sheriff's deputy, So
Speaker 2: right from the jump, everything's working against you. Your husband's
Speaker 2: in law enforcement, his behaviors, it's been abusive, you're scared,
Speaker 2: and so when you're questioned, you're going to assume that
Speaker 2: everyone's going to fall into line, because that's what law
Speaker 2: enforcement does. I don't think that Judy could have known
Speaker 2: that they would have thoroughly investigated Larry and that he
Speaker 2: would later be charged.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And it is such a strange situation that
Speaker 1: she went on to have two more children after Tommy
Speaker 1: when missing. But maybe she was thinking, well, if we
Speaker 1: have more kids, he's going to mellow out a little
Speaker 1: bit and we can be a family again. But he
Speaker 1: turned out he was worse since he allegedly abused his
Speaker 1: children when they were like one in two years old.
Speaker 1: So I think she was just finally building up the
Speaker 1: courage to get away from him. But it would be
Speaker 1: interesting to do a statement analysis on her Unsolved Mysteries
Speaker 1: interview and try to determine how much she knew at
Speaker 1: the time she recorded it and how fearful she probably
Speaker 1: was about saying the right thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, send it over to me at some point in time.
Speaker 2: We can go through these interviews and I can pick
Speaker 2: apart both their statements.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Or if you send me the transcripts, it's a lot.
Speaker 2: It'd be really easy to just kind of go through it,
Speaker 2: even just superficially and give you kind of my analysis
Speaker 2: on what my thoughts are with where she could be
Speaker 2: coming from.
Speaker 1: Definitely. Yeah, as we talked about, unsolved mysteries had their
Speaker 1: fair share of interesting interviews where a number of people
Speaker 1: appeared on camera thinking that it would make them look good,
Speaker 1: but it wound up doing the exact opposite, and Larry
Speaker 1: Gibson is no exception. So sadly, this case wound up
Speaker 1: officially being closed after Larry's conviction, even though Tommy's body
Speaker 1: was never officially found and I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: still an active search for it. And I can see
Speaker 1: why this one was referred to as one of the
Speaker 1: most unsolved solved mysteries you've ever seen because we had
Speaker 1: a conviction. But regardless of whether you feel about Larry,
Speaker 1: it's unsatisfying because if by some small chance he was innocent,
Speaker 1: he had to serve time in prison for something he
Speaker 1: didn't do and the real perpetrator got away with it.
Speaker 1: But if Larry was guilty, which he probably was, he
Speaker 1: got off way too easy. It's like he only had
Speaker 1: to serve eighteen months, go on living his life and
Speaker 1: try to start this country music career. Well, whose poor
Speaker 1: son is buried out there and never got a chance
Speaker 1: at life. So I can see why this is such
Speaker 1: a frustrating and controversial case. So any further thoughts on
Speaker 1: the disappearance of Tommy Gibson, My.
Speaker 2: Heart just really goes out to the surviving family members
Speaker 2: here because they don't get that resolution in knowing what
Speaker 2: happened to Tommy and like knowing what happened as in
Speaker 2: where he is and Karen and Judy and then the
Speaker 2: other children have to have a father like Larry. I
Speaker 2: can't imagine how difficult that must have been, and so
Speaker 2: I truly hope that they're at places in their lives
Speaker 2: where they've been able to have happy lives and been
Speaker 2: able to move past the trauma that this must have
Speaker 2: created and persevere.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I don't know what happened to Judy
Speaker 1: and the rest of the daughters after Larry's trial, but
Speaker 1: I do hope that they went on to have like
Speaker 1: happy lives and are doing well today. So that about
Speaker 1: brings an end to our series about the disappearance of
Speaker 1: Tommy Gibson. Thank you so much for joining us, and
Speaker 1: we'll be back again next week to talk about another case.
Speaker 2: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 2: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon.
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
Speaker 1: tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
Speaker 1: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon,
Speaker 1: and if you join our highest tier tier three, the
Speaker 1: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
Speaker 1: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 1: Tier three.
Speaker 3: So I want to let you know a little bit
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Speaker 3: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
Speaker 3: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
Speaker 3: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
Speaker 3: so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
Speaker 2: We'll link them in the show notes.
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Speaker 2: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy