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Tommy Gibson Pt. · The Path Went Chilly

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to our next series from the Path Went Chile.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm Robin and once again actually is still on a break.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Hopefully she'll be back soon. But we're gonna still use
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: our formula where I share the details about a case
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: with Jewles and she gives off her live reaction. So, Jules,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: have you ever heard about the disappearance of Tommy Gibson.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: I don't think so, but I'm sure you're going to
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: share all the details with me.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Well, this is about the disappearance of a two and
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: a half year old which was once featured on Unsolved Mysteries.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: And have you heard of the song Runaway Trained by
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Soul Asylum or seen the music video for it? It
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: came out in nineteen ninety three, I believe.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: As any good millennial, I of course remember that video,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: and I remember the song, and I remember all of
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: the hype that went along with it, and so yeah,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: it was one of those haunting videos that I can
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: picture in my head. I think of like ones that
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: made a real social impact at that time, and I
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: think of like Pearl jam Jeremy's Spoken, and I think
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: of Soul Asylum's Runaway Train.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this was a pretty big video at the time
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: because they showed photographs to think of between twenty and
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: thirty children that were provided by the National Center for
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Missing and Exploited Children, and over the years, a lot
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of these children have been found, but the Tommy Gibson
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: one sticks out because he was featured at the very
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: end of the video. His was the last photograph to
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: be displayed, and he was also the youngest at only
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: two and a half years old, and he technically hasn't
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: been found, but there has been kind of a resolution
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: in this case, but it's a very frustrating, unsatisfying one,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and there are still a ton of unanswered questions. It
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: garnered more notoriety because the story was featured on Unsolved
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Mysteries and the prime suspect at the time was Tommy's father,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Larry Gibson, who also happened to be a sheriff's deputy.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: It's not often when you see law enforcement people be
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: suspected of being responsible for the disappearances of their own kid,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: and as we're going to talk about, Larry Gibson's interview
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: on the show was very suspicious because he seemed like
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: one of the most unemotional fathers ever who had lost
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: a child, so a lot of people got bad vibes
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: from him, and like I mentioned, there is a bit
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of a resolution. But I remember when I covered this
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: on the Trail Went Cold two years ago, my friend
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Charlie from the Crime Lines podcast said, this is the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: most unsolved solved case I've ever seen, because even though
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: we got a bunch of hypothetical scenarios about what could
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: happen to Tommy, I still can't say with any certainty if
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: any of them are true.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: It's so interesting too, because when we look back in
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: retrospect at a case like this, and when we're looking
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: at somebody like Larry Gibson and the way that he's
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: choosing to grieve his son or his demeanor on unsolved mysteries,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: when we're looking at it through a lens of today,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: we understand that people process information and grief in very
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: different ways. Some people shut down and are very unemotional,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: And so I'm really interested to hear how much of
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: that would be a perception of the time, and how
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: much of that would be kind of an objective fact,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: in that as much as you can make somebody's you know,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: demeanor or emotional state an objective fact, but more that
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: that is a typical reaction to most people who are
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: seeing Larry speak about his son, and they're not really
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: registering any kind of sadness or any kind of grief
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: when he speaks. So that is going to be really
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: interesting to me because when we talk about these old cases,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: we have so much more of an understanding of mental
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: health today than we did in like the eighties, nineties,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: early two thousands.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. If all they had against Larry
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: was his very unemotional interview, I might not be as
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: suspicious of them. But of course, as we're going to
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: find out, he did a number of very odd things
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: on the day his son went missing, so you can
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: understand why law enforcement put their focus on him. But
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: we have seen documented cases where a parent came across
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: really badly when talking about their missing or murdered child
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and it turned out they were completely innocent. Do you
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: remember the disappearance of Isabelle Sellus from Arizona?
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: No not ringing a bell.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: This was a girl who went missing from her bedroom
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, and for years they
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: raked her father over hot coals because they released the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: audio of a nine to one one call he did
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: reporting or missing, where he sounded very unemotional, almost flippant,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and there was some suspicious stuff going on the house.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: His other children were removed by Child Protective Services. But
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: it actually turned out that she was kidnapped by an
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: intruder who broke into her bedroom, took her, and then
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: murdered her, and that the father was completely innocent. So
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: there are cases like this where it seems so obvious
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the parents did it, but turnout it actually wasn an
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: intruder all along.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is really perplexing, I think, just because from
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: a statistical point of view, when law enforcement is looking
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: at who could have done this? When someone is harmed
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: within a family unit and they're young, like of that age,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I think more often than not it is somebody close
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: to them, somebody within their circle. It's not a stranger abduction.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: That is a very small percentage of the cases that
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: we see, and so you can see how sometimes law
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: enforcement will get tunnel vision and then without even realizing it,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: they start cherry picking these little details and go, well,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: this fits my narrative, rather than looking at the totality
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: of evidence and exploring other avenues. So we see that
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: far too often with cases. Another one that really sticks
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: with me, and this is like a little left field,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: but it's also a missing child, And I'm curious what
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: your thoughts are because the parents behaved really or very strangely.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Is Door Koons Junior.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen a documentary about that one, and I
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: definitely have my suspicions about the parents, but I do
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: know that they had another independent eyewitness with them. I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: believe it was a friend of the grandfather they did, yeah,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: who has always stuck to the same story, even though
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: he does not seem like someone who would be very
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: skilled at lying. And so that's kind of the thing
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: that gives me pause because I'm thinking that, well, i
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: can see how some people suspect this is a cover
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: up and maybe the child was killed beforehand, it wasn't
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: even taken on this camping trip. But because this friend
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: has always maintained that Door was there, I'm not entirely
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: sure what to think on this case.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think you're dealing with like you're dealing
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: with a mother in that case and potentially a father
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: who have a lot of their own issues. They have
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: financial issues, potential mental health issues, and so when people
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: appear as though they're hiding things. It's not always that
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: they've done something horrible to their child. It couldn't be
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: a myriad of other things, especially if they're involved in
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: things that may be illegal, or they're taking illicit substances
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: anything like that. So it is very interesting with the
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: dynamics end up being with law enforcement. So I'm really
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: interested to hear the strange moves that Larry made in
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: this case.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because as we're going to talk about, he was
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: a sheriff's deputy, and usually law enforcement are willing to
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: protect their own and give them the benefit of the doubt.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So the fact that law enforcement was willing to point
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the finger at him and believe he was responsible for
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: what happened to his son makes this a very unique case.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: So Tommy Gibson was only thirty two months old at
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the time he disappeared. This took place in nineteen ninety
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: one in Azalea, Oregon, which is an unincorporated community located
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: in Douglas County. At the time, Tommy was living with
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: his parents, Larry and Judy Gibson, and he had also
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: a four year old older sister named Karen. They originally
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: hailed from Montana, but had been living in Oregon for
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: about three years at this point, and Larry was working
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: as a deputy for the Douglas County Sheriff's Office in
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the town of Glendale, ten miles away from their home,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and on the day this incident took place, Larry's half
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: brother Michael, also happened to be staying there and would
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: be a witness to what happened. So at around eleven
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: thirty am on the morning of March eighteenth, nineteen ninety one,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Larry said that he left his house to go jogging
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: and claimed that while he was leaving, he saw Tommy
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: playing in the front yard by the porch and told
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: him to stay there until his sister came out to
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: play with him. So Larry's original story is that he
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: went on a jog on a private dirt road and
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: covered a distance of approximately two and a half miles,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and that he returned to his house forty seven minutes
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: later and he noticed that Tommy wasn't playing outside, and
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: when Larry went in, he spoke to his wife, Judy,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: who said that I went outside ten minutes after you left,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I discovered Tommy was gone. So I just assumed that
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: he went with you, and Larry said, no, he was
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: not with me. I left alone, and that's when Judy
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: started panicking and they contacted the police in order to
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: report Tommy missing.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, first red flag. So, Larry, you're going to go
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: on a run that's nearly one hour, you're covering two
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: and a half miles, and you have a son that's
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: under three years old who's playing alone in the driveway.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Do you not communicate with your wife, Judy that you're
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: going to go on a long run, And why would
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: she assume that you're going to bring this like nearly
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: three year old child with you. It seems like a
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: major breakdown in communication, which seems really atypical in just
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: my experience from dealing with friends who have small children
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: like that, Like you've got to keep it tight, you've
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: got to keep it like almost like the military, in
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: that this child is doing this thing, this child is
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: doing the other this parent is taking care of the
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: child at this very moment, and this other parent is
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: responsible for this child and we're not seeing this here
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: and that is really ringing some alarm bells for me.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as far as I can tell, Larry did tell
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Judy that he was going on a jog, so she
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: knew he would be gone. But it does seem strange
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: to me that she would come outside see that Tommy
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: has gone and automatically assume that Tommy had gone with him,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Like how typical was it for him to go on
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a jog while carrying around his child. That just seems
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: very weird. And I will say that Judy is kind
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: of a wild card in this case because even though
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: law enforcement has never directly has never suspected that she
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: was directly involved in what happened to Tommy, they have
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: wondered if she perhaps knew more than she was letting
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: on and may not have been telling the full truth
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: about the events that happened that day. So once they
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: reported missing, of course this was the child of a
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: law enforcement figure, so they went all out with the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: search effort. They got the US Air Force Reserve, and
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: they got the Oregon State Police and a search and
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: rescue effort and had around two hundred people and they
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: searched like all throughout the surrounding area because this home
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: was pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, a
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: very rural area, surrounded by a lot of mountains and
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: wooded area, and one scenario which is never really been
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: pushed for much in this case is the possibility that
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Tommy could have wandered off on his own and died
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: of exposure. I think their logic was is if this
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: had happened, they would have found something, because he's only
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: thirty two months old, and I don't know how far
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: he could have gotten in the span of around forty
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: seven minutes. But they searched like everywhere and cannot find
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: any trace, nothing to suggest that he had been attacked
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: by an animal or something. So initially they were thinking
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: that he may have been the victim of a stranger abduction,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: even though this home was located in the middle of nowhere.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: So six weeks after Tommy went missing, the Douglas County
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Sheriff's office announced that after meeting with the Oregon State Police,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: who had taken over the investigation, they had made the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: decision to put Larry on administrative leave and that he
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: was indefinitely suspended with pay. They didn't make it sound
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: like this was suspicious at first. They said this was
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: only done to avoid a potential conflict of interest and
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: give Larry a chance to recover from the stress of
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: losing Tommy, and when you look back through newspapers dot
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: com at the original press coverage, initially there's nothing to
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: indicate that Larry is under suspicion, and he actually comes
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: across well because while he was on leave, he did
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: an interview where he said that he was taken an
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: initiative to collect fingerprints from a lot of the local
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: children because he had done that with Tommy a short
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: time before he went missing, and it says that it's
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: always good to have these children's fingerprints on file just
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: in case they go missing and you want to do
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: some sort of comparison if you find a body, because
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of course this was still in the early days of
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: DNA testing, so fingerprints might have been the best chance
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: for an identification. And he also took the initiative to
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: record a song for Tommy called Tommy, Where Are You Tommy,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and had actually played on the local radio where he's
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: saying about the grief of losing his son and wanting
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: to get him back. And at the outset, you're assuming, oh,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: that's really sad and sweet that he's doing that, But
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: then when you think that, hmm, Larry may have been
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: responsible for what happened, to his son himself, then recording
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: a song about his disc appearance and broadcasting on the
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: radio seems incredibly odd.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like Jewel kaylor level, Like he's just being
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: flagrant about it. If that is indeed the case that
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: he's responsible for a son's disappearance, it just like greeks
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: of narcissism. Somebody that needs to have this, He needs
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: to have the public be like, oh, poor Larry, Look
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: what a hero he is. He's lost his son and
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: he's recording this inspirational song, and the fact that he
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: took the initiative to get these fingerprints from these children, like,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: what a great guy. He could never be responsible for
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: what happened to Tommy. And it seems like you could
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: view this through two different lenses, And of course I'm
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: viewing it through the lens of skepticism, because you've told
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: me that the way that Larry moves throughout this is
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: very strange and that suspicion fell on him pretty quickly,
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: and this is an unsolved, solved kind of a case,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: So of course I'm going to be side eyeing Larry.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: But if I didn't know all of that information, you
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: hadn't told me any of that, I could have just thought,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: this is a father that's trying to get attention for
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: the disappearance of his son.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's what it looked like, because the
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: time Larry did it, he was not yet under suspicion.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: He just looked like a reading father. So I'm sure
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the entire community felt immense sympathy for him. But I
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: was going to talk about later, Larry seems like someone
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: who actually aspired to have a music career ron So
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: if he was guilty, then this is kind of a
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: twisted thing where it's like, well, I've got a lot
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: of publicity. Now I'm in the spotlight. I'm going to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: use this as an opportunity to potentially further my career
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to go into music. And I know there are other
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: documented cases of this. I'm sure you've heard of the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: disappearance of Susan Powell, right, Oh, yes, And I know
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: they did a long form podcast about her disappearance called
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Cold and they talked about her creepy father in lot.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, that man was the worst.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, And do you recall him the podcast? I don't
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: know if you listened to it. That they played recordings
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: of a song that he recorded about her, which is
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: like one of the worst pieces music ever produced. So
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: it's always a red flag when people associated with like
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: missing people who are under suspicion decide to record songs
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: about the victims.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: I truly wish that I could forget some of the
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: details in that Susan Powell podcast, and that song is
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: absolutely one of them. That family, like poor Susan my
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: god having to be married to Josh Powell. And I
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: can't remember what the father in law's name is, but
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: just a top tier creep. And didn't he end up
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: ending his life he died.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: I can't remember if he died of natural causes or
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: he entered on his own life. But I know that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Josh's brother died by suicide after jumping off a high place,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: so they've suspected that he might have had knowledge of
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: what happened or was involved in the cover up. So
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it seems like the only logical person in that family
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: was Josh's sister, who has openly spoken out about them.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: But it just seemed like what a horrible environment to
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: grow up in. So it was finally on May the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: twenty third, nineteen ninety one, just over two months after
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Tommy went missing when the Oregon State Police filed a
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: thirty one page AffA David outlining a number of reasons
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: why they now considered Larry to be the prime suspect
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: in his son's disappearance, and it concluded with the line
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: quote the likelihood of Tommy Gibson being alive and meeting
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: any fate other than death at the hands of Larry
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Gibson is extremely small end quote. So this allowed them
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to perform a search of the Gibson's home and they
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: took a lot of items into evidence, but perhaps the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: strangest one is when they found a spent forty five
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: caliber shell inside a dresser underneath a pair of children's underwear.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: So this shell would become a key piece of evidence
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: in the case. And the fact that it appeared that
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Larry had gone to the trouble of putting it in
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: a drawer with children's underwear seems to indicate that he
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: was trying to hide it and hoped it would never
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: be found.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: That is all kinds of creepy. The fact that you
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: would hold onto this spent shell, so is this some
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: kind of memento or trophy, And the fact that it's
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: under children's underwear. It just up the creepiness factor of
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: it just exponentially.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: And that's what's weird about it is because and this
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: was such a key piece of evidence. I don't know
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: why Larry wouldn't have just gotten rid of it to
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: begin with, but maybe he just felt, well, I'm a
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: law enforcement officer, no one will suspect me, and they
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: will never search my home, so I'm just going to
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: hide it in here, And of course it backfired on
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and when it was taken into evidence.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: I feel like in this case, there must have been
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: such overwhelming evidence or such a feeling within the sheriff's
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: department that Larry could be capable of this, or his
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: behavior was odd because I think we've seen so many
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: cases over the years where there's been a law enforcement
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: agent of some type involved in what could be a murder, disappearance,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: whatever it is, and they just aren't investigated thoroughly because
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: of their position in law enforcement. Whether it's blinder's tunnel
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: vision focusing on somebody else, or conspiracy, there's a myriad
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: of reasons why that person might not be the point
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: of focus. And I think that within law enforcement often
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: is a driving force. So I do find it very
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: interesting here that they're releasing like thirty pages on Larry
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: and like why Larry is a suspect.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, to the credit of law enforcement, there is
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: no indication of a cover up here, Like once they
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: became suspicious of Larry, they did not hesitate to investigate them.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: And to be fair, like this the law enforcement agency
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: he worked for, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. It existed
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: in a rather rural not an area known for high crime,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: so they probably never suspected that they would ever have
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: a missing children's case of this magnitude, and so they
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: obviously knew we're kind of out of our depth. So
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: we turned this over to the Oregon State Police, and
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: once they started looking at the evidence, they pretty much
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: said that, yeah, there's something really off about Larry. But
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: it does make me wonder if before this, if he
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: ever gave off any red flags while he was working
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: with the Sheriff's office to make him think that, yeah,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: this is someone who would be capable of harming his
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: own child. So let's start talking about the things that
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Larry did to raise suspect. On the day Tommy went missing,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: he had gone out jogging at eleven thirty am, and
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: his shift with the Sheriff's office was scheduled to begin
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: at two pm. But obviously, once he discovered Tommy was missing,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: he was told by a supervisor not to report to
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: work because he wanted him to stay behind and assist
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: with the search effort. Yet in spite of this, Larry
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: decided to take a shower, put on his police uniform,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: and he was about to leave in his patrol car,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: which he still kept at home, in order to report
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to work. And the searchers were asking Larry, what are
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: you doing. Don't go to work help with the search effort,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and he said at the time, well, I don't think
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the situation is all that serious. I believe that Tommy
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: is going to be found relatively quickly. But he ultimately
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: did not go to work. But then when nightfall hit,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: some of the searchers built a campfire on the Gibson's
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: property to spend the night, and Larry approached him and says,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: you know what, you better go home because it's really
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: cold right now and it's about to start snowing. And
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: they're like, your two year old is out there if
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: it's going to get cold and snow. Don't you you
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: want him to be found quickly? Don't you want the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: searchers there? But he's just acting all lack of days
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: ago about the whole thing, saying that Tommy's going to
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: be found eventually. It's not that serious, even though nightfall
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: is hitting so already they're getting vibes that, yeah, this
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: guy already knows what happened to his son.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one hundred percent what I was thinking.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: If you're behaving in that manner where you're not seeming
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: worried for one, Okay, I don't know how people wouldn't
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: necessarily react when you find out that your child is missing.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: But I think if you've just had a jog and
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: you're sweaty, the last thing on your mind is going
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: to be I need to shower up and get clean.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I think it's going to be looking for your child.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: That would be priority one, and getting dressed to get
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: into work when you've been told not to. Your priority
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: should be at home. Even if they told you to
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: come into work, I would think you would say, absolutely not,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I'm going to look for Tommy like that is the
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: only thing that is on my mind. I don't care
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: if I lose my job. My son that's nearly three
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: years old is missing, and I'm going to find him.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: But instead he's acting like this is a foregone conclusion,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: like oh, yeah, Tommy is going to be fine. It's
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: not that serious. It's like he already knows that Tommy
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: is in a place that is beyond people worrying about him.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Now he's you know, crossed over, because I just can't
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: think of any other way to interpret him not being worried.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: If you know that your son is deceased, you know
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: that he's passed, and all this is subterfused to cover
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: this up. He's not doing a very good job because,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: like you said, like his lasadaisical attitude towards finding his
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: son only makes him look guilty. But I don't think
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: that he's necessarily thought out the way that he's going
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: to be perceived by others. And maybe that gives us
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: a hint into how other people at the Sheriff's Department
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: may have perceived him in a general sense, which might
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: have led them to saying, okay, like Larry might be
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: responsible for this.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because during the Unsold Mysteries interview, he always talked
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: in a very monotone voice where he just did not
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: seem to have much emotion at all, And it makes
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: me think, I wonder if he's like this all the time,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: where he just does not come across as an affectionate
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: person who loves his wife and children. And during his interview,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: he gave off an infamous line saying that, well, the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: reason I wanted to report to work is because I
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: thought we were going to be find Tommy in a
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: place that we hadn't searched before, and we were going
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: to be embarrassed that we didn't search this place right away.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: And it's like, I don't think anyone who has lost
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: their child is going to worry about being embarrassed because
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: you found your child in an obvious place that you
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: forgot to look for. So he really can't come up
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: with a logical explanation for why he acted that way
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: that day.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: I think I really wonder with the interview where he's
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: coming off very monotone and hard to read. Is this
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: somebody who is well versed in body language in micro expressions,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Like if you are going to be speaking in a
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: way that is very monotone without giving voice inflections, it's
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: harder to interpret deception because like, if your baseline is
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: the way that you're carrying through the whole time, but
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: if you are not making micro expressions on your face,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: if you aren't using gestures or illustrators, it's hard to
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: spot incongruity between your spoken words and your gestures. So
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: the less that somebody is doing that could be a
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: strategy in order to avoid giving off deceptive behaviors.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: That's possible. I mean, I don't know if he's really
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: that sophisticated to do something like this, But after we're
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: recording this, I should send you a clip of the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Unsolved Mystery segment because you've done statement analysis in the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: past and you might have a very interesting one once
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you watch Larry's interview. So Larry would be interviewed by
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the FBI, who got involved in the investigation because at
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: first they wondered if it might have been a kidnapping
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and if Tommy was taken across state lines, and his
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: original story that even though he tried to report to work,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: he said that he never actually left the property on
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the day's sun went missing, but like I said, he
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: kept his patrol car park there. And because this is
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a law enforcement vehicle, they kept like all the mileage.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: They kept a log for it, and they realized that
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the odometer had seven miles on there, which could not
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: be accounted for. So when the Oregon State Police confronted
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Larry with this information, he finally admitted that, oh yeah,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: after I put on my uniform, I did leave the
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: property in the patrol car while the search effort was
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: taken place because I was worried that Tommy may have
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: been abducted and driven two and a half miles to
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: a rest area on Interstate five, so I went there.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I couldn't find Tommy, so I checked the northbound rest area,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: but once again came up empty. And then I returned
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: to the property after between thirty to forty minutes. And
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: that does kind of make sense from a logical point
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: of view, But the problem is he initially claimed that
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: he never left the property that day, and then is
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: suddenly providing this story once he's been confronted with a discrepancy.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: So obviously an investigator's eyes alarm bells are ringing thinking, hmm,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: could he have left the property because he wanted to
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: dispose of something?
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: That sounds a lot more likely. But unfortunately, if he's
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: there's seven miles that are unaccounted for on that a doomita,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: then that body could basically be three and a half
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: miles away, right, Yeah, And.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I know this is a rural area where there isn't
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: a lot around, But he was gone for like a
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: very short amount of time, and he didn't travel that far.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: So it makes me wonder, what do you have had
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: enough time to dispose of Tommy's body in such a
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: limited window of time and done it so thoroughly that
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: they still haven't found him over thirty years later.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: But don't you feel like it's possible that he could
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: have found a good place just to stash the body,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: like maybe under some brush, maybe you know, just a
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: spot that would be out of prying eyes that he
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: figured within the first you know, few days, they're not
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: going to search there, and then later on I can
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: go back and dispose of his body better. I can,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: you know, dig a hole or you know, put him
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: in a body of water or whatever he chose to
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: do that concealed the body so well that it's never
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: been found if he did indeed do it, I think
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: that if there's just a very short time, unless you've
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: got like a mine shaft to put a body down.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: There's really no way that you can dispose of a
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: body so quickly that it's never found unless it's just
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: sheer luck.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this could just be just pure luck,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: or like you said, he just hit it in a
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: temporary location and then once he knew that the search
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: effort was done and he wasn't being watched twenty four
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: to seven, he can make another trip there and put
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Tommy's body in another location where it would be much
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: harder to find. Yeah, gave Larry a polygraph test, and
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: it's interesting. They said that he technically wound up passing,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: but the results still indicated that he may have known
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: more than he was letting on. And they gave a
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: polygraph to his wife, Judy, and it pretty much got
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the same results where she technically passed, but investigators wondered
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: if she knew more than she was letting on. And
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I'm always wondering how lie detector tests interpret things, where
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: if you have suspicions that someone might be responsible for
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: someone but you don't know for certain, Like if they asked, Judy,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: do you do know that your husband, Larry was responsible
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: for your son's disappearance? And if she says no, but
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the results give a false positive, could it be because
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: she secretly suspects Larry was responsible, but she doesn't know
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent certain. So that's one of those things
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: about why polygraphs are unreliable, where it's like you can't
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: really determine whether someone actually has knowledge of what happened,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: or if may have suspicions about what happened.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really strange, and I think this is the
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: first time that I've heard where they don't call it inconclusive,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: they call it a technical pass, but they still have suspicions.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: And I'm wondering if within the Sheriff's department, the way
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: that they did polygraphs at the time, if they would
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: have a certain threshold where say, you know, somebody's asked
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: a certain question, and a polygraph doesn't measure lies, that
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: measures physiological changes, And just for example, say that Judy
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: was asked do you think that Larry was responsible? And
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: her heart rate increased ten beats per minute and maybe
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: she started to sweat a little bit, But it had
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: to be a threshold of fifteen beats per minutent in
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: order for it to be deception or possibly she knows
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: more so it was a technical pass, but it was
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: right on that line.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking, that it's something like that where
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: they have their suspicions but they didn't really get caught
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: in lies, like it didn't really break the machine or anything,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: and show that there's a lot of deceptions. But it's
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: kind of similar to when we did the murder of
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Terry McClure on this podcast years ago, where her son
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Tim was the prime suspect, and they gave a polygraph
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: test to his wife and the only question she flunked
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: was do you know who killed Terry McClure, And I wondered,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: is it because she knows Tim killed Terry? Or is
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: it because she suspects Tims killed Terry? And it's still
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: registered as a false positive.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: All I remember from like that case, I remember Terry,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: I remember the casino, but I also remember Tim's intense mullet.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly where they showed his wedding photo and it
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: was like the greatest mullet you've ever seen. So here's
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: another hole in Larry's story. As you might recall, he
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: claimed that way he went jogging, he covered two and
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: a half miles and was gone for a total of
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: forty seven minutes, but he was asked for by the
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: exact route. He took two investigators and when they retraced it,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: they realized it was actually only one mile rather than
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: two and a half miles, and that if someone was jogging,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: it should have taken them between eighteen to twenty minutes
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: to go to this spot and then come back to
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the house. So it's like, technically, if it took Larry
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: forty seven minutes to cover that entire distance, that's technically
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: not jogging. You would have to be walking as a
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: slow crawl to cover that distance in a full forty
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: seven minutes, which leads to speculation that maybe started off
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: jogging but needed part of this time to cover up
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: something that he had done.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: So, as far as Larry goes and his physical fitness,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: did he regularly jog prior to this like behavior of
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Larry's or was this just something that randomly seemed to
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: happen on this day.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I don't have that information. I mean, if you look
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: at photographs of Larry, he does not look like a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: fitness freak. He does not look like someone who would
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: be jogging a lot, unless he was trying to lose weight,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: but I never have specifically said anyone say that he
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: never jogged but then just happened to do so on
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: this particular day. So I will give him some leeway
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and say that maybe he was starting off jogging that
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: day until something happened. So this is when things get
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: even weirder, because there was a neighbor of the Gibson
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: family named Jennifer Kleine who said that sometime after eleven
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: thirty am on the morning of Tommy's disappearance, she recalled
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: hearing a gunshot, and a short time later she noticed
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that her cat was missing. And the following day, Jennifer
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: was searching for her cat, and she bumped into Larry,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: who was participating in the search effort for Tommy, and
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: he said, oh, by the way, I fear that I
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: might have actually shot your cat yesterday. Because we had
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: a big problem with stray cats coming onto her property,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and because I couldn't give them away to the Humane Society,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I started shooting them. But I think it's a possibility
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: that when I shot a cat that morning, I wound
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: up shooting your cat by mistake. And sure enough, Jennifer
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: soon found her dead cat and buried it on her property,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: and when Larry became a suspect, investigators felt to pay
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: a visit in order to dig up the cat's body,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: and sure enough, it was true. There was a slug
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: in there, and it actually matched the shellcasing which had
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: been found in the drawer in Larry's residence underneath the
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: children's underwear.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Well, this just adds a whole other layer of strange
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: behavior to Larry. Somebody that's going to just randomly kill
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: cats knowing that there's a strong likelihood that one of
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: these cats belongs to his neighbor, It just doesn't really
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: paint a picture of a very nice guy, and it
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: really does call into question what he is indeed capable
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: of doing.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the Unsaw Mystery segment, when they do Larry's interview,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: this is pretty much one of the first things he
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: talks about, saying that, oh, yeah, I sometimes would pull
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: up my gun and shoot cats straight cats the wandered
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: onto my property. And when people watch the segment, they
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: don't even hear the evidence about his potential culpability and
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Tommy's disappearance. They just hear that he shot a cat,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and they automatically start hating him. It's kind of like
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the beginning of making a murderer. We're in the first
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: fifty minute. They say that Steve and Avery threw a
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: cat into a bonfire, and they pretty much say, I
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: don't care if he's guilty or innocent. I hate this
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: man with all my passion.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of that documentary Don't f with Cats.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that. Yes, we're pretty much a concept
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: that so many true crime fans are a lot more
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: sensitive when they hear about violence against animals rather than
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: violence against people.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it makes sense that, especially children
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: and animals, it's the hardest for me personally to hear.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people will echo those
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: same sentiments because they're truly innocent, and to predate on
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: a child or to predate on an animal who are
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: so one hundred percent dependent on you for their survival,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: it's just whereas when it's done to adults, we have
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: this way of almost like excusing and justifying and distancing
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: ourselves from what happened to somebody else, which is where
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: we get into like victim blaming territory. And people do
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: that because it creates a safer space for them to
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: be like, oh, this could never happen to me because
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: of a B and C, whereas with a child or
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: an animal, we don't have the ability to do that.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I think they just hate Larry for
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: doing this because cats are so defenseless and it just
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: seems that if you have stray cats rounding or your property,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: don't shoot them, Like there's so much other stuff you
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: could do, And they just found it very odd because Larry,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: when they finally questioned him about it, said that, Yeah,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: it's fairly common for me when I go jogging to
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: carry a forty five automatic handgun and my shoulder holster,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: which would kind of make sense if you were jogging
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: in a dangerous area, but this is the middle of nowhere,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: so you're not going to run into a dangerous person.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: So it just seems like, yeah, I go jogging and
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I carry the gun because I sometimes like to shoot
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: cats just for fun or something like that. But Larry
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: did confirm that when he went jogging before he discovered
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Tommy went missing, that he did fire a gun at
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: a cat, and he initially thought that the cat was
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: not actually hit, that it just ran off into the woods,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: and it was not until the following day, when he
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: discovered Jennifer Klein searching for her own cat, that he
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: realized that, Oh, I may have actually killed it. Sorry
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: about that, that I shot this cat that belocked to you.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Very bizarre.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Oh that's so weird. And I raised the alternate scenario
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: that Larry never jogged, that Larry just liked to go
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: out on foot with his gun and look for cats.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: That sounds like a more believable scenario, especially when we
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: figure how long it took him to do that quote
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: unquote jog I think Larry probably liked to fill his
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: time with doing weird things like that, because just to
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: carry a gun in case like it, none of it
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: seems to be in alignment. And like you said, he
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: wasn't a fitness freak looking type of a guy, and
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: we don't hear from other people that he was a
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: regular jogger. So I call into question that Larry ever jogged.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, That's what I'm thinking, is that maybe he just
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: went out into the woods to look for cats to
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: shoot because he enjoyed it for some reason. When you
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: hear the way he talks, he definitely seems to fit
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the profile of someone who might do that. But this
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: is important because this information actually caused the Oregon State
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: least a formulate a theory about what might have happened
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: to Tommy. They speculated that when Larry fired the shot,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the bullet may have passed through the cat's body and
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: accidentally struck Tommy in the distance while he was playing
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: in the front yard, because even though they found the
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: shell casing, they never actually found the bullet, and if
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Larry was jogging or just going out in the woods
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: looking for cats, he may not have realized this until
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: he returned home, and then after discovering Tommy's body, he
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: panicked and started cleaning up the scene, and then proceeded
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: to put Tommy's body in the trunk of his patrol
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: car before calling the authorities to report him missing. And then,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: at his ear least opportunity, Larry then drove the patrol
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: car off the property and disposed of Tommy's body at
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: a nearby location.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: All of that sounds like a really good theory to me,
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: But the only questions that I would raise here would
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: be if Tommy was indeed caught by a stray bullet
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: and or not a stray bullet. The bullet intended for
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: the cat and he ended up bleeding out. I don't
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: know what this property looks like, or if there would
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: be the ability to where Tommy would have landed that
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: it could camouflage the blood. But if you're going to
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: have a child who's basically going to die from exanguination,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: so body being emptied of blood, there would be a
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: considerable amount. So maybe if it was on the grass
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: in a place where you wouldn't necessarily look on a
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: huge property, But if it's on gravel or something, you're
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: going to see this huge puddle of blood.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: That is true. Yeah, Like, even though Larry would have
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: had the opportunity to clean himself up, you would think
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: that they would find something to suggest that blood may
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: have been there at some point. And to be fair,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Judy's account seemed to coohola in that theory, because she
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: actually recalled hearing the gunshot that morning and claimed that
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: it compelled her to look out the window and she
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: still saw Tommy playing outside in the driveway. So she's
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: thinking to herself that, Okay, even if something did happen
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: to Tommy, I can't confirm he was still alive at
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: the time. Larry fired that shot, So that was one
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why they obviously didn't have enough evidence
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: to foul charges against Larry. But once again makes you wonder,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: does Judy have more knowledge of what's happening here than
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: she's letting on and could she be lying in order
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: to cover for her a husband.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing is we can't really trust Judy's
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: account of what happened here because even if Larry didn't
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: tell her to lie for him, she might have taken
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: that on herself. Because this is the early nineties and
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Judy has a family with Larry, and she could be
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: in this position where she's lost her son and it
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: could have been an accident, and maybe that's what she's
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: telling herself. And the idea that Larry could then go
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: to jail that could just create a whole other world
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: of difficulty for Judy. So there's so many different things
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: to consider and a lot of reasons that she may
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: choose to fudge the details a little bit without Larry
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: even directing her to do so.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Possibly, Yeah, like she hates the idea of Larry like
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: going to jail and breaking up her family. But of course,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: the big issue was is if this had legitimately been
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: an accident and he was just killed by a stray
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: bullet that passed through the cat. I still wonder if
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: charges would have been filed against Larry if he had
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: just admitted to what he did. Because he was a
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: law enforcement officer, he would have gotten a lot of leeway.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: But he strikes me as a kind of guy though,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: who is very direct about trying to maintain his image.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: So of course he seems like someone where if he
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: discovered that he accidentally killed his son, even if there
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: was no chance of him facing any jail time, he
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: wouldn't want to be looked at as a guy who
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: was responsible for his son's death, So his first inclination
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: would be to cover it up and then lie law enforcement.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, I can understand that perspective. It seems like
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: it would be a very small percentage of people, if
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: they accidentally killed their child, would first go into cover
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: up mode. But he is the law enforcement officer. I'm
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: sure he's considering if this gets found out, I will
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: lose my job. I'm firing a gun at this cat,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: I kill my son if that is indeed the way
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: it happened, and then I'm going to be labeled as
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: this child killer. People are going to side on me.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to be able to move through life
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: in the same way as if, say, my son was abducted.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Then he gets to take on the role and gets
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: to spin this whole victim narrative where this has been
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: done to him. He hasn't done it to his son.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, that he just strikes me
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: as someone who wants to get the sympathy from losing
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: his son, but doesn't want to get any of the
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: blame for causing his death. So once the detectives from
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: the Oregon State Police formulated this theory about the bullets
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: traveling through the cat and accidentally striking Tommy, they decided
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: to confront Larry with it in an interview, and then
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: he provided a very odd response, quote, it could have
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: happened that way, and it's possible. It's the only thing
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: that makes sense end quote. And then he made another
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: odd statement about his half brother Michael, who was staying
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: at the residence on the day of Tommy's disappearance, saying that, well,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: possibly while I was out jogging, maybe Michael found Tommy's body.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Then decided to move it without my knowledge, which is
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: a very odd thing to say. And then Larry said that, oh,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: I was only speaking hypothetically about things that could have
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: happened when I made these statements, but I denied the
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: allegations that I was responsible for shooting Tommy or that
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: myself or anyone else from my family were responsible for
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: what happened to him. And Michael is another wild card
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: in this case because the only mention that he was
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: there that morning, but he has never given off any interviews,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: he has never shared his opinion about whether he believes
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Larry could have done something. And here's Larry pretty much
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: trying to throw him to the wolves and say that, oh,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: maybe he decided to move Tommy's body without my knowing.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: So it makes me wonder what the relationship is like
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: between them if he's willing to make statements like that.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: It almost makes me feel like Michael didn't have anything
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: to do with it, because I feel like if he
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: genuinely did help Larry and then Larry threw him under
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: the bus, he's a lot more likely to then just go, uhh,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: I'm not going down for this. Larry recruited me after
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: the fact to help dispose of the body, and yes,
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: I help my brother, but yes I will testify against him.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be tied up in this any
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: more than I already am. But we don't see that.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: So I'm just going off my gut feeling here and
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: nothing more that if he truly was involved, that Larry
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have thrown him under the bus so easily. So
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: even though he's a bit of a hidden variable and
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: we know very little about Michael, just the way that
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Larry is positing this theory about how he could have
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: moved the body without his knowledge. When somebody is proposing
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: these theories, it is a huge indicator of deception. You're
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: trying to say, look over here, look over here. And
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: so Larry's just trying to do anything he can to
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: get the focus off of himself. And Michael seems to
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: be a convenient scapegoat because he's staying in the home.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: But there's no evidence to back up that Michael had
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: anything to do with it, and Larry's the one that
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: is acting very strangely.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Oh definitely, Like law enforcement has never pointed their suspicions
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: against Michael, and they never even said, like with Judy,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: where they suspect that she's withholding information. They have never
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: said that about Michael, so they seem to think he's
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: nothing more than an innocent bystander. But I find this
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: whole dynamic interesting because later on we're going to talk
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: about Larry's half sister, who becomes a key figure in
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: this case, and it turns out that it doesn't seem
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: like she had a particularly great relationship with Larry's so
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: it makes me wonder what was Michael's relationship like. That
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: brings an end to Part one of our series about
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: the disappearance of Tommy Gibson. Join us again next week
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: for part two.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: about the Trailment Cold Patreon.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
• 42:49
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• 42:52
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• 42:54
  Speaker 1: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
• 43:04
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• 43:08
  Speaker 1: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
• 43:15
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• 43:18
  Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
• 43:22
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• 43:25
  Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
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• 43:40
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• 43:44
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• 43:46
  Speaker 3: about the Jewels and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
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  Speaker 3: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
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  Speaker 3: so they're not very many, but they're just too short
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  Speaker 3: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: so we hope you'll check out those patreons will link
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: them in the show notes.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening and
• 44:06
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• 44:08
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• 44:11
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• 44:13
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• 44:19
  Speaker 1: up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy