Two Dead, One Missing

Just before Christmas in 1987, Houston, a town of about 424 people in Kent County in central Delaware, became the centre of a case that investigators called almost impossible to explain. Joseph Gibson Jr. and his wife Beverly W. Gibson lived in a trailer on his parents' land at Hazelville, a rural crossroads near Houston, with their three children: Rebecca Ann, five, John Gregory, one, and a newborn son, Matthew Joseph. Joseph worked at the Farmers Home Administration office in Georgetown. The couple had married on 12 September 1981 at the Wheatcoat United Methodist Church.

Beverly gave birth to Matthew at Kent General Hospital in Dover on 15 December 1987. On the morning of 24 December, Christmas Eve, Rebecca woke at about half past five. At about half past seven she went looking for her parents. She found her father face down in the front doorway of the trailer, shot in the back and bleeding. She could not wake him, and she could not find her mother anywhere. The one-year-old John was in his crib. The baby was not there.

Rebecca picked up the telephone and dialled a number she thought she knew. She got the wrong number, and a woman answered. The child said that she had woken up, that there was blood everywhere and that she could not find her mother. The woman kept her talking and eventually the call reached 911. Because the five-year-old did not know her address, dispatchers kept her on the line while the call was traced. Police went to the Gibson trailer.

Outside, in the family car, they found Beverly Gibson in her nightgown, slumped over, shot once in the back and once in the buttock. Joseph was in the doorway with a gunshot wound to the back from what appeared to be a .357 or another large-calibre weapon. Rebecca and John were unhurt; Matthew was gone. There was no blood in the crib. Investigators said at the time that a killing and a kidnapping together were very rare, and that they could find no motive except the taking of the baby.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it She had had a hysterectomy in 1978. In 1984, while being treated at a rehabilitation hospital for the disabled in Philadelphia for a back injury from her time at Milford Memorial Hospital, she met Michael Lewitski, a quadriplegic who had broken his neck diving at 13. this part of the story is covered for now She told him she was carrying triplets. Over the following months she reported losing each one: the first after an argument in August 1984, the second after slipping on the ramp built for his wheelchair, and the last, she said, after her teenage daughter kicked her in the stomach. In January 1985 a nurse at Milford Memorial Hospital showed Lewitski records of the 1978 hysterectomy. The pregnancies had never existed.

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He had graduated from Milford High School in 1979, worked as a farm hand, at his father's contracting business and at Baltimore Air Coil near Milford, and had been on disability since a back injury. His teenage brother had died of cancer. this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it She wanted a Christmas baby. In October 1987 she was working with Andrew C. Pelson as a parking attendant at the Delaware State Fair Raceway in Harrington, and the two of them would slip away to the Trans Am. Pelson said she did not feel seven months pregnant.

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed She came home about two in the morning with blood on her hands and four rounds missing from the revolver. She told police later that the child had been born at home with a midwife. No midwife could be found.

By early January 1988 the police had nothing. Local calls were not itemised, and the case was going nowhere. Delaware State Police asked Diamond State Telephone to scan 410 million calls made after 1 December to and from the Gibson home and other family members. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Several days after Matthew was born a woman calling herself Dawn had telephoned him for directions to the trailer, saying she wanted to visit and bring a gift. A neighbour had also given directions to a woman driving a dark car with pop-up headlights.

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed She said he had been delivered at home by a midwife the night before. Baby footprints matched Matthew Gibson's. A search of the house produced a bloodstained infant sleeper in the trash, a .357 with four empty chambers, spent shell casings that matched the bullets, and handwritten directions to the Gibson trailer. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed They appeared at the bail hearing handcuffed together. Both were held without bail on the murder counts.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now Lewitski testified about the fake triplets. Doctors and her former husband confirmed the hysterectomy. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed Matthew Gibson was returned to his grandparents, Thelma and Joseph Gibson Sr.; Thelma said she knew it was him as soon as she saw him. Rebecca, the five-year-old who made the call, was photographed holding her brother.