By any measure, forty-seven-year-old George Gibson was an accomplished man. He had degrees from Brown University, Michigan State, and Cornell, and worked as a veterinary pathologist for Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio. He and his wife Paige, who worked for the same company, lived in the suburb of West Chester. George was described by friends and colleagues as gentle, honest, kind-hearted, and a great animal lover; they also stated that he tended to keep his private life private.
On June 22nd, 2000, George was at work as usual; his wife was on a business trip in New York. According to reports, George received a phone call that afternoon at his place of business, asking him to leave work early. The caller’s identity is not known.
George did as he was told, departing from his office at approximately three-forty p.m., but oddly, he didn’t arrive at his residence until two hours later, even though his workplace was less than thirty minutes from his home. Investigators were never able to establish where he was or what he was doing during this time.
Neighbors saw George driving into his garage at about five-twenty, but this was the last time he was seen alive.
The following day, Paige attempted to call her husband but got no answer and became concerned. His work colleagues also became worried when he didn’t show up for his shift, which was very out of character for him. His coworkers called the police to do a welfare check.
When officers arrived shortly after noon on the 23rd, they found the front door of the house open. Upon entering, they witnessed a bloody, horrific scene; not only was George Gibson dead on the bathroom floor, the victim of nine gunshot wounds, but the killer had also shot two of George’s Bernese Mountain dogs, Capella and Hugo. A third dog, who had a litter of puppies, was found unharmed in the basement.
There was no sign of forced entry and no indication of robbery. The crime, in fact, had all the hallmarks of a cold-blooded execution. It appeared that George had been sitting at his kitchen table reading the newspaper when the assailant ambushed him.
Baffled, law enforcement began delving into George’s private life to determine if he’d been involved in anything that would have made him a target of such a calculated slaying. Strangely, not much was uncovered. The lab where George worked was known to do some animal testing and had run-ins with protesters in the past, but it seemed unlikely that an animal rights activist would have killed George’s dogs.
More promisingly, detectives found that despite being seemingly happily married, George had been using a phone dating service. Police wondered if perhaps jealousy or even blackmail was involved but were unable to find any solid connection between the dating service and the murder.
A neighbor saw a strange man in the vicinity of the house at around the time of the killing, and got a good enough look at him to give a description to police, but the purported suspect was never tracked down.
Twenty-five years later, the shocking crime is still unsolved, and investigators seem no closer to unraveling the mystery of who killed George Gibson and why.
Crime Immemorial 