#also killed

I AM SCREAMING, CRYING, LAUGHING, DYING, AND I AM ENJOYING IT SO MUCH

In addition to knowing his Uncle John’s final resting place and the year he came to Texas, J. M. vividly remembered overhearing his parents talk about how John had killed someone in Tennessee and then fled to Texas to avoid prison. J. M. also revealed several curious points he felt were worth mentioning. John had a brother named Judge who had also killed a man, but the family paid a large sum of money to keep Judge from going to jail. J. M. didn’t know how Judge had avoided prison, but he found it peculiar that, although the family often spoke about Judge’s murder case, they never spoke about John’s murderous activity. J. M. volunteered one other oddity. John Gibson never visited any of his extended family in Kaufman County— the family always traveled to Port Arthur to visit him. J. M. did not ask why Uncle John would not come for a visit. He figured that John preferred staying away from the family. As for the story of the dead hog in the coffin, J. M. said he never heard that story, but with a chuckling voice added, “Knowing the Gipson family back then, it doesn’t surprise me.” Hearing J. M. speak of his uncle brought a startling realization. Here was a man who had personally seen John Gibson many times after 1919, the year his case and his life had supposedly ended. Port Arthur would also be an ideal place for someone to disappear. In the town’s backyard was the “Spindletop” oil boom that began in 1901, causing the area’s population to explode from 15,000 to 70,000 in one year.