Warning. This episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing. December 31st, 1957. In the pre-dawn hours in the village of Newbury, Vermont, a dairy farmer named Orville Gibson vanished without a trace. Three months after his disappearance, police found Gibson's body floating in the Connecticut River. He had been tied up with his hands bound behind his thighs. The unsolved case has some truly bizarre and disturbing theories.
Some believe that Gibson was lynched by angry residents of the town, while another theory suggests that being one to hold a grudge. Gibson took his own life, but purposefully left evidence to make it appear as though he had been murdered. This is a study of strange. Welcome back to the show. I'm Michael May. If you enjoy the type of content we cover, here it is. Study of strange. And you want to support the show? Check out our Substack. Subscribers get access to additional material.
Episodes early. A lot of fun things like that. You can find out how to subscribe through our support tab on our website at. His study of strange.com. All right, so two hour story. Who was Mr. Gibson? Orville Albert Gibson, also known as Audie. Hoot Gibson was born on July 2nd, 1910, in Barnet, Vermont. He was the son of John Scott and Alice Gibson.
As a child, he moved to Newbury, not far from the town of his birth, which is in the northeastern part of Vermont along the Connecticut River, which itself borders New Hampshire. The population was roughly 1500 people during Gibson's adult life, and Newbury is a quaint, idyllic Vermont town, and it still is to this day. In 1936, Gibson married Evelyn Reynolds, his high school sweetheart and local school teacher, and together they purchased the Greer Farm, a 300 acre property.
Gibson had purchased the farm in foreclosure, and he caused a bit of stink in town. When Gibson woke up early to arrive at the courthouse first thing in order to buy the farm, allegedly, more prominent townspeople had wanted to buy this property, and they were not happy with Gibson's early bird gets the worm tactic. Gibson would quickly transform this into a thriving dairy farm. Despite his success, Orville was not universally admired in the community.
Some viewed him as aloof, and they resented his rapid success. Orville was also not known to be very social, which I'm sure didn't help their cause. Small towns are petri dishes of rumors and like a contagious disease. The dislike for Gibson had spread through town. It didn't help that soon before his disappearance, Gibson was charged with a crime. He had physically assaulted a man who worked for him, Ari. Martin. Gibson was a rather large man himself, and Ari. was older and smaller.
Apparently, this assault occurred because Ari. spilled two jugs of milk. was well-liked in town. rumors spread immediately that Gibson had broken Ari. ribs. Some accounts even suggest that Martin was in the hospital, barely clinging on to life. Not to take anything away from this attack itself, but the rumors were overblown. The truth seems to be that Martin was drunk. Gibson was angry and telling him to go home. Martin.
fell while trying to move a heavy wheelbarrow and hurt his ribs, and he came back yelling at Gibson, and Gibson had to throw him out. Harry, actually. Later. admitted that he got his bruised ribs from falling and not from Gibson himself. Regardless, though, the true events were not part of the town gossip. And now to that chilly morning on December 31st, 1957, Orville adhered to his usual routine.
He woke up and left home around 3 to 3:30 a.m. to go tend to his cows across the street in his barn. When he failed to return back home for breakfast, his wife Evelyn grew concerned and she alerted authorities. Two state troopers, William Graham and Lawrence Washburn, became the lead investigators in this case, and they were also the first to arrive that day. They questioned Devlin. They searched the property and when they got to the barn, there were signs of a struggle.
There were drag marks on the ground. Some things knocked over a crushed pale. Before even lunch that day. Word had already spread, and everyone in town had heard of the disappearance. And everyone had a theory. Meanwhile, authorities continued their search for Gibson. They even dragged the river. But they didn't find anything until three months later. On March 26th, 1958, Orville's body was discovered floating in the Connecticut River, approximately seven miles downstream from Newberry.
He was found bound with his wrists tied beneath his thighs and his feet also secured together. The official cause of death was determined to be suffocation, with obvious signs that foul play was involved. This story does make me think of like a whodunit murder mystery show or movie or book, because the backdrop to this incident seems to be simmering with tension between Orville and some of the townspeople.
And if it was a movie, you can imagine getting introduced to these cast of characters and what they were doing the night and morning of his disappearance. You have a businessman or two that's mad that Orville bought the farm. You have IRA Martin. Who? Who got assaulted for spilling milk. You have high rise family members that may be in on it, but in real life, the Vermont State Police launched an extensive investigation.
They interviewed numerous residents and they even ended up administering polygraph tests. And eventually investigators came to a conclusion. They had suspects. Two local men, Robert Ozzie Welch and Frank Carpenter. And those two were charged with Orville's murder. But why? Over the years, there are two main intriguing theories as to what happened to Gibson. The first and most prominent was vigilante justice.
Some papers at the time even called this a farmer's lynching, and the arrest of Welch and Carpenter play into this theory. So here's the basic information. A doctor, John Perry Hooker, testified that he saw Welch and Carpenter near Orville's barn on the morning of the disappearance, along with some other men that have never been identified. Nearby, there was a holiday party at the Martin House, and a lot of people from town were invited, but not the Gibsons.
after Ari Martin's assault at the hands of Orville Gibson. Orville's wife had been receiving threatening phone calls, and she also had received some postcards that threatened Orville's life. Supposedly, the party was on December 30th, where the Gibsons were not invited. We're all very upset with the attack on all around Martin. The theory posits that these this group of people, they riled themselves up. They were drunk and they decided to go teach Gibson a lesson.
And Welch and Carpenter were part of this group. They decided to go down to Orville's place, the barn. They find him, they tie him up, but it went too far and he suffocated to death. And then they dumped the body in the river to hide the crime. And there is some evidence that backs up this theory a little bit. Some of the investigators tied one of their associates, who is about the same size as Orville Gibson, up, and they tied his hands below his thighs just like Orville was found.
And it turns out that that guy was having a lot of trouble breathing so someone could suffocate just from being tied up that way. Additionally, the rope found on Gibson allegedly belonged to one of the two men charged with the murder. Although that story seems to sort of change and get a little vague and weird over the years. Now, despite this evidence, despite the speculation, both of the men were acquitted in separate trials.
Welch was acquitted after the judge threw out his case, ruling that there wasn't enough evidence to convict him, and a jury cleared Carpenter. So if those two didn't do it, who did? And that brings us to our next theory. A theory that, dare I say, it is strange. This is the suicide theory, and this isn't necessarily new.
It has been floated around for years, but recently retired Judge Stephen Martin believes that Orville, overwhelmed by his legal troubles and community disdain, orchestrated an elaborate suicide to frame his detractors.
Martin has actually written a book on this called Orville's Revenge The Anatomy of Suicide, where he argues that Gibson staged evidence at his farm, walked over a bridge into New Hampshire, climbed out onto a pier, tied himself up in that bizarre way, and then rolled himself into the river. His theory is based on well, it honestly, if comes back to if this was a murder mystery movie, it's character development.
Gibson was one to hold a grudge, supposedly, and his life was falling apart because of this assault charge. Everybody in town is mad at him this was his way to have a final act of defiance, of retribution, of spite. There is a lot of information, like any podcast or article or piece of media and true crime and mysteries, that I haven't gone over here today, but there is something I think important to add before I wrap up. Not everyone in town hated Orville.
He may not have been the most popular kid in class, but he did have friends. He was known to help neighbors and some sort very highly of him. So I do think some of the stories about how everybody hated this guy really have been overblown over the years, especially with a lot of the newspaper articles, which were very sensational at the time of his disappearance. And the reason I wanted to mention this is because it does throw a little bit of cold water on the idea of vigilante justice.
But it doesn't answer all the questions. I don't think new evidence will ever come to light in this case to solve it definitively. However, one thing is certain something I've sensed and believed my whole life. Small town murders are the strangest ones with the weirdest circumstances. The craziest characters and the oddest situations. Thank you for listening to a study of strange. If you're new to the show, give us a rating, a review. It goes a long way to helping others find our podcast.
Until next time, thank you and good night.