What a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning!
I'll be posting in earnest later today. My sweet daughter and her wonderful husband are on their way here for the family reunion and I wanted to at least get a few thoughts posted before the day takes off.
I've been working on a schematic of the facts or theories about the Marian Baker murder case that have been amassed so far.
What I've learned is that not everything that's been written is complete, nor can we assume it's accurate.
As much as I love a good mystery, I have come to believe that Ed Gibbs did indeed truthfully confess to at least being responsible for the death of Marian Baker.
Nothing has presented itself thus far to make me or anyone closely tied to the case or the people directly involved believe that anyone else had a hand in her death.
As I said, if anything new or revealing comes up, that can be revisited at that time.
But for now, the basic facts support the claim that Ed Gibbs did indeed kill Marian in a brutal rage. There is so much more to know about Ed and about the events leading up to the day of the murder.
Some who knew Ed personally feel that it was a case of an explosion of rage and frustration.
Some know much more about a side of Ed that was never fully presented to the general public.
He was very complex and disturbed man, that much is fact.
He lied directly to his own defense lawyer until presented with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary on some issues. That much is also fact.
So his confession stands. But it surely is far from the whole story.
Pieces of the puzzle of Ed Gibbs are appearing one piece at a time.
Some feel that the dark side of Ed was seen long before the brutal murder.
He was the ultimate actor. Until his temper got the better of him.
I've been curious for years at the reaction of his wife, Helen.
In the earliest part of their young marriage, they impressed some as being quite in love.
Yes, they were facing stress. Ed was flunking out of college. Money was tight. Their sexual life was backward and a source of frustration.
Life itself was a source of frustration for Gibbs as January 1950 approached.
But Helen Woodward Gibbs returned to her parents' home in New Jersey and never contacted her husband again. Ever, if what we know today is true.
What made her sever all contact with him?
Was it simply her inability to process the horrendous turn her life had taken, finding out, in the public eye, that she was married to a murderer?
Was her parents' control so overbearing that they prevented her from any contact with Ed?
Or did she finally know in her heart what she had suspected for quite some time, that her husband was a sick and twisted man and she welcomed the chance to flee and pretend she never met him?
Many have said that Ed overshot the mark with Helen Woodward.
She was out of his league. And to this day some still wonder how on earth he landed such a beautiful, smart and good woman.
My mother knew Helen. She didn't speak much about her but what little she did say was nothing but complimentary. And it was always said with such a sense of sadness for Helen.
She didn't deserve what Ed Gibbs did to her and her life.
Some have wondered that Helen Woodward Gibbs' absence from the trial, from Lancaster and from life in general was due to the family's desire to prevent anyone from seeing her progress in a pregnancy. No one has ever visited that possibility in earnest.
Was Helen pregnant?
She certainly wanted a child badly.
Despite the financial hardship they were under, she forbade the use of any contraceptives. And anyone can tell you that "interruptus" is about as effective as air.
Did she return to New Jersey pregnant with Ed Gibbs' child?
And if she was, did the pregnancy continue?
Much like in the Roseboro tragedy, what a life altering moment for a child when they discover the fact that they are the flesh and blood of a murderer.
Was adoption an option?
These are just questions that have occurred to me. I have no facts at this point to support any theory one way or the other.
Another question...
I was told that the O'Donels wrote to the Gibbs family several times expressing true Christian forgiveness and that they held the parents in no way responsible for the acts of the son.
No response was ever received.
Why not?
Was it just too excruciatingly painful to even acknowledge the truth of what their son had done by writing to the parents of a young, beautiful girl whose life was beaten out of her by their son?
Or had they just cut ties, much like Helen's family had done?
Done and over with?
My personal thought is this:
They were never able to even approach the concept their son had killed someone. It simply didn't happen. And that was the only defense mechanism that got them through the night.
Florence Gibbs, Ed's mother had to have scared the hell out of people with her reaction at the funeral and "luncheon" at their home afterward.
She was the consummate hostess.
The consummate hostess????
For God's sake, your son is dead. Having been electrocuted via death penalty for bashing the very brains out of a young woman!
And yet, her demeanor was that of being at peace, at having at last the ultimate control over the safety of her son.
She now knew exactly where he was.
He was in a nice neat box and she could tell herself any story she needed to as to how he got there.
Ed passed away. Now, please, have another cup of coffee!
Murder? Oh my, no! No, Ed just passed away!
Florence's neurotic control of Ed as a child was born of love and her fear of anything harming him. Yes it was over the top. It was pathological and robbed Ed of any chance of developing the psychological skills to be an independent, functioning human being.
But it was what it was.
And now, poor Eddie had passed away.
Life must go on.
And if you get a letter mentioning an event that challenges your mental status quo, you simply ignore it. And pour more coffee and straighten your pearls.
From what has been revealed thus far about Ed Gibbs, his childhood and the family pathology, someone was going to die. Sooner or later, someone was going to be the source of frustration, whether sexual or otherwise, that exploded in the psyche of Ed Gibbs.
That course had been charted the day he was conceived.
As someone posted to me....
and I paraphrase.....
Marian Baker wasn't his only victim.
Just the most unlucky.
There is far, far more to learn.
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