Monday, October 5, 2009

Thank You For The Redirect!

Thank you so much for the reminder and redirect to the forum! It's been a bit busy here and I hadn't checked in on our thread for a while. That is EXACTLY the kind of stuff I'm looking for!
The "real" Ed Gibbs. I'm learning that the book really is very superficial, I assume because it was written "in absentia". There is no way an author could garner the real idiosyncracies or "little things" about those involved and rely so heavily only on the newspaper and police/court records.
The actual truth of the story behind that horrible cold January day in 1950 lies in the little known facts and facets of the personalities of Ed Gibbs and Marian Baker.

I've come to learn, beyond a doubt, that there is far more to the story than anyone was led to believe in both the book and the court proceedings.
As you, my forum friend, knew and shared with me, things were definitely not admitted into the court proceedings by the DA and Hense Brown had no luck at all in shaking Ed's "story".
That gut feeling went to the grave with Mr. Brown.
I am really looking forward to speaking in detail with several people who knew Ed Gibbs personally.
I also have been contacted by two persons who may be willing to open old hurts and speak with me briefly about Marian.
It is clear that she was loved and still is.
Mrs. Florence Gibbs, to me, is a tragic figure. Her son was her life, to the point of quasi-instability. Her fear of losing him helped create a man totally unprepared for real life.
In addition, the pressure to graduate from F&M was extreme.
How sad it is that his parents just didn't give him the adult choice to live his life as he wanted to or felt he needed to in order to stop the growing frustration that needed an outlet.
Many bad decisions were made at many forks in the roads of their lives. Of course hindsight is 20/20.
I believe Mrs. Gibbs would have done it all differently to bring back her son.
She lived the rest of her life with the crime hanging over her head, an empty place at the dinner table and the shame of the community, not to mention the whispers and innuendos that flew after Richard Gehman described her as he did in the book.
All of the coordinates intersected and that point Marian Baker was bludgeoned to death in the woods south of Lancaster.
Many of us remember that these were real human beings. They lived as we did in some cases, with their own particular stations in life and their quirks.
But they bled and hurt the same as we do.
There is no excuse or acceptable reason for what Ed Gibbs did to Marian Baker.
It is unforgivable. And I believe that when he met His Maker, it wasn't an easy passage.
But as my Nanny would have said, and probably did, about him.."God love him. There HAD to be something wrong with him."
I need to address something about my research into the Marian Baker murder.
I am in no way doing this to dig up old pain. I am in no way interested in "mining" people for my own gain or to sensationalize an event that tore people apart and changed their lives forever.
This is my journey on answering questions that I have lived with my whole life.
I will never push or use subterfuge to gain information or knowledge.
When they wish to have me stop asking questions, I will stop.
It's not about that.
That said, I again thank you all so much for helping me learn so much more about Ed Gibbs and Marian Baker.
I couldn't have imagined that all these years later I'd still be researching this and that people would be kind enough to help me.

An aside: I have chosen to not post your comment(s) publicly. I haven't published or rejected any of them to keep you and your online screenname private. The "activity" on my blog just today alone is pathological in number and effort. I have no desire to have any of you get involved in that in any way.
I will read and answer your comments in a blog post rather than publish them. Just know that they have been read and I will acknowledge them in a post :)
Thanks so much!

0 comments: