What Happened to Trenny Gibson?

Trenny Gibson was only sixteen when she vanished from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park during a class trip. This happened on October 8th, 1976. I had only seen cursory and relatively poor coverage of this missing person case over the years. Nick Kyle of The Missing Enigma Youtube channel yesterday posted a really carefully researched account of the disappearance that features two guests who share information from their lengthy research on this case.

That video included enough information to draw a picture for me of what I think is the most likely explanation for her disappearance, based on the evidence given.

I have included the video in question, so I won’t rehash the details of the case, since those are all present there. I’ll just say I believe this is one of those cases where a murderer got extremely lucky. It does happen sometimes.

I think all the outlandish speculation about her choosing this situation to run away is just pointless. Nothing at all points to her planning to abscond from her life during a field trip with classmates to the mountains.

It seems likely to me that an extremely uncomfortable situation arose, or more likely a crime occurred, when Robert Simpson (Bobby) and Trenny were having their picnic lunch in isolation. Either a sexual assault occurred or it was attempted, or sexual overtures were made. Something happened which caused Trenny to separate from Bobby and begin moving at a fast pace towards the meeting spot in the parking lot. Students commented on her passing them at a much faster clip. I don’t put any stock in people saying that Trenny had no “visible signs” of assault. It’s not as though all rapes involve battering of the face and I doubt anyone would notice things like bruises on wrists when someone is passing you on a nature trail at a fast pace.

The unusual or remarkable thing is that Trenny is alleged to have gone off the trail into the woods. This could very well be because she was checking her body after an assault. There may have been bleeding that would have given rise to questions during the closer scrutiny of her on the bus ride back to the school. And we should not forget that she had ridden there sitting next to Bobby, and getting back on the bus and sitting next to him after an assault would doubtless have been an unbearable situation.

The other kids who saw her continued on past the spot where she had left the trail and entered the woods. Bobby would have had to have come back down the same trail, and I think that’s where and when the second part of the crime occurred. Either he could see her in the woods from the trail or she was just reentering the trail to return to the bus. Possibly he tried to limit the damage of what had happened just a short time before, maybe warned her that she could not tell anyone. Maybe she did not give him any such reassurance. I think things escalated there and violence occurred in the woods just off the trail. This would explain the scent trail that multiple dogs followed (on different days) that stopped down close to the nearby road. This is where the pursuit or struggle ended. I think Trenny was killed where the scent trail stopped and Bobby emerged from the woods again, followed the trail back to the bus and acted as surprised as everyone else at the disappearance of his classmate.

I think it’s likely that Bobby quickly recovered Trenny’s body by parking at the pull-off located so close to that location where the scent trail ended, the site of the murder. He probably returned that night. It would be only a matter of minutes to get her into his car’s trunk. The searchers knocked off after a certain hour, and they probably would not have seen him anyway, as they were searching up on the ridge and almost certainly not going into the dense brush that early in the search.

This explains why the scent trail was so reliable but stopped short of the road. Her body was picked up and carried to a waiting vehicle. If she had run away, the scent trail would have continued down to the road or further into the wild.

Other evidence that Robert Simpson Jr. was guility of this crime were his otherwise inexplicable and totally creepy guarding of the family phone at Trenny Gibson’s house after her disappearance. He hung around the house and insisted on answering the family’s phone during this crucial time of communication with various authorities. He was screening calls to keep on top of the investigation. This is a classic situation where the perp inserts himself into the investigation.

This would also explain how Trenny’s comb ended up in Bobby’s car after her disappearance. And it probably explains why her prized sapphire and diamond ring ended up getting passed around between various “bad girls” in his clique at the high school. That might even have been a “hush bribe” if others in the clique knew.

I think this is the most likely explanation of what happened. It’s preposterous to think she ran away. She would have been discovered or slipped up sometime in the last half century, had she continued to be alive. And she would not have done something so cruel. Even if she had, that field trip would not have been the opportunity she chose.

I just don’t see this as the type of situation where going off trail leads to death by hypothermia or other natural causes, which is quite common and likely in many national parks. Because here there is too much evidence to the contrary that she didn’t wander far at all. And keep in mind that this suspect (who was never actually named as a suspect or even person of interest) had a powerful and influential father who was actually responsible for overseeing the national park from which Trenny vanished. One can see Bobby would have been shielded by his father’s wide scope of influence. Even today, the FOIA requests on this investigation get denied.

I think Kyle’s examination of this case was interesting for so many reasons. One has to understand how life for teenagers in the seventies was different, how much exploration of drugs and sexuality occurred without parents’ knowledge. Or else parents simply pretended not to notice. The video makes a good case for the fact that Trenny led a very active social life that her parents either knew nothing about, or pretended not to know. I tend to believe Kelvin Bowman’s claim that Trenny had been regularly leaving her bedroom window open for his secret visits. Mom probably wouldn’t have shot a secret boyfriend who didn’t happen to be black.

One last bit of evidence that seems to fit my theory above. In the area just off where Trenny left the trail, cigarettes and a beer can were found. The video above makes it clear that these were the same brands Trenny’s brother regularly purchased. So I’m thinking it’s likely Trenny snuck these along with her for the field trip. I’m not sure if she had a backpack or purse that day to hide the can but it could have been hidden in so many ways. It would make sense that she left the trail to engage in this behavior. Maybe she was trying to compose herself after the confrontation which had just occurred or engaging in stress smoking/drinking. It just seems too coincidental that the brands found right where she left the trail match up with things which would have been found in her family home.