Moonlight Murder on Lovers' Lane by Katherine Ramsland

Author:Katherine Ramsland [Ramsland, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7953-2607-3
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2012-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14: Truth or Lies?

Upon learning Gibson’s account, Henry Stevens gave a statement to the press that he had plenty of eyewitnesses that would affirm that he’d been at the shore that night. Whatever “Henry” had been on De Russey’s Lane on September 14, it had not been him!

Despite Gibson’s insistence that she had told the truth, she turned out to be less credible than she’d seemed. Few people who knew her believed a word she said. She could easily have read the facts in the newspapers, they stated, and then created her version of the story, such as it was. That’s what she was like.

Some acquaintances and neighbors contradicted her outright.

Mrs. A. C. Fraley was among Gibson’s detractors. She ran a boarding house across from the Phillips farm on De Russey’s Lane. When she heard what the Pig Woman had said, she stated that if this account were true, she’d have heard something that night. But she hadn’t. Neither had any of her boarders.

In fact, she’d seen Gibson right after the murders had occurred, but the excitable woman had said nothing. It seemed highly unlikely that she’d keep such shocking information to herself.

Gibson vehemently defended her story. “I’m willing to confront Mrs. Hall face to face,” she declared. In fact, she added, she was sympathetic to a woman who wanted to kill another woman for grabbing her husband. She had nothing against Frances, but she had seen her at the murder scene.

However, reporters soon dug up some information that eroded the Pig Woman’s credibility. She’d said that her deceased husband had been a minister, when in fact he was not dead and he was not a minister. William Easton worked as a toolmaker. But when asked about Jane, he would say only that she had a “brilliant mind.”

It turned out that Gibson had married several different men over the years, although she denied it.

To make matters worse, Gibson claimed that she had told reporters one story, the authorities another, and she would offer a third one on the witness stand. No one knew quite what to believe from this supposed eyewitness, but everyone wanted to know what she might yet add.

By this time, a local carpenter had become an industrious entrepreneur by converting the empty Phillips farmhouse into a murder museum. People waited in line to pay the 25-cent admission. There wasn’t much to see inside, but some of the furnishings went to a New York City museum for a tidy sum.

Two women looking around the stripped crabapple tree for leftover souvenirs discovered two unexploded cartridges, about 100 feet away. Mason ordered state troopers to close off the area and perform a more thorough search.

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