CA CA - James 'Jimmy' Gilmore, 14, Baldwin Park, 7 Jan 1962

This is a facinating story about a missing teen. His body was found, in a crawlspace in the basement of his home. It was located under his parents bedroom.

The home was on a farm, so the people living there never smelled anything. The young Mr. Gilmore was not known for his kindness...

Excerpt from the article:

Jimmy, as his family called him, wasn't a pleasant person, according to relatives. Family members and neighbors told police he extorted money from boys and threatened to beat others. His mother, Donna, described him as vicious, police said.

He also had a poor relationship with his two brothers.

"He was a bully," said his younger brother, Wayne Gilmore of San Bernardino. "He had a reputation of being crazy."

Jimmy also hung out with older teens in a motorcycle gang, Wayne Gilmore said.

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The case has been reopened in the hopes of finding his killer.

To read the full story go here:
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_3401531

Just from reading the story, I would guess that it was one or all of the kids. First of all, there is no mention if there was any sign of a struggle noted at the scene. Second, no one noticed anyone digging a shallow grave under the house? And third, the sand may have acted as a filter after a while, but in a shallow grave I would have expected an odor to be in the house, at least during the summer months while the body was relatively fresh and decomposing.
The whole family appears to have been pretty dysfunctional. Parents didn't supervise the kids. No one in the family seems to feel it necessary to use any of the little euphemisms that are usually given in describing the dead person. No he was 'troubled' or he 'had problems'. They go right for 'vicious, cruel, devious, and would have run the mafia, would have been a killer'. Almost as though they are trying to justify his death. I wonder if it wasn't a case of the kids all joining together both to kill, and to keep the secret.

Mysteriew that's why I posted the story - its very odd!

Even the father thought the kids should be polygraphed... although there is no evidence they did that.

Its an interesting case, and the detectives do have their work cut out for them to solve it!

That whole story is very creepy. I wonder what this Wayne Gilmore guy has been up to? Jimmy was 14 -- how old was Wayne? I think he knows more than he's admitting to.

I know I am bumping a super old topic, but I was researching Wayne's story and found this thread. I lived across the street from the Gilmores, but didn't know the Wayne or his family, because I was only about 3 when they moved away. My parents knew them though. I was about 14 when they discovered the body.

One day I went outside and the entire house across the street was raised up on jacks and investigators were digging around under there. For weeks later there was an old tennis shoe in the dirt near the crawlspace (the house stayed raised up and a high chainlink fence put up until it was demolished) and my friends and I were convinced it was from the body... but looking back on it, surely the investigators wouldn't have left that behind!

Also, somebody mentioned the house was a farm, but that's wrong, it was a residential area. No cows or anything like that to cover up any odors.

diabolus said:

I know I am bumping a super old topic, but I was researching Wayne's story and found this thread. I lived across the street from the Gilmores, but didn't know the Wayne or his family, because I was only about 3 when they moved away. My parents knew them though. I was about 14 when they discovered the body.

One day I went outside and the entire house across the street was raised up on jacks and investigators were digging around under there. For weeks later there was an old tennis shoe in the dirt near the crawlspace (the house stayed raised up and a high chainlink fence put up until it was demolished) and my friends and I were convinced it was from the body... but looking back on it, surely the investigators wouldn't have left that behind!

Also, somebody mentioned the house was a farm, but that's wrong, it was a residential area. No cows or anything like that to cover up any odors.

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Glad you bumped this up, diabolus. Interesting and I hadn't heard of it. Pity the link is no longer working. Would love to know more about this.

Here are some short articles from Google's news archives...

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...&pg=4849,4382919&dq=james-david-gilmore&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...&pg=4398,2999622&dq=james-david-gilmore&hl=en

I read about this case on another site, fascinating. I am so annoyed that link doesn't work.

I think I've found the siblings of James David Born Nov 1947

Wayne Robert Gilmore Born Oct 1948
Linda Loraine '' '' Nov 1945
Richard John '' '' June 1944


There could be others, some different spellings of mothers maiden name 'Schneider'

No one seemed to care about this kid and his family let him run around and just act like a hellion. What was this nabe like?

Here's a two page article I found on this case:
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-09/news/ga-7022_1_murder-investigation

Younger brother passed a poly. Apparently neither the father or an older brother or the mother was home that evening. The parents were estranged.

If I had to guess, I would say it would have to be someone in his family that murdered him. The mother's story changed a bit, not much, but still it's not a good sign.

I do believe the younger brother had no idea what happened to James. His statements strike me as quite candid. As tough as he made James out to be, he also said, James was afraid of the dark.

Now that is very curious, given that James was an alleged bully, and I'm not sure what to make of that exactly, not knowing the intensity of his fear.

Interesting case.

Was there abuse in the home? Were the cops ever called there?

LINK to 2012 story:


http://www.sgvtribune.com/general-news/20120511/teens-death-remains-a-mystery

I strongly believe that Jimmy dying saved the lives of many innocent people. Interesting that the dad polygraphed the kids. hmmm...

I just found this case the other day. It seems kind of obvious that someone in that house was responsible; who else would bury a person under their own house? The entire family seemed horribly dysfunctional and possibly the bane of their neighbors' existence. The kind of family that nowadays, CPS case workers would know on a first name basis. Despite passing the polygraph, I really believe that Wayne definitely knows more about what happened. I'm still not totally convinced there was a knock at the door that prompted Jimmie to leave the house. It also says that "reportedly", the half-brother Richard wasn't there. Again, that's presumably according to Wayne. Could Richard have been there and Jimmie began attacking him or one of the other kids and they killed him in self-defense?

Also, I don't know why I feel this way, but does anyone else wonder if the family is exaggerating or lying about how bad and hateful Jimmie was?

I don't feel that the family is lying or exaggerating. From what I read, this kid was a bad seed, although you wonder why and how he got that way, I think it could have been a matter of self defense.

justthinkin said:

Here's a two page article I found on this case:
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-09/news/ga-7022_1_murder-investigation

Younger brother passed a poly. Apparently neither the father or an older brother or the mother was home that evening. The parents were estranged.

If I had to guess, I would say it would have to be someone in his family that murdered him. The mother's story changed a bit, not much, but still it's not a good sign.

I do believe the younger brother had no idea what happened to James. His statements strike me as quite candid. As tough as he made James out to be, he also said, James was afraid of the dark.

Now that is very curious, given that James was an alleged bully, and I'm not sure what to make of that exactly, not knowing the intensity of his fear.

Interesting case.

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Apparently, the family was well-known to the police, largely because of domestic violence issues. The parents were known for firing guns at each other during arguments - is it really surprising that Jimmy turned out the way that he did? It's interesting how Wayne mentioned his brother's fear of the dark - so it doesn't make sense that he would take off during the night. Sadly, their sister was murdered by her husband in 1979 - seems that violence ran in this family. I don't doubt that someone in the family or at least close to the family was responsible - how else would his body have ended up under the house? They lived there for 13 years after his disappearance and nobody smelled anything? I have a hard time buying that.

Of course, we may never know. There are also no photos of him that I have been able to find. As much as he was known to be a bully, he was obviously in dire need of therapy and it's sad that no one seemed to care about what happened to him. He was only 14 years old; he didn't even drive yet. I think the parents needed to take a long look in the mirror. I also find it suspicious how the story changed from the older brother and mother being home to Jimmy and Wayne being home alone. Sure, the kids were obviously not properly supervised, but if Wayne did kill Jimmy, I doubt if he did alone. As for their denial of not knowing what became of Jimmy or how his body ended up in the crawlspace, it reminds me of how John Wayne Gacy, after being convicted of 33 murders and on death row, tried to explain away how the bodies ended up underneath his house. Yeah, okay. The sister Linda was murdered before Jimmy's body was found, so she wasn't able to speak on the matter. Was Richard ever interviewed? The father's insistent belief that Jimmy never left the house and wanted the other kids to take lie-detector tests is very telling too. Wayne trying to pin Jimmy's death on his "friends" - then how did his body end up under the family's home? If neighbors heard anything, it's likely that they just ignored it since violent domestic squabbles was a common situation in the Gilmore home.

Jimmy was definitely murdered by family members. No doubt in my mind.

mysteriew said:

Just from reading the story, I would guess that it was one or all of the kids. First of all, there is no mention if there was any sign of a struggle noted at the scene. Second, no one noticed anyone digging a shallow grave under the house? And third, the sand may have acted as a filter after a while, but in a shallow grave I would have expected an odor to be in the house, at least during the summer months while the body was relatively fresh and decomposing.
The whole family appears to have been pretty dysfunctional. Parents didn't supervise the kids. No one in the family seems to feel it necessary to use any of the little euphemisms that are usually given in describing the dead person. No he was 'troubled' or he 'had problems'. They go right for 'vicious, cruel, devious, and would have run the mafia, would have been a killer'. Almost as though they are trying to justify his death. I wonder if it wasn't a case of the kids all joining together both to kill, and to keep the secret.

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Very good points. The sister, who according to one account, was home that night, but she was murdered six years before Jimmy's body was found, so she can't clarify this. Wayne claimed that he didn't get up to see who was at the door, and stated, "they didn't want him to be found and didn't want any witnesses" - if he didn't see who was at the door, how does he know if it was more than one person? He could have been generalizing, but it could have been a slip too. Jimmy wasn't reported missing right away, so that gave time to hide the body and fabricate a story about his "disappearance". The fact that the body was found underneath the house throws out the theories that his family has put forth - that he ran off with friends (which was what his mother initially told police back in 1962) or that he was killed by whomever came to the door that night. Wayne's statement in 1985 is very telling:

Wayne Gilmore said that despite his brother's behavior, James was afraid of the dark and was the only Gilmore child who had not run away. "My mother was asleep most of the day and worked at night, and the kids had more or less free rein," Wayne Gilmore said. "We took off when we wanted and we came back when we wanted. Jimmie stuck pretty close to home, especially at night.

So yeah, all of that conflicts with what his mother and brother have claimed about the night he disappeared. On top of this, as I stated in an earlier post, it's very unlikely that his body would have been brought back to the house and buried there if he was killed at another location. In almost all cases that involve a teenager/young adult being lured away from their homes and murdered by a group of people, they are typically taken to a secluded area and left there after being killed. The killer(s) would most likely NOT want to take the trouble, much less the risk of bringing the body back to the victim's home and possibly be seen or caught. There have been many cases where a person goes missing and the remains are found later either at their home or somewhere on the family property, indicating not only that they were killed there but that it was a domestic homicide. This case reeks of that. Describing him in such terms only makes his mother and brother look guilty. The case will probably never be solved as the parents and sister are dead, and if Wayne and Richard are still alive as of this writing, I doubt they will ever reveal the truth.

Bobby88 said:

ICould Richard have been there and Jimmie began attacking him or one of the other kids and they killed him in self-defense?

Also, I don't know why I feel this way, but does anyone else wonder if the family is exaggerating or lying about how bad and hateful Jimmie was?

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I've wondered about this too. His mother even made a point of stating that he'd never been in any serious trouble. His parents weren't exactly model citizens either. According to Wayne, there were at least five shooting incidents between his parents before they separated, and it was hell growing up in that house. Those kids should NEVER have been in that home.

Wayne's statements about that night differ from the 1985 article to the 2006 one. In the 2006 interview, he stated that he and Jimmy were watching television, Jimmy got up to answer the door, came back in briefly to tell Wayne he was going out for a bit, and never came back. In 1985, Wayne stated that Jimmy was frequently in and out of the house most of the evening, supposedly to check on some new puppies in the barn, to the point where he lost track, and then the last time Jimmy just didn't come back. Remember, this was in the winter, the days are shorter and it gets dark in the late afternoon/early evening, and remember how Wayne stated that Jimmy was afraid of the dark. When he didn't come back, Wayne stated in both articles that he wasn't particularly concerned and he later figured that one of Jimmy's "buddies" had probably murdered him. Hmm. Is that just what he wants to believe or is he trying to divert suspicion? I think his mother obviously knew something - she stated that she was out visiting friends that evening, but she also stated that Jimmy changed clothes before "going out" that evening - how would she know that if she wasn't there? I wonder what the sister knew, and if she was at home that night as her mother claimed. Where was the older brother Richard that night?

More questions than answers, that's for sure. But this was definitely a domestic homicide, IMO.

Noirdame how did you find out all this info, esp about the parents firing guns at each other?