WI WI - East Troy, Male 20-35, 1552UMWI, in cornfield, unusual shoes, Oct'79

[masnitram]

Last night, I e-mailed the Milwaukee Police Department and Walworth County Sheriff's about Jeffrey Gibson possibly being the unidentified man found in East Troy. This morning I received an e-mail from Captain Dana Nigbor of the Walworth County Sheriff's Department stating --



I keep going back and forth between two theories about the man in East Troy --

1. The UID is Mr. Gibson because there is a resemblance and the date and location he was last known to be alive are consistent with the UID.

2. The man in East Troy was someone from SE Asia who came in the late 1970s and didn't have very many ties to the area, so no one really noticed when he was missing. Unfortunately, at this time there are no Asian males reported missing before 1984.

A simple tagged "thanks" wasn't enough...I'm very happy that you proposed Mr. Gibson as a match...the timeline is perfect and the location is good. Who knows, maybe he was on his way to or from one of the many concerts at Alpine Valley that summer and got into an altercation....I guess we'll find out.

I grew up in the same county, about 25 miles East of East Troy...I remember there being seeing small groups of Asian men and women (and other ethnic groups) tending to small plots of land that I believe we're leased from local farmers. This would have been in the very early 80's...anyways, much of that land that was leased/rented is now built up with subdivisions/homes/commercial property etc...Just guessing here, but before the farmers sold off that land for development I (again just speculation) think they made extra money leasing out less-desirable farmland to immigrants. *Come to think of it, my parents former neighbor used to lease out a small plot to a Vietnamese lady and her husband...I remember talking to them when I was 5 or 6...very sweet people....

If the UID isn't Mr. Gibson, my feeling is the unidentified man may have been trespassing and was subsequently shot. Perhaps he was visiting relatives who had leased a nearby plot but he happened to be on the wrong land at the VERY wrong time. Being from "out in the sticks" in the very same county...I can say that racial tolerance at times was non-existant.

 

[Ambercat]

A simple tagged "thanks" wasn't enough...I'm very happy that you proposed Mr. Gibson as a match...the timeline is perfect and the location is good. Who knows, maybe he was on his way to or from one of the many concerts at Alpine Valley that summer and got into an altercation....I guess we'll find out.

I grew up in the same county, about 25 miles East of East Troy...I remember there being seeing small groups of Asian men and women (and other ethnic groups) tending to small plots of land that I believe we're leased from local farmers. This would have been in the very early 80's...anyways, much of that land that was leased/rented is now built up with subdivisions/homes/commercial property etc...Just guessing here, but before the farmers sold off that land for development I (again just speculation) think they made extra money leasing out less-desirable farmland to immigrants. *Come to think of it, my parents former neighbor used to lease out a small plot to a Vietnamese lady and her husband...I remember talking to them when I was 5 or 6...very sweet people....

If the UID isn't Mr. Gibson, my feeling is the unidentified man may have been trespassing and was subsequently shot. Perhaps he was visiting relatives who had leased a nearby plot but he happened to be on the wrong land at the VERY wrong time. Being from "out in the sticks" in the very same county...I can say that racial tolerance at times was non-existant.

Thanks so much! :blushing: I haven't heard anything else since the initial e-mail.

The trespassing angle hadn't occurred to me. I had assumed he was killed somewhere else and dumped there. I wonder how extensively LE questioned the people in the area when he was found?

 

[masnitram]

Thanks so much! :blushing: I haven't heard anything else since the initial e-mail.

The trespassing angle hadn't occurred to me. I had assumed he was killed somewhere else and dumped there. I wonder how extensively LE questioned the people in the area when he was found?

One thing that I hadn't noticed before, on Mr. Gibson's Namus file they list his ethnicity as "other"...which gives me some hope that the UID could in fact be him.

The trespassing angle is possible, but I too wonder about the full story...which sadly I haven't really found anything more then what is posted on the Doe Network.

I assume the reconstruction of the UID is accurate in terms of skin tone which doesn't line up well with Mr. Gibson. I do wonder if perhaps he gets a really dark complexion when tan. My wife looks Cuban when she tans but is far from it...I wonder if the same could be said for Mr. Gibson (not Cuban, but you get the drift)?

Does anyone know if a person is tan and then subsequently dies...with a tan....does that tan remain or fade over time?

 

[Ambercat]

I received an e-mail today from Detective Robert D Sharp (the UID from East Troy is his case) saying that they are going to compare the DNA from the UID to Jeffrey Gibson's DNA.

 

[masnitram]

I received an e-mail today from Detective Robert D Sharp (the UID from East Troy is his case) saying that they are going to compare the DNA from the UID to Jeffrey Gibson's DNA.

That is awesome news!!! Plus now knowing there is DNA on file for the unidentified helps tremendously. Keep us posted :rocker:

 

[Han-Tastic]

I received an e-mail today from Detective Robert D Sharp (the UID from East Troy is his case) saying that they are going to compare the DNA from the UID to Jeffrey Gibson's DNA.

I'm assuming you have yet to hear back, but I figured I'd ask anyway!

 

[Lostindetroit]

Wow, LE giving good news, and a quick reply. That's awesome. I got a good feeling about this one. I really hope you got a match and cool shoes gets to go home! lease:

Please keep us posted! :thumb:

 

[mandiedq]

I received an e-mail today from Detective Robert D Sharp (the UID from East Troy is his case) saying that they are going to compare the DNA from the UID to Jeffrey Gibson's DNA.

Did you ever hear back?

 

[Ambercat]

Did you ever hear back?

I still haven't heard back from Detective Sharp. Unfortunately the guy with the shoes still isn't in NamUs.

Does anyone know how long it usually takes to find out if someone is a match? There are a few cases that I asked about that were ruled out quickly (a couple of days to a couple of months), then there are a few like this one that LE told me they were looking into then I didn't really hear from them again (and if the case was listed in NamUs, the missing person in question was never added as a rule-out).

 

[Ambercat]

The unidentified man from East Troy was just listed in NamUs --

https://identifyus.org/en/cases/12012

I guess that he wasn't Jeffrey Gibson, because Jeffrey's page on NamUs is no longer accessible. Maybe it is nosy of me, but I would like more information. I tried to search the internet and didn't find any news articles or anything about him being located.

 

[adorei]

I wonder if both shoes looked the same? When I saw the pic of the shoe, the first thing I thought of was the shoes some people get that have a higher sole because one of their legs is shorter than the other.

 

[vermontaigne]

This is a tough one. I think that these shoes probably were made this way to provide a little elevation for a short young man who felt he needed a bit of stature. The UID is estimated to have stood about 5'5" in life. The estimated time of death would have put his murder at about the time that corn detasseling is going on in this part of Wisconsin, but if the farmer who owned the field reported the find, it seems unlikely he was the killer, and migrant workers don't generally carry around shotguns. The time-frame might also fit a traveling carnival. He could have been employed in Lake Geneva during the summer resort season, too. Just a lot of possibilities.

I've seen shoes somewhat like those, with the lacing attaching the uppers, at markets in Mexico, so I'm personally inclined to view this UID as having been a temporary or undocumented worker from Mexico or Central America. He could have been from the Milwaukee-Kenosha corridor, since there were few Hispanic families in the East Troy area at the time. I'd already gone to college by this time, but I don't recall seeing many Hispanic families at St. Peter's (Catholic) in East Troy prior to that. His execution there makes me think drugs, but that's pure speculation.

As a meeting point, East Troy might make sense for one party arriving from Rockford/Beloit and the other from Milwaukee, or one from the Madison area and the other from Racine/Kenosha, or as speculated above, it might have been arranged around the location and timing of an Alpine Valley concert event. It might also have been a crime of passion between migrant workers, or the revenge of an unpaid coyote, or any number of other things. The Mariel boats from Cuba didn't begin till the next year, but certainly this UID could have been SE Asian, as suggested above, or Native American.

We've just got very little to go on, and not a whole lot of prospect of getting more info that might help, though it's good there's at least DNA (no dentals in NamUs). That gives at least a remote chance of identification, and, unfortunately, seems to me the best, slender chance.

 

[ginestra]

I wonder about this guy_

Missing: David Bird Thomson
Case: Unsolved Missing
Missing From: Minnetonka, MN
Missing Date: July 04, 1979
Race: W Sex: M
Age at Time Missing: 32
Height: 5’8 – 5’11″ tall
Weight: 175-184 lbs.
Hair Color: Brown, Receding hair line, hair just above shoulder length
Facial Hair: Beard
Eye Color: Blue (sometimes green)
Scars/Piercings/Unique Marks: scar on his right elbow and was in a car accident in 1964 resulting in a fracture in his growth bone of left shoulder, foreshortening his left arm, serious left leg fracture resulting in his leg being 3/8 of an inch shorter and a subsequent diagnosis of scoliosis.
Other: wore a ying yang necklace
Police Agency: Minnetonka Police, Detective Mark Stock at 952-939-8559 or the Montana DCI Investigator, John Strandell at 406-444-2759
Case Number: 92000446 NamUs MP #: 1890
Circumstance: Author David Bird Thomson,was 32 when he disappeared. Originally from Minnesota, Dave was last seen standing by Highway 7 and Williston Rd in Minnetonka. He had a back pack and no other belongings. After he was last seen he worked very briefly in Denver CO and Casper WY in 1979. He has not been seen or heard from since. He wore a ying yang necklace and was between 5’8 – 5’11″ tall and weighed aprox 175-184 lbs. David has a scar on his right elbow and was in a car accident in 1964 resulting in a fracture in his growth bone of left shoulder, foreshortening his left arm, serious left leg fracture resulting in his leg being 3/8 of an inch shorter and a subsequent diagnosis of scoliosis.

http://lostnmissing.org/missing/david-bird-thomson-july-4-1979-minnetonka-mn/

The timeline is right and the shorter leg. What do you think?

 

[vermontaigne]

I don't know. I got the idea that David wanted to head for the mountainous wilderness, where his last two known whereabouts were. He doesn't have black hair, which is what they've identified on this UID, and although we're all wary about reported heights, short stature still seems to me the reason for the lifter-style shoes, whereas David, even with the injuries, seems to have been of about average height. I know the forensic report on this UID is pretty sketchy, but there's a good chance evidence of healed severe bone breaks might still have been reported.

 

[ginestra]

The reports say his last sighting was in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Minnetonka has three creeks, 13 lakes and more than 400 wetlands. I see other reports saying he was last seen in Utah, but I think that is an error. Williston Road and highway 7 shows for Minnesota.

 

[ginestra]

The report seems odd, it states he was last seen in Minnesota, but worked "briefly" in Wyoming and Colorado later that year. I wonder if there was person confirming that(seeing him), or just based on his social security number being used.

 

[MaedchenX]

Regarding the shoes, from the perspective a casual observer who appreciates vintage fashion, they look similar to popular "comfort" wedge/platform shoes of the period.

Some examples:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/120002322/70s-wedge-shoes-caramel-leather-oxfords?ref=market
https://www.etsy.com/listing/159690...to=US&ga_search_type=vintage&ga_facet=vintage

I think it is possible they are women's shoes, thouugh aesthetically they read masculine (two-toned leather), but since heels were popular for both sexes in the 70s it is hard to say.

 

[Still_Seek_Answers]

I think he looks remarkably like
http://www.nampn.org/cases/foreman_clay.html

When compared to this photo of the UID....
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1552umwi.html

 

[Ambercat]

I think he looks remarkably like
http://www.nampn.org/cases/foreman_clay.html

When compared to this photo of the UID....
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1552umwi.html

I can see a resemblance to Clay Foreman, too. According to NamUs, DNA from both men is on file so it seems like it would automatically generate a match if they were the same person.

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/9344/121

 

[Still_Seek_Answers]

I can see a resemblance to Clay Foreman, too. According to NamUs, DNA from both men is on file so it seems like it would automatically generate a match if they were the same person.

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/9344/121

I know that is how it is supposed to work, but something we have learned over the years is this.....every time they think someone may be my sister, the detectives make them do a manual comparison. They say that is the only way to be sure. Also, in working Cali's case....the detective who has it requests manual comparisons on anybody he thinks is a possible match.....so I always discount the ruled out by default theory...JMO....but if the default theory is accurate, then why do detectives request manual comparisons?