True Crime All The Time - Janie Lou Gibbs

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Janie Lou Gibbs seemed like a normal wife and mother of three children. She was devoted to her church and ran her own daycare center to help working parents. She was respected by everyone in the small community of Cordele, Georgia. In 1966 and 1967, four of Janie’s family members died unexpectedly. It took the authorities some time to figure out that Janie Gibbs was behind the deaths.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss poisoner Janie Lou Gibbs. At Janie's trial, the prosecution told the jury that Janie was a sane woman who murdered her family members for life insurance money so that she could upgrade her lifestyle. The defense said she was mentally ill at the time she committed the murders, thought she was dying, and wanted her family to wait for her in heaven. Janie admitted to the murders so that wasn't in question. Was she a cold and calculating murderer or mentally ill and therefore could not be held responsible for her actions?You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 287 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime Mike Gibson. Give me, how are you? Hey man, I'm doing good about yourself. I'm doing well. I think I mentioned last week that I was down on my back. Yeah. I've been doing my teeter, which I've had for many, many years. I swear by it. And it's all better. I know you like to play with your teeter a lot. I do. Yeah. It works very, very well. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Emily Whitecotton. Hey, Emily. Mary Gibbs jumped out at our highest level. What's up, Gibbs? Nickia. Hey, Nickia. Melissa Myers. Well, thank you, Myers. Melissa Cox. Hey, Melissa. Erica Grenier jumped out at our highest level.

Greenier. Chinier. Chania Parker. Hey, Shania. Megan Stamp. What's going on, Megan? Leslie Fromer. Hey, Frommer from Bueller. Yeah, anybody? Bueller. Amy Urban jumped out at our highest level. What's going on, Urban? Creepy Hands Creation jumped out at our highest level. What's up? creepy. Clifford Poole.

Hey, Clifford. Angela. Angela. Jenny Barber. Thank you, Jenny. Mary Ann Comstock. Hey, good old Comstock. And last but not least, Kinsey Richards.

Hey, Kenzie. So we appreciate all that new support. And then if we go back into the vault. This week, we selected Megan St. Louis. Oh, thank you. St. Louis. So very cool. Appreciate all that support. We had some great PayPal donations from rental home, but we always like it when the rental home donates. Yep. Judy Larson. Hey, Judy. And Bill Ratcliffe. What's going on, Ratcliffe? So thanks to all of you as well. Gives right now

on True Crime all the time unsolved. We have an episode out on the disappearance of Ayla Reynolds. Yeah, it's a really interesting case up in Maine, you know, young 20, month old girl goes missing and we're kind of look at the family dynamics to try to figure out if we can see what happened. Yeah. So an interesting case, make sure you check that out. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime all the time? I'm ready. We're talking about a mother and wife named Janie Lou Gibbs who killed various members of her family. Now, hopefully with her last name of Gibbs, it doesn't get to. too confusing since I do call you Gibbs a lot.

I'm already confused. Yeah, I guess we'll have to see how it goes. Janie Lou Gibbs seemed like a normal wife and mother of three children. She was devoted to church and she ran her own daycare center to help working parents. She was respected by everyone in the small community of Cordial, Georgia in 1966 and 1967. Four of her family members died unexpectedly. And at first, Gibbs, no one could have suspected that Janie was the reason behind it. Janie Lou Gibbs was born on December 25th, 1932. Her parents were Ephraim and Annie Lou Hickox. She had two siblings named Helen and John Mark. Janie married a man named Charles Clayton Gibbs when she was 17 years old.

Charles was born on June 27th, 1926. Janie later told psychiatrists that the marriage was a constant struggle. They just faced hurdle after hurdle. And she also told them that she was never truly happy in her marriage. Well, you know, it's a little rough sometimes when you get married that young because you really don't know a lot about life yet. Yeah, I get that. I get that. I mean, marriage is tough at any age.

You and I have talked about that. Sure. She's 17, he's 23, give or take. But the couple did have three children together. Roger Ludeen Gibbs, who was born in 1948, Melvin Lester Watts Gibbs, born in 1950, and Marvin Ronald Gibbs, born in 1953. The family lived in Cordial, Georgia, which I saw listed as the watermelon capital of the world. Some big old watermelon.

down there. So you're saying that it's size alone that determines whether you're the capital of something? No, but they've got some big old watermelons down there. Okay. So you just know that out of personal experience. That's what you do the watermelon crawl. I would like to go to Cordial because I'll tell you right now, I can put away some watermelon like nobody's business. It was said that Charles worked as an appliance repairman. Janie was described by those who knew her as soft-spoken. She was a very religious woman and very involved in her church. She also loved to cook for her family. People thought she was a devoted mother. I read one newspaper article Gibbs. It was put out by the UPI in 1967, in which they described Janie Lou Gibbs as a plump

Auburn-haired woman who ran a nursery for the children of working mothers. Plump. Plump. They used the word plump. Really? In this article, can you imagine a reporter writing an article today and describing a woman in those terms? No.

You know why? Because it wouldn't happen. No, wouldn't not. But, you know, one of the things that you and I often talk about, maybe not always during the episode is these articles we read, you know, as we're researching. Yeah. They may be not even related to the case we're working on. They said a lot of stuff back in the 50s and 60s.

Obviously, that would never fly today. No. I don't think any reporter would describe a woman as plump. I also would hope they wouldn't describe myself as plump. or rotund. Well, that's a good one. They used to use that one a lot. Really?

Guys were rotund. Roton. Neither one of those is something that I would like to have written about me. No. The rotund podcast. Nice. Mike Ferguson. Mrs. Jack Dowdy, wife of the pastor told the making news.

Janie is a wonderful person. Very considerate, kind, congenial Christian as I knew her, this is the most horrible thing we've ever experienced. Now, obviously that's something that came out after the murders and things that we're going to go into detail about congenial. Don't hear that very often anymore. No, I don't know how many of us are anymore. Yeah, it's true. You know, if you're talking real life, okay, I think people are for the most part congenial. If you're getting into social media and things like that. A lot of that has kind of gone by the wayside. Yes. But Janie Lou Gibbs murdered her husband, her three sons and her grandson in

1966 and 67. Afterwards, she donated a portion of the life insurance money to her church. Well, because if you do that, maybe she thought, hmm, it makes it okay. Yeah. And we may talk about it, get into that part in detail a little bit later. So her husband Charles died in January of 1966. His cause of death initially was listed as a heart attack. But after his death, Janie used the life insurance money to buy a large white clapboard house. And she renovated this house to open a daycare center. At one point, she cared for as many as 25 children. Wow. Yeah, wow. 25 children's a lot. It is for one person that wouldn't fly today. They have rules. They have laws that say you have to have, you know, a person there for every so many. Right.

Kids, which is good. It's hard to keep track of 25 young ones. Unless you just lock them all in the garage. But it's also, I think, even more unbelievable that this woman was caring for 25 kids at a time when it comes out that she murdered her own kids. Scary. You find that out and you're one of the parents who was sending your child to her daycare. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to have some things to wrestle with. Yeah.

So then you have her husband dying of a heart attack. He wasn't that old. I mean, obviously you can have a heart attack at any age, but most of the time you hear about heart attacks when people are much older than he was. Yeah, he wasn't, he wasn't that old. Janie lived near her former sixth grade teacher who told the Atlanta Constitution. She was an average student, very quiet. She was always a nice person. I didn't see her again after that until she moved in next door. But Gibbs just about seven months. after Janie's husband died, her 13-year-old son, Marvin, died in August of 1966.

Marvin became sick. After eating one of his mother's home-cooked meals, he complained of dizziness, headaches, and cramps. He died before he could be admitted to the hospital. Doctors declared his cause of death, undiagnosed liver disease, or virulent hepatitis, according to the Macon News. Now, the UPI in an article I saw from them described his cause of death as a rare muscular disease.

Sounds like a rough way to go. Yeah, it sounds rough. I can imagine it was probably a very agonizing death. Now, what was said was that Jamie's church was very supportive of her after she lost her husband and her son. She also received another life insurance payout. after Marvin's death. And I think that's very natural, right?

When you're very involved in the church, they're going to rally around you. Sure. Plus she donated money to them at one point. That's true. So they're definitely going to rally around you when you lose your spouse. But within the same year, you lose a 13 year old son.

I mean, people are going to, you know, they're going to make meals for you. They're really going to want to look out for you. you because that's a rough situation for anyone. But tragedy struck the family again in January of 1967 when 16-year-old Melvin Gibbs died at the hospital. Doctors determined he died of what was called porphyria, which is also a rare muscular disease. I'll tell you what, you know,

less than six months, a second kid has died. I think it should be thrown up some red flags, But I'm sure that the church is also consoling her because of the amount of loss she's had in one year. Grief. Grief. But let's get back to your red flag thing. Okay. If your husband dies of a heart attack around the age of 40, that can happen. Sure.

That happens all across the world every day. Yeah. But then to follow it up very quickly with the death of a 13 year old and then follow that. up very quickly with the death of a 16 year old. These are all people who live in your house. And someone should be asking questions. Well, they should. They definitely should because if you were to peg the eye at, you know, what they would be for, let's say a 40 year old, a 13 year old and a 16 year old in the same family to die in that span of time. I would think Gibbs the odds would be astronomical. And we're not talking about an accident where they all three died at the same time.

Right. Three people dying at at separate times, separate, you know, different intervals. I don't even know what those odds would be. At the time of his death, Melvin was dating a 15 year old named Ellen Penny. Ellen later spoke to the show Deadly Women about her experience. She said she noticed that Melvin started having terrible headaches. He looked pale and the whites of his eyes turned red. But she also said, you know, Melvin didn't like to make a big deal out of being sick and he tried to brush it off. And unfortunately, Gibbs, I think a lot of us do that. We do. And I will say from my experience, A lot of males do that. Yeah.

You know, we want to think we're tough. And so when something's bothering us, it's almost like asking for directions, right? Guys don't want to ask for directions. A lot of guys don't want to go to the doctor or go to the hospital because they think, ah, it's going to get better. Sure. I'm going to shrug it off. And sometimes that's a real mistake.

It can be. It can be costly. And in Melvin's case, his conditioned worsened. worsened. Now, he did go finally to see doctors, but they couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. What no one knew at the time was that Janie was dosing her son with arsenic. Ellen said she came to the house one day and heard Melvin shout, you did it, you did it. He was sitting up in bed. He was staring at his mother. His pillow was lying on the floor, as if he had just thrown it at her. Janie saw that Ellen was watching and said,

Did you see what he did? I don't know what it is I'm supposed to have done. And I think Gibbs at the time, you know, everyone thought this was kind of an outburst, probably brought on because he was delirious from his condition. Sure. I mentioned it. His condition continued to worsen and worsen.

He was admitted to the hospital. Ellen later said that she saw Janie, pour out the water that the hospital provided and pour her own water into the pitcher. I mean, that's very suspicious. Well, it's suspicious. I think Janie tried to explain it away by saying that the hospital water had too much sulfur in it and it burned Melvin's throat. But then Janie asked Ellen to pour Melvin a glass of water and give it to him.

And she asked Ellen to refill his water several times. And Ellen said she noticed that Melvin was becoming very sick after drinking the water. She put her hands on him. And she said she felt the moment when his heart stopped beating. Drinking that water. Yeah. She told deadly women, I don't really blame myself, but I think she got some kind of perverse pleasure. Now, that's something.

You know, you've got a mother who is trying to. trying to poison her son. Now he's in the hospital. She's still trying to do it, but she's getting her son's young girlfriend to pour the water, to hand him the glass. Making her be part of this. Yes. So in that respect, Gibbs, I could see it.

She's standing back, maybe getting some kind of, you know, perverse thrill out of because she's manipulating this whole thing. After Melvin's death, Janie bought a car. And it was said that she never wore the same dress twice again. The church was constructing a new building at the time. Janie donated $1,000 towards this construction project. And I think you kind of touched on this earlier.

But profilers have said that they believe she either donated the money because she felt guilty or she did it in some type of calculated manner to minimize suspicion on her. Well, because there's going to be suspicion on her. How could there not be? She's the mom. Husband dies. Two sons die. Yeah. Is she cooking the meals? Is she, you know, involved in the food prep? Well, what's going on? How would you like to be the remaining kids? You'd be scared. Yeah. for sure. And, you know, to your point, people did start to become suspicious. But nobody wanted to say anything because what if they were wrong? If they were wrong, then they would be accusing an innocent woman of murder. And I, and I draw some parallels to today. You know, I think we see some of

this happen time and time again, right? Killer say something on social media. You know, I think we see some of this happen time and time again. right killers say something on social media or they're telling friends that they're doing this, they're going to do this or that. But people don't take it seriously. They're just not sure what to do with that information. Do they go to police and kind of get somebody in trouble who they believe may just be kind of blowing off steam? now obviously they're going to feel bad when something truly terrible happens and they realize that

they had knowledge of it beforehand. Janie's friends later reported to the making news that she never lost her composure after her husband and children died. Friends and neighbors reported that Janie talked frankly and calmly about the deaths and her family. She wanted privacy and they said she slept a lot. Janie once said, why did all this happen to me? You know, it's a little strange that she acted the way she did, I think.

I mean, the fact that she never lost her composure, that she stayed put together after losing husband and two of your own kids, man, I don't know how you can keep it together after you lose two of your kids unless you're the reason why you lost two kids. Yeah, obviously, we know that is the reason, but we have said before. Right. People react to death differently. But it's hard to imagine a mother, a wife, losing a husband and two sons and being able to keep it together so well, you know, not showing a lot of emotion in front of at the very least friends and family. I get it. You might want to try to keep it together for strangers as you're walking down the street. Sure. But there's got to be times where. You're alone with a friend or a family member where you just break down. But I don't think she did that. Hey, T-Cat fans, you know some things are inevitable, like allergy season.

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that's upstart.com slash teacat to check your rate today. Don't forget to use our URL to let them know we sent you. Loan amounts will be determined based on your credit, income, and certain other information provided in your loan application. Go to upstart.com slash teacat. Now one bright spot after all this tragedy was the birth of Roger's son, Ronnie Edward, in August 1967, Roger, his wife, Jeanette Foster Gibbs, and the new baby moved into Janie's home. And I found this interesting, right? We just talked about if you're one of the remaining children in the home or in the family, would you be a little bit worried? I would. But I'm taking from this that Roger wasn't. Not only is he going to move into the home with his mom, but he's bringing his wife and his newborn son. So he couldn't have been that worry. He wasn't.

meaning he couldn't have been that suspicious of his mom at that point. But Ronnie Edward Gibbs died at just one month old in October of 1967. And I think doctors were extremely concerned after his death. He was a healthy baby. And it was said in a number of different reports that an autopsy was performed on Ronnie, but they didn't test for poison during the autopsy. Now, you think about a month old baby dying.

It's tragic. Right. Heartbreaking. To think about an autopsy being done on such a small baby. I can't imagine it happens all that often. I could be completely wrong about that. Yeah. But then 19 year old Roger died not that long after his son.

Roger died within a week of first experiencing severe stomach cramps and dizziness. So, I mean, we talked about a husband and two sons dying. Now you have two healthy individuals in the same family, in the same household, dying within about a month of each other, not only doctors, but insurance adjusters, you know, became very suspicious. But Janie refused an autopsy because she didn't want her family to be in her words all cut open. But what's that going to do, Gibbs? It's going to make the police suspicious of Janie.

Well, sure. Five people have died in her household. And she had refused autopsies in the past on some of these other family members. So I think if you are the police, number one, the number one, the number of. alone is alarming in that stretch of time. If we were talking about 30 or 40 years and people dying, okay, that's maybe a little different. This is a very short span of time where five people, one of them, a 20 month old baby, right, died. And you specifically are saying that you don't want autopsies performed. Do you not want to know what happened to your family members? I get it where a person

would say, I just really don't want my family member to be cut open like that. I understand that. I'm sure there are people who, you know, would have that thought. But if you're a mother, don't you want to know what is going on? And if you don't, well, from a police standpoint, there might be a reason. Absolutely. And you've got to ask why, you know, I can see after the husband dies, okay, even after the first child. Maybe. Maybe. The third death, why wouldn't you want to look into that? And then two others follow, you know, very quickly. Now, Roger's wife, Jeanette exercised her right as next of kin, and she demanded an autopsy, probably for the same reasons we just talked about. Yeah. And thank goodness she was around. My husband was 19 years old. Yeah.

Healthy. We need to know what happened. And I think at some point, you know, Gibbs, the police just thought, something's not right here. They arrested Janie on December 23rd, 1967 for the murder of her son, Roger Gibbs. Some outlets listed this as her 35th birthday, although other sources, say she was born on the 25th. I think we said she was born on the 25th. Right. You have this problem with reporting from the 50s and 60s, even the 70s all the time is all over the map when it comes to ages, the dates that people were born. Now, authorities came out and said they theorized that Janie had poisoned her son, Roger, little by little over time by lacing his morning coffee with arsenic. And that scares me to no end.

Sure. It should. Well, you know, I drink a massive amount of coffee. You do. It's in sight at all times, though. But could it be that I go get up to go to the bathroom and my wife sneaks down into the basement, does something to it? These, that's why to me, these type of familial murders. Right. Right. Are extremely scared. I don't think my wife would do that. I trust my wife. I love my wife. But I'm sure all of these people and these stories that we talk about love their wife, love their mom, never thought in a million years.

They would do something. That she would try to do something to harm them. Well, this is why I keep tampered resistant lids on everything I own. Even though you live by yourself. You never know. You never know when you might tamper with. your own stuff. Exactly. You just never know. Now, Janie did admit to feeding her family members rat poison, but she wouldn't detail out

to police her motive. So I think based on that, officials decided, yeah, we've got to look into all the deaths and investigate each one. Janie's preliminary hearing was scheduled to take place on December 26th, but the judge delayed. Janie cried in court and she really didn't speak except to answer yes or no questions. She was appointed to attorneys on a temporary basis and the judge postponed her preliminary hearing to allow her an opportunity to hire her own attorney. And then just the very next day, Judge McMurray granted the axiomations of Charles, Marvin and Melvin according to the Atlanta Constitution,

Judge McMurray said in his order that the family died under unusual and suspicious circumstances. And there are reasons to believe that their deaths were caused by foul play and unlawful means. Well, this is really important to do. This has to be done. No, I think it does. The other thing that really kind of strikes me is, you know, this doesn't take a Perry Mason type person to me to me to kind of figure all of this. out, you know, I would think Gibbs, this had to have been a pretty easy decision for this judge, weighing all the facts and, you know, the number of deaths and the timing and all of that.

And the fact that, you know, she did admit to feeding her family rat poison, okay, you're going to want to exhum these bodies and find out exactly what happened. So officers went to the Sunnyside cemetery and cordial to begin their work. The UPI reported that the exhumation was supervised by Dr. Larry Howard from the Georgia State Crime Lab. And the way they talked about it Gibbs was basically they put up a big tent around the graves. They exhumed the bodies one by one.

And Dr. Howard, along with his associates, perform the autopsies right there. Wow. Yeah, I thought the same thing. I don't think that's normal. I think for the most part, you're exhuming a body, you're transporting that body back to the lab or, you know, back to your, your work area and doing the work. Eventually, that body's going to be brought back and reburied. That's not how they did it. It was also said that there were cars full of onlookers and the police had to keep them moving along on the road about 100 feet away because they wanted to see what was going on. Well, what was the excitement of the town? Well, you know, by this time, the reports had come out, right?

I'm sure. Newspapers, some television. So they're doing the autopsies. They removed vital organs. And then the bodies were reburied immediately after the autopsies were completed. It was reported to have taken around 45 minutes to perform. to perform each one. Dr. Howard found that Roger's liver and kidneys were severely damaged.

And then later testing of the tissue samples at the state crime lab found several milligrams of arsenic. You kind of got to wonder, could onlook or see the doctors performing the autopsies? I don't think so. The way it was described with these tents set up, I think they were shielded. But you know, gives what we talk about. about in an episode last week, people took a crabapple tree from the spot where, you know, a couple of murders took place as like a souvenir. Yeah, they wanted it. So, you know,

when we talk about the fascination with true crime. And right now it's, it's probably as high as it's ever been. But it's always been high. You know, people have always been fascinated with killers and, you know, trying to figure out how they can do the things that they do. So we talked about little 20-month-old run. When he died, pathologists from Emory University performed his autopsy. They then later turned over their sample to the state crime lab for further testing. On December 27th, 1967, Wright Tilly of the Albany Herald published an interview that she held with Janie. Janie said about her family's deaths.

I don't question God's work. The Bible says they will get their reward. I never thought any of them would die. I just tried to keep it out of my mind. It will be the loneliest Christmas I have ever spent and birthday too. She went on to say, I just naturally love children. I don't know what I would do without them. It's all right in the day with these children, but when they leave, it's dark.

and you've got the whole night to spend with the four walls looking at you. So she's going to say some more, but let's break this first part down. I never thought any of them would die. So you thought rat poison was a good thing with no chance that these people were going to die. And let's just say this. If you didn't think they were going to die, we'll have to kill one. Maybe stop with the rat poison. Yeah.

Especially by number two, you're like, hey, this is probably too much rap, boys. And then her saying it will be the loneliest Christmas and birthday that she ever spent. Whose fault's that? Exactly. I never understand the thoughts and the words that come from some of these individuals, talking about how much she loves children. Janie said that when Charles was dying, he told her she should prepare to be alone.

She told Tilly Wright, at first I thought he meant that. I would no longer have him. But now, after all this, I think he must have known somehow. He must have known that what? She was not going to stop with him, that she was going to continue killing family member after family member. Or the other thing that you could look at Gibbs is that he knew. She had done this to him.

Yeah. So she did this interview, but for the most part, she refused to talk to the papers. The Atlanta Constitution wrote that she told reporters. she told reporters who came to her door, I just don't want to talk about it. That's all. I wouldn't want to talk about it either if I had done what Janie Lou Gibbs did. Yeah, I'd be ashamed. She should be ashamed. But was she? That's the question. On January 11th, 1968, Judge McMurray signed an order to transport Janie to Albany for psychiatric tests. Her attorneys requested this order. She was transported to Phoebe Putney Hospital, and then she later returned to Cordial after her psychiatric exam finished

the week of January 15th. The test results of the family members' autopsies were given to the Solicitor General on January 21st. Now, the Solicitor General declined to announce the results, but the Macon Telegraph News reported that higher than normal amounts of arsenic were found in all five bodies. They wrote, amounts of arsenic poison were found in all five bodies in excess of normal amounts, sometimes found in deceased persons. Some bodies do normally have some amounts of arsenic while others do not. So it's not a lot of information that they're giving out. No, but the key thing is that they acknowledge that five victims had arsenic. Now, the show deadly women provided additional details about Melvin's autopsy. They said his liver and kidneys had 20 times the normal amount

of arsenic found in the human body. So that's much more descriptive, right? Much more telling than just higher levels than what would normally be found in a body. 20 times really let you in on the amount. Yeah. So when you hear numbers like that, It screams murder. Yeah, to me it does. A grand jury met on February 7th, 1968, to consider Janie's case. And we talked about it earlier. Janie was first sent to a psychiatric hospital for testing.

She was brought back to the Crisp County Jail on February 4th, 1968. After undergoing further examination at Talmadge Memorial Hospital in Augusta, under court order, Dr. Turner and Dr. E.J. McCraney of Talmadge Memorial determined that Janie was legally insane. Dr. Turner reported that Janie suffered from reality distortion and schizophrenia or what he called split personality. Psychiatrist determined she was not presently psychotic, but she was insane at the time of the murders. It really fascinates me when people are considered insane only at the time that they commit these horrendous crimes. Yeah, I mean, you know, you can go through a number of cases where that has happened. I think as always does happen, thinking changes throughout the years, right?

50s, 60s up until today, the thoughts about mental health have changed. mental health is viewed in the context of the criminal justice system has changed. Yeah. But we're dealing with 1968 here. Now, I get it. People can snap. And I think we just talked about this in the last couple of weeks, right? The, the example you always hear is about somebody who walks in on their spouse cheating

on that. Right. And they snap and they do something really bad. but to hear that she's not presently psychotic, but she was insane at the time of the murders. Okay, well, all these murders didn't happen at one time. It happened over a span of time. Exactly. So you're saying as a psychiatrist that for this one two year period of time, she was insane.

Or are you saying that she was insane at the time that each murder happened, but in between she was not psychotic. It's just hard to wrap your mind around. Right. And when does that clock start and stop? Yeah. Because she was poisoning them. So over a period of time.

Yeah. I don't know how you can say that it's just defined to that moment. Or a period of time. So after the last murder, she was mentally okay is kind of what you're saying? I mean, it does seem strange, right? There's no doubt about that. Dr. Alan Turner and Albany psychiatrist testified at the grand jury hearing that Janie admitted to poisoning her family but didn't express any guilt or remorse. She admitted to poisoning Roger but didn't actually believe he was dead.

This guy said that Janie knew right from wrong, but she viewed the world as an evil place. Her family shouldn't be forced to live in. So she didn't think they should have been forced to live in it, but shouldn't she have given them the option? Well, I'm assuming if she would have asked them, they would have said, no, we're good. We would like to continue to live in this world. Yeah. Now, you may think it's corrupt, it's evil.

We're good with it. Dr. Turner also determined that Janie suffered from schizophrenia. Her attorneys pleaded in Sandy when the Solicitor General called on. on Janie to stand trial. And the grand jury declared Janie legally insane. She was ordered to be committed to the state hospital until she has been cured of her mental illness. That's how the order read, if she was cured, then she would stand trial.

But Janie remained at the hospital until 1976. Clearly she didn't have a doctor from what about Bob. No, obviously not. But this is something that has always mystified me as well. You have people who, and these are professionals, these are not people off the street. Professionals who are saying, okay, she was legally insane at the time she committed the murders. The jury found her legally insane, but the minute she is deemed competent, she's going to stand trial. Now, it's going to take about eight years for that to happen.

But that's the part that I, that I don't get. Is it merely the fact that they don't want to try someone who at that point in time is deemed to be back then the words they used were legally insane? Right. But then when she's not, we're going to put her on trial. Even though people have said she was legally insane at the time she committed the murders, right? So a little strange. Janie Gibbs was found sane in order to stand trial on June,

12, 1974. District Attorney Turk was informed by a psychiatrist that she was not presently psychotic. But her attorneys Gibbs filed 37 motions, challenges, and pleas to delay her trial. They didn't really want this to go forward. No. Well, obviously, that's their goal, right, is to put gum in the works. Janie was not indicted on the other four murder charges until June 1974 when doctors at Central State Hospital declared her saying. But I said she remained at the hospital until 1976. Judge McMurray rejected all of the motions but one. And that was the one that asked for a speedy trial.

Dr. Juan Perez of Central State Hospital testified that he conducted testing on Janie for 14 months. That's a long time. it is a long time to observe somebody and he believed she was saying but again gives i go back to sane right now or sane at the time she committed the murders that's a key information jury selection began on april 30th the trial started on may 4th nineteen 76 district attorney d e turk led the prosecution and all the following trial quotes come from the Atlanta Constitution. They did a lot of reporting on her case.

Turk told the jury that he would introduce a 14-page confession, where Janie admitted to the poisonings. Now, she initially denied killing Roger, but then confessed to everything in later interviews. The prosecution revealed that in total, Janie collected $31,000 in life insurance, payouts after her husband and three sons died. Which was a lot of money back in that time.

Yeah, $31,000, a lot of money. Now, she gave 10% of that money to her church. Well, she had to feel good about something, I guess. Janie admitted to poisoning Roger on October 22nd, 1967. And then after going to church, Turk also revealed that Ronnie died from arsenic in his milk bottle. Wow, man. I mean, these are all brutal. These are all family members. But to think about a helpless young baby and you're putting poison in that baby's milk bottle, you are a freaking monster. Yeah, from what I understand, arsenic poisoning is not easy on the system. I don't think it's a,

it's an easy way to go at all. Yeah. The prosecution talked about, the autopsies that were done early on, but that no arsenic testing was done. And that's how she got away with some of the murders. Two doctors testified that they were puzzled by the deaths and they didn't even consider poisoning as a cause of death. So there's a couple of things that jump out at me. You know, if you're puzzled by a death, well, maybe you would want to expand your testing, right?

Because you're so puzzled. You would think. Or do you think, all right, these kids are home with their mom. No way is a mother going to poison her own husband, her own children, a very young baby. Doesn't even enter your mind. Yeah, maybe, and especially back then, maybe people didn't think like that. I think today, people would be more quisitive. Good word choice.

I like it. Neighborer Aline Maddox testified. that when doctor suggested an autopsy after Marvin's death, Janie declined because, as we said earlier, she didn't want him to be cut open. Former GBI director, Hugh Smith, GBI Lieutenant J.H. Perry, and officer Jan Yon testified that Janney appeared sane and rational

when she was arrested. And she confessed pretty quickly after what they called a token denial. So I take that to mean, no, I didn't do it. Right. And then kind of a breakdown pretty quickly thereafter. Dr. W.A. Kennedy testified for the state and said that Janie had an IQ of 81, lower than average, but she had full capacity to tell right from wrong. He examined Janie back in 1968.

Yeah, I think she knew what she was doing. She just had no remorse about it, like she said. She wasn't remorseful. Well, and it's the big thing in this case, right? When you talk about the status of her mental health at the time of these murders, was she to use a phrase that they used back then legally insane? Or Gibbs, did she know exactly what she was doing? And she just had no remorse about it.

And she was doing it to, you know, get the life insurance money. I mean, it's one of the really big questions in this case. Jeanette Gibbs testified about Roger's death. She said that Janie helped take care of Ronnie and brought him gifts. Janie tried to talk Jeanette out of ordering an autopsy on both Roger and Ronnie saying they've already suffered enough. Okay, they did suffer. At her hands. At her hands.

I think they suffered greatly. But this, you know, talking everyone out of. of an autopsy, you know, telling the police, no, I don't want one. And then trying to talk Jeanette, the wife and mother out of the autopsies on her husband and son. That's pretty calculating. And I think you have to factor that in and determining just how sane this woman was at the time. Right. She went to great lengths, right?

To not get autopsies done. Did. That's pretty calculating. my view, Leonard Harp and insurance salesman testified that Janie summoned him to the house shortly after the death of her husband so that she could take out policies on her three sons. He said that she told him she didn't have enough money, didn't have enough insurance money to bury her husband properly. So she asked for a $2,500 policy for each of her children, but Harp sold her bigger policies after he talked to her about what was a pretty inconsequential cost difference.

And it was just five months later that Janie's son Marvin died. And that's another thing I thought about, I'm surprised that the insurance company didn't try harder. To investigate these deaths. Exactly. Yeah. Especially when you find out that I don't know if all the policies, sounds like all the policies were with the same company.

Yeah. Should have been on red flag. That's not going to be a huge red flag that flies across somebody's desk. Hey, folks, five people have died in the same family in less than two years. We might want to send an investigator down there to figure out what the heck is going on. Heck, an insurance company would grill me about a roof after a major hail storm. Right. And try to tell me that the hail didn't cause the damage.

but yet five people have died and they're not going to fight that. Seems strange. It does seem strange. Before the prosecution rested, they called Dr. William Anderson, who treated all three of Janie's sons. He said that he thought Janie seemed like an ordinary concerned mother attempting to do what was required. She seemed loved by her children.

So obviously, she took them to the doctor on a somewhat regular basis. this guy is testifying that she brought the kids in, she seemed like a good mother. The prosecution rested on Wednesday, May 5th after questioning 14 witnesses. Turk established that the victims all died of arsenic poisoning. Janie collected $31,000 in insurance money. Most of it shortly after she took out the policies.

And her friends, relatives, and experts found her saying. So this is the prosecution. This is what they're laying out to the jury. Right. Defense attorney Frank Martin argued that acquittal is the only possible legal verdict because Janie was found insane by a grand jury. And the life insurance money was recovered in a trial in 1969. So we didn't go into detail about that. I didn't find a lot about it.

But I'm taking from that that maybe. you know, a year or two after, the insurance company did come after her. And I think by that point, obviously she'd been arrested. So yes, they're going to come after her. They're going to want as much of that money back as they can get. But that seems like a strange argument to make. Okay, the prosecution is saying she killed her family for the insurance money. But the insurance company got some of that money back.

They did. So you can't hold that against. her. That's basically what the defense attorney is saying. But he went on to say that Janie didn't kill for money. Before she killed her family, she went to a doctor in Albany because she wasn't feeling well. Now, I found some sources who said that she was diagnosed with ALS and other sources say that Janie was diagnosed with Parkinson's later in life. But basically what the defense tried to put forward was that Janie decided that she wanted to send her family to heaven before her so that they could be there waiting for her when she died and then they would all be together.

Well, even if that's true, how selfish is that? Pretty selfish. Yeah. And that still doesn't give her the right to do what she did. No, it's not only selfish, it's illegal, it's immoral. I mean, you can make all kinds of different arguments, but it's sometimes very comical. to me Gibbs, not the situation, right? The situation is tragic. What's comical is what some defense attorneys try to throw against the wall, try to throw it the jury. You know, you can't hold the insurance money against her because the insurance company got some of that back. Still five people are dead. She knew she was going to die. So she wanted her family to be waiting on her in heaven. That's a legal argument. Well, how she thinks she's going to see her family anyway? She's committing

murder. So she's not going to heaven anyway. But again, in people's minds, the way they think, or was it even real? See, that's the thing. The defense is going to throw as much out there as they can. Right. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense, but they got to go with what they, what they can cobble together. Sure. Yeah. You know, a lot of the cases that we do Gibbs, these are not easy people to represent, right? You got to, you got to believe that. As a defense, attorney, you know you've got your work cut out with some of these people that we do on true crime all the time. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, they're going to have to rally up a lot of experts to try to get the jury to decide maybe she wasn't mentally healthy. And they did present a number of

experts. The defense presented Joseph Duke's clinical chaplain at Central State. He said that he believe Janie was a very sick woman and didn't know right from wrong. Ford defense experts testified that Janie was insane when she murdered her family members. Dr. W.K. Smith testified she was very clearly mentally ill, schizophrenic, a sort of splitting of the mind. Dr. Juan Perez, Dr. Jose Mendoza, and Dr. E. James McCraney testified that Janie was schizophrenic and didn't know right from wrong.

at the time of the murders. Dr. Mendoza testified that over a period of eight years, Janie received 11 shock treatment. Well, so the defense has laid out a pretty good case. Well, it always helps to have a bunch of doctors. Sure. You know, juries tend to believe doctors. But, you know, Mendoza, he treated Janie after the murders.

Right. So the fact that she had 11 shock treatments over eight years, what is the jury to make of that, that you decided that she needed all these shock treatments? I don't know. Janie's brother was her legal guardian. He testified that after her arrest, Janie didn't have a lawyer and the police took a statement from her anyway. The case went to the jury on May 7th. The prosecutor said in his closing argument, these were calculated, premeditated, cold-blooded killings done with malice of forethought.

She did it not one time, but five times. He called the defense psychiatrist's determination pure guesswork. He then pointed to Janie and said, I don't claim she did it for the insurance money. I don't know why she did it. The only person who knows why she did it was Janie Lou Gibbs herself. Frank Martin for the defense said, if there was no criminal intent, then she's not guilty. and there was no criminal intent because she was mentally ill. The acts alone are enough to find her insane.

And again, you know, I get it. The defense is trying. They're trying. They're trying. Here's another statement that to me just doesn't make a lot of sense. Basically, what he's saying is that anyone who would poison their family is automatically insane because they committed those acts. Yeah.

How else could you do something like that if you weren't? Right. And that's an argument. I just don't think it's a good argument. I'm not saying she was 100% mentally healthy. I just don't think the act of killing like that alone makes you insane. Again, to use a term that they used back then. Yeah.

I keep going back to the fact that she also was not remorseful and that she did it again. and again and again. On May 8th, 1976, Janie Gibbs was found guilty of five counts of murder and sentenced to five consecutive life sentences. She was transferred to the Georgia women's

correctional institution. So we go through this trial, both sides present their, their arguments. Obviously, we know where the jury came out. They believed the prosecution. They didn't believe that

she was mentally, ill at the time she committed the murders. They didn't believe all the defense psychiatrists. And they definitely didn't believe Frank Martin when he said the acts alone are enough to find her insane. Frank Martin told the press that Janie understood she was convicted. I think she understood that the jury's verdict was that they didn't think she was insane when the action was committed.

She did not understand the sentences. or the fact that they were consecutive. Janie's brother told the Atlanta Constitution that he was not pleased with the verdict, but said she's had her day in court. So Janie's in prison, five life sentences to be served consecutively, but she was eligible for parole. Did you kind of find hard to believe, right? Five life sentences, consecutive.

It was said that she was denied parole 17 times. So to me, she must have come up fairly early. I was thinking the same thing. But again, that is, you know, a little bit of the difference, right? In sentencing laws back in, let's say the 60s versus today. Now, you can still get a life sentence with parole, but usually that parole is going to come up pretty far down the line. Yeah, maybe after 20 years. 20 years, let's say.

And if you have five consecutive life sentence. sentences, it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough to get parole. In January 1992, the Atlantic Constitution published an article titled, Alone and Dying, She Just Dreams of Going Back Home. By that time, Janie suffered from emphysema, and she needed a walker to get around. She had difficulty speaking due to Parkinson's. She spent most of her time alone in her room, crocheting Afghans and listening to music. She wanted to live with her brother Joe and his wife. She told the Atlanta Constitution,

I picture being there, helping them cooking, cleaning up the house, baking cakes. She told the paper, I miss my family. I would never hurt my family if I had known what I was doing. Well,

I think she knew what she was doing. I think she did too. I don't have proof of that, right? I can't conclusively say that. that. I can say I think, but obviously even many years later, she's sticking with the, I didn't know what I was doing defense. Yeah. I was out of my mind at the time that, you know, I killed all my family members. It was around the time that this article was published that some

fellow prisoners and, and other supporters outside of the prison began a campaign to have her released, because she was elderly dying. They said, you know, she was no longer a danger to anyone. One inmate wrote, all this lady wants is the dignity to die at home. Those inmates who will most likely return to prison are paroled. Those who won't return, like Miss Janie, are retained as long as possible. Frank Martin told the paper, I think the magnitude of the case from day one, even today,

overwhelmed everyone who dealt with it. And that's something that we don't often spend a lot of time talking about, Gibbs. The attorneys involved in these cases and what these cases do to them. Sometimes you see it in some of the documentaries, especially, you know, like let's say the staircase. Right. Because that one spanned such a length of time. It did. That guy that represented Peterson, there's a.

part in that documentary where he really talks about how it weighed on him, it wore him down. I think it aged him because it takes so much of yourself. I think as a defense attorney to try one of these really big cases with the media scrutiny and everybody looking at you. But back to this 1992 article, Janie claimed that she didn't learn about her family's deaths until a hospital chaplain showed her pictures of the caskets. She said to find out they were all gone and I had done it was a big shock to me. It was hard for me to accept it, but God forgave me for what I did. God forgave me. I don't know if I believe that. If I believe that she didn't know about her family's

deaths until that moment. No, I don't think so either because we go back to the church. the people at the church coming out to support her. Friends and family would have, you know, consoled her and supported her. So how would she not have known that, you know, these individuals had died?

What did she think she was getting the life insurance money for? Right. So, you know, some of that's hard to reconcile. But in April 1999, Janie was released from prison due to her failing health. She died at a nursing home

in Douglasville, Georgia on February 7th, 2010. So about 10 years she was out. Yeah, at least, maybe a little bit over. So her health was failing, but she lived another 10 years. So Gibbs, as we wrap up this case, you know, really for about eight years. The state accepted that Janie Lou Gibbs was legally insane at the time of the murders. You know, she spent that time at a state hospital. Her attorneys argued that Janie thought she was taking her family out of a corrupt world to wait for her in heaven until she died from a terminal illness.

I don't know when she thought she was going to die. She lived until 2010. But on the flip side, the prosecution believed she killed her family for life insurance money to help elevate her lifestyle. I think so too. I mean, I think it was pretty obvious after her husband died that she immediately took out life insurance policies on the kids and the kids started dropping off. Yeah, I mean, you know, these cases are tough for me, the ones that involve mental health issues. You never really want to conclusively say that someone is lying about their mental health issues. But I think you do have to raise the question in a case.

case like this where, you know, someone's fighting for their freedom. And it behooves them to put on a defense that involves some type of impaired mental health. The problem for me with this one is the facts just don't seem to line up, right? The facts about the case and the murders and the insurance money doesn't seem to really align with someone who didn't know, you didn't know, what they were doing. I think you and I are both having trouble with that part of it. Right. And obviously the prosecution didn't believe it. No, of course not. And I also think there's a reason for her if she was not telling the truth to keep up that facade forever. Right. Because a lot of people would say, well, if you were lying about being out of it, being, you know, out of your mind,

sometime later, wouldn't you tell the truth? No, not if you're still trying to be. You're still trying to trying to get out. Not if you have the ability to get paroled. And we just said it. She did get out and lived what over 10 years on the outside. So it was in her best interest to stick with that. If in fact, it wasn't actually true. It was still in her best interest. Oh, absolutely. But no doubt the case of Jane Lou Gibbs is another disturbing example of female serial killers who target their own families. These are scary ones. I've said that every time we do one of these types of cases.

I also think, you know, this is a reminder that we don't always know someone's true motives for murder because we can give our opinions. We can. And we do. And we do. And we did. But can we sit here and say 100% that we conclusively know this or that? No, I can't. I can only say this is what I believe based on the facts and all of that.

But that's it for our case on Janie Lou Gibbs. We've got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, it's here on them. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Aaron from California. I was just listening to the Ernest Agnito episode. And I had to stop at the point where you were talking about him getting into a fight with the employees at a restaurant because of the color of his toast. And it reminded me of my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, who used to send her toast back because it wasn't burnt enough. She liked her breakfast toast, black burnt.

And it was so embarrassing as all of us grandchildren will be sitting around the restaurant table and she would send her toast back over and over and over. over and over again. And she was often not very nice about it. So I just thought that was funny. I never actually heard about anybody else who had issues with the color of their breakfast toast. And I thought I'd give you a call and let you know. Take care.

Well, you got to love grandmothers. You do. Some are a little eccentric. Yeah. Now, I think I've said this to you before. I'm very careful about sending food back. Right. because I have a very bad feeling that, you know, that let's say toast, for example,

yeah, that's going to be placed under somebody's shirt, rubbed into their armpit. That's where my mind goes automatically. Well, I get that. I think I'll just eat what you give me. And, uh, except for steak. If my steak doesn't come out right, I can't eat it. I have to send that back. But if it's little tiki tack things, I try.

not to be too aggressive because I just think something bad is going to happen to my food. I was like my toast with a nice brown hue. A brown hue? Yeah. That's how I describe it to the waitress or the waiter. Just want a nice brown hue. Okay. You just like to use the word hue and show off your vocabulary?

Exactly. I got you. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Cassidy from Centerline, Michigan. Again, I was kind of nervous when I left my first voicemail, so I kind of wanted to redo it. I wanted to clarify. So I reached out because I, too, don't like spicy food or spicy food to the point where I can't taste anything out. I've been listening for or binging for the past couple months.

I am on the Patrick. Now I'm on the Suzanne Faso episode. But thank you guys for keeping me preoccupied. I have you on literally any time I'm, you know, cleaning or driving. I listen to you first thing when I wake up in the morning. I don't listen to you before I go to bed. I am listening to you just what every other time of the day. But again, thank you for what you guys are doing and how you do it and all the time and the

work you put into the podcast. I hope to catch up soon. Thanks for letting me ramble. Stay safe and keep your own time taken. Thanks. Love you guys. All right. Thanks for the voicemail.

You know, Gibbs, sometimes you just need a do-over. You do. So I didn't play the first one. I deleted that one and I played the do-over. That's how you do it. That's how I do it. Hi, Gibby. This is Karen.

Once again, I was a different. I was listening to one of that episodes on C-Cats, and where y'all was talking about Don Nott. One of the best movies of all time he ever did was Just, the mule that went to school. Now, the movie where Don Nott turned into a fish was called The Incredible Mr. Plymings. It was a Disney movie that was March 28 of 64. I love my Don Knott. as always keep your own time ticking. Bye guys. How can you not like a little Don Knot? Yeah, love Don Nott. I just can't believe how much mileage

has come out of your reference to the incredible Mr. Limpets, which I've still never watched. I don't plan on watching. You're going to watch it one of these days. One of these days I may if people keep talking about it. But it is always funny when people, you know, bring up something that we talked about. three, four, five, six years ago. Oh, yeah. Because they're just getting to it. Like Dillens. Dillins.

Yeah. Still get a lot of emails about Dillins from the BTK episodes. My King Gibby. My name's Denali. I love your guys' podcasts. I have binged it so much. I like the solved one. I have gone through your episodes multiple times.

And I was just re-listening to the Yavvita X-O-1. And I had missed that you guys talked about having those giant satellite dishes way back in the day. And Gibby had said how he didn't like it because, you know, once somebody sold the house, it was still stuck to the house and you were stuck with it. And I just thought that was funny because I just sold my house. And it still has that gigantic satellite dish that looks like you're trying to summon aliens or something. And it was an issue when selling it. But it stayed on there. And I kind of feel a little bad after hearing Gibby.

But yeah, I just wanted to share that with you guys. I love your podcast. It makes me happy and it's wonderful for my commute. And I really appreciate you guys. All right. Well, take care and keep your own time ticking. That's the new buyer's problem now. Exactly.

They've got to figure out what to do with that big satellite. I know you used to turn yours completely upside down and use it to wash yourself in, which I thought was strange. I don't think most people repurpose them. that way. It was like a human bird bath. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, to be completely in your birthday suit out in your side yard with a bar of Irish spraying, I thought it was taking it over the top, but you know what? Neighbors should be looking now. All right, buddy. We did have mailbag. Sharon Diaz sent us some hot sauce from the Highway 77 cafe in Rosebud, Texas. After hearing the

Kenneth McDuff episode. Well, thank you. So we're going to try that out. Dave sent Harley Chips from Canada, Quebec, and Montreal. Really? Got around. Yeah. Love it.

Love it. So we appreciate all that. All right, buddy, that is it for another episode of True Crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.