Trenny Gibson Went On A School Trip And Never Came Home

In October 1976, 16-year-old Trenny Gibson boarded a school bus in Knoxville, Tennessee, expecting a routine day. Instead, her horticulture class was taken on a rainy hike into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park without warning. Unprepared and uneasy, Trenny borrowed a jacket from a fellow student. By mid-afternoon, she was gone. One moment she was on the trail, the next she had vanished. Nearly 50 years later, her disappearance remains unsolved. Questions linger about suspicious behaviour, missing evidence, and why the case quietly faded from view. In this episode, we speak with podcast hosts Tim Pilleri and Lance Reenstierna about their investigation into the haunting mystery of Trenny Gibson. You can listen to Tim and Lance's podcast Missing, here https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/missing/id1006974447 and watch their YouTube videos here https://www.youtube.com/@MissingCSM/posts. Listen to Claire Murphy on Missing here https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/634-rhianna-barreau-w-claire-murphy-of-true-crime/id1006974447?i=1000749314437. CREDITS Guests: Tim Pilleri & Lance Reenstierna https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0533976/Host: Gemma Bath https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemmabath/?originalSubdomain=au Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahli-blackman-205a891b7/?originalSubdomain=au Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Audio Engineer: Jacob Round GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations https://www.instagram.com/truecrimeconversations/?hl=en Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] or send us a voice note. https://help.mamamia.com.au/en-US/send-a-podcast-voice-note-467960 If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  It's a dreary Friday in October 1976 in Knoxville, Tennessee, and 16-year-old Trenny Gibson arrives at school. She's going on a field trip today with her horticulture class. It's not until she hops on the bus that Mr. Dunlap tells them where they're off to: the great Smoky Mountains National Park. Trenny's face falls. A hike? It's raining. She didn't even pack a jacket. Thankfully, Robert Simpson is also on the trip, her big brother's best friend. He shiverously offers her his warm brown plaid jacket. She happily accepts. Once at the base of the hike, 40 students head off into the mountains, trailed by their teacher.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  But when Mr. Dunlap starts taking roll call at 3:30 that afternoon while back on the bus, one name remains unticked: Where is Trenny? It's a question we still don't have the answer to 50 years later. But there are lots of unanswered questions from that day in the Smokies. Like, why did another student turn up in possession of Trenny's jewellery? Why did Robert refuse to cooperate with police inquiries? Why was Trenny sent, tracked, to a nearby road where it suddenly disappeared? How did the disappearance of a 16-year-old girl fade into history?

• 1:31Speaker 00

  I'm Gemma Bath and this is True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. Fellow students who were there that day say Trenny was on the main trail until she wasn't. One minute she was crouched down, looking off to the side, and the next she was just gone. She was never seen again. Robert was supposed to be looking out for her that day. He'd promised her big brother. But his behaviour in the aftermath of Trenny's disappearance still concerns those who are looking for her all these decades later. So does the behaviour of her classmates. There are many strange and hard-to-comprehend elements of this story.

• 2:16Speaker 00

  It's one of those cases that sits with you long after you finish hearing about it. Tim Pilleri and Lance Reinsterner are the co-hosts of the US Missing Podcast, and they produced an extensive, multi-part series about Trenny's case back in 2020, and have provided updates on their podcast since then. They join us now.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  Tim, Lance, thanks so much for joining us on True Crime Conversations. This is a case that you have both revisited quite a bit. And after reading about Trenny and her story, I can definitely see why. It's one of those cases that really sticks with you. It kind of stays in your mind, doesn't it?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it really does. It's a haunting disappearance about a young girl, 16 years old, on a class field trip who should not have gone missing. There were, there was around 40 students with her, around her, on the field trip. And it is perplexing, to say the least, that she went missing among her classmates on this field trip.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Take us back to the 70s. Who was 16-year-old Trenny Gibson? What was she about? What was she into?

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Sure. From what we have looked into, and we have to give a lot of props to Laura Ristie. She is the researcher who we've worked with. She was the one that brought Trenny to us. She actually had a really amazing story about what happened to her when she saw Trenny's picture. So in the earlier episode, she tells us how she saw Trenny's picture, and it just kind of floored her, like Trenny was almost calling out to her. And that kind of reminded me when you said that this is one of those stories that sticks with you. So it just grabbed Laura Ristie. She reached out to us, and what we work off of is primarily the research that she's done. And we're sort of her vehicle to get Trenny's case out there.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  And she's just so thorough. So a big shout out to her. But to talk about Trenny in the 70s, Trenny was born in Fulton County, Georgia. And she moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. And that was around the late 60s, 1967, 1968. She was a junior at Bearden High School at the time of her disappearance. So this was the high school that she was on the field trip with, that really, honestly, should never have happened in the first place, because the weather was not permitting to go on a hike in the Great Smoky National Park. Very skilled at drawing. She enjoyed reading. She liked to help her mother cook. She looked after her little brother. She had a really good relationship with her older brother,

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Bob. She didn't have a lot of very close friends, but the friends that she did have described her as somebody who was sort of like, I want to say like a wallflower. And I don't mean this in a bad way, but nothing very remarkable. She was smart, but she wasn't the smartest. You know, she, she kind of blended in a lot, but she did, what they've said is that she did kind of walk to the beat of her own drum. She, she wasn't as outgoing as her sister. I think her sister's name was Tina, who was a little bit more social than Trenny. And they came from this family that was, on the surface, pretty tight knit.

• 5:35Speaker 00

  Why was this trip such a big deal for Trenny? In that her family were quite strict and something like this, heading out on her own. It was a big deal, wasn't it?

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think she had spent a lot of time away from home before this. And this was a field trip that I want to say was an hour or 90 minute ride from Beardon High School, which was in Knoxville, Tennessee, to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which is, you know, a very large national park. It straddles the line between North Carolina and Tennessee. It's about a half a million acres, over 800 square miles. So it's a large park. Now, as far as why maybe it shouldn't have happened, the kids didn't know where they were going that day. This is a really weird part of the story.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  And to fully understand it, I think you have to put your mind back in 1976. This horticulturist teacher was the only chaperone on the bus that, that brought the students. He told the kids that there was a field trip, arranged it with the school, but did not tell them where they were going. And I find this to be a big problem because it was cold and rainy that day. So Trenny didn't even have a jacket to wear outdoors on this hike. And she actually borrowed her brother's friend, her brother's friend's jacket to wear for, for this. So. She was a little, you know, the family was a little bit strict. They were a little bit religious,

• 7:10Speaker 01

  but I don't think she had ever like gone off on her own, even to this degree. And, you know, she was surrounded by students. This shouldn't have been a big deal necessarily, but for her, a young 16 year old girl, I don't think she's ever even done this.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  I just want to preface before we get into any further details. There are a lot of Roberts and Bobs in this story. So we'll, we'll try to be clear as to which Rob or Bob we're talking about.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  A very popular name back in the day, it seems. It is very wild though, to get back to that point of the fact that 40 sets of parents were perfectly happy for their kids to go on a field trip and they have no idea where they're going. Like as a parent myself, I can never imagine. I mean, my kids are a little, but sending my kids off to school and being like, have fun on your field trip wherever you end up. It's wild.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that always struck me as odd. And maybe it's just because we don't have those details. Maybe those details are there, but they're just kind of buried in the, in, you know, in the sands of time. Right? I think maybe some parents were like, okay, it'd be nice to know here where, where my kid's going. So I can properly prepare them. But I could see where the school's coming from too. But also like, this should have been like, how long in advance were this, was this planned? You know, we're not sure like when they act, the kids actually knew when they were going to be like, like, I don't, I don't know when they said there's going to be a field trip on this particular day. Like a month?

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Well, usually, you know, today and even 20 years ago or 30 years ago, when we were in school, there would be a permission slip that your parents had to sign. So I don't know if that was not the case in 1976, but apparently if that did happen, it didn't say the destination, where the field trip was, was headed to.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  At least so they could pack appropriate shoes. Like, come on.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  It's a hike. It's a hike in the, in the, I mean, Tim, Tim described it as large, but there's like so many, so many hikes out there. There's so many different types of elevation.

• 9:16Speaker 00

  So it's proper, like we would call it here, bush. It's proper. Trees, terrain, hills, cliffs, rocks, like it's quite rugged?

• 9:26Speaker 02

  I would say that, yeah, I would say that some of those paths, some of those hiking trails are are quite rugged. I, I don't think that the one that the class was going on was going to like push them to those types of limits. But if you got off, off the path, I can imagine that you could encounter some, some, some rough terrain there.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  So I believe their hike was from the parking lot that was formerly known as Klingman's Dome. It's now called Kauaheee parking area. And I believe the hike was about three and a half miles round trip to Andrews Bald, which is a mountain and it has like a grassy top on the, you know, at the top of it. That's why it's called the Bald, I guess. So that was the area. So that, yeah, I mean, again, just back to the point like of preparation, like, you know, it's three and a half miles. Yeah, you should be, you should be prepared for that, especially it was a little rainy, like probably a little muddy. Yeah, they're walking on dirt and grass.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  So Tredie arrives at school. She finds out she's going not only on a field trip, but on a hike. She realizes she doesn't have a jacket. She gets one from a friend. An important detail I would like to touch on is that she leaves the rest of her belongings behind, doesn't she? Which becomes important later. But she leaves them with her mom.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Right. I think that's part of, I think that that's part of not knowing where she was going. You know, maybe just kind of travel with the, the smallest amount that you have. So you don't lose anything or forget anything. But, but yeah, you're.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I think at that point, when her mom dropped her off at school, she actually was told by her classmate where the field trip was. So I think at the time that she left her, and I'm not 100% certain, but I think this is how it went, that she left her books with her mom after learning where they were going. She's like, okay, I'm not going to need these all day. I mean, frankly, the, the field trip was going to be longer than the school day anyway, by, you know, a couple hours, two, three hours at least. So yeah, she left her books and purse in her mom's car. And the jacket that she was wearing was Robert Simpson's jacket, who was her brother Bob's friend. So Robert Simpson was a senior and Trenny was a junior at Bearden High.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  And Robert Simpson was a good friend of Bob and apparently asked by Trenny's brother to watch over her. So that was maybe one reason why he lent her the jacket. Apparently, Trenny gave him her sandwich or half of her lunch, I believe, as well. And so they were hanging out on this hike for at least part of it.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. So take us to the hike. What do we know in terms of what happened? She started off the hike with Robert, basically, and the 40 kids were scattered up the trail, wandering on this hike, teacher behind them. What do we know about their movements or her movements?

• 12:31Speaker 02

  I think a lot of it is like, what don't we know? Like, we don't know what went down between the two of them when they were hiking together. But yeah, they were hiking together. Robert was apparently, I don't know, heeding his friends or making sure he was doing what his friend asked, her brother had asked him to do, which was look over her during, you know, while he was gone. He was in the Navy, so he was actually coming back later on in the year, I think in July. So he had asked him to look after her, sort of protective of his little sister. But we can just kind of speculate on what was going on between

• 13:09Speaker 02

  the two of them because they weren't staying with the group so much. So at some point, we do know that Trenny decided to separate with Robert and start back down to the parking lot. And now we only have Robert's. Account of what happened then. So he claimed that it was sort of an amicable separation. They had hung out, like Tim said, they split the the bagged lunch between the two of them. And Trenny wanted to head back down and he said, he claimed, he said, he left the trail. And this part, it's, it makes me laugh. I don't find it funny, but it just makes me laugh. He said he left the trail to, quote, "track a bear."

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Which is, I don't, I was young and stupid and I understand it, like if you're 16, 17, 50, whatever, that age range, I don't know if that, I don't know if you'd ever be that like naive to, to, if you saw a bear or a bear track to go try to find this bear. And I remember when Laura Risti had told us that, all of us were just like, what?

• 14:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is bizarre.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Why would anyone track a bear?

• 14:25Speaker 00

  To, to be clear, there are bears here, right? Bears are pretty common in the Smokies.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Definitely, yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Definitely bears in the park and you don't want to meet one. Like, that's the weird part about that.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, you don't go voluntarily out there.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  Especially unarmed.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, if he actually, right. So I think from our point of view, it's almost an excuse for him to not be accounted for, I would say.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  But, I don't want to keep like getting into this again, but I can't stop myself. If you didn't want to be accounted, like, come up with a better lie than track a bear. "I had to go to the bathroom in the woods," or "I heard something, I heard like someone yelling" or something, like something else, like, don't, don't come up with something that's just gonna like constantly stick in people's head and just sound like a lie. So, like, immediately.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  It's weird.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it is weird and most of the students don't really remember him on the trip at all. So that's why I mentioned that I think it was an excuse to not be accounted for necessarily because, you know, I don't know how long he was gone exactly, but I think if you had the story of, "Oh, I heard screaming" or something like that, that's a much quicker thing, you know?

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. There were some other students that can kind of account for seeing Trenny, kind of like the last moment she was seen. Can you talk us through that?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Yes, so this group of her classmates described her as walking like she was on a mission, so with some purpose. And she met up with a group of classmates, but then she kind of she kind of zoomed past them, I guess. And one student said that she stopped suddenly and ducked and looked to the right and crouched down and then stepped off of the trail. And that was it. And when I guess this group of students got to that spot where she was, they looked to the side and they did not see her. And that and that is the moment when she disappeared.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Which they didn't know at the time. When was it discovered that she was missing?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  When they counted back at the bus, I believe, that was when they realized that she was missing and that, you know, Mr. Dunlap, this only chaperone had, you know, had some explaining to do. And, you know, I did give this guy a hard time on some of our recordings because I just couldn't imagine why he did the things that he did. And apparently, he was questioned by police and even, you know, somewhat considered to be a suspect at one point, but is not now. And did, you know, help launch this search for her and wasted no time in doing so. So I really don't think this guy is suspicious. I think he was kind

• 17:20Speaker 01

  of like a hippie guy, you know, a hippie horticulturist teacher guy from 1976 who was like, hey, let's go, let's go to the park, you know, it's not, it's not a big deal. And obviously, he had no idea.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Forty kids, no problem.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, right.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  So Robert was accounted for all well and good in that roll call as well?

• 17:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, he actually was accounted for, but there are some of the other students who claim that he was maybe breathing heavily, which take that with a grain of salt. I'm not, I'm not like pointing fingers at at Robert, but he was slightly out of shape. He was a smoker and they had just gone on a hike. So I'm sure he was probably a little bit. Out of breath. I think there was even a description of him being like maybe annoyed, not upset, but annoyed. So I'm not sure what we can take from that. But I want to just go back real quick to what you had said again about this, this story staying with you. Like every one of these mysteries that we talk about, these stories have these moments where it's

• 18:21Speaker 02

  something that is like the, the, the flag that like will tell you this is, this is a special one. And a description of Trenny kind of charging past the group, walking with a mission, stopping. They, they remember it to the point where they, they know that she turned to the right

• 18:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  and crouched down and then went into the woods. Like, that's one of those like sort of touchstone type moments for this story. And it does stick with you because it presents such a, like, like a incredible visual of this happening.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  I also think that a lot of the moments, the reason they stick in my mind as well is they're quite odd. You're like, why?

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Like, what do you mean you crouched down and turned to the right and then you disappeared?

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  What do you mean you were tracking a bear? What do you, like, it's, I think it, it's stuck in my mind and I kept ruminating on it because there were so many moments and we're going to get to more of those moments where I just thought, how? Why? Like, it's, it's your brain trying to work out what happened when it's so bizarre.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the next day, apparently in that area where Trenny had stepped off of the trail, they found a beer can and cigarette butts in that exact area. And I think it was like a little clear, like almost like grass had been, I don't know, like pushed down, like someone was sitting there or crouching down there. It's unknown if that is related to the disappearance of Trenny Gibson, but I would have to imagine that it is. But I, but I don't know for sure.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  Because would Trenny have been a beer drinker or a cigarette smoker?

• 19:57Speaker 02

  I think she was a cigarette smoker.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  She actually did smoke cigarettes. Yeah. I don't think like, you know, regularly, probably. I don't think she like had a pack of smokes on her. I think she would probably bum one here and there is, as it was known. But the, the beer can is a little more curious because I don't know how someone got that beer can to the park. Like, I guess they put it in their pocket or had it in their book bag. I guess a coat pocket could easily carry a, a can or two. But, you know, assuming that those. Beers and that cigarette came from someone on the, on the field trip, a student. That's a little peculiar to me, but it would also be weird, you know, if someone random was just at that spot, uh, off the trail, drinking beers and smoking cigarettes too.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Well, it kind of suggests that Trenny might've seen someone and that's why she turned right.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 20:50Speaker 00

  I guess is what you think.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  But it must've been somebody that she knew.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  Cause why, why would you walk towards someone you didn't know?

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Creeping in the woods, drinking a beer, smoking cigarettes. I'm not, I'm just painting the picture. I don't know if the person was actually drinking a beer and smoking cigarettes, like Tim said, they, that's just what they found. But if that was the case, I mean, you'd have to know the person.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  Let's go back to roll call because to Mr. Dunlap's credit, he moved pretty quickly in kind of alerting authorities and getting a search underway, didn't he?

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, he took off and he searched Double Springs to see if Trenny had gone off trail or taken the wrong trail. So Double Springs is, is an area that you would end up if you were to go off of that trail that they hiked. He did send a student named Danny Johnson to search back up the trail. So he, he immediately, once the roll call happened and they realized it was Trenny that wasn't there, he immediately went into action. He called the National Park Service at about 4:00 PM to alert them that someone, that a, that a student had gone missing and a ranger came down and helped Mr. Dunlap

• 22:01Speaker 02

  search again. So that was around 4:00 PM and then by 6:30, I believe that night, the park service had 19 volunteers that were searching the area. So when was the roll call? 3:30? So just three hours later, they have a pretty decent like search team, like professional National Park Service search team out there and, and nothing, which is wild.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Another detail that stuck with me is that.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Her family didn't find out that she was missing until the bus rocked up at school and she's not on it. Because you've got to remember it's the seventies, there's no mobile phones, they can't call ahead. So her mum's waiting for her to come off this bus and there's no trenny. Like, that must have been horrific. What happened with the family? Did they move straight up to the park? How were they involved in the search?

• 22:51Speaker 01

  That's a good question. I do think they went to the search the next day. I'm not sure about that evening, but I would imagine that was an anxiety ridden night. I can't imagine the fear you would feel as a parent, hearing that your kid isn't on this bus that she was supposed to be on.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  Interesting that they went the next day. What kind of weather are we talking about overnight in October in the Smokies? Can someone survive that?

• 23:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think someone could survive it. It wouldn't be comfortable. You might, I mean, it wouldn't be by any means comfortable, but it's not, we're not dropping down to like freezing temperatures that are bringing like sleet and rain and snow. You know, we're probably, we're probably teetering on freezing, but.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was in the thirties.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  So that is cold, you know, thirties Fahrenheit, close to zero, yeah, Celsius.

• 23:48Speaker 00

  I mean, she did have that jacket, which we mentioned before from Robert, but I don't even think a jacket could help you in zero degree temperatures.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  No, no, but I, I feel like, you know, given, given a human being's instinct to just survive, I feel like she would be doing something to keep her body warm. You know, she would be doing something physical. She'd be walking, she'd be moving about. I don't know. I also like, there were so many volunteers looking for her out there, you know? She'd be calling out if she was, if she had got lost in the woods.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  The next day they brought in dogs to kind of track her scent. Tell me about that because all of these separate dogs did find her scent like quite easily.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is a really interesting part because they had different breeds of dogs and they all hit on the same area on Collins Gap. And I guess it's some kind of road that, or a small road near the parking lot. So, very interesting to hear that all the dogs hit on this same area. You know, if this wasn't a 16-year-old girl who like didn't have any means to run away from her own life, I think, you know, or I should say that had means to do that.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  I think this would be a different situation because I think it was presumed that she could have gotten into a car at that spot willingly or unwilling, you know, we don't know. But I think that is a pretty good idea of where she is or where she went, I should say. Yeah, I mean, I don't think she's in that park. I do think she was either placed into a vehicle near where those dogs hit or, you know, got into one willingly. Again, I know we said her family was a little strict. I don't think that's like so strict, you have to rebel and run away.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  I think, again, that sounds kind of wild for a 16-year-old to do without means, no cell phones, no planning, no money. Like, I don't know how she would have been able to do that. So I don't think that's what happened, but I do think maybe some time was lost in thinking that that could have happened because this was 1976 and certainly the era of hitchhiking and, you know, teenagers would go missing for time, you know, a day or two or so and then come back without being in touch with their parents because there were no cell phones. But I just don't think that was a possibility in Trenny's case.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  And I just want to elaborate a little bit on the Collins Gap area, which is an area that is designed for like, is small parking, like a small parking area and it is like a base almost. I guess that's a good way to put it. It's a base of like a few different trailheads. So there's an opportunity for several different groups of hikers to be getting into that area from different access points.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  But she would have had to leave the hike trail that she was on. To kind of make her way to Collins Gap.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  No, you can actually, there's the, the trail to Clingmans Dome is accessible to the trail to Collins Gap.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  But yes, you, you'd, you would, you would have to leave that trail to access the trail to Collins Gap.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  How would you describe the police investigation or lack thereof into Trenny's disappearance?

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, unfortunately, it does seem like there was too much weight put on the idea that she had run away. Um, I think those dogs, uh, didn't necessarily help the angle that she was in danger. You know, I think it probably confirmed their biases that she, uh, ran away. And, you know, I think, again, 1976, these are police who have probably dealt with runaways. And that's, I think also, even today, it's true. Like, when the police don't have an angle necessarily to search, it's kind of like, well, maybe they ran away and we'll give it a few days or give it a little time and see if she comes back. And if she doesn't, then we'll start, uh, you know, we'll, uh, start a new phase into the investigation. And I think that's eventually what happened. Um, but yeah, I

• 28:15Speaker 01

  think they lost a lot of time initially because they believed she ran away.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's just one of these frustrating parts of every story that Tim and I cover on, on the show, because we always hear that. We always hear law enforcement say, oh, I see a hundred of these a week. I see so many, and I'm sure they do. And I'm sure those runaways come back home. But, you know, the other side of it is like, we hear a hundred of these a week where that's not the case. So it's not so out of the ordinary. And that attitude should never be put into like an actionable thing. You shouldn't say, well, just because the last one did it, you know, that means that this one has run away as well. And again, like, I know it was the seventies, but still.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  If you're applying that experience to every single one of your disappeared children cases, you're just sort of blanketing everything and you're not doing your job.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  And I'm no detective, but the little I know about Trenny, when you look at the facts of the case, you're like, but she, how could she have run away? She was shy. She was from a strict family. She hadn't gone out much. She didn't even know she was going there.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  She didn't have her ID on her. She didn't have a jacket. She didn't just run away. So I think like my psyche is screaming at me.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  I'm same. And I'm wondering why this particular police department didn't have anybody there who was just curious how someone could just go off the trail and elude people finding her after there's 19 professional park service individuals who are searching, plus the teacher, plus now, you know, police, like there was nobody there who was like, I just need to satisfy my own curiosity. They're just, no, she ran away. Strict upbringing.

• 30:07Speaker 00

  You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Gemma Bath. I'm speaking with Tim Pilleri and Lance Reinsterner, the co-hosts of The Missing Podcast. Up next, Tim and Lance discuss other theories about who may have taken Trenny, whether Robert, a friend of Trenny's brother, was ever questioned, and other potential suspects.

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• 31:07Speaker 00

  I want to go through some of the other theories, and I'll just touch on this one. Could it have been a stranger? Is there anyone that we know of that was working in around that area that a serial killer, anything like that, that could have happened?

• 31:23Speaker 01

  So actually, interestingly, not necessarily a serial killer, but there was a family annihilator named William Bradford Bishop, who actually killed his entire family and left his car in the parking lot of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Right. And this was in March, March 1st of 1976. So what's that, eight months before or something like that? Before Trenny went missing, so probably not still in the park. And actually, he's been speculated to have left the country successfully and potentially even sightings in different countries of him. He worked for the government, this fellow.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  So probably not him, but that would be the only like specific person that I know of that could have been dangerous in the area at that time beyond the, you know, potentially classmates and things like that.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  Let's come back to Robert. He was obviously with Trenny on this hike. So he's the obvious place to start and ask questions. Was he questioned by police? Was he a suspect at all?

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely a suspect. So unfortunately, his father was the assistant district attorney in Knoxville at the time, Knoxville, Tennessee. So he counseled his son, Robert, not to say anything to the police. So that is a very suspicious part of this. Yeah. And if he had nothing to do with it and, you know, his dad knew that, maybe he would have told him that anyway. But there's just some weird things about Robert here like this. And the fact that he had Trenny's comb. Yes. He had Trenny Gibson's comb in his car after she went missing.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  And to be clear, he didn't take his car on this field trip. So the comb was found at a later date in his car.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Correct. Yeah. And apparently he would use it in his own hair.

• 33:22Speaker 00

  That feels weird.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Very weird. Yeah.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  He did have, he did have a... Significant head of hair.

• 33:30Speaker 00

  Did, do we know if he had a crush on her or anything like that?

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, I think he did, actually. And I don't think it was reciprocated at all by Trinny. But it does seem like he might have had a little bit of a crush on Trinny. And, and yeah, it is speculated that something happened between the, the two of them. Whether he made a move on her or some, or, or said something to her that she didn't like or something like that. But that is speculated to be, or is, it is a one possible reason that she kind of separated from him and walked away on the trail. But then it's, it's again, you know, we're kind of back to like, well, if she walked away from him, then that wouldn't have been him on the trail calling to her. But I guess we just don't know.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  I just don't know the geography of the trail that well to know if he could have actually gotten to that spot before she did. My guess tells me he could have, but I don't know for sure.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  Another weird thing that he did was he started to screen the press and police calls to the family, didn't he?

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was answering phone calls inside the, the Gibson's house.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  That's a, sorry, that's a detail that I forgot. I have, I have, you know, reminder notes and I forgot that detail that he was screening the calls in the house.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  Was he invited in by the family?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  So, no, I guess he was good enough friends with Bob that it wasn't thought of as weird. But when I said, so he just broke into the house to our friend Laura? She was like, oh, no, not really, kind of knew them. So it wasn't like looked upon as like a suspicious thing. But here we are 50 years later and like, that's super suspicious in my opinion.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't even know if this is one of those things where you can write off like, "It was the 70s." If anyone who doesn't live in my house is in my house without me asking them to be here, I don't care what timeframe it is. I don't care if it's the 50s, 60s, 70s, or whatever. Like, that's an odd thing to have happen.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Particularly given he was the last person with her and refused to talk to police, and now he's giving the media statements. It's just, it's all very strange.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, just sort of screening their calls. I mean, who knows what he did? Who knows what he said and who knows like who he hung up on or was rude to? I mean, I don't know. I guess, I don't think it was looked upon as like a suspicious thing at the time. I think it was looked upon as him being helpful.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  I want to talk about another student, Kelvin, because Robert kind of pointed to Kelvin as a potential, "Well, what about him? It might have been him." Tell us about Kelvin. What do we need to know about him?

• 36:24Speaker 02

  I always feel really bad about Kelvin because he was, he was one of the very few black kids at the, at the, at the school. He, there, there weren't, I, I can imagine that there wasn't a lot of tolerance in, and I might be just kind of painting with a broad brush here, but I feel like he probably didn't have a lot of leeway when it came to the suspicions that came up between his relationship with, with Trenny and, and himself. But we recently had Laura back on because she had learned new information about Kelvin and some of the statements that were given, and this is why we love Laura so much, is

• 37:04Speaker 02

  that she had, she had, she had come on and, and talked about how Kelvin was very possessive and showed up drunk at the Gibson's home and was calling out for Trenny's brother Bob. And Trenny's mom, Hope, had been watching this all play out and he was yelling vulgarities at Trenny through the window and he was trying to break in and, and, and, and I, the original story was that he was going to break in and he was, he was attempting to abduct Trenny from her bedroom. And that's when Hope, Trenny's mom,

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Got her handgun and he, his, his foot was visible in her sight and, and he shot, and she shot him in the foot. And according to the original story, after he was shot, he still was trying to get at Trenny and drag her out of her room.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  And this was about a year before she went missing, to be clear. This supposed incident that happened.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is, yeah. And I, I like Kelvin always gets like the raw end of the deal in this story. This, this story, after we talked to Laura, the, again, and she kind of clarified some of the details, it, this was like sort of a blown up story that, that he, he probably like, they did have a relationship.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  So they were dating?

• 38:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. And Trenny probably was inviting him in and, and they probably were in some sort of compromising position. And we don't know where Trenny's family stood on interracial relationships, or if they wanted that with Trenny. So these other details started to come out and Laura presented that to us. And we'll, you know, flat out say like, you know, some original statements sometimes aren't always like, those are where the narratives are being developed, right? So if, if the family's saying one thing about this guy coming in, and that's what makes the newspaper, that's what's going to be put out there forever.

• 39:18Speaker 00

  But it feels a lot more logical that Trenny was dating Kelvin in secret. He used to come over to her house and sneak through the window. Her mom caught him. She shot him, doesn't like him, made up this story about him breaking in. Like it, you can see how that would all unfold. But because of that original story, suddenly Kelvin finds himself as a potential suspect. But what Laura found out, or what she told you is that, I mean, he got put in a correctional center because of that incident. And then basically didn't go near her again, was like, I'm out, Trenny.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, and and you can see that playing out, like you said, and and you can see him standing there in the situation with a shot foot. And whatever stories coming out of Trenny Gibson's mom's mouth to the cops, who's going to believe who here, you know, the the the very the like the one of a handful of black students in this like, like, deep south high school or or the mom of this, you know, innocent white girl. It's it's clear what's about to happen here.

• 40:25Speaker 00

  So is there any evidence, to be clear, that Kelvin could have been involved in her disappearance?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  No, there were rumors that he was driving his car following the bus that day because so after he got out of juvenile detention, he did vow to get revenge on the Gibsons. And again, that was only a year. So if you look at the timeline of that, that was a year before Trenny goes missing. So and then he was in juvenile detention for six months. So he was apparently like, you know, only possibly going to get revenge on on Trenny and or the family for those six months, like that was his window to do so before she went missing. I don't know that that ever happened, but Bob Simpson, Robert Simpson there, he has sort of pointed at Kelvin.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  And I think I think a lot of these rumors stem from him because he had sort of pointed at Kelvin, saying that, well, if he was there, that he would have killed her, Kelvin would have killed her. So I think Bob Simpson, Robert Simpson, was responsible for sort of, you know, and obviously what happened between Kelvin and the and the Gibsons certainly notable in this story regardless, but I think made it easier for him to sort of be scapegoated as someone who did something here in this case.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to add on to that, that some people were saying that there was a car following the bus. Kelvin didn't own a car. And also, the principal of the school attested that Kelvin was actually in class that day.

• 42:06Speaker 00

  Okay, so that kind of rules him out.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's got an he's got an alibi by the principal himself.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  After the break, we hear about students who may have known what happened to Trenny, some of whom were found wearing her jewelry.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  Let's move on to the jewellery because this is another part that I can't stop thinking about. A student was found wearing Trenny's jewellery. Tell me about that.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is, this is probably the most disturbing part of this. So Trenny had a sapphire necklace and a diamond star sapphire ring that were with Trenny presumably when she went missing. These were important heirlooms or jewellery for her that I believe her mom gave her. And so there was another student who was seen wearing it later.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  And pretty spooky and suspicious, I would say.

• 43:10Speaker 00

  What was her excuse?

• 43:11Speaker 01

  What was the excuse? So again, this account comes from Robert Simpson. He claimed that at the field trip, Trenny was in a washroom and gave the jewellery to one of the students to hold. Unclear why that would have been the case. But later, it was a different student who was wearing Trenny's jewellery or in possession of her jewellery. So once again, the story from Robert Simpson here seems to be the problem, I think.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Even that detail, I can see why you might take a ring off and ask someone to hold it. Why would you take a necklace off while washing up at a basin before going on a hike? It just feels weird.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  It starts to have this feeling like there are many other people that know what happened. And so when you're, when you're thinking about this and trying to figure out how 19 plus searchers, including law enforcement, or not including law enforcement, and Mr Dunlap and that other student who went up the trail, how no one found any trace of her within a couple of hours. Within a couple of hours, within a few minutes of everybody getting back to the bus, doing the roll call, Trenny's not here, and then they start, they start a search within like, you know, a half hour or so.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  And then that search is pretty extensive at the three hour mark.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  You start to wonder like, wait, did maybe more than one person see what happened to Trenny or know what happened to Trenny now that her jewelry is popping up in other people's possessions and, and there's no evidence that, or there's no sign of her anywhere?

• 45:05Speaker 00

  Isn't it true that there were a number of students that were quite cagey as well? Like, we know that Robert tells his bare story and then shuts his mouth, doesn't want to talk, but there were a number of students who didn't want to talk.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, Laura has actually communicated with a decent amount of Trenny's classmates from Bearden High, and she is convinced that a small group of people know what happened to her. I can't really speak to that myself because if Trenny got into a car, you know, I'm not sure, I'm not sure like what trail would have been left as far as like who was aware of what, you know, if she willingly got into a car, then, you know, we don't know whose car, like, we'd probably never know whose car that would be and it probably wouldn't have been connected with the field trip. Just seems a little rare that, or, you know, random and, and probably rare that she would have gotten into a car of someone

• 46:01Speaker 01

  she didn't know at that point. So I, like, I don't know why that would have happened. So, but also on the, if someone like carried her to that spot where the dog lost the trail and then placed her into a car, like, then that means someone else was working there and the, you know, with that person and had a vehicle. So it's, it's really perplexing when we get to this point.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  I want to be clear that no one has been charged in this case. Is there, however, a more accepted theory about what happened to her? We've, we've talked about a number of them. What is the most accepted theory?

• 46:38Speaker 01

  I think as time goes by and now that Robert Simpson has passed away, I believe he passed away in 2022. I think as time goes by, the idea that he did something is more commonly believed than any other theory. Could be me projecting that, but seems like there's a lot of smoke in his direction.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  In the 50 years since Trenney has been missing, has any kind of formal investigation restarted? Obviously, we know Laura's been looking into it, her associate, you guys, like there's a lot kind of popping up now. But in terms of a police investigation, a formal investigation, a reward for information, has anything happened in the last 50 years?

• 47:27Speaker 02

  I think we would know, yeah. I think, I don't believe that there have been any fresh eyes specifically put on Trenney's disappearance directly from law enforcement.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  It does feel like for many decades there before kind of maybe the early 2000s, the story was quite forgotten. It kind of got left in history.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, and there was a book written about Trenney's disappearance as well as the disappearance of Dennis Martin and Polly Melton. I think it's called Mysterious Disappearances in the Great Smoky Mountains. Really, really good book, very informative. And so there's a couple of other like notable disappearances from that park, but they don't seem to have anything to do with each other. And I think that's, it's part of a problem too in the States here is that the National Park Service is like the head of the, you know, it's under their jurisdiction for at least a period of time until they can, I guess, transfer it or something like that. So I think that is part of the problem here.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  And Trenney was also 16, so the FBI is involved to some degree. And then there's also the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation that's involved in the case. And I think those are, that's the agency that's officially seeking tips at this point. But with, with that said, like, I don't think any of these agencies are doing anything actively.

• 48:59Speaker 00

  Do we know what became of the Gibson family in the wake of this tragedy?

• 49:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, according to Laura, it it pretty much like broke them. They hadn't found out anything of significance in Trenny's disappearance. I believe Trenny's father, I think they both passed. But I can't say anything as far as like the relationship between her sister and her brothers. If there's like fractured, but I mean, something like this, pretty much like fractured the family.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  Do you two think that this case will ever be solved? That we have a chance of finding Trenny, of putting her to rest and this story to rest?

• 49:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there's a chance of finding some remains. I think it's super, super slim. And then, once you find the remains and they're proven to be Trenny's, I don't think anybody will come forward to say how that happened. I think it's just far too long at this point. There might be, depending on where they're found, let's say they're found on a certain property, and that might raise more suspicion about a property's owner and why they're there. But I feel like all of the parties involved who had knowledge in it are either gone or permanently like not talking, because why would you do something now?

• 50:26Speaker 02

  Why, you've gotten away with it for 50 years. So that's just my personal negativity.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's pretty unlikely that the case ever is solved, or even that Trenny is found. I think I would be pretty surprised to hear that she was found in the park at this point. Just based on on dogs and multiple searches over the years. I mean, and it's 50 years, and that was like a populated area. There's a bunch of visitors that hit that park every year. You would just imagine someone stumbling over a body or bones at some point. But, so I don't know. And if she were to have left the park willingly or unwillingly, I don't think there's any, there's any way unless, unless there is, you know, she was buried somewhere and there is some weather or some, something that digs her up in a way.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  With no potential, possible resolution here, why do you think it's important that we say Trenny's name, that we continue to talk about her and tell her story?

• 51:29Speaker 02

  I think one of the things is, uh, two things actually on this is, I think that Trenny, and this is based off of Laura doubling back on some details of her story when she first came on. She came back on to say, after doing more research, I discovered this about Trenny, which kind of changed a little bit of the narrative. And it changed a little bit about some of the behaviors that could be a contributing factor to who and why she was with, who she was with during that time period. And that could lead to somebody slipping up. And keeping

• 52:10Speaker 02

  her name out there and keeping the story out there and, and keeping that, you know, constant narrative going, I think is really good for other stories, like the stories that we talk about. And to be open-minded about like, hey, just because someone said one thing in a newspaper article, and, and now we're reporting on that from 50 years later, there, there might be more details here. And, and if you're able to have an open mind and then go back on your original reporting and say, oh, since then, I've learned this, this, and this. I feel like that helps a lot of other cases to have stories that can have some sort of like development and resolution later.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  I mean, she was an innocent 16-year-old girl. Like, this is, uh, this is exactly the kind of person that we should be remembering. Like, I don't think she went missing intentionally. I don't think she did anything wrong, uh, here. I think it's, it's a tragic story, and I do think she was likely murdered. You know, I, I think it's important to keep people's names, victims, um, survivors, people's names, missing people's names out there, because if, if we don't, who will?

• 53:27Speaker 00

  Thank you to Tim and Lance for helping us to tell this story. You can listen to their episode of The Missing Podcast, where they interview True Crime Conversations Claire Murphy about the case of missing Adelaide girl Rianna Barrow. Here's a little taste.

• 53:42Speaker 04

  She purchased her Christmas card and then she was also seen walking home from that shopping centre. And then we know she got to her house because when her mum came home, the Christmas card was on the table. And so we know her movements on that day, but then what happened after that, it's truly a mystery.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  There's a link to that in the show notes. If you have any information about the case we discussed today, please contact the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. If you want to see clips from this story, head to our Instagram page @truecrimconversations. And for our explainer videos, head to our TikTok of the same name. True Crime Conversations is hosted by me, Gemma Bath. Our senior producer is Thali Blackman. The group executive producer is Alaria Brophy and there's been audio design by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.

• 54:44Speaker 04

  True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast was recorded on.