Today’s episode is short, but still a doozy. It’s a love triangle that’ll leave you going. What the? What the? It’s the case of Dennis Gibson right now on love and murder.
Hello, LaMs. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Love and Murder, the Weekly True Crime Podcast where we discuss relationships that have gone terribly wrong. Or our motto is you’re either someone’s last love or their first murder. My name is Rick. I’m not joined today by cohost, but do not worry. Ky and I will be back to our usual routine soon enough. Just as a reminder, our shared discusses true crime cases told in the form of a story with some mystery, some suspense and justice, a very minuscule, tiny bit of humor sprinkled on top, but never at the expense of the victim.
As Ky says every single episode, please subscribe to Love and Murder on whichever platform you’re on. And give us a 5 star review right now so that you don’t forget. But if you’re new, please listen to the episode first and then rate us. And welcome to the show. Today’s episode is going to be a bit of a short case, shorter than our usual episodes. It’s a story where years of love and a successful marriage kind of just boil down into one instantaneous moment of loss.
But not regret. It’s a love triangle that, like most love triangles, should never have existed. But first I want to remind you guys to head over to our Patreon. Ah, hey Rick, I’m we’re actually not going to be doing our Patreon add this episode. No add. No add but how are the LaMs supposed to find out about serial killer corner and love obsessions and cohost stories? Yeah, Umm, we’re just going to do the episode and then we’ll worry about that later.
But how are the LaMs supposed to know that they can start at the lowest tier for only a dollar if I don’t tell them? All right, if you keep questioning the methods of the podcast, we’re going to find a host.
All right, fine. Talk about the episode. Dennis Patrick Gibson was born in 1938. His early life isn’t very well known. Jacqueline Gibson was born in 1948 And her early life is pretty unknown as well. Our story is going to take place in Katy, Texas, which is a suburb of Houston. Apparently I’ve been to Houston before. It’s actually the only nice place as far as cities go.
And our story begins with the two having already been married at this point in their relationship. There was never anything bad to report. There was no abuse. They had been married for 23 years at this point, and Jacqueline had a Facebook page where she had a lot of pictures of her and Dennis together. At this point in their lives, they’d also adopted two of their grandchildren who were a four year old little girl and a 10 year old little boy. And around October or November of 2015 Jacqueline attended her high school reunion in Pennsylvania, and she brought a man by the name of Vernon Burger. I think it’s burger, but it could be burger or burger or burger.
You’ll have to tell me in the comments whether I said it correctly or not, but Vernon was born in 1950 Vernon was apparently a longtime friend of both Dennis and Jacqueline. While she was there at the reunion, she actually told everybody that he was her friend slash her ride home, and they maintain that story all throughout their reunion while they were there. The thing about that is, though, people who saw them in the reunion could tell that something was going on between them and.
I’ll leave it up to you to speculate what they were doing or how they acted. If people were looking at them like why? Is there something between them? If people were looking at them like that. A few days after the reunion, Dennis somehow heard about this and he started, you know, reaching out to friends and people who were there, and they all confirmed the story and also confirmed his suspicions and as usual in these backwards crazy cases, despite the fact that friends straight up confirmed his suspicion. Dennis decided he was still. Going to be with Jacqueline and he stayed in the house for the grandkids and the situation like this, that is not a good idea.
You don’t want to do that. If you have to say, oh, it’s for the kids, it it’s probably not that good for the kids the day of November twenty seventh twenty fifteen. Started with Dennis and Jacqueline both arguing about her affair with Vernon. That very same day. Vernon came to pick up Jacqueline. They were apparently going on a weekend vacation that they had planned together, which was going to be at a Louisiana casino.
I doubt that’s what they were really going to do. Given the fact that they were cheating behind Dennis’s back. I feel like they had some ulterior motive was playing like they were just going to go somewhere that wasn’t a casino and just fool around. That’s what I think. You can tell me in the comments what you think. Vernon and Jacqueline walked out with Dennis and when they got to the truck, Dennis just pulled out a handgun.
And he shot Jacqueline Point blank right in the back of the head. As she fell. He shot her in the arm. Then he took the gun. And he aimed it at Vernon and he shot twice. Their next door neighbor, Sherry Rosso Rosso. I think that’s how it’s pronounced. Rosso Rosso. Again, Tommy and comments. After she saw this, she ran outside and tried to intervene. She got the gun from Dennis. And she told him it was best for him to go back inside. That’s a brave woman. I would not have done that. I would have called and I won’t one. But I don’t think that I would have gone out there and intervened like.
Everybody has their own natural reaction and. Natural like thought process during a situation, but. Maybe she was a really close neighbor. Maybe she. Didn’t believe that Dennis would hurt her so. Or maybe she knew what was going on and she knew that his anger was specifically targeted. We don’t really know. You can speculate down in the comments when you leave your comment for us, Sherry said. Quote, you don’t want to do this, Dennis. And she also reminded him, you know, you have two children in the house under your grandkids.
So I guess this kind of. Deescalated the situation for the time being, as both of us can probably guess. The police were called, they arrived, they questioned Dennis, he straight up just admitted to shooting both of them, and he admitted that he had the intent of killing them. They arrested the dentist, took him to the station and the car. He’s shown out to his grandchildren and I loved them. Once he was in the police car and they were kind of driving away. He yelled out to his grandkids that he loved them. And Dennis’s interrogation lasted around 30 minutes. It was all recorded. Dennis didn’t show any remorse.
There was a lot of on and off screaming, a lot of anger. He cursed a lot. He called Vernon a quote, slimy snake in the grass. He was not holding back and he was making it. Obvious that he was angry and didn’t regret what he did. We joke a lot on Lam about how. The murderer always pleads not guilty. Well Dennis straight up plug guilty and his trial was on January 8,2016 at the Fort Bend County District Court. Jacqueline had survived the gunshot to the head and she recounted the whole episode to police. Chief domestic violence prosecutor Chad bridges.
Had a closing statement and he said, quote, it was not the defendant’s life to take. Engaging in an extramarital affair is not justification for the defendant taking the law into his own hands. And shooting his victims. The remedy for infidelity is divorce, not death. The defendant made a choice and must suffer the consequences of his actions. End Quote. And Dennis’s defense attorney David Ryan also gave a closing statement and he argued that Jacqueline had, you know, kind of set the stage for everything that happened by quote rubbing her husband’s nose in the affair and bringing the two men to face each other. End Quote.
It was in 2019 the 240th district court judge Frank Fraley. I want to say his last name is pronounced Frailey. Again, I’m terrible with names. If you could let me know how to say it correctly, I think this is like the fourth name that I’ve asked you to correct me on. Please do it. No questions asked. But this judge sentenced Dennis to 16 years in prison. He also gave him an additional 10 years for shooting Jacqueline in the back of her head. Once that ruling was given, Jacqueline would go on to take the stand and she testified that the shooting essentially, you know, caused her physical and emotional suffering.
Which included post traumatic stress disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is often attributed to violent experiences like anything that gives you a heavy mental or emotional toll, she said quote. I have many bad memories and scars that will last forever. But you didn’t kill me. You didn’t break my spirit. You didn’t take my will to live. The past does not define my future, and I want you to spend the rest of your life in prison, end quote. So defense Attorney Ryan, he spoke out and said that he thought the sentencing for Dennis was fair.
But he also saw Dennis as a victim as well, he said quote I had no problem with him getting prison time for his actions. He could have gotten a divorce lawyer. He could have stayed away. And the solution was not to grab a gun and shoot people, but. The lack of responsibility for everybody else involved in this situation was stunning. She really doesn’t believe she did anything wrong and quote Dennis has to serve half of his sentence.
And then he’ll be considered for parole. As of today, Dennis is currently in prison. Jacqueline is still alive and has divorced him. Vernon died as a result of his gunshot wounds and nothing is known about the grandkids. That is our extra super short case about Dennis Gibson. I want to know what you guys think about the case overall, and I also want to know how you felt about what the defense attorney said. And I also want to know what you think of what his defense attorney said.
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