Companion Substack article with photos, map, timeline, links, and sources.

https://blueridgetruecrime.substack.com/p/false-sunset-death-at-a-blue-ridge

In this episode of the Blue Ridge True Crime podcast, we unravel the disturbing mystery of the Chestoa View Overlook deaths: a case that has haunted North Carolina for decades. On October 17, 1988, tourists discovered abandoned camera equipment and heard a woman's terrified scream echoing from the gorge below.

Early the next morning, rescuers found the bodies of Susan Haire and Helen Gibbs on the steep, tangled slope below. Helen's husband, James Gibbs, claimed it was a tragic accident that the women had slipped while posing for sunset photos.

But investigators quickly realized the story didn't add up. The overlook faces east. You can't photograph a sunset there. And the deeper the authorities dug, the darker the story became.

An insurance agent told investigators that a $100,000 life insurance policy was taken out on Helen Gibbs just months before the incident. James Gibbs had allegedly burned her with a stun gun in a "torture session" to get her to confess to an affair that summer.

He had ordered books on how to beat lie detector tests and how crime scenes are investigated. And his story about what happened kept shifting.

Was this an accident, a double suicide, or a calculated murder on a dark mountainside?

Plus a brief profile of Paladin Press, "the most dangerous publisher in the world," and the book that cost them millions, Hit Man.

Find everything: all episodes, articles, and videos at: https://blueridgetruecrime.com/

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