Sarah Jane Gibbs was born in the early morning hours of September 24th, 1980 in Plymouth, Indiana to parents Howard Gibbs and Betty Glob Gibbs. She had an older brother named Eric who is around 5 years older than she was. Sarah loved music, movies, and television. As soon as she could walk, she would go through her parents collection of record albums and pick one [music] and bring it to her mom and dad to play for her.
Her first words were from the opening line of the song Sign Here by Chilliwack. >> She liked to toddle over to the record things and and pull out her favorite album and toddle back and you know, give it to one of us to put on the stereo for her. Her first words were Sign Here Become a Millionaire, which was the favorite her the first words of her favorite album at the time.
>> When they think about the memories of their daughter Sarah, it’s easy to chuckle, but it’s easy to cry, too. >> The beginning of that album, they they start out really softly, Sign Here Become a Millionaire, and she she kind of sang it right before it came on. And of course, we were astounded. [laughter] >> Sweet and innocent, no enemies, wouldn’t wouldn’t know how to be unkind.
That was She was everything that was good in the world. >> Sarah had an ear for music and a perfect pitch. She started playing on her church’s organ until she was given a keyboard. She only needed to hear a song once and could play it back by memory. She would treat her family to impromptu performances.
Sarah kept a collection of VHS tapes and DVDs. She didn’t play favorites with the music or film she loved, but some of her favorite ones included singer Pat Benatar in the 1989 movie All Dogs Go to Heaven, which was also one of my favorites. Sarah’s memory was exceptional. She kept an extensive mental record of music, movie moments, trivia, and could even tell you the weather on any given day.
She never needed to write anything down. >> When she was 3 years old, Sarah began to show signs of autism. There weren’t many resources for disabled children in Indiana in the 1980s, except those offered by Warsaw Community Schools. The Gibbs family moved to Atwood so that Sarah could have the resources she needed to flourish.
With the help of her family, teachers, and care staff, Sarah graduated from Warsaw High School, became a client of Cardinal Services when she was about 18 or 19, where they worked with Sarah as she built her adult life. There, she met a woman who worked there named Michelle Warrix. The two became very close.
Sarah wanted to live on her own, so she moved into a duplex on East Smith Street in Warsaw. It was a very convenient location within walking distance of all the places that Sarah loved: the library, the county fairgrounds, First Brethren Church, a Dollar General on Market Street, and the county’s YMCA Center.
She had a care worker visit her regularly to check in on her, but Sarah was otherwise very self-sufficient. She had a landline phone if she wanted to contact her family. Whenever she couldn’t reach someone, she was known for leaving a very similar voicemail every time, basically saying, “Hi, this is Sarah J.
Gibbs,” before giving her address and her message. This might seem like an odd bit of information, but this will make sense as we get further into Sarah’s story. Sarah didn’t have a car. Instead, she walked everywhere. If Sarah did need a ride, she could call her family or Cardinal Services, but most times she got to her Zumba classes, her church, the library, and the store all on her own.
During Halloween season, Sarah pushed herself out of her comfort zone to go to Soul Takers Acres, a local haunted attraction on the Kosciusko County Fairgrounds. She got to know the staff there and they let her walk through before they ever opened to the public that season. Sarah ran on a very strict routine, one that she followed every day to the letter. She was always very punctual.
Being on time was a very important to her, but for anyone who paid close attention to her routines, it also made her potentially vulnerable. >> On December 19th, 2014, a housing assistance worker visited Sarah as usual. She left at 7:00 in the evening, locking the side door behind her at Sarah’s request. This door opened to the nearby fairgrounds, the local middle school, and Winona Lake.
Sarah always kept it locked, but there were times when her parents visited her and it was left unlocked. Sarah was evasive about why. At 11:14 that night, Sarah’s neighbors called 911 after they saw smoke coming from her apartment. They opened her apartment door to check on her, but they didn’t get a response when they called out her name.
The fire had nearly extinguished itself by then, and the sudden rush of oxygen reignited the flames. Two fire departments, Warsaw, Wayne, and Winona Lake, responded to the distress call. There were about 35 firefighters at the scene, plus officers from the sheriff’s department and paramedics from Multi-Township EMS.
The American Red Cross was also called in to help Sarah’s displaced neighbors. The coroner’s office was also called. After the firefighters put the fire out, they found Sarah’s body in her apartment, in the living room, where she always sat to watch her favorite movies and television shows. She was only 34 years old. >> Sarah’s body was taken to Northeast Indiana Forensic Center.
She didn’t have the signs that you would expect from someone who died in a fire. It wasn’t the flames or the smoke inhalation that killed her. The autopsy confirmed that she was dead before the fire even started. The investigators never officially stated a cause of death for Sarah. The press described it as an intentional assault by someone other than herself, but her family shared that Sarah had been stabbed with a knife.
There was no evidence Sarah was a victim of SA, but based on our research, the police never ruled it out. The side door was unlocked and there were no signs of forced entry. Investigators speculated that whoever killed Sarah and set the fire was invited inside. After she was murdered, her killer used some kind of accelerant to destroy any evidence they left behind.
Her phone records revealed that she only spoke to friends and family in days leading up to her death. Police department officially announced a homicide investigation on December 23rd, 2014. Sarah’s friend Michelle Warrix had left Warsaw before the fire. She saw the headlines, she couldn’t believe that anyone would have wanted to hurt her.
>> And she did not forget a person. Even working with her 13 years ago, I could run into her and she would know exactly who I was. And come up and and say hi and give me a hug and just kind of stand there and do her usual Sarah smile. And then I heard about a fire over on Smith Street and I instantly thought of those apartments.
And then when they finally released her name, I mean I pretty much It was very, very devastating. The thing that went through my mind was how, why, who could have done something like this to her. And she had no enemies. So, why would anybody even do this to her? >> Sarah’s story hit very close to home for a Warsaw woman named Amy Brown, who was a mother of an autistic son.
She was worried about her own son being vulnerable to the same kind of person. >> It’s very saddening. It’s very scary. It’s just very alarming to our community. Anything of that nature is very concerning. >> For Brown, it’s all the more concerning because her son, like Gibbs, is autistic. >> I worry about this all the time as a parent, my husband and I both.
With him not being able to communicate things that happen, you know, we can’t, you know, we feel like we don’t we feel a little helpless. >> Betty created the Facebook group Justice for Sarah Gibbs. An IndieGoGo fundraiser was shared on the discussion board. Sarah’s friends, family, and acquaintances wanted to honor her with a small memorial plaque at the YMCA where she went all of the time.
They raised the money together in less than 24 hours. The plaque went up in early March of 2015. Sarah’s memorial service was held on December 26, 2014 at the Johnson Danielson Funeral Home. One year later, they held a rally a few days after Sarah’s 35th birthday. It was originally meant to raise awareness about her murder.
But as the date grew closer, Howard and Betty learned how many people knew or knew of Sarah because of how ingrained she was in her local community. >> The rally was held on the Kosciusko County Fairgrounds. Women in Sarah’s Zumba class performed in her memory. Howard gave a speech saying, “I’m sure most of you have stories about her and most of those are probably amusing.
She was a special kind of person. Really touches my heart that Sarah touched so many lives and her life was touched by them in turn. I’m sure that Sarah’s up looking down and smiling at me and all the people that love her so much.” Investigators said in 2015 that Sarah’s murder wasn’t officially cold, but they had chased down every lead they could.
Police department received fewer than five tips in the first year after the fire and nothing since then. Investigators and Sarah’s parents worked with WSBT Channel 22 to get more eyes on Sarah’s murder and stir up new interest. Detective Ryan Moore told the news station, “It was a cowardly act committed to a defenseless woman.
It has got to be eating away at somebody’s conscience. We know what happened. We don’t know exactly how it transpired.” The housing assistant worker even told that she asked Sarah if she would like her to lock the door behind her. She said, “Yes, please.” And she locked the door behind her and closed the door. The fire had extinguished itself, or the flame was out.
And when they were able to open the door to see if anyone was inside, they say they saw a flash and basically it gave the fire its oxygen and it made it flash again. Someone’s intention of fire, especially after committing an act of murder, is to hide the evidence or to destroy it. There are details in the case that law enforcement knows and the person that committed the act knows.
Due to where we are in the case, unfortunately, I am not allowed to share those details. It would have been very easy for someone to know that she lived alone. It would have been very easy for someone to know her daily routine and probably follow her without her being aware of it. It would have been very easy for someone to have stalked Sarah.
She had very set patterns in her life. >> Howard and Betty talked to reporters about what life has been like without their daughter. >> It’s just devastating. >> [music] >> Wake up every morning, it’s the first thing you think of. Trying to figure out how to live without her. >> [music] >> It’s the hardest thing we’ve ever gone through.
>> Over a decade later, we have no answers. No motive, no suspect, and little evidence. Much of it was destroyed by the fire. If Sarah’s murder wasn’t cold before, it’s cold now. Howard said, “Whoever did this did a really good job covering their tracks. If no one comes forward with new information, and no one confesses, it may never get solved.
With no new leads, the Warsaw Police Department has nowhere to go. Detective Ryan Moore said, “There’s not a lot of violent crime in Warsaw, and it’s frustrating that this case has gone unsolved for so long. There’s just not enough evidence to place anyone at the scene.” >> Sarah’s story was covered by the podcast Cold Case Chronicles in an episode published in January of 2021.
Both the podcast and a post in the Justice for Sarah Gibbs Facebook group bring up the name James Theodore King. James King lived in Warsaw, less than 3 miles away from Sarah’s apartment. He had a wife and children, and ran an outreach ministry for people struggling with addiction. According to Cold Case Chronicles, he was often seen doing street evangelism around Warsaw.
Today, James King is a registered offender. Now, this isn’t us making an accusation towards him, but his past crimes are very relevant as it relates to Sarah’s case. February 20th, 2016, a pair of 32-year-old twins went missing. They lived with their mother and were intellectually disabled. Their mother woke up in the very early morning and realized her daughters were not in their rooms.
She called the police at 3:27 a.m. The twins had gone into James’ apartment. He was their neighbor, and the two women wanted to watch movies without waking their mother. He fed them both alcohol and kept at it until the women were drunk. When they were later given breathalyzer tests, their blood alcohol concentration was .125 and .129. James had no alcohol in his system.
James brought one of the twins to the back room, put her down on the floor, and attempted to remove her pants. She resisted until he stopped, but he stood in the bathroom while she used the toilet. After the first twin fell asleep, James took the second twin into the back room, where he essayed her and took pictures of her with his phone.
It was their mother who found them at James’ apartment visibly intoxicated. The two women told the police what happened to them and they were taken to an essay treatment center in Fort Wayne. James was arrested and brought to the Kosciusko County Jail where he was held on $101,000 of bail. James said the twins came to his apartment door and he let them in.
He also lied claiming he served the twins root beer and not alcohol. The DA’s office offered James a plea deal which he accepted. The essay charges would be dropped and he would only be charged with one count of sexual battery instead of two counts. His sentencing was held in June of 2018. James’ wife Teresa was a witness during the sentencing.
She called him a very devoted man to our holy father. Said he was a good role model for their children. And a man who only wanted to help people. But then she said, “We all fall into temptation.” The twins’ mother agreed to the plea deal but asked that the court give James the maximum sentence possible. She wrote a letter to the court that her daughters were terrified that they would see James if they left their house.
They used to look forward to going to local events but the thought of James possibly being there was way too much for them to handle. Judge Jerry M. Barr gave James the maximum possible sentence on one count of sexual battery which is a level six felony. Two years in the state’s Department of Corrections with six months of probation.
He got credit for 74 days that he already served in jail. He had to receive counseling during his probation and he could not speak to the twins, their mother, or anybody with a disability or a handicap. He is on the registry until April of 2029. Cold Case Chronicles spoke with Sarah’s father. Howard suspected Sarah was seeing somebody but hadn’t told the family.
He remembered the Thanksgiving before Sarah’s death when she mentioned an obscure Bible quote. When asked, Sarah said she learned it from somebody that she was friendly with. >> This is just supposition. You know, all we have to go on is is circumstantial evidence, although there is quite a bit of that. It doesn’t necessarily point to any one person, although we do have our suspicions.
Basically, Sarah wanted to have as normal a life as possible. That’s what she always said. She wants to, you know, have live a normal life. Um part of that included having a relationship at some time. But, being quite autistic, she really didn’t know how to go about it. Didn’t really She couldn’t read people. >> Right. >> like like a normal person would know when somebody’s, you know, somebody’s giving feeding them a line of BS or something, but no, if they were smooth enough, Sarah it’d go right over Sarah’s head.
>> Right. >> What we think is probably um she had somebody that that got to know her. We suspect it may have been through uh uh on the pretense of Bible studies. Um she made a comment uh the Thanksgiving before the incident that she had made a uh reference to a obscure Bible quote. And um she said that she learned it from a somebody that she was friendly with.
And basically what what we suspect is that this person was seeing Sarah secretly. And she got real attached, as she would, in not understanding that this person wasn’t sincere, wasn’t genuine. And um she was not so handicapped that she couldn’t uh that she wasn’t responsible for the decision whether to to have sex or not.
>> Right. >> Um, but that doesn’t mean the person knew that, you know, or you know, just if if it was somebody that was had any kind of social standing or anything else, might not wanted to be known that they you know, were having an affair or whatever had been or whatever with the you know, a fairly seriously handicapped person, you know, mentally handicapped not to you know, if it was on the up and up, you know, we wouldn’t have a problem with that obviously.
But we think that uh basically they they came over that night with the with the intention of killing her and that’s what they did. And then covered the crime up. >> A friend of Sarah’s who wanted to remain anonymous told Cold Case Chronicles that Sarah had once mentioned going to a Bible study group. Sarah left this friend a voicemail with a different Bible verse.
It was one that felt out of character. Another time Sarah called this friend and began to leave a voicemail. She started out with her usual, “Hi friend’s name. This is Sarah J. Gibbs.” Then there was an unfamiliar voice in the background and the voicemail ended abruptly. Her friend said it sounded like someone was telling Sarah to hang up.
The friend gave this voicemail to the police but no leads came from it. Cold Case Chronicles also alleges that the county prosecutor wanted to speak with James King about Sarah and James lawyered up. There wasn’t enough evidence to place James near Sarah’s apartment that December night. Cold Case Chronicles has a theory.
Sarah, devoted to her church, may have been vulnerable to people who use religion as a way to get close to her. According to this theory, James got to know Sarah through what he called Bible study. They have a theory, of course, that he might be involved, but there’s no indication that he was officially ever named a person of interest by the police.
>> In 2025, Howard and Betty spoke with Ink Free News, a North Indiana-based digital newspaper. As of the date of this recording, it is the most recent coverage of Sarah’s case. In the article, they talked about their daughter and shared their thoughts on how Sarah might have been manipulated into letting someone in.
Howard told reporters, “For obvious reasons, the police have to sit on some information. They have to keep some things quiet that only the perpetrator would know, so that’s understandable. From what little information we gathered, it appears that Sarah knew the person that killed her. From information we got, which will not be public, she had to have known the person for at least a short amount of time.
Sarah wanted to live as normal a life as possible, and that included having a romantic relationship. Unfortunately, she was not remotely discerning enough to know when she was being led on. I suspect that she developed a very short-term relationship with somebody, and when they saw that she was fastening onto them, they basically panicked and thought they needed to cover their tracks.
” Betty interjected, “She didn’t really know how to have regular friendships or regular relationships. Most of her friends were her staff. She was interested in having a relationship. We know that. We suspect that there might have been someone, but she didn’t tell us about it.” Howard continued, “I think she either left the door ajar or let this person into her apartment that night.
They got close enough to her that they were able to kill her without too much resistance. She had a side door that opened onto Winona and faced the fairgrounds just for an emergency exit. A couple times when we went to check on her, we noticed that door was not closed and latched firmly, and I said something to her about it.
She seemed maybe slightly evasive about it. The door did not close well, which we reported. You had to make sure you closed it good, and she knew how to close it and latch it. I think maybe she was leaving it so that it wasn’t latched real good for whoever it was that she was seeing at the time. She was never really quite sure if she was doing the right thing or being 100% socially appropriate.
She said, “I’m sorry.” a lot. I think people would probably remember the most about her would be the big zebra striped wallet stuffed in her pocket most of the time. Sarah did frequent places like the shop Our Father’s House. We’ve a sneaking feeling that her killer may have been somebody that frequented or was involved in one of the shops on Market Street where the old Marsh Supermarket used to be.
There was a blue jean shop and a Dollar General. We know she frequented those areas a lot. That was in walking distance from her apartment. Those would be places where people might have noticed her talking to someone on more than one occasion. She used to go to the library a lot. She went to the park at times. The people who frequented those areas are probably the only people who may have seen anything that may shed some light on the subject.
And he added, “She spent a lot of time in October going through the haunted house at the fairgrounds. She became their test subject, and they let her go through for free. She would do stuff like that to push herself. One year they dedicated the haunted house to Sarah. Possibly someone who frequented that area might have seen her with someone.
She was not the type to have conversation, so anybody she was seen talking with for any length of time could be a person of interest.” >> Sarah’s story was a difficult case to research because of how few sources there are and how little the investigation has moved, but Sarah Jane Gibbs deserves to have her story told just as much as victims in more high-profile cases do.
We want to thank Cold Case Chronicles for their research and insight into Sarah’s life and the crimes of James King. I also want to give a little shout-out to you, uh, Handy, for keeping me company this entire episode. Mwah. There is a $10,000 reward for anyone with information that leads to solving Sarah’s murder.
Anyone with information should call the Warsaw Police Department, the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Tip Line, or the Michiana Crime Stoppers. We’ll have those numbers for you listed on screen and in the video description. If Sarah’s case resonated with you, then please click here to check out the case of Katie Witton, a disabled young woman from Arkansas.
Unlike Sarah, who was deeply loved and cared for by her family, Katie was neglected to death by the one person who was supposed to be caring for her, her own father, who allowed her to be eaten alive by cockroaches.
