Wesley Alan Gibson, a resident of Knoxville, Maryland, was shot and killed in his South Mountain Road home on the evening of January 28, 2020. His fiancée, Michelle Handorf, called 911 saying she had shot him; Gibson was found with a gunshot wound to the chest and died at a local hospital. Two children were in the home that night but were not physically harmed.

Handorf told investigators she had endured escalating abuse from Gibson — alleging slapping, hair-pulling, a cigarette burn to her hand, and death threats against her and her children — and that she retrieved Gibson’s handgun because she feared for her life. She said Gibson moved toward her with a "crazy look in his eye" and she fired a single fatal shot. Handorf was taken into custody and initially charged with first- and second-degree murder.

In November 2022 she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and use of a firearm in a violent crime, with prosecutors describing the case as an imperfect self-defense claim arising from a domestic violence battery situation. In January 2023 she was sentenced to ten years for manslaughter with all but three years suspended, plus a consecutive five-year suspended term for the firearms count, and given credit for time served. Did anyone in the community know Gibson or the household circumstances leading up to that night?