Stephanie Gibson

Stephanie C. Gibson, a 48-year-old White woman with green eyes and graying brown hair, has been missing for decades, last seen after a night out in her hometown of Peoria, Illinois. At the time she vanished in the summer of 1995, she lived in the 600 block of Voris Street. Those who knew her were aware that she had a mental disability. She had a distinctive tattoo of a broken heart on her upper left arm and both of her ears were pierced. Her case is one of several disappearances of women from the Peoria area during the mid-1990s that left the community on edge and pointed toward a terrifying possibility.

The last confirmed sighting of Stephanie was in the early morning hours of Saturday, July 8, 1995. She had been at Memories Tavern, a bar located in the 800 block of Main Street in Peoria. At approximately 2:30 a.m., she was seen leaving the bar with a man named Arlie Ray Davis. The two departed in his vehicle, a light blue, four-door 1979 Dodge Dart with Illinois license plate number MMJ 296. Stephanie was wearing a tight-fitting black blouse with diamond-shaped designs, black spandex pants, black sneakers, and earrings. She has not been seen or heard from since that night.

The investigation into Stephanie’s disappearance was handled by the Peoria Police Department. The man she was last seen with, Arlie Ray Davis, became the primary focus. When questioned, Davis claimed that after leaving the bar, he and Stephanie had traveled to the nearby village of Kingston Mines. However, investigators could find no evidence to support his statement, leaving her whereabouts a complete mystery. Her family and friends spent weeks searching for her, scouring rural roads, but found no trace.

Suspicion surrounding Davis intensified as investigators uncovered a disturbing pattern of violence against women. Several local sex workers reported that Davis had a history of strangling and beating them. He was eventually convicted for the brutal August 1995 murder of another woman, Laurie Gwinn, whom he had also met at a bar. For that crime, he was sentenced to death. This conviction solidified the belief among law enforcement that Davis was likely responsible for other unsolved cases.

Stephanie’s case was soon linked with those of other women who had vanished from the Peoria area around the same time, including Loretta Tinkham, Cheryl Murray, and Sheryl Murwin. Investigators believed it was possible that all these women had crossed paths with Davis. While he was a suspect in their disappearances, he was never charged. Davis consistently denied any involvement in the cases of the missing women.

The search for answers took a turn in October 2002 when Arlie Ray Davis died of a heart attack on death row. He took any secrets he may have had about Stephanie Gibson and the other missing women to his grave. Over the years, unidentified female remains have been discovered in the Peoria area, but none have been identified as Stephanie. Her case remains an active missing person investigation, classified as endangered and a suspected homicide.

As of today, Stephanie Gibson is still missing. Her disappearance left a void in the lives of those who knew her and contributed to a period of fear in her community. The Peoria Police Department continues to list her as a missing person, and her case file, number 95-21265, remains open in the hope that new information will one day surface and finally bring answers to her loved ones.