The 1984 brutal crime that shocked Montana is reported in a Butte newspaper at the above link.
Michael Horvath and Ted Gibson, sent to the Pine Hills School for Boys for the brutal murders of their mothers and Gibson’s sister, were released from custody at their 21st birthdays.
Horvath left the juvenile facility in Febrary 1990 and Gibson was to be released a few months later.
Pine Hills Superintendent Al Davis said “On their birthdays we lose all jurisdiction – they just float out of the institution and go totally unsupervised. It is a little scary especially some of those folks who would like to know where these guys are going. They have no idea where he is or what he is doing – that is not right.”
On Sept 23, 1982 Horvath, 15, and Gibson, 14, killed Gibson’s Mother Mona, 47; Horvath’s Mother Mary, 61; and Gibson’s sister, Brandee, 16, in the Gibson’s Butte home.
A total of 21 shots from a .22 caliber weapon were fired into the three victims. The victims were shot repeatedly in the head at close range. One of the boys’ Mothers was shot by a gun pressed between the eyes.
The bodies – one mother wearing only a bra, the other with her panties pulled down to her knees, the sister wearing only a stocking – were concealed in the Gibson mobile home. One body was stuffed in a kitchen cabinet, one in a bedroom closet, and a third in a hollowed out mattress.
Then the boys fled to Idaho after stealing gasoline in Missoula and robbing a cafe in Superior. They were caught in Wallace, Idaho driving Mrs. Gibson’s car, and returned to Montana by juvenile authorities and two police officers. The two boys were laughing and joking with each other.
The law said that being tried as juveniles they must be released at age 21 and the crime wiped from their records.
The notoriety of the case led the 1985 Montana Legislature to change state law governing juveniles who commit violent crimes.
The new law allowed juveniles under 16 to be tried as adults and transferred to adult prisons at age 18.
AROUND THE NATION; 2 Teen-Agers Charged In Their Mothers’ Deaths
AP Published: September 25, 1984
BUTTE, Mont., Sept. 24— Two teen-age boys were charged today with murdering their mothers and one youth’s sister after the authorities found the bodies hidden in a mobile home, the police said.
Michael Eugene Horvath, 15 years old, and Ted Lloyd Gibson, 14, both of Butte, were charged with three counts of juvenile delinquency by reason of deliberate homicide, according to Youth Court documents.
The two, armed with a rifle and pistol, were arrested in Wallace, Idaho, after they allegedly robbed a Superior, Mont., restaurant, Sheriff Wade Vangilder of Mineral County said.
The bodies of Mona Gibson, 47, her daughter, Brandee, 16, and Mary Horvath, 61, were found early today after Mrs. Gibson failed to arrive at work at St. James Community Hospital, the authorities said.
