KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – Nearly 50 years after 16-year-old Trenny Gibson vanished during a class trip to the Smoky Mountains, her disappearance remains one of the region’s most enduring mysteries.
Gibson, a Bearden High School student, was last seen at Clingman’s Dome, now called Kuwohi, in October 1976. She was on a class trip with a couple dozen students when she disappeared.
“I just can’t, I can’t wrap my head around it,” said Tracey Podsobinski, one of Gibson’s classmates. “It’s just, it’s so hard to believe.”
The National Park Service said Gibson was last seen on the Forney Creek Trail heading back to the Clingman’s Dome parking lot. In a split second, she was gone, and nobody could find her.
“It is a true mystery,” Podsobinski said.
Michelle Decker, another classmate, said Gibson has never been found.
The National Park Service had help from dozens of crews and search dogs to help find the teen. Authorities also investigated what happened and who could be involved, but didn’t find anything.
Podsobinski and Decker remember what it was like at school days after Gibson went missing.
“This teacher, we were sitting, and she started to call the roll,” Decker said. “And she got to Trenny’s name, and she said, ‘Trenny Gibson.’ And she looked around, and there was no answer. And she said, ‘where is Trenny?’”
Decker said several students told the teacher Gibson went missing at the field trip Friday and had not been found.
“The teacher looked, she slumped down in her chair, and said, ‘oh no,’” Decker said. “And she started crying. And Trenny’s name was never called again in that class.”
Michael Bouchard, a cold case investigator from the Northeast with decades of experience, started looking into the case.
“I said, you know what, this, this should have been solved, you know, in a second, this isn’t something that should have taken so long,” Bouchard said.
Bouchard started doing his own research, looking into case files and interviewing Gibson’s family and those on the trip. He wrote a book about it.
“Well, this isn’t a lost person. This is a homicide,” Bouchard said.
In his book, “TRENNY SOLVED,” he puts together some of the flaws in the search and what he thinks may have happened. He also said Gibson is probably still in the national park.
“I don’t think she’s outside the park,” Bouchard said. “I don’t think she’s more than probably three miles from where she disappeared.”
The biggest obstacle is people on the trip have died, but there’s still a family and Bearden High class looking for closure in the case.
“But the final closure in the case would be to, you know, at least find her remains,” Bouchard said.
“50 years later, I mean, we’re going to have a reunion, and she’s just not, she’s not with us,” Decker said.
Gibson’s Bearden High class planted a tree for her at the high school in the last couple of years with a plaque and her name on it.
Bouchard said it’s ultimately up to the FBI if they feel this case should be reopened.
Trenny Gibson missing 50 years from Great Smoky Mountains National Park (WVLT)
