Case Details
- Photo URLs:
-
- Missing Since:
- Missing Since 12/01/1997
- Missing From:
- Missing From Pecos, Texas
- Classification:
- Classification Endangered Missing
- Gender:
- Female
- Race:
- Race White
- Date of Birth:
- Date of Birth 08/07/1968 (56)
- Age:
- Age 29 years old
- Height and Weight:
- Height and Weight 5’6, 125 pounds
- Clothing/Jewelry Description:
- Distinguishing Characteristics:
- Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Red hair, blue eyes. Gabbert has a raised red-colored scar on her right arm. She has a scar on her right eyebrow and a long horizontal scar on the left side of her body. Gabbert has a small birthmark on her inner left arm. She has a tattoo of a cluster of roses on the left side of her chest, a tattoo of a single rose above her right buttock and unidentified tattoos on both of her ankles. Gabbert has several body piercings and she wears eyeglasses. She may be using the last names Brooks and/or Bigham. Her maiden name is Bridges.
- Details of Disappearance:
- In December 1997, Gabbert disappeared. Her boyfriend, Chris Bigham, said she’d gone to Dallas by bus, but the bus station confirmed she never bought a ticket. Bigham then moved to Washington, leaving Gabbert’s younger children with their fathers, but keeping her 13-year-old daughter.
A year later, in December 1998, Bigham confessed to killing Gabbert. He claimed she threatened him with a gun, and he shot her in self-defense. He said he buried her, then dug her up, burned her body in a barrel, and dumped the barrel in the Pecos River.
Divers found a barrel matching his description in August 1998, with a hole to let in air and fuel for burning. Human remains, identified as toes, were found inside. Bigham’s daughter later said he’d told her Gabbert killed herself, and that she’d seen her mother’s remains in the barrel.
Bigham was convicted of murder in 1999. Gabbert’s body was never found, but the evidence strongly suggests she was murdered. At the time of her disappearance, she worked as a dancer and lived with Bigham in a mobile home near the Pecos River.
- Agency:
- Texas Department of Public Safety 800-346-3243
- Source Links:
This person was missing Missing Since 12/01/1997