Peter James Gibson

James Gibson was shot at point blank range on Tuesday 15 November 1988.

He was shot yards from his home in Alderville Road in Walton. He had lived in Baythorne Road.

A man was seen getting into a black car shortly after and a photofit was made of him. The man was described as:

• In his late 20s.
• About 5ft 10in tall.
• Muscular build.

The day after the murder, the police found a black MG Maestro car abandoned a mile and a half away in Clubmoor. Its registration number was B809 GUP and it was determined to have been stolen five days earlier in Chester. The police appealed for anyone that knew where the car might have been kept in the five days between it being stolen and it being found abandoned.

It was said that James Gibson had not known what had hit him and that he had slumped to the pavement with his hands still in his pockets after being shot.

It was later heard at a trial in 1989 that James Gibson had been involved in a bank robbery at a National Westminster Bank in Preston in which £500,000 had been stolen. The other man involved in the bank robbery was described as an armed robber and kidnapper. However, it was heard that both James Gibson and the armed robber were actually minnows in the crime and that there had been a gang of six men behind the robbery who had pulled the strings and that it was thought that they might hold the clues as to why James Gibson was shot. However, the men were not traced.

It was said that James Gibson might have been shot in a gangland killing to silence him about the robbery or that he had had underworld drug dealing connections.

The armed robber was jailed for 13 years. However, he refused to name any names of the other people involved for fear of reprisals. He was convicted of robbery, kidnap, false imprisonment and the possession of a sawn-off shotgun.

The armed robber had been arrested soon after James Gibson was murdered after he was spotted in the grounds of Fazakerley Hospital where £12,000 and two balaclavas had been buried.

After James Gibson was murdered, his family described him as 'a man with no enemies'.