Family members of Michael Gibbon say they’re still coming to terms with the death of a 60-year-old man who they describe as “kind, gentle, witty and intelligent.”
“All around, just a wonderful person. You couldn’t meet anyone nicer than my brother,” sister Linda Leinweber said Thursday.
“He never had an enemy in the world.”
No arrests have been made in connection with the death of Gibbon, who was found on the front lawn of a Kitchener home Monday morning with an arrow wound in his chest.
People who live in the Margaret Avenue home say they did not know Gibbon, who lived on nearby Guelph Street, and surmise that he was attempting to reach their house for assistance as their outdoor light was on.
Waterloo Regional Police have said that they have no suspects in connection with the case, and have yet to determine whether the attack was random or targeted.
“We don’t know exactly the circumstances. We don’t really have a definitive approach yet,” Chief Bryan Larkin said in an interview.
Leinweber says family members think the attack must have been random, as they have no knowledge of anyone who might have reason to do Gibbon harm and can’t envision a situation in which it was accidental.
“I doubt very much that anyone was out hunting rabbits or squirrels at 6:30 or 7 in the morning with that powerful of a weapon,” she said.
“What else are we expected to think, other than that someone has murdered my brother?”
Gibbon worked night shifts at an insurance company, Leinweber said, and spent plenty of time with family members and close friends.
“He just did his thing and worked hard,” she said.
Away from work, he was a “voracious” reader who enjoyed fine wine and classical music.
His Guelph Street home was in fact the same residence he had grown up in.
He never married, spent years looking after his aging parents, and remained in the house after they died.
Morning walks, like the one Gibbon was on Monday morning, were a fixture of his routine.
“He walked that neighbourhood probably every morning of the last 30 years,” Leinweber said.
