Victims remembered as caring, generousJune 22, 2007 11:00 pm  •  ED KEMMICK Of the Gazette Staff

Murder victim Gerald Morris' sisters Ginger Morris and Robin Hatfield talk about Gerald's life.

Early in 2006, Gerald Morris was worried about the safety of the couple who lived next door to him on South 28th Street.

Morris' sister, Robin Hatfield, who owned some rental units, said Morris called her and asked if she could find Norman Leighton and Patti Hubbert another place to live. Hatfield said her brother told her "these people don't belong down here."

Eight months later, on Sept. 22, 2006, Leighton and Hubbert were found murdered in their tiny apartment, which apparently had been set on fire to conceal the crime. Morris was reported missing the day after the fire, and two weeks later, on Oct. 4, his decomposing body was discovered off Blue Creek Road a few miles south of Billings.

From that day on the case has been investigated as a triple homicide, but little has been said publicly about the investigation or about how the three deaths might have been connected.

However the murders happened, Morris seems to have had good reason to be concerned about Leighton and Hubbert.

They lived in one of a string of attached apartments at 221½ S. 28th St. Morris lived in the unit behind them, just across the alley from the new headquarters of the Northern Plains Resource Council.

Steve Adams, a driver for Billings Area City Cab who used to live in the same complex and knew Leighton and Hubbert pretty well, was living half a block away on South 28th at the time of the murders.

"He was the most friendliest guy around," Adams said of Leighton. "He wouldn't hurt nobody." And Hubbert? "His wife was just as big a sweetheart as he was," Adams said.

Others who knew them said the same thing: They were quiet but friendly, and they lived together for so many years that most people, including Adams, assumed they were married. They weren't rich by any means but free with their money when they had it, and oblivious to the dangers of displaying cash.

Morris was friendly, too, at least when he was sober. But he struggled with alcoholism most of his life, and when he got drunk he be could loud and obnoxious. Aside from a conviction for felony forgery, however, Morris apparently didn't get in much trouble, and he wasn't known to be violent.

His two sisters said he was a good friend to Leighton and Hubbert. One sister, Ginger Morris, is convinced that Morris was killed because he was trying to protect the couple from whoever murdered them.

"I know him," she said. "He had a conscience. He would never have let anything happen to Norman and Patti. My brother is not here today because of his conscience. I know that."

A quiet, private life

Patti Hubbert was 54 when she was killed. Born in Mississippi, she spent most of her childhood in Butte. At the age of 5 months, she was thrown from a car in an accident and suffered some brain damage. Her half sister, Beth McCoy of Billings, said Hubbert was "perfectly capable of living on her own," but the injury permanently weakened her left arm, and she was subject to epileptic seizures.

Her father died when she was a toddler and her mother had seven children, including McCoy, with her second husband. When her mother died in 1968, Hubbert, still in high school, was sent to Mississippi to live with her grandparents.

Hubbert returned to Montana about 25 years ago, settling in Billings because one of her sisters, Paula Hubbert, lived here then. McCoy said it was hard to talk about her sister because she and her siblings rarely saw her. She said there was never any formal break; it was just that Hubbert was a very private person who spent most of her time at home.

"The thing of it was, we all had kids, and Patti didn't like to be around kids. Too much noise and commotion," McCoy said.

"We all lost contact, so there's a lot of guilt involved," she said.

Hubbert never got a driver's license because of her seizures, which also contributed to her isolation.

"She just wanted to be in her house and everybody leave her alone," McCoy said. "Her idea of fun was word-search puzzles and TV."

McCoy said Hubbert always used cash and would think nothing of openly fanning a handful of bills when she went to pay for something.

"It would never occur to her that that could be dangerous," she said.

A woman who identified herself only as Mary Ann - "That'll be enough," she said - who works at the Koinonia Laundry, said Hubbert was a regular there. The tidy neighborhood laundry sits at Third Avenue South and South 29th Street, barely a block from where Leighton and Hubbert lived.

The Koinonia also has a snack bar that sells hot dogs, egg rolls, burritos, nachos, pizza and chimichangas, all heated in a microwave, and candy bars, soft drinks and chips. Hubbert did her laundry there and stopped by even more often to pick up food. If she was doing the laundry she'd usually have a pizza while she was waiting, but if she took food home it was likely to be Polish dogs and nachos.

Mary Ann said she didn't know Hubbert well, but she remembers her talking about how much she loved "her husband." Also, she said, "I know she liked stuffed animals. And I know she liked crossword puzzles because she gave me some."

'Always in a hurry'

Adams, the cab driver, worked with Leighton for a couple of years when Leighton was also a driver for City Cab, back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"Stormin' Norman," Adams said. "That was his nickname, Stormin' Norman because he was always in a hurry."

Adams said Leighton was a nice guy, sometimes too nice. If somebody stiffed him on the fare and it was the first time, his inclination was to pay the fare himself and warn the client that he wouldn't let it go the next time.

He said Leighton also had some peculiar notions about automotive care. Sometimes, supposedly to improve the efficiency of his cab, he'd pour transmission fluid directly into the carburetor. That would raise a cloud of smoke so thick that you couldn't see Leighton or his cab, Adams said, but Leighton continued to think it was a good idea.

"He was a nice guy, but he wasn't all there," Adams said.

Leighton continued driving cab until a series of strokes made it impossible to do so.

"He had eight or 12 strokes," Adams said. "It was just unreal. He'd get to the hospital and they save him." He sometimes used a walker and sometimes a cane and then he'd be walking entirely on his own power again. Toward the end of his life, Adams said, "he was totally lame on the right side."

Over the years, Adams gave countless rides to Leighton and Hubbert, to fast-food joints, Wal-Mart or movie rental stores. They both loved watching movies, and at the time of their deaths, they were said to be saving up for a big-screen TV.

Adams said Leighton and Hubbert both received disability checks from the government and they would spend freely until the end of the month, when the money started getting scarce.

"He would always have cash on him. Never wrote a check, never used a credit card. Always cash," Adams said. And both of them were good tippers. Sometimes Adams would drive Leighton to Hardee's or Wendy's and Leighton would insist on buying him a meal, too.

Adams recalled that on several occasions, when Leighton for whatever reason didn't have enough money to give him more than a $2 or $3 tip, he'd help Leighton into the house with groceries and Hubbert would find out how small the tip was. She would disappear into the other room and come back with $10 or $20, give it to Adams and jokingly refer to Leighton as a cheapskate.

'A good old boy'

Ted Foos, the former owner of City Cab, remembered Leighton as "a normal, middle-age man struggling to make a living." He did have some trouble with him, Foos said, mentioning the time Leighton, a contract driver who owned his own car, got in an accident and then confessed that he didn't have the required insurance.

"Outside of that, he was just a good old boy," Foos said.

After working as a cabbie, Leighton had his own business for a while, making saddle blanket seat covers at a little store at Monad Road and Moore Lane. Dave Smith, who used to own a laundry at Central Avenue and 12th Street West, knew Leighton in those days, and Leighton, who used to do his laundry there, made him a set of seat covers.

Later, after Smith went to work for the West End Wal-Mart, Leighton would visit with him when he shopped there. A year before the murders, on separate trips, Leighton bought two guns from Smith, who works in the sporting goods department. One was a 12-gauge shotgun for bird hunting and the other was a .270 Winchester short mag rifle for deer hunting. Smith said Leighton had a friend who helped him hunt, which was difficult because of his physical condition.

"The last gun he bought, he paid cash for it and he still had some money on him," Smith said. He even tried to tip Smith $20, but Smith said he couldn't take it. He considered him his friend, he said, and accepting it would have violated Wal-Mart policy anyway.

Hubbert and Leighton apparently had been together for about 15 years, and after finding each other they were inseparable. Leighton was 14 years older than Hubbert and was 69 when they were killed.

'A kid at heart'

After Morris was murdered, his family wrote in his obituary that "Gerald would say he was amazed he had made it to the age of 43." He was born in Browning and had also lived in New Mexico and Arizona, but he spent most of his life in Billings.

His mother, Roxie Blinco, said Morris was "just a real active little guy." He had two sisters and a brother who was 10 months younger than he. The family moved to Billings when Morris was 7 or 8, living alternately on the South Side, in the Heights and in Lockwood.

Blinco said she had some tough years raising her family of four with no help from her first two husbands, but she married Vern Blinco when Morris was 10. She said her son was always busy and always willing to help anyone with whatever needed doing.

One of his sisters, Robin Hatfield, said Morris, even as a young boy, cut lawns, raked leaves and shoveled snow. He also began working on bikes as a youngster, repairing them and later building bikes out of spare parts. By the time of his death he was known to many as the "Bicycle Man." He would repair bikes or give them away to needy people.

"You couldn't give anything to Gerald that he wasn't already thinking what he could give back to you," Hatfield said.

His greatest struggle was with drinking. He went into treatment for alcoholism for the first time at just 13 and he made five more attempts to quit drinking. He had a lot of different jobs over the years. He did some roofing, worked as a plumber for his stepfather, Vern Blinco, and he did repairs and other work on apartments owned by his sister.

He was once married for less than a year. His drinking created a strain between him and his family, but they all saw him regularly. Another sister, Ginger Morris, used to have lunch with him at the Guadalajara on a regular basis, and because she also lived on the South Side, she saw him often.

His mother and sisters cherish memories of Morris in the year before his murder. They had Thanksgiving dinner with him in 2005, and on Easter of '06 they all had a big Easter egg hunt at Hatfield's house. Morris always loved Easter egg hunts.

"He was just a kid at heart," Hatfield said. And on Mother's Day last year, they all went to church and then out for a meal at the Golden Corral.

And even though Morris lived in a tiny apartment, his family said he always kept the place clean and tidy. They used to laugh because he'd make visitors take off their shoes when they entered his apartment, and he cleaned his toilet every day.

Picking up the pieces

On Sept. 22, 2006, the day of the fire in Leighton and Hubbert's apartment, Blinco got a call from the police early in the morning, and she called Hatfield at 7 a.m. Their first thought was that the bodies found in the apartment complex were those of Morris and his girlfriend, who sometimes lived with him. Hatfield said she drove down to the crime scene off and on all day, looking for information.

Two weeks later, Morris' body was found in the ditch along Blue Creek Road. An autopsy determined that he died of multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. Blinco said the day of her son's funeral that investigators who talked to her believed Morris was involved in the deaths of his neighbors and had been killed by one or more accomplices.

Blinco and her daughters said they simply can't believe that is a possibility.

"Our brother was friends with those people," Hatfield said. "You could go down and talk to everybody and anybody down there - he couldn't have done this."

Even after Morris' body was found, Hatfield couldn't bring herself to believe that her brother was dead. She kept thinking she'd seen him while she was out driving. Sometimes she'll pass someone who she thinks looks just like him, and although she knows it can't be, she'll go around the block for another look.

Beth McCoy, Hubbert's half sister, said she got a call from the coroner at 1 p.m. on the day of the fire, and at first she thought her sister had died in the fire. It wasn't until after 5, when she was watching the news, that she learned Hubbert and Leighton had been murdered before their apartment was set on fire.

She knew her sister collected stuffed animals and she had hopes of salvaging a couple of them for family mementoes. When she and her husband went down to the apartment a week after the fire, it was the first time McCoy had ever been in the apartment.

The landlord had already removed almost everything from the apartment, and there was nothing salvageable left. Everything was black with soot and reeking of smoke.

At first, McCoy was dying with curiosity about what happened to her sister, thinking they would soon have answers.

"You get used to watching things like 'CSI,' and it's solved in an hour," she said.

McCoy said one consolation is knowing that her sister and Leighton had each other, but because no one has been charged in the crime, she can't begin to put it behind her.

"I'm too angry," she said. "I want to know who did it and why. And I want to see them punished."

Contact Ed Kemmick at ekemmick@billingsgazette.com or 657-1293.

http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_6ddd2429-4650-5b3b-b43b-ffc234fd369b.html#ixzz1zQTDcdxN

Patti Hubbert

Norman Leighton

Murder victim Gerald Morris' mother, Roxie Blinco, talks about her son.