Mother accused of tossing twins off Flint River bridge in 1996 still senses 'their presence'

When LaSonya Gipson answered a knock on her door the other day, a reporter who'd shown up unannounced told her who he was looking for and why.

"This me," Gipson said. "Come in."

She switched off a radio in her kitchen and motioned to a sofa by the front door.

"You can have a seat," she said.

Her brick duplex apartment was built in the wake of World War II. The place sits at the edge of Fort Benning, maybe 15 minutes across Columbus from the psychiatric hospital where she was confined for more than a decade.

Gipson moved into the apartment in 2014 after staying at a group home for a few years, part of her supervised release from state custody.

The questions from police and just about anyone who recalls the disturbing news she made two decades ago -- "What happened to your children?" "What did you do?" -- have all but subsided.

But Gipson's alleged deeds, which were reported by Atlanta TV stations and noted in at least one New York newspaper, are far from forgotten.

Her twins, Latoshia and Joshua, were 3 years old when they vanished on the night of Jan. 14, 1996. More than a week passed before the authorities grasped what had become of them, prompting search crews to comb the Flint River below Marshallville, 18 or so miles west of Perry and Interstate 75.

At the time, The Telegraph reported:

Macon County Sheriff Charles Cannon said no one may ever know for sure what led LaSonya O. Gipson to allegedly get out of her grandpa's Ford pickup on the Lewis H. "Bud" McKenzie Bridge and toss her twin babies into the water 27 feet below. Investigators made their best try at interrogating the 27-year-old mother. ... Her statements didn't "make a whole lotta sense," the sheriff said. "She was talking in circles, just gibberish."

Her doctor back then told reporters that Gipson was mildly retarded and that she'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia. After her arrest on murder charges, she was evaluated at the Columbus hospital, West Central Georgia Regional, where a doctor declared her incompetent to stand trial.

She was later found to have had symptoms of mental illness about the time Latoshia and Joshua went missing. The Telegraph, citing court documents, noted a decade ago that she had suffered from a thought disorder and paranoia and couldn't tell right from wrong.

Her condition was evaluated on a regular basis. As the years passed, gradually she was moved out of a hospital setting.

Southwestern Circuit District Attorney Plez Hardin's Macon County office has overseen Gipson's case since it began.

"She would go through the annual review," Hardin said. "That'd be reported to the judge along with what the recommendation would be from the psychiatrist, whether that person remained in custody or allowed to live in some supervised environment."

Though Gipson's situation is rare, Hardin said there are avenues for the mentally ill who have been accused of violent crimes, but never tried or convicted, to be eased back into society.

"It's hard to get past the fact that she basically tossed both her kids over a bridge and killed them," Hardin said. "But I certainly understand the mental-health aspect to it. I'm not a clinical or forensic psychologist so I can't make those decisions -- and the court isn't either. They make their decisions based on the recommendation from those physicians."

'LOT OF COMMOTION GOING ON'

Now 47 and living alone, Gipson hopes that a pending hearing will grant what she calls her "full release."

Before her knee started bothering her, she worked bagging groceries at a Piggly Wiggly and as a janitor at the Army base.

The other morning when Gipson opened her door, she had on white-framed glasses, a gray jacket. Her jeans, tucked into black boots, made her look shorter than she is.

Her duplex smelled like non-menthol Newports. There was a pack on a coffee table.

Before her twins died, the mobile home she was staying in burned in a fire. At the time, neighbors in Garden Valley, a Macon County community of about 200, recalled her moving in at her Granddaddy Manson's place. The Flint River was behind it, 3 miles to the east where the state's last ferry crossing had been until the bridge was built.

Searchers found Latoshia's body downriver from there. Joshua's never turned up.

"Twenty years ago ... I was sick at that time," Gipson, sitting on a love seat in her duplex's living room, said as she tried to explain the circumstances surrounding her twins' deaths. "And it was a lot of commotion going on."

Gipson described it as if there were "an enemy" inside her.

"It was a tragic (thing) that happened, and it wasn't me," she said. "It wasn't me. It looked like it was somebody else that wanted this to happen. And I was trying to overcome it and I couldn't."

Her mother and father and grandparents have since died. Her mother was in and out of mental hospitals all her life, Gipson said.

Her thoughts drifted back to the twins.

"If I could have been stronger than what I was," she said, "and if I would have been alert and paying attention to myself and not focusing on the enemy, I could have overcome it and they would still be here today."

Her birthday is Jan. 16, two days after the 20th anniversary of her twins' disappearance. She said her sister has a picture of the children, but she doesn't have one. Gipson didn't say why, but said she hopes to get a copy.

Though she hopes to return to work soon, she had to quit her job cleaning buildings at Fort Benning because of arthritis in her knee.

Gipson said she's been living at her apartment on the south side of Columbus going on two years. In 2014, she underwent surgery for tumors in her stomach.

"It's a tough road. ... Something that I learned is to forgive myself ... and God will forgive you," Gipson said. "You've got to stand up and face what you did ... and take it."

Before the reporter left he asked if it'd be all right to record a video of her talking about her past.

Gipson said her hair wasn't fixed but said OK.

She spoke more of forgiveness and the Lord and what she has endured.

"I had to be strong and go through it, go through the storm," Gipson said, her voice halting as if to find the right words. "And I've got to keep on to this day, keep on walking through it and going through it, because on the other side's gonna be a brighter day."

When she recalled Latoshia and Joshua, she told of "the goodness, the joy, the happiness I had with them."

She said, "Their presence seems like it's with me every day. Their presence. I can just see the light shining on me every day."

Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report. To contact writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397 and find him on Twitter @joekovacjr.

This story was originally published January 23, 2016 at 6:16 PM with the headline "Mother accused of tossing twins off Flint River bridge in 1996 still senses 'their presence' ."