# 2 True Crime Unsolved Mysteries: Permon Gilbert and Peter Bergmann

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 28 Aug 2025, 25 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO3811006870.mp3

Join me as we discuss the cases of Permon Gilbert and Peter Bergman. Chapters: 0:00 Permon Gilbert 12:47 Peter Bergman 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill True Crime Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dVJtzeHcJgd_Z0bHrJTHQ Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 true crime unsolved mysteries, permon gilbert case, peter bergmann mystery, unsolved murder podcast, baffling cold cases, mysterious deaths, true crime podcast stories, chilling unsolved cases, unexplained disappearances, strange true crime mysteries, cold case investigations, unsolved crimes podcast, eerie true crime cases, disturbing unsolved mysteries, shocking cold cases, real life mysteries, unsolved murder stories, baffling true crime, haunting cold cases, true crime narration, unexplained deaths podcast, mysterious unsolved murders, true crime documentary style, cold case files, strange disappearances, unsolved mystery podcast, real crime mysteries, perplexing cold cases, true crime storytelling, unsolved tragedy cases, true crime analysis, disturbing unsolved stories, chilling crime podcast, real unsolved mysteries

## Transcript

[0:00] On a quiet Sunday in May 1982, a teenager riding his lawn mower
[0:05] along a country Rd. in southwest Ohio made a horrific discovery.
[0:10] It was the body of a man lying in a ditch, and he had been
[0:14] stripped down with signs that he had been beaten.
[0:17] This is the story of Perman Gilbert, a small town true crime
[0:21] mystery that remains as baffling today as it was in 1982.
[0:29] Gilbert was a lifelong resident of rural southern Ohio, known as
[0:33] a devoted family man and a skilled handyman.
[0:37] He was married to his wife, Joanne, and the couple had four
[0:41] children with whom they lived on a farm near the village of
[0:44] Hammersville. The Gilberts were active in
[0:47] their church and community, and Pearman had a reputation for
[0:51] being friendly, honest, and dependable.
[0:54] During the week he worked as an appliance repair technician for
[0:57] a national company, and on Saturdays he took on independent
[1:01] service calls to earn extra income.
[1:06] One of Perman's passions was flying.
[1:09] He owned a small private plane and even maintained A makeshift
[1:12] landing strip on his property, taking to the skies whenever he
[1:16] could. And trust me when I say it, this
[1:20] is going to be important, so keep this in mind.
[1:23] By all appearances, Perman Gilbert's life was stable and
[1:26] lawful. Friends and family later
[1:31] stressed that he didn't engage in risky behaviour or have
[1:34] obvious enemies. He was in many ways a regular,
[1:37] well liked guy in a tiny town. Perman was also very close to
[1:42] his siblings, particularly his youngest brother, Vernon.
[1:47] Vernon Gilbert was 12 years younger and had gotten into
[1:50] trouble with the law on occasion, but Perman remained a
[1:54] supportive older brother. This familial loyalty would
[1:58] later become one angle that investigators examined when
[2:01] searching for a motive in this case.
[2:03] However, in general, nothing about Perman's background hinted
[2:07] at the kind of danger or criminal entanglements that
[2:10] would explain a violent slaying. Saturday, May 22nd, 1982 started
[2:18] out unremarkably for Perman Gilbert.
[2:21] He left home around 8:30 AM to spend the day making appliance
[2:24] repair calls, as he often did on weekends.
[2:28] Uncharacteristically, Perman had told Joanne that morning that he
[2:32] didn't want to go to work that day, a comment he didn't
[2:36] explain, but one that would later haunt his wife.
[2:40] Nonetheless, he set out on his route, which took him through
[2:44] several small Ohio towns to meet scheduled customers and fix
[2:48] their appliances. By around midday, with his jobs
[2:52] completed, Perman crossed the Simon Kenton Bridge over the
[2:56] Ohio River into Maysville, KY, apparently to run a few errands
[3:00] before going home. In Maysville, Perman was spotted
[3:06] at a local supermarket sometime around noon.
[3:09] He bought a pack of cancer kazoos and chatted with the
[3:12] cashier, who later remembered Perman as his usual upbeat self.
[3:17] After leaving the grocery store, he walked next door to the
[3:20] flower shop and had a brief exchange that would later puzzle
[3:24] investigators. Perman asked the clerk, Donna
[3:27] Phipps, if a certain female employee was working that day.
[3:32] Donna told him that the person wasn't due in until 4:00 PM and
[3:36] offered to help him herself, but Perman declined.
[3:40] He said he wanted to order flowers and that the other
[3:43] employee, quote, knew what he wanted, so he would come back
[3:47] later. While the interaction was odd,
[3:50] nothing about Perman's demeanour seemed normal to the florist.
[3:54] And with that, he exited the shop.
[3:58] That fateful stop at the flower store was the last confirmed
[4:02] sighting of Perman Gilbert alive.
[4:07] Perman never made it home that afternoon, and he had told
[4:10] Joanne to expect him by 3:00 PM, but that time came and went with
[4:14] no sign of him. By nightfall, worry began to set
[4:18] in, but Gilbert's family didn't immediately drive around looking
[4:22] for him. Joanne was alone with their
[4:25] youngest child and felt uneasy about venturing out in the dark,
[4:29] but she did begin phoning friends to ask if anyone had
[4:32] seen Perman. When midnight passed with no
[4:35] word, Joanne's fear spiked. Around 3:00 AM in the early
[4:40] hours of Sunday, May 23rd, she called the police to report her
[4:46] husband missing. There was little officers could
[4:49] do in the middle of the night, but they took the report.
[4:53] Friends and family could only wait anxiously as dawn broke,
[4:57] hoping Perman might turn up or call.
[5:00] Unfortunately, the next news they got was every family's
[5:03] worst nightmare. On the afternoon of May 23rd,
[5:09] roughly 36 hours after Perman was last seen, a teenager
[5:13] returning from lawn mowing came upon a ghastly scene on Swope
[5:17] Road in Clermont County. The teen spotted a man's body
[5:21] lying in a ditch alongside the road, and he raced off to get
[5:25] help. Police arriving at the rural
[5:28] location found that the victim had been beaten viciously and
[5:31] shot twice in the chest. Investigators noted some
[5:35] peculiar details about the state of the remains.
[5:39] There were no cloth fibers or remnants of clothing on the
[5:42] upper body or in the bullet wounds, indicating that Perman
[5:46] hadn't been wearing a shirt when he was shot.
[5:49] In fact, his body had been stripped of all clothing and
[5:52] personal effects. His wallet, his wristwatch, his
[5:57] tan cowboy boots and the large personalized belt buckle he
[6:01] always wore were all gone. Whoever ended him had taken
[6:05] pains to remove anything that might quickly identify him or
[6:09] trace back to his life. Some speculated that leaving the
[6:13] victim in such a state was meant to humiliate the family.
[6:17] The autopsy would later reveal another chilling detail.
[6:21] Perman likely died no more than 10 hours before he was found,
[6:25] placing the time of death on Sunday morning.
[6:28] In other words, he may have been alive through Saturday night,
[6:32] held captive or in the company of the perpetrators for many
[6:35] hours before they finally executed him.
[6:41] In the days following the incident, authorities searched
[6:44] for Perman's missing vehicle. It turned up several days later,
[6:48] abandoned on an out of the way gravel stretch of Ebenezer Rd.
[6:52] in neighboring Adams County. This was about 20 miles from
[6:56] where Perman's body had been dumped inside the van.
[7:00] Nothing obvious was amiss, and his toolbox, spare parts and
[7:05] supplies were still there. They did find unknown
[7:09] fingerprints and some unknown hair which they thought may be
[7:12] left by the perp, but this couldn't be traced back to
[7:15] anyone at the time. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to
[7:18] find out if this hair was preserved for later forensic
[7:21] testing. In the absence of immediate
[7:26] suspects or obvious motive, detectives began piercing
[7:30] together any clues from Perman's life that might explain why he
[7:33] was targeted early on. The investigation revolved
[7:36] around 3 main theories, each pointing to a very different
[7:40] potential motive. One line of inquiry involved
[7:43] Perman's side hobby of aviation and a suspicious proposition he
[7:48] had reportedly received not long before his death.
[7:52] According to Joanne Gilbert, her husband had confided that some
[7:56] unsavory individuals approached him about using his plane to
[8:00] transport St. Pharmaceuticals.
[8:03] According to her, Perman flatly refused to get involved in
[8:07] anything illegal and was quite offended that they would even
[8:10] come to him with such an offer. In fact, he told his wife that
[8:15] he had threatened to call the authorities if those people kept
[8:18] bothering him about flying secret cargo.
[8:23] This raised a dark possibility that local traffickers had
[8:26] decided to eliminate Perman because he wouldn't play along.
[8:30] Perhaps they feared he would report them, or they wanted to
[8:33] make an example of someone who said no.
[8:36] However, despite this plausible motive, investigators could
[8:40] never find concrete evidence linking Perman's death to such
[8:43] an operation. A second theory centered on
[8:48] Perman's younger brother, Vernon, and the possibility that
[8:52] Perman became entangled in something much bigger than
[8:54] himself. As I mentioned in the beginning
[8:57] of this segment, he was very close to Vernon.
[9:01] Three months before the slaying, in February 1982, Vernon Gilbert
[9:06] had agreed to testify before a federal grand jury in
[9:09] Cincinnati. The twist was he was a witness
[9:14] in an organized crime investigation.
[9:17] The proceedings were closed to the public, but Perman went with
[9:20] his brother to support him. He had to wait outside the
[9:23] courtroom during the grand jury proceedings.
[9:25] Since these are closed to the public, and for reasons that are
[9:29] about to become obvious and to tip my own hand more than a
[9:33] little bit, I think this theory offers by far the best
[9:37] explanation of what happened during those tense hours.
[9:44] Perman grew uneasy and he later told friends that he felt he was
[9:48] being watched or followed by an unknown man around the
[9:50] courthouse. This retrospective recollection
[9:53] became highly significant after Perman's slaying. 1 hypothesis
[9:58] was that a criminal organization got wind of Vernon's cooperation
[10:01] with law enforcement and decided to send a deadly message.
[10:07] Perhaps mob linked figures identified Perman at the
[10:09] courthouse and mark the Gilbert family for retribution.
[10:14] This could explain the humiliating condition his body
[10:17] was left in as well. An even more chilling idea is
[10:22] that they eliminated Perman simply to bait Vernon out.
[10:25] Vernon was in hiding due to his status as a witness against
[10:29] these organized crime figures. Under this theory, they may have
[10:34] hoped that Vernon would attend his brother's funeral and then
[10:37] use this as an opportunity to track him.
[10:40] If this was the plan, it failed, since Vernon didn't end up
[10:45] attending the funeral precisely because he was warned by the
[10:48] authorities about this potential plan to draw him out.
[10:54] The third major theory put forward that the motive was
[10:56] personal, an illicit affair or jealous rage that led to the
[11:00] slaying. Perman's work often brought him
[11:04] into people's homes, sometimes when only a housewife or female
[11:08] family member was there. Some speculated that the
[11:11] charismatic handyman may have been laying pipe in addition to
[11:15] repairing piping. His stop at the flower shop in
[11:18] Maysville specifically asking for a particular female employee
[11:23] made some wonder if he was planning to send flowers to a
[11:26] secret lover. One rumor that circulated was
[11:30] that a jealous husband or boyfriend discovered Perman was
[11:34] seeing this woman and eliminated him.
[11:39] It's the kind of salacious theory that spreads quickly in a
[11:42] small town, but ultimately, there was no evidence to suggest
[11:46] this was the case. The cops thoroughly investigated
[11:49] this angle and found no evidence whatsoever that he was having an
[11:53] affair. By all accounts, Perman wasn't a
[11:56] handyman Casanova, and if he was laying down any pipe, it was in
[12:01] the literal rather than the figurative sense.
[12:06] To this day, no suspects have ever been officially named, and
[12:10] Perman Gilbert's family continues to hold out hope this
[12:13] mystery will one day be solved. Personally though, I strongly
[12:18] suspect that this is organized crime related and that there
[12:21] will unfortunately be no justice here at any point.
[12:29] Hey everyone, Jimmy here with a reminder to like and subscribe
[12:33] and also click the share button and spread the love.
[12:36] Also check out the podcast Lazy Chill True Crime by clicking the
[12:41] links in the description and following over there as well.
[12:48] Early 1 summer morning in 2009, on the quiet shores of Ross's
[12:53] Point Beach in northwest Ireland, a father and son on a
[12:56] jog made a chilling discovery. It was the body of a middle-aged
[13:01] man laying motionless on the sand.
[13:04] The man had no identification whatsoever, no wallet, no papers
[13:09] and even the labels in his clothing had been carefully cut
[13:12] out, leaving no clues to his identity.
[13:16] Irish authorities arrived and quickly realized they had a
[13:19] baffling mystery on their hands. In most cases, when an
[13:25] unidentified person is found deceased, police eventually find
[13:28] solid clues to figure out who they are and notify relatives.
[13:32] Not so for the man who called himself Peter Bergman.
[13:36] Detectives soon discovered that a few days earlier, on June
[13:39] 12th, this unknown individual had checked into a Sligo hotel.
[13:44] Under that alias, he paid in cash and listed a fake address
[13:48] in Vienna, Austria. He was described as being in his
[13:52] late 50s, with short Gray hair and a thick German accent,
[13:56] neatly dressed and very polite. In fact, showing identification
[14:01] was supposed to be part of the check in process, but Peter
[14:05] Bergman looked like a polite, upstanding individual, so this
[14:09] just flat out didn't happen. Investigators later pieced
[14:14] together much of the man's final days in Sligo using surveillance
[14:18] footage and witness statements. On Friday, June 12th, 2009, the
[14:25] unidentified man arrived in Sligo by bus from Derry in
[14:29] Northern Ireland. He took a taxi from the station
[14:32] and checked into the Sligo City Hotel for a three night stay,
[14:36] paying upfront in cash using his alias.
[14:40] He gave a false Vienna address and was not asked for
[14:43] identification. Hotel staff noted that he had a
[14:46] German accent and kept to himself.
[14:49] And as any Simpsons fan knows, no one who speaks German could
[14:53] be a bad man, so obviously there was no reason to do their due
[14:58] diligence. Over the next three days,
[15:03] Bergman maintained a low profile but engaged in some curious
[15:07] behavior. Each day, hotel surveillance
[15:11] cameras caught him leaving with a purple plastic bag filled with
[15:15] unknown items and returning with it empty.
[15:19] Investigators believe he was gradually dumping his personal
[15:22] belongings in trash bins all around Sligo, carefully using
[15:26] different locations to ensure nothing would be recovered.
[15:29] He seemed to deliberately avoid surveillance when disposing of
[15:32] things, suggesting a well planned effort to erase his
[15:36] past. On Saturday, June 13th, he
[15:41] visited the local post office to purchase airmail stamps.
[15:45] It's presumed he mailed out letters, perhaps final messages
[15:49] to someone, but if so, those letters have never been traced
[15:53] by police. That weekend, he was
[15:56] occasionally seen stepping out for a smoke or a meal alone,
[16:00] always polite but extremely distant.
[16:03] On Sunday, June 14th, the man took a taxi to Ross's Point, the
[16:08] scenic beach outside town where his life would soon end.
[16:13] He asked the driver for a good place to swim, and at the beach
[16:17] he got out, looked around briefly, then oddly decided to
[16:22] head straight back to town in the same taxi.
[16:26] It was as if he was scouting the beach for what he planned to do
[16:29] next. Monday, June 15th was the
[16:34] mysterious stranger's last day alive.
[16:38] Shortly after 1:00 PM, he checked out of the hotel,
[16:41] carrying only a black shoulder bag, his purple plastic bag, and
[16:46] a new medium sized black suitcase.
[16:49] The small carry on bag he'd arrived with was no longer with
[16:52] him, implying he had disposed of it somewhere throughout his
[16:55] stay. From the hotel he walked to the
[16:58] bus station and there he bought a coffee and a snack and was
[17:02] observed reading some notes on small scraps of paper.
[17:06] He then tore them up and threw the pieces into a garbage bin.
[17:10] Whatever information he wrote down, he clearly didn't want
[17:14] anyone else to see it, and these scraps were unsurprisingly never
[17:18] recovered. That afternoon, the man boarded
[17:24] a bus to Ross's Point Beach once again.
[17:26] Several beach goers later remembered seeing him walking
[17:29] along the sand that day, a tall grey haired man in a dark jacket
[17:34] politely greeting passersby. He didn't seem distressed, and
[17:39] if anything it was the exact opposite, like he had found some
[17:44] sort of profound peace. Witnesses recalled him smiling
[17:48] and nodding hello as he strolled the shore, looking generally
[17:51] upbeat as evening fell and the beach emptied.
[17:56] He was last seen alive at approximately midnight, still
[17:59] alone by the water's edge. By the following dawn, the man
[18:04] only known as Peter Bergman was no longer amongst the realm of
[18:08] the living. At 6:45 AM on Tuesday, June
[18:14] 16th, 2009, a local man and his son were jogging along Ross's
[18:19] Point when they found a body lying near the water's edge.
[18:24] It was the same stranger who had been seen around town, now
[18:27] deceased. He was dressed for a swim,
[18:31] wearing only beach attire, and some of his clothing was found
[18:34] on the shore, but there were no identification documents
[18:38] anywhere. Police noted that even the tags
[18:41] in his clothes had been cut out to conceal any origin clues.
[18:46] The man was officially pronounced dead at the scene and
[18:49] the Irish police launched an intensive investigation to find
[18:53] out who he was and how he died. A post mortem examination
[18:58] yielded more surprises. Despite his fit appearance in
[19:02] life, the man was in very poor health.
[19:05] He had advanced prostate cancer and multiple bone tumors, as
[19:09] well as signs of past heart problems.
[19:12] Yet remarkably, toxicology tests found no trace of any medication
[19:17] in his system. He wasn't even taking
[19:20] painkillers, despite what must have been severe pain from his
[19:23] chronic conditions. As for his likely cause of
[19:29] death, It's not what you think, and I don't have to use some
[19:32] euphemism like unalived to talk about what happened next.
[19:37] The pathologist noted that there was no classic evidence of
[19:40] drowning in his lungs or Airways.
[19:43] He had likely succumbed to cardiac arrest while entering
[19:46] into the cold sea or while on the shore of the beach.
[19:51] There were absolutely no signs of foul play or trauma.
[19:56] Investigators work diligently to identify the dead man.
[20:00] They ran his fingerprints and DNA through international
[20:03] databases with no matches. They checked missing persons
[20:07] reports across Europe and beyond but found nothing that fit his
[20:10] description. The address he had given at the
[20:14] hotel was as phony as his name and after a 5 month
[20:18] investigation, authorities had the unknown man.
[20:21] Laid to rest in Sligo in an unmarked grave.
[20:26] In the end, the man who had gone to such pains to hide his
[20:29] identity succeeded and he remained a mystery.
[20:36] Over the years various theories have emerged to explain the
[20:39] enigma of Peter Bergman. Some are sensible, others quite
[20:44] far fetched. The leading theory is that the
[20:48] man was terminally ill and chose to perish in a place where no
[20:52] one knew him. Knowing he didn't have long to
[20:55] live, he may have decided to slip away quietly rather than
[21:00] letting his friends and family see his final, painful days.
[21:05] The beautiful, secluded coast of Sligo could have seemed like a
[21:09] fitting spot for his final moments in this scenario.
[21:13] Every step he took, including disposing of his belongings and
[21:17] removing all labels, was to ensure that his death would
[21:21] leave no trail back to his past life.
[21:24] Perhaps he even hoped his body would drift out to sea and never
[21:27] be found, fully completing his disappearance.
[21:33] Another theory is that Peter Bergman was hiding from
[21:35] something or someone. The use of an alias, the
[21:39] deliberate erasing of his traces, and the secretive
[21:42] behavior suggests to some that he might have been a fugitive or
[21:46] a former spy trying to escape detection.
[21:50] This idea is of course, extremely interesting, but
[21:53] there's just really nothing to suggest it whatsoever beyond the
[21:56] fact that his behaviour was unusual.
[21:59] Peter Bergman is no is doll woman, and the circumstances
[22:02] seem to suggest that this cowboy wasn't running from anyone other
[22:05] than himself. Even more outlandish
[22:10] speculations have also been floated, reflecting how baffling
[22:14] this case is. Some amateur sleuths pointed out
[22:18] his careful tactics and wondered if he had a military or law
[22:21] enforcement background. One particularly bizarre claim
[22:25] even suggested the entire case was a hoax orchestrated by a
[22:29] filmmaker as a piece of performance art.
[22:32] In truth, no evidence has ever emerged for any of these exotic
[22:36] theories. My personal theory is that the
[22:41] man who used the name Peter Bergman deliberately engineered
[22:45] his disappearance, but he didn't want to leave those he cared
[22:48] about uninformed. The sequence of documented
[22:52] actions feels like the work of someone conducting A tidy,
[22:55] intentional exit after a period of pain and suffering.
[23:00] Those measures show planning and a desire to control the manner
[23:04] in which he would be known or unknown.
[23:07] They read to me as deliberate acts meant to separate the
[23:10] public facts of his death from the private communications he
[23:14] still intended to make. If he did send letters, as the
[23:20] purchase of airmail stamp suggests, those envelopes would
[23:23] serve as his chosen mechanism for confidential contact.
[23:28] Airmail implies international destinations and the possibility
[23:32] that he wanted to reach people who lived far away without
[23:36] creating an electronic trail. Mailing handwritten messages
[23:40] would let him speak directly to selected recipients while
[23:43] avoiding traceable phone calls, emails, or digital footprints.
[23:49] The simultaneous act of shredding or tearing other notes
[23:52] in public fits a pattern. He wanted certain words to
[23:56] travel and everything else to be irretrievable.
[23:59] In short, he could have ensured that only those he trusted
[24:03] received explanation or farewell, while the wider world
[24:07] saw only a man with no identity. The puzzle of public silence,
[24:13] despite significant media coverage, becomes less
[24:17] mystifying on this reading. If the people who knew him had
[24:20] already been told and had agreed to honor his wishes, they might
[24:24] have chosen privacy over publicity.
[24:28] Thus, the absence of public identification doesn't
[24:31] necessarily mean no one knew him.
[24:33] It may actually mean the opposite, that those who knew
[24:37] him knew him very well and chose to respect his wishes.

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