Judge denies bond reduction for man accused of January homicide
Lane Gibson appeared in district court on June 10 for a bail hearing.
He’s being held in the Cascade County Adult Detention Center on a $750,000 bond for a homicide charge in the January death of Terrell Johnson.
Gibson’s defense attorney, Colin Delli Bovi, said he’d been in communication with Gibson’s father. He said Gibson had local ties and had been working at McDonald’s before his arrest and thought he could get his job back or other employment if released.
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He said that bail is designed to ensure a defendant appears for court hearings and that his client could be equipped with GPS monitoring before a potential release.
Gibson’s trial is currently scheduled for early 2028.
Gibson’s inability to post bond could have a prejudicial effect on the time between when he was charged and tried, Delli Bovi said.
He said the defense team was hoping the bond would be reduced to $250,000 to $300,000, which may be doable for Gibson and his family to post, but was still substantial.
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Kory Larsen, the deputy county attorney prosecuting the case, said the bond should be commensurate with the nature of the case.
“This is about as serious a charge as any defendant can face,” Larsen said.
He said Gibson was fairly young, 20, and nothing in his criminal history indicated the bond should be increased.
The prosecution’s primary concern was Gibson’s actions after the investigation began and his initial charge was tampering, since he allegedly contacted someone to lie about his whereabouts and destroyed video equipment.
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Judge John Parker said the defense noted Gibson’s local ties and it didn’t sound like there were substantial financial limitations.
The charge is “one of the most severe,” Parker said, and while Gibson is innocent until proven guilty, he found the charge of witness tampering to be indicative of future compliance with release conditions so he maintained the $750,000 bond.
During a May 8 hearing, Parker and the attorneys discussed scheduling for the case that includes significant forensic work.
Gibson was initially charged with witness tampering and the prosecution filed amended charges in district court to add the deliberate homicide charge in January.
The amended charges followed DNA testing results from the state crime lab that placed Gibson with Johnson on the morning of his death, according to court documents.
Gibson was arrested Jan. 28 and held on a $150,000 bond, which was updated to $750,000 with the homicide charge.
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Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter said Jan. 30 that it was “hard to say” what the motive may have been at this point in the investigation, which is ongoing.
While investigating Johnson’s death, a Cascade County Sheriff’s Office detective reviewed his law enforcement database profile, which included a cell phone number he’d provided during a Dec. 30, 2025 jail booking.
The detective was able to confirm the cell phone number was registered to Johnson and contacted the provider to request location data.
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When the request was made, Gibson hadn’t been identified nor had Johnson’s cell phone been recovered.
The detective received the location data, which showed the phone was not near the CCSO office, where Johnson’s body and the vehicle he was in had been moved to, nor was it in the area Johnson and the vehicle had been previously located, according to court documents.
The phone’s location appeared to move from the west side of Great Falls to the south side from late evening of Jan. 9 to early morning of Jan. 10, with the location radius narrowing from 1,400 meters on Jan. 9 to 400 meters on Jan. 10 when location data stopped being shared.
On Jan. 10, the CCSO detective received historical cell phone data for Johnson’s number from the provider and it was reviewed by other law enforcement agencies, who told CCSO the phone appeared to have been near the Grand View Apartments.
In the weeks before Gibson’s arrest, Slaughter asked residents in the area of the Grand View Apartments, as well as an expanded area of the city, to share any surveillance video they might have on the night of Johnson’s death.
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The CCSO detective spoke with a friend of Johnson’s who indicated she shared location data with Johnson via the iPhone messenger application and provided a screenshot of his last shared location, which appeared to be near 7th Street South and 13th Street South, the same general area of the apartment complex.
Detectives learned that Johnson had gone to Keith’s Country Store with another person, then to Taco Bell with another, spending significant time at an apartment at 1605 Chowen Springs Loop, corroborated by Snapchat location points in the area, putting Johnson there until about 3:30 a.m. Jan. 9.
Several other people were at the apartment, including Gibson, the defendant.
“Johnson was alleged to have left through the front door of the residence, and shortly after another individual, believed to be Gibson, left through the back door, though it was never confirmed where Gibson went,” according to charging documents.
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On Jan. 10, a CCSO detective spoke with another of Johnson’s friends who said that she and others often communicated with Johnson via Snapchat and he shared his location.
She said she’d never seen his Snapchat location turned off, but after learning of Johnson’s death, she noticed that his location had been off for about 11 hours, according to court documents.
The detective was granted a search warrant for Johnson’s Snapchat data, which corroborated witness accounts of his whereabouts.
Johnson had traveled to Havre and Fort Belknap in the early evening on Jan. 8, returning to Great Falls around 11 p.m. to pick up his aunt from work at Beehive Homes.
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After picking up his aunt, he went to Keith’s Country Store with friends, then Taco Bell, and had been at the Chowen Springs apartment until about 3:30 a.m. Jan. 9.
One of the people in the Chowen Springs apartment told investigators that she had given a light colored zip up hoodie to Gibson, the defendant, according to court documents.
Johnson’s next location point on Snapchat is behind Grizzly Inn at 5:41 a.m., then moved to 17th Street and south to 22nd Avenue South around 5:56 a.m., where his location stayed until 6:02 a.m., after which time there was no further location data shared from Johnson’s Snapchat account.
After CCSO requested surveillance footage from that area, several were shared showing what appeared to be a male wearing a light-colored zip up hoodie, dark pants and carrying what appeared to be a black bag. The individual appeared in videos from several places.
On Jan. 10, detectives processed Johnson’s vehicle and collected several pieces of DNA evidence, including a water bottle that was just outside the vehicle on the ground by the passenger door. Inside the vehicle, detectives found a care of water that matched the brand of the water bottle found outside the vehicle and only one bottle was missing from the case, according to court documents.
The DNA evidence was sent to the Montana State Crime Lab for testing.
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Detectives canvassed the Grand View Apartments on Jan. 13 and collected several pieces of evidence. Cameras in the building had been pushed up from their normal position.
The Great Falls Police Department had taken a report that the DVR for the complex’s recording system had been stolen from the building, Slaughter said, and court documents indicated there was a blood swipe located in that area, a swab of which was also sent to the state lab for testing.
Detectives learned that Gibson had been found to be vaping at the Grand View Apartments and when confronted, gave his brother’s name, Adrian, and went into an apartment, then left on foot carrying a black duffel bag.
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On Jan. 12, detectives received footage from the B&B mobile home park that showed what appeared to be the same male walking through the park toward Grand View Apartments, but he couldn’t get past the fence and appeared to walk westbound on 13th Avenue South toward the apartments.
Johnson’s autopsy was conducted on Jan. 13 and Sheriff Jesse Slaughter said on Jan. 14 that the cause of death was multiple stab wounds.
Also on Jan. 14, Slaughter said the Montana Department of Justice had granted his request for expedited evidentiary processing for the case.
On Jan. 15, an agent with the Montana Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation interviewed Gibson at the Great Falls Police Department.
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He was Mirandized and agreed to speak with the agent, admitting he’d been at the Chowen Springs apartment at the same time as the victim.
Two other people who were in the apartment were also interviewed and told investigators that they heard Gibson and Johnson leave about the same time.
Gibson told investigators he left the apartment around 2:30 a.m. and had been with another person.
On Jan. 22, detectives received footage from Big Sky Dental at 2527 6th Ave. S., in which Johnson’s vehicle was seen entering the parking lot from the east entrance off 26th Street South, and parking facing south with the front of his vehicle facing the camera, according to court documents. In that video, the passenger appeared to reach up and turn off the vehicle’s dome light.
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Detectives were able to enhance the video, which showed what appeared to be a second male in the front seat, wearing a jacket matching the description of the male in the videos leaving the area of the homicide, according to court documents. The male had shorter dark hair and appeared to open the passenger door, turn his body outside the car, appearing to urinate.
Investigators showed the video to the Grand View Apartments manager, asking if she could identify the passenger, and she said it could be Adrian Gibson, the significant other of an apartment resident.
Adrian and Lane Gibson are twins, according to court documents.
Slaughter said on Jan. 30 that Adrian had been staying at the Grand View Apartment but wasn’t a long-term tenant and that a deputy was enroute out of state to interview Adrian and collect a DNA sample.
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He said twins often have identical or similar DNA, but that he was confident Lane Gibson was their suspect.
On Jan. 27, detectives attempted to interview Gibson again after gathering more information regarding Johnson’s death, but he requested an attorney and the interview ended.
During both interviews with Gibson, he appeared to be using his cell phone and was known to communicate with his family via Snapchat.
The same day, the person Gibson claimed to be with after leaving the Chowen Springs apartment was interviewed.
Gibson had previously claimed the person was an alibi witness, but the individual told investigators that over the last two weeks, Gibson had asked him to lie about Gibson’s whereabouts, according to court documents.
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The individual told investigators that Gibson had told him he had a fight with his girlfriend so the individual had offered to be an alibi witness but after learning Gibson was the target of a criminal investigation, did not provide an alibi and shared screenshots of social media messaging with investigators, according to court documents.
On Jan. 27, a witness contacted the DCI agent and said Gibson had given him a pair of shoes, which were collected from the witness.
Detectives also located shoe impressions on the passenger side front seat mat in Johnson’s vehicle that appeared to match the shoes Gibson had given away. The shoes were black and also appeared to match the shoes worn by the male worn in surveillance footage with Johnson.
On Jan. 27, detectives obtained a search warrant to take a DNA swab from Gibson, which was sent to the state crime lab for testing and comparison to the swabs taken from the crime scene and inside the Grand View Apartment.
On Jan. 29, the crime lab issued a report indicating that the sabs on the water bottle found at the scene contained a mixture of DNA from Gibson and Johnson.
Swabs from the blood swipes in the apartment contained Gibson’s DNA, according to court documents.
