Reporter’s Notebook: Clarence Gibson recalls his glory days tracking the ‘Westport rapist’

The title of “Westport Rapist” has been recycled several times throughout the last 30 years. There’s been Robert Fellows, Samuel Johnson, Shy Bland and Gary Jackman, to name a few.

Clarence Gibson, who is 67 years old and a 27-year veteran of the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department, worked as a detective in the sex crimes unit from 1976 to 1987, and again during his final year with the KCPD, from ’93 to ’94. In the early days with the department, Gibson says, detectives viewed working rapes as a demotion.

Later, they became “enlightened.” But Gibson always loved it — he felt he had a God-given talent for putting the victims at ease.

“I let them know from the get-go,” he says, “‘No matter what happened,

it ain’t your fault. I don’t give a damn what your mama says, what your

daddy says, your boyfriend or your husband.'”

He says, “I’m one of these old-school people that believes that rape is worse than murder. … A victim of a rape suffers the rest of her life. It’s like if someone chopped your arm off. You’d probably be able to … cope with life like that. But every time you looked at that arm, you’d know.”