Man With LG Ties Charged in Austin Double Murder
On Sept. 18, a grand jury charged Harvey Cyphers, 53, with one count of capital murder and four counts of murder for the deaths of Sidney Taylor and Krislyn Gisbon, who were visiting Austin from Houston to attend the 2016 Urban Music Festival.
Cyphers, who lives in Bastrop County but worked in at least two businesses in La Grange in the past, is a convicted felon, had a previous indictment last year accusing him of purposely concealing their bodies using a bath mat, shower liner, and shower curtains, as well as allegedly changing or concealing blood, a car, cell phones, text messages, and other items.
In 2016 Taylor and Gisbon, both 35, had dropped their stuff off at a friend’s house, went to the concert and later met up with Cyphers, who was an old friend of Taylor’s. All three were then seen entering the Landing Strip in East Austin and then seen leaving at around 2:00 a.m. on survellance footage from the club.
Their friend who they were staying with started to get worried and called to check in on them at 3:00 a.m. Taylor told the friend that they were still with Cyphers. Into the moring hours the friend still hadn’t heard anything so they decided to call the Austin Police Department and report Taylor and Gibson missing.
Three days later Taylor’s car was found abandoned in midtown Houston and within walking distance of a Megabus pickup location.
Several of Taylor and Gibson’s items were still inside the car, including blood. Taylor’s cell phone found in the car last pinged around the Bear Creek Park in West Houston.
Police said Cyphers was found to be the last person to see the couple and his phone showed he called Megabus around the day of Taylor and Gibson’s disappearance.
Police also found blood and other evidence at Cyphers’ Southeast Austin home indicating that a violent crime had been cleaned up. After questioning Cyphers, police say they found inconsistencies in his story and got a warrant to search his home. That’s when he admitted to owning several guns, despite being a convicted felon.
He served two years in prison after being caught with firearms days after the disappearance of Taylor and Gibson and was released in Feb. 2019. Cyphers was apprehended in Downtown Austin on the evening of Sept. 22 while on a federal supervised release for felon in possession of a firearm charges, the U.S. Marshals said. He was arrested without incident and taken to the Travis County Jail with a bond set at $1.5 million.