Ex-supremacist sentenced in ’89 killing in Philly

He said he was ‘ashamed’ of his skinhead past.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Unswayed by a former skinhead’s testimony that he has given up white supremacist beliefs and turned his life around, a judge on Monday sentenced him to more than a decade in prison on charges connected to the 1989 shooting death of a black man.

Thomas Gibison, 37, of Newark, Del., was convicted in June of conspiracy to commit murder, but acquitted of murder and a hate crime charge. The split verdict came after a childhood friend testified that he and Gibison had driven to Philadelphia to find a black person to kill so Gibison could “earn” a spider web tattoo.

Before being sentenced to the maximum 12 1/2 to 25 years on the conspiracy and weapons charges, Gibison told Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina he had turned his life around by the time he was arrested in November 2006. He said he was “ashamed” and “embarrassed” of his skinhead past.

“That entire philosophy, I reject it,” he said, adding that he had gotten a job and often told children to stay out of trouble, not to do drugs and to stay in school. “I have changed my entire life. ... I don’t want to continue being a burden.”

A tip from Gibison’s ex-girlfriend led federal agents to the friend while Gibison was serving a 10-year sentence on weapons charges. Police then reviewed dozens of unsolved murders to determine which could be tied to the crime.

Investigators settled on Aaron Wood, a 34-year-old father of five whose death had been presumed to be drug-related.

Family members said Monday that they had some sense of closure, but no justice.

“He got away with murder,” said Wood’s uncle, Arnold Wynn. “I’ll feel until the day I die that we didn’t get justice for the family. ... Beyond a shadow of a doubt, he’s guilty.”

At trial, jurors saw photos of Gibison’s spider web tattoo, a badge of status among white supremacists. The judge excluded references to his other tattoos, which prosecutors said include one of Adolf Hitler.

Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega called Gibison a “cold and calculating” person who had never apologized to the victim’s family.

“That day he hated a black person,” Vega said. “He killed because he wanted to.”

Defense attorney Michael Farrell continued to object to how investigators came to arrest his client in the first place.

“They had a perpetrator that they did not like,” Farrell said. “They had a perpetrator and they went and found a crime.”

Gibison’s friend, who was granted immunity, told investigators the two men had driven up from Delaware looking for a black man to kill, and spotted Wood walking under a streetlight near Girard College in North Philadelphia. The 17-year-old Gibison rolled down the passenger-side window and fatally shot him in the head, the friend testified.