- 2 days ago
A beloved mother is found stabbed to death in a vacant lot and, when New Orleans detectives investigate the case, their only suspect seems an unlikely killer.
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00:00the following program documents a real homicide case the investigation the
00:10pursuit of justice and the lasting impact on the loved ones left behind
00:18we got a tentative count of six wounds to her body there's a lot of anger there
00:24this is a violent death we're gonna give it every ounce of the respect that she deserved her life
00:32matters for those most affected by a homicide i searched my heart to see who would have done this
00:39to my mom it had to been somebody that she knew the first 48 is just the beginning this is not a
00:46typical homicide case that blow on the floor here too do we have another victim here is he dead
00:53and i'm like oh my god it's just like light bulb come out with your hands off is he gonna have a weapon
01:02the defense was gonna try to paint miss campbell as a very violent aggressor it was either him or her
01:09so we had a very viable self-defense claim if they were successful we knew that he would be acquitted
01:15this is the story of the fight for justice in the weeks months and years
01:21i miss her so much i miss her so much after the first 48
01:33first responders race to the scene
01:56but it's too late the woman is dead
02:00when you're up for a homicide you're kind of on edge you're just waiting for that bell to ring
02:15and when that bell rings it's go time my daddy worked in homicide
02:20but this to me is a career it's not a job and it is a calling
02:31it's your statement
02:36found the id
02:37fanny campbell
02:44fanny was 58 years old and worked as a cook in the tremay neighborhood she leaves behind two daughters
02:51and a grandson
02:55everyone's life matters she did not deserve to be murdered to death that morning
03:00and like her life has value that's why my job is to solve this crime
03:06her throat's cut
03:09that's probably the fatal one there
03:13got a tentative count of six wounds to her body
03:17on the side of her neck
03:20one above her breast the front of each shoulder
03:23she has two puncture wounds to her abdomen
03:29there's a lot of anger there to actually stab somebody that many times
03:34this is a violent death that she endured
03:40you know that it's up close and personal
03:44she had defensive wounds so obviously she was in some kind of struggle with her attacker
03:49actually being stabbed so who what when where why this happened all these answers
03:56we don't know it was just uh kind of like an atypical crime scene i'll take the big picture
04:03first and then start moving in smaller and smaller perfume got some peppermint candies
04:10it could have been a robbery that went wrong but a woman stabbed to death we lean towards domestic
04:23but you know no one heard any screaming or any fighting and then the white sheet is very uncharacteristic
04:29of something happening there which kind of started making us lean more towards her body was actually
04:34discarded there and the crime happened somewhere else and that was our starting point
04:40this is going to be an old-fashioned whodunit
04:48five hours in
04:52i'm going to do a criminal history check i needed to get an understanding of who my victim was
04:58this prior convictions only for cocaine looks like her last arrest was in april of this year for
05:09aggravated battery we found some things in fanny's past but that didn't change the fact that me and rob
05:16we're gonna brought on that case and give it every ounce of the respect that she deserved
05:26this detective ward yes ma'am
05:31sorry about your mama fanny's daughter just learned from the coroner's office that her mother was violently
05:38murdered when i got the phone call that fanny was found dead literally my toenails caught a fire
05:46i screamed from the pits of hell to heaven gates i couldn't understand
05:51how i was just with her and she was going just like that that is a day i never forget
05:59my life changed completely if it's okay with you me and my partner we'd like to come over and talk to you
06:07all right she may have some insight as to what's going on
06:15we meet people on their worst day
06:21the investigation is still new right now when the detectives came to my house
06:25i searched my heart to see who would have done this to my mom but we're trying to find out
06:31anything we can about your mom about her history i can give it to you she gave me up for adoption i
06:37found her at 16. she's been rough her whole life i'm not ashamed to say my mama did drugs right
06:43because she left me with a good life so i can't see nothing bad about my mom
06:48i'm grateful to her because i didn't have to go through the struggle
06:53i wasn't out there with her addictions i was adopted from 29 days old
07:00and when i was introduced to fanny we didn't rekindle pain we brought laughter and happiness to each
07:06other she was just living her life but it was snatched was she stabbed in shot suit no man she was just
07:14stabbed but she was stabbed several times um there was a brutal standing yes ma'am somebody who had
07:20some some anger in her heart listen to me listen to me good my mama wasn't the type of woman that you
07:27can just fight her and get away with she used to carry a razor blade under her tongue she's not scared
07:33it had to been somebody that she knew to get that close upon her to do that much damage to
07:39that's why i want to ask you if there's anybody that you suspect of who might have done so that's
07:46when i told them i knew it couldn't have been nobody but him to be honest with you from my gut
07:52the only person that really would want my mama hurt like that would be tom tom seaborn gibson was my
08:00mom's boyfriend of 30 plus years my mama was a beautiful spirit so she would gravitate to everybody
08:09and he didn't like that tom was a very controlling person like this old little man he didn't want
08:15nobody to have his family he's older is he capable of this you think that's the only person i could see
08:22looking at the violent nature of her death i'm not thinking that someone of that age could have
08:28been responsible she's got a history of drugs so it could have been a whole different person that
08:34stabbed fanny we needed to find out more when was the last time you went to the house on saint phillip
08:39i talked to tom and everything was all good he said your mama crazy she said he's crazy he'd be
08:44hiding that and then it was back and forth there was a history of domestic violence but she doesn't
08:51mean he killed her but it's a possible motive what is tom driving in the car tower was black with rims
08:58f-150 is burgundy burgundy he hasn't called you enough like that haven't called me haven't told me nothing
09:05tom can be the guy we have to explore him further now because that's the only name we have at this
09:12point hey y'all had pictures of her
09:24she look different than this
09:30you're gonna have a look it was a booking photo i certainly wasn't gonna deny her that
09:35opportunity to have that photo of her mama
09:40very soft he lost it's all right
09:46your common-law wife for 30 years is dead if everybody else knows it i'm sure he knows it
09:53me and rob thought it was suspicious that c bond hadn't reached out to danielle
10:00we needed to figure out why we needed to figure out pretty quick
10:05we're making fanny's famous fried pork chops
10:22she was just so full of life made me smile kept me going kept me to where i wanted to be just like
10:31her so i'm making what i know she would love chops we live in a world where everyone judges but not mama
10:40she said me coming out in 1996 out of the closet my mom was my best friend for that she said baby
10:50god don't judge so how can i judge that was the most important thing for me in the world
10:57she'll be whatever i wanted to be we're gonna do a test look at her ain't that pretty mm-hmm
11:07even though my mother had her own struggles she was still my mother and a human being
11:12well mama we get to eat a pool chop together oh that's good eating right now this was the last time
11:30that we actually hung out together and she told me she said baby this is on it up again
11:36who would have known that that meant this is the last sign
11:46i miss you mama
11:58how far away is the house on the field four or five blocks
12:10that's a pretty big clue that they live together and you know closer to the scene
12:16eight hours since fanny was killed fanny had been in a tumultuous violent relationship
12:23for over 23 years with a guide you got to follow up on at that point
12:31there's a tahoe with rims there it is and two trucks
12:34all right he's home he's home dude let's look at his car dude yep so get into the apartment we see
12:39seabon's vehicles
12:46several peppermints in the back of his truck
12:48we located peppermint on the scene sometimes in an investigation you get get little hints and i
12:57felt like i was in the right direction i see the blood back here
13:02there's a lot of people who live upstairs and we're looking at this locked gate
13:15like the only way in there is up you think i'm climbing that fence there's no way i'm calling that
13:21fence you can climb the fence i enjoy supper time too much to climb that fence
13:26get it
13:36it's very dark i see like a broken pane of glass
13:44we don't know if like did the crime happen here is tom a victim is tom okay
13:49i think it's blowing back out there's like dark droplets not a lot but a few
13:58so i would definitely get a search warrant for this please
14:06it was a rush it was it was exciting knowing that
14:09we possibly found the initial crime scene when this crime actually occurred
14:1311 hours in while i was typing the warrant for his residence rob was looking up seabon
14:25seabon tom gibson is a retired truck driver who's lived in new orleans for over 50 years
14:32he's 75 years old i had parole for attempted secondary murder 95 97 so he has aggravated burglary 93
14:43theft just looking at him and his age it just didn't register that he
14:49was our perpetrator what's the chances of a 75 year old man overpowering and killing
14:56the victim do you think this man could drag her down the steps and put her in a truck and don't
15:01you think he's got the strength to do that i don't know
15:07we had three options a c-bon did it he killed fanny he somehow got her in this truck got her to this
15:13field and he he's our guy b he killed fanny and then maybe he killed himself or c do we have another
15:21victim here is is he dead this is weird let's see what happens man see what's in that house
15:31both vehicles still there
15:32more rare finds tom's landlord
15:56at that point we didn't know what we were going to find
15:59i just need a couple of units to help me and my partner uh conduct a search
16:11can you uh raise crime level unit for me
16:19he's alive but i couldn't see his hands
16:23come out come out with your hands up it was pretty tense and trying to get him out because
16:28he's like is he gonna have a weapon
16:39come out come out with your hands up i couldn't see his hands and you're starting to think hey
16:44what's really going on here come on come on come out here come out with your hands up
16:53do you have any weapons on you
16:5714 hours into the investigation
17:00at that point i'm like there's no way he could have dragged a human body down those stairs got her in a
17:06truck it just didn't seem logical he could pretty much barely walk was tom capable of committing this
17:12crime
17:19we're trained to look at people's hands when they come out because it's the hands that could hurt you
17:24how much of your hand man i put my hand on hands i don't know today today
17:31when you're involved in a violent encounter like a stabbing a lot of times a perpetrator cuts himself
17:35can we go up to headquarters and talk okay he was not under arrest at this point i didn't want
17:41to make him think that i believed he was my prime suspect had a theory so let him ride in the
17:48front seat with me up the headquarters i stayed behind and do the search and the processing of the crime scene
17:53it was really important for me to get him to trust me enough because i need this man to give me
18:06information can you tell me about um what what you've been doing all day i've been home all day
18:14okay well you have a living girlfriend or wife what's her name fanny camo when was the last time you
18:24spoke to fanny uh friday evening i think it was my trade oh that was two days ago i'm thinking no
18:37no way fanny hadn't been out in that field since friday those injuries were fresh well i hate to be
18:44the bearer of bad news but fanny is deceased all right
18:50several i tell that girl anytime i said fanny you know you ain't got no business in her
18:57teacher out there somebody gonna hurt you sooner or later he tried to project that her lifestyle may
19:04have led to her death you didn't seem too concerned though that one put me through a lot of stuff
19:11i'm dead tonight fanny was a terrible one the seabon is telling me his story of how he was a victim
19:21we're conducting a search warrant on your house right now okay we noticed there was some blood in there
19:27can you explain that i was able to get him to tell me about the tussle but he constantly wanted to
19:43minimize his involvement in this what happened after the little tunnel i don't know if she left
19:51as long as he was talking to me i was happy i sat with that man for over three hours
19:55and i just wanted him talking because i knew rob was back at that apartment and i knew he was
20:01getting a better story it's a lot of blood dude this happened in here had to have everything pointed to
20:13that being the crime scene but i wanted to find the murder weapon how do you get it downstairs man
20:18there's only one way right he's like 74 years old there's blood on this mattress
20:32now this room leads to the roof that blood on the floor here too it forms a trail leading up the stairs
20:40this is not the typical homicide case this is more of a puzzle like an onion everything's kind of
20:48starts unpeeling
20:49we found a peppermint it's on the roof and i'm like oh my god it's just like light bulb
21:05based on i guess the angle of the roof where his trucks parked the fact there's no blood going in
21:09the main staircase i mean he got a sheet from the house rolled her up rolled her off the roof
21:14and that was it that's my theory
21:24then
21:25the knife with the serrated edge with blood on it
21:38at that point we were pretty confident we found the murder weapon which is great that's rare
21:45chuck's ready to go i'll have a gatorade on the sideline and i'm gonna come in fresh
21:49i can kind of go at him with actual physical evidence
21:51so uh what's his last story so i know where i'm going with this he says he went to a fight she
21:59left he hasn't seen her since okay we have a lot of evidence now to support that tom did this but
22:05when we don't have is tom confessing i needed that for me to be able to make that arrest i needed him
22:12to admit to it we searched your house and we found a lot of things to house that
22:21contradict what you said we found the knife you have wounds in your hand that are basically
22:28indicative of that type of struggle conflict we found blood in two adjoining rooms that lead to the
22:33roof you know we don't have we don't have your story tommy we don't have the truth i'm screaming inside
22:42just say it just say it just say that you did this you can see him processing what i'm telling
22:48him there was no adamant like denials he's he's thinking how can i respond to this what do i say
22:53what happened last night
22:57think about it it could have been so traumatic it's kind of cloudy for you
23:03you want to give you a second to think about it we'll come back in
23:06yeah let him smoke a cigarette dude get his mind straight and we're going again
23:22i'll say that as long as you want to go we'll go at him
23:24i think in that moment where we stepped out his mind's probably racing
23:32you're not going to interrupt that pause you're not going to interrupt that silence
23:35it's on your chest i know you thought about it let's talk about last night is he gonna lawyer up
23:52or is he going to come off
24:08eighteen hours into the investigation it's intense it's an intense feeling and i'm watching this man
24:15and in my head it's just loudly saying come on man just tell the truth
24:21we were talking about we were drinking
24:28we kept on arguing but i can't figure out how a knife came up in this issue
24:37did she have it first or what happened i think that's what happened okay then what happened tommy
24:42i believe that's when i got cut in my hand i was trying to take that knife from her
24:50it was very important that they found that knife because it was a crucial piece that rob could use
24:56to break down c bond's lies
24:58and what happened i guess she had she had got cut where she had cut in the chest after we had scuffed
25:10with that knife she wouldn't sit in that background
25:16i had went inside and sat down we got into it again
25:22at what point did she pass away she went to the end of that porch or something not really down there
25:32i had went back inside but when i come back again and she wasn't moving did you put her in something
25:38what that was i'm trying to take with that sheet i throw it over up we had a lot of evidence suggesting
25:46that tom did this but it's so much stronger when someone admits to doing something so we put her body
25:52on the truck how'd you get it down right off the roof in my truck
25:57that that was amazing because we had our theory and then he filled those gaps in with a statement
26:10yeah i got my truck and left one brother and dropped off and what happened then i left one
26:16no back home so i mopped her for that blood and went on back in the bed went to sleep
26:24you know this girl don't threaten me so much i'd be scared to be around
26:30it's the way it's best for one of us to go down
26:34i'll sit tight one second and we'll be right back we tried to make it a self-defense kind of thing but
26:41there were no tears i didn't see any sympathy any sorrow remorse and just like
26:47was what happened i didn't have sympathy for c-bon and i saw how many times she was stabbed how
26:55violently my sympathy was with danielle when i found out that time confessed i cried because now who can
27:05you trust someone you spend half your life with can be the person that take your life
27:11c-bon gibson is charged with second degree murder and obstruction of justice i felt good but the work
27:20wasn't done at this point there's still a huge step that has to take place and anything can happen
27:28to try we had the murder weapon we had dna evidence where the victim's blood was found in his residence
27:42and i felt like that would have quite an effect on the jury but there was a very real issue we were
27:47having a battle the defense wanted to exclude the evidence initially when rob hopped the fence he
27:53didn't have a warrant it was a locked fence which meant that you couldn't just go in
28:01when you're a criminal defense lawyer someone's life is on the line
28:04i believe that law enforcement in this case illegally entered into the property you need probable cause
28:12so i'd file the motion to suppress evidence so we set a hearing date
28:16if the judge granted the defense's motion we as the prosecutors would not have been allowed to use
28:23any of the evidence found within mr gibson's home that would have been the end of the case
28:33eight months after c bond's arrest testimony begins at his hearing
28:41we argued that the stairwell is technically a common area of the department complex
28:45so since robber didn't enter the home of the defendant there was no fourth amendment violation
28:52the judge agrees we were definitely relieved that the physical evidence was ruled admissible
28:59unfortunately it didn't go our way for this case i knew we had challenges but i had a plan for each one
29:06i knew there was going to be an argument for self-defense and so i definitely wanted to try and explore
29:12the violent nature of their relationship first because i knew there was something more to the case
29:20she had previously attacked mr gibson two months before the actual incident took place here we have
29:27a violent offense from miss campbell as the perpetrator to mr gibson as the victim mr gibson been attacked
29:34she hit mr gibson over the head with a hammer she would have these moments of violence and explosive
29:41behavior mr gibson was a victim but this time mr gibson fought back the worst case scenario is that the jury
29:49is going to feel for the defendant the jury was going to see mr gibson as a victim and miss campbell as an
29:57aggressor and find mr gibson innocent
30:00i felt confident heading into trial because i felt as though the jury would sympathize with mr gibson
30:18he was in his mid-70s and he previously attacked him with a hammer we had a very viable self-defense claim
30:30a year after fanny's death a jury will hear the case against c bond gibson this was my first murder trial
30:38and it was nerve-wracking the stakes feel higher because i wanted to get justice for danielle
30:45my nerves was rattling i was queasy because i didn't know that i was going to be that close
30:51after opening arguments it was very clear that the defense was going to try to paint miss campbell as
31:00a very violent aggressor the case was essentially going to be an attack on fanny but she wasn't
31:06going to be able to give her side of the story so we definitely needed to call somebody to humanize
31:11our victim and so we wanted to do that with danielle i wanted the jurors to see my mother as an
31:22individual not an aggressor not a drug user but as a human being she was a beautiful grandmother
31:34and a wonderful mother to me i feel like me telling my mom's story was her speaking for herself
31:45miss campbell had her own demons that she was battling throughout her life
31:48but that doesn't take away from the fact that she was the victim here
31:53i really wanted to show the jury that the way that fanny was treated it was so heinous and so brutal
32:01the medical examiner was able to show just how much damage fanny suffered but on cross-examination
32:10i questioned the medical examiner about victim's toxicology there was evidence that suggested that
32:15fanny had cocaine in her system and also alcohol we were concerned that a jury would hear this
32:23information and assume she's actually the violent aggressor and mr gibson is the victim
32:29it was either him or her and he tried to survive it definitely did go into the defense's theory that
32:35this isn't the first time she had a pending case for aggravated battery in which c-bonne gibson was the
32:41victim there was no way around it we had to face it head on i have here the original gist from the
32:49incident and this really just says that c-bonne gibson was the victim
32:54and that fanny campbell hit him in the head with a hammer but it actually says here in the report that
33:01she says mr gibson struck her in the face with a closed fist and that's when she retrieved the
33:06hammer just to break the window to try and unlock the door so even though fanny was the one who got
33:11arrested it probably should have been c-bonne it's always great when you can take the defense's
33:16evidence and use it to your own advantage it certainly took some sting out of our theory but
33:20i don't think the jury bought that on the second day of trial we were able to play the taped interview
33:30that the detectives did with mr gibson what's interesting is that the prosecution and the
33:35defense are going to see it from two very different angles well i can't figure out how a knife came with
33:41this issue did she have it first and what happened i think that's what happened obviously he doesn't
33:48want to tell us he just killed this woman in cold blood or whatever well now he's painted himself into
33:52a self-defense story so he's got to come up with an idea to make that seem sensible you know i do believe
33:58that he was telling the truth here and he was justified in doing what he did he comes off very credible
34:06sort of that grandpa nature of them how do you go to sleep after that dude like just nonchalant you
34:21go mop the blood up and i went to sleep i think it shows the callousness of it you've been with this
34:27woman 30 years rolls her off the roof goes and hides the body comes back and just like in his own words
34:33go on about my business yeah that's cold man it is that is so cold it is storytelling
34:44there was such a tumultuous relationship between the two of them there's a powder
34:48keg ready to blow he lays it out there enough to where it aligns with the self-defense justification
34:55defense we felt confident that we had enough to plant a lot of doubt in the jury's mind for that
35:02murder charge it was really worrisome because there's a risk of a hung jury but even if they
35:10found that he was justified in killing her he definitely wasn't justified in moving her body
35:14throwing it off the roof and dumping it in that field he had to clean it up before they catch me
35:23so i gotta dot my eyes and cross my t's
35:25he missed a couple of eyes and didn't get all the t's the evidence was so strong in this case
35:32their obstruction there was no way a jury could not agree with that i remember the prosecutor turning
35:40to me saying what are you going to do about the obstruction charge and i remember just looking at
35:45him be like i have something something we as the prosecution had to be able to face head on and prepare
35:51for the defense attempted to use an intoxication defense claiming that mr gibson didn't understand
35:58the nature of his actions in louisiana there's a justification defense of intoxication but the
36:07issue with using that fence was that i had no evidence of it there weren't any drug screens or
36:13blood tests taken when mr gibson was apprehended so what i knew was going to come down to mr gibson's
36:19testimony we had to call mr gibson to the stand but anytime your client takes the stand it's high risk
36:37day two of c bond gibson's trial i was surprised to see mr gibson take the stand because he did seem
36:45like an unpredictable witness everything he says everything he doesn't say how he says it is going
36:54to be weighed significantly by the jury but i didn't have anything else in order to try and defend him
37:00from the charge of obstruction of justice so in order to get that evidence of intoxication out the only
37:05thing i had was mr gibson's memory it was beneficial to the defense case that as he walked to take the
37:15stand you could see that this was an elderly man and it is certainly a difficult argument to make that
37:22this is in fact a cold-blooded killer so i asked mr gibson were you intoxicated were you drunk at that
37:28time he says i was feeling pretty good i had drank enough to not know really what i'm doing then i asked
37:34him but when you realized that she had passed did you know what to do he said no i've never been into
37:40nothing like that i don't know nothing i was crazy myself i didn't know which way to go up or down
37:46he was acting delirious like he didn't know like he was incompetent he played pity the fool
37:56the defendant definitely created a perception of someone who didn't understand what was going on
38:00if they were successful with the intoxication defense we knew that he would be acquitted
38:06and so it created another hurdle for us but on the other hand we were thrilled to be able to question
38:12mr gibson because we get to question more on his past to kind of flip that narrative and show that
38:19it was in fact mr gibson that had this pattern in his history we went and got those old police reports
38:25from the 90s and found out that once again this is another domestic situation where he attempted to
38:29kill someone else that he was in a relationship with he has a prior conviction for attempted murder
38:35you actually say were you defending yourself or did you just try and kill that woman he says i wasn't
38:40trying to kill nobody and then you said why did you plead guilty to attempted murder and again he says
38:46he doesn't even remember right which is kind of like his theme throughout everything is if i don't
38:50remember it it didn't it didn't really happen the prosecutor opened old wounds that reveals
39:01the real c bond gibson you paint the she devil over here but look at you you won't get away this time
39:08but it was a tale of two stories and which story is the jury going to believe
39:13waiting for a verdict is gut-wrenching time kind of stands still i was getting shocked when my anxiety
39:27levels were brought through the roof and i prayed i said god i just want justice
39:32after seven hours of deliberation they were at a standstill all 12 members of the jury believed
39:43that mr gibson was guilty of something there were no votes for not guilty but they could not come to
39:48a decision between murder and manslaughter so ultimately that led to a hung jury you know
39:55i couldn't understand it i couldn't grasp it because the evidence was right that clear as they
40:05but then the jury delivers their verdict on the second charge
40:12they found him guilty as charged of the obstruction which carried up to 40 years
40:17but the judge could have handed down a sentence of zero years and that would have been perfectly fine
40:22under the law i do remember the judge addressing the defendant
40:30he said you had no remorse for her her daughter or her grandchild so i have no remorse for how i'm
40:41going to sentence you he ended up giving mr gibson 27 years this is basically a life sentence
40:52i had no remorse for her daughter or her daughter or her daughter or her daughter or her daughter
40:57and yet c-bon could still be retried for murder we had the option of either bringing the case back
41:04to trial or resolving it with some type of plea agreement i didn't want to drag myself and my son
41:10through that pain so i took it i took a plea deal to give fanny peace i finally could breathe again i got justice
41:30domestic violence it has no gender has no race don't be afraid to reach out
41:37speak in behalf of fanny elaine gamble we were able to give her some dignity
41:44her life mattered i think we did right by fanny
41:53this is where fanny from right here nine years after the trial
41:57if i want to come and feel fanny this is the spot where i come to right here on this corner right
42:02here from east well my mom was a wildflower she just had a way with people everybody knows fanny
42:11in this neighborhood hey honey fox and everybody want to take a picture with her come in miss fanny
42:19how you doing miss fanny whatever she got to say on her mind you're gonna come out and this is fanny
42:24getting down a happy soul the charisma and as you can see it is her character that's her character
42:31that's how she lived her life i still to this day can people ask me about fanny
42:37i miss her so much it's my fan of boop
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