Widow of Theranos' former chief scientist speaks out following Elizabeth Holmes' conviction

Feelings Drama

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00:00Welcome back to CBS Mornings. We've got new reaction to the conviction of Elizabeth Holmes

00:07from the widow of one of her earliest doubters. The founder and CEO of Theranos was convicted on

00:12four charges of fraud and conspiracy for misleading her investors. Now, Holmes was

00:17acquitted on four other counts. Rochelle Gibbons was married to a former chief scientist at Theranos

00:23who died by suicide back in 2013. She blames Holmes and Theranos for her husband's death.

00:30Our consumer investigative correspondent, Anna Warner, has a first broadcast TV interview with

00:35Gibbons. Anna, what was her reaction to the verdict? Well, you know, Gail, she told me that she had

00:41feared that Holmes would not be convicted at all, but now believes the jury made the correct decision

00:46to convict on four counts, each with a possible penalty of 20 years in prison. Rochelle Gibbons

00:54says she mourns the loss of her husband every day. For me, he was as near as perfection as a human

01:00could be. Ian Gibbons was a biochemist with degrees from Cambridge University. They'd met while studying

01:07at the University of California, Berkeley in 1973 and married in June of 75. He was kind. He was honest.

01:16He was extremely intelligent. With more than 60 U.S. patents to his credit, she says, in 2005,

01:24Ian was hired as chief scientist at Theranos to work on what the company and founder Elizabeth Holmes

01:31promised was revolutionary new blood testing technology. But Rochelle says early on her

01:37husband indicated there were problems. He started talking to me about all these investments, all the

01:44money that the company was bringing in. And he told me that he couldn't imagine why people were giving

01:51the company any money because there was no invention. There was nothing there. Compounding the problem,

01:58she says, was her husband's description of Holmes as someone who couldn't be trusted. I said, how do you

02:04feel about Elizabeth? Do you think she's telling the truth? And he told me, well, this lies about

02:11everything. That's exactly what he said. At one point, she says, after her husband raised his concerns

02:16with his friend and former Theranos board member and Stanford Emeritus professor of chemical engineering,

02:22Channing Robertson, Holmes fired Gibbons. Then the company rehired him a few hours later. But he was

02:29demoted. And by early 2013, she says, the stress for Ian had become intolerable. And he was drinking

02:36and depressed, fearing he would be fired if he told the truth about the company's technology in an

02:42upcoming court deposition. She says he took an overdose of acetaminophen and died eight days later

02:48at age 67. They'd been married 38 years. I think of it every day. I mean, I think of it all the time.

02:57Do you believe that if Ian had not gone to work for Theranos, that he would be here?

03:03Oh, yeah, for sure. No question.

03:05After her husband died, she says she notified Elizabeth Holmes, but she never heard back.

03:11The call she did get, she says, from an office manager asking her to return Theranos company

03:17property. As for Holmes now, what does it mean to you that she was convicted?

03:22Well, there's a little bit of satisfaction in knowing she's going to suffer.

03:30Because believe me, I've suffered and Ian suffered. She has shown no remorse for any of

03:37the things she's done to anyone. Nothing.

03:40We asked Elizabeth Holmes' attorneys for her response, but did not hear back. We also reached

03:48out to Stanford Emeritus Professor Channing Robertson. He did not respond to our request

03:53for comment, but we note that he told Vanity Fair in 2016 that he recalled Gibbons telling him at the

03:59time that what Theranos had accomplished was sufficient to commercialize. Of course,

04:05Tony Holmes has not been sentenced yet.

04:07It's a powerful interview, Anna. Thank you very much.

04:10It's a heartbreaking story. The way she described her husband, Ms. Gibbons, a kind of human being

04:15can be an extremely intelligent, and you can still feel the pain that she's feeling.

04:19And clearly he cared a lot about his work, and you can imagine where he was being fired

04:23and then rehired and thinking to himself, where does my career go from here? It's a dark,

04:27you know, people say these are victimless crimes because it involves money and investors,

04:30but not from where Ms. Gibbons is sitting.

04:31No, he was wearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, knowing that what they were doing

04:35was wrong. And a powerful, powerful interview.

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