By Lawrence Buser
The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Copyright 2006 The Commercial Appeal, Inc.
Six years after an ex-Bartlett firefighter shot and killed a colleague and then tried to cover it up, the case is being presented to a jury for the second time.
Testimony in the second-degree murder retrial of Charles VanTilburg III began Tuesday in a Criminal Court filled with friends and family of both the defendant and of victim Robert ‘Toby’ Gibson Jr.
VanTilburg, 35, contends the shooting on June 22, 2000, in a shed at his home at 7276 Highway 70 was an accident that occurred during a scuffle.
Prosecutors say it was an unlawful and knowing killing and that VanTilburg, who also was a paramedic, dumped Gibson’s body in DeSoto County to hide his crime.
“He doesn’t even bother to check for a pulse on Toby,” state prosecutor Thomas Henderson told the jury. “His first thought is ‘I’ve got to cover this up.’ It was not an accident. It was not self-defense.”
Gibson, 24, was shot in the back of the neck by VanTilburg, who was armed with a semiautomatic 9 mm Glock with hollow-point ammunition.
They began scuffling during an argument over repayment of a $500 loan Gibson had made to VanTilburg, according to the defense.
Defense attorney Leslie Ballin said the shooting was unintentional and that VanTilburg was “horrified, confused and dazed” after the shooting.
Gibson’s mother, girlfriend and fellow firefighters told jurors of their increasing concern and their search efforts when Gibson missed a softball game that evening and then failed to report to work the following morning.
Terri Tibbs, his mother, testified that VanTilburg told her Gibson was armed with a pistol the previous day and was going to “a public place” to buy steroids from someone. Tibbs said her son did not own a gun.
As evidence of homicide began to mount against VanTilburg, authorities agreed to charge him with no more than second-degree murder if he would tell them where to find Gibson’s body.
He did and also gave a two-hour taped confession that may be shown to the jury today.
VanTilburg was convicted as charged in February of 2002 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Two years later, a state appeals court awarded him a new trial because, it said, jurors should have been given a fuller definition of the word “knowingly.”
He has been in jail or in prison since his arrest six years ago.
The trial resumes today before Judge Lee Coffee and a jury of nine women and five men, including two alternates.