Episode 179: Scott Duffey – Thomas Gibison, Skinhead Racially Motivated Murder

(This episode has been revised.)

In this episode of FBI Retired Case File Review, Retired agent Scott Duffey reviews his years-long investigation of what started out as a rumor that a young Thomas Gibison had whispered to high school classmates while attending his senior prom.

He and a friend claimed that their new spider web tattoos were symbols of their allegiance to white-supremacist Skinhead dogma and were “earned” by them shooting a black man. This nearly 2-decade-old unsolved racially motivated homicide was tenaciously pursued by Scott Duffey and his partner ATF special agent Terrance Mortimer, with the assistance of the Philadelphia Police Department. Thomas Gibison was successfully convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, ethnic intimidation, and firearms violations.

Scott Duffey served in the FBI for 22 years. For the majority of his career, he was assigned to the Wilmington Resident Agency out of the Baltimore Division, where he worked violent crime matters and was later promoted to a supervisory special agent.

Scott Duffey served as the coordinator of the FBI’s Delaware Violent Crimes Task Force  from 1999 through 2011. Prior to joining the Bureau, he was a Lower Merion Township Police Officer. With a B.A. in Classical Languages and a Masters Degree in Administration of Justice, Scott Duffey currently serves as the Associate Director of the Criminal Justice Institute for Wilmington University.

Supervisory Special Agent (Retired)

Scott Duffey

1/1997 to 8/2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We weren’t going to stop until justice was served for this unknown individual who was shot on the streets of Philadelphia for nothing more than the color of his skin.”  —  Retired Agent Scott Duffey

The following links are to newspaper articles about the investigation and conviction of Thomas Gibison for the racially motivated murder of an unknown African American male in the spring of 1989:

Philadelphia Inquirer – 5/24/2008:  Driver tells of intentional racial slaying

UPI – 6/4/2008:  Skinhead acquitted of murder

Philadelphia Daily News – 6/4/2008: Split verdict in ’89 killing

Philadelphia Daily News – 8/26/2008:  Acquitted in killing, he gets max for conspiracy

Philadelphia Inquirer – 8/14/2019:  Error shaves 5 years off skinhead’s sentence

Thomas Gibison with his spiderweb elbow tattoo “earned” for killing a black man in Philadelphia.
Another tattoo inked on the top of Thomas Gibison’s head declared his allegiance to skinhead ideology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jerri Williams

View posts by Jerri Williams
Jerri Williams, a retired FBI agent, author and podcaster, jokes that she writes about the FBI to relive her glory days. After 26 years with the Bureau specializing in major economic fraud and corruption investigations, she calls on her professional encounters with scams and schemers to write police procedurals inspired by true crime FBI cases in her Philadelphia FBI Corruption Squad crime fiction series featuring flawed female FBI agent Kari Wheeler. Jerri’s FBI for Armchair Detectives nonfiction series enables readers to discover who the FBI is and what the FBI does by debunking misconceptions about the FBI in books, TV, and movies. Her books are available as ebooks, paperbacks, and audiobooks wherever books are sold. She’s also the host of FBI Retired Case File Review, a true crime podcast with more than 300 episodes available on all popular podcast apps and YouTube.

3 Comments

  1. […] Police Department. The case was previously reviewed as FBI Retired Case File Review episode 179: Skinhead Racially Motivated Murder. The live show provided the opportunity to hear Terry’s insights regarding the case as […]

    Reply
  2. […] Episode 179: Scott Duffey – Thomas Gibison, Skinhead Racially Motivated Murder […]

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  3. 805bailSeptember 23, 2020

    Thank you for sharing this case.

    Reply

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