Ex-Marine Sentenced in Slaying of Ex-Wife, Child : Courts: Jeffrey S. Gibson gets 46 years to life in the San Clemente shootings of Kristina (Tina) Gibson and their 5-year-old daughter. ‘I’m not a heartless person,’ he says.

SANTA ANA —  A decorated former Marine who killed his ex-wife and 5-year-old daughter during a 1993 beer-sodden rampage declared he is “not a bad person” as a judge sentenced him Friday to 46 years to life in state prison.

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“I don’t have fangs and I don’t have claws. I’m not a heartless person,” Jeffrey Steven Gibson, 34, said during a hearing in Orange County Superior Court. But, he acknowledged, “I deserve to be punished.”

Judge Everett W. Dickey imposed the maximum sentence after the victims’ friends and relatives said the slayings had left a trail of anguish and emotional ruin.

“The pain that Jeffrey inflicted is beyond words. . . . I would hope that he never has any pleasure--even as time passes,” said Dee Pullin, the mother of Gibson’s slain ex-wife, Kristina (Tina) Gibson. “Half of me is gone.”

Gibson, a Camp Pendleton Marine decorated for valor during the Persian Gulf War, was convicted of murder in the fatal shooting of Tina Gibson, 26, in her San Clemente apartment on May 29, 1993--just two weeks after their divorce became final. Their daughter, Amber Dawn Gibson, was slain in the same bedroom just a few feet from her mother. A roommate who answered the front door, Wendy L. Johnson, then 32, was wounded.

The jury found Gibson guilty of a lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter in his daughter’s death, a decision that spared him a life sentence with no chance for parole and prompted criticism Friday from Pullin and Johnson.

Jurors said at the time that they did not believe Gibson planned to kill the girl and was not guilty of murder. In rejecting the second murder charge, the jury surprised even Gibson’s court-appointed defense lawyer, Stephen J. Biskar. Gibson was convicted of attempted manslaughter for wounding Johnson.

“I think the jury didn’t deal with Amber’s death in any way,” Pullin said outside court Friday. Pullin said the verdict may have reflected sympathy for Gibson because he was a veteran of the Persian Gulf War. “I think the Desert Storm hero kind of played in their heads,” she said.

Still, Gibson will not be eligible for parole for about 29 years.

Gibson testified during the trial that he left an all-day keg party on base and went to the San Clemente apartment that his ex-wife and daughter shared with Johnson and her 8-year-old son, Lucas. Gibson, whose blood-alcohol level was later found to be nearly triple the legal limit for a driver, said he remembered “bits and pieces” as he shot Johnson and then opened fire in the bedroom, killing Tina Gibson and Amber.

Gibson said he drove to a Mission Viejo gas station and telephoned his mother to confess.

Tina Gibson and Amber died from shots fired from a .45-caliber pistol and Johnson was wounded in the chest. Her son was not hurt.

But Johnson said the boy, who is now 10 and attended the hearing, must endure the fear that comes with surviving such an attack in his own home.

“He heard the gunshots. And he heard me scream. And he heard them scream,” Johnson told the judge. “He heard everything and he has to live with that forever.”

Gibson apologized for his actions, saying he “would give my life and anything in it to have them back here right now.” He called his ex-wife and daughter “beautiful people” who loved each other.

“And I stamped their lives out in an instant,” Gibson said in a soft voice that cracked with emotion.

But the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick K. Donahue, said Gibson was a violent, selfish man who refused to give up Tina Gibson after she became romantically involved with someone else.

“Mr. Gibson refused to acknowledge that his marriage was over,” Donahue said. “He refused to accept that Tina could go on with her life. He refused to accept that Amber might have a stepfather someday.

“He says he regrets it now, but it’s too late.”