Tattoo artist Nicholas Brent Gibson, 32, has admitted to a string of murders across the United States since 1999 when he was 12. Now he claims he killed a Finnish tourist in Florida
A sex offender who confessed to being a serial killer after his arrest for allegedly hacking a Florida retiree to death has told police his victims include a homeless man, a special needs child and a female tourist, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
Drifter Nicholas Brent Gibson, 32, was quizzed this week over the brutal murder of his 77-year-old former housemate Erik Stocker, who was stabbed and slashed with a samurai sword inside a Miami Beach apartment.
The dad-of-one fled the Sunshine State but was arrested Sunday on a New York subway platform when transit cops recognized his facial tattoos from a wanted poster.
When detectives from New York and Miami Beach grilled the twice-convicted rapist he not only admitted to the grisly killing but also claimed to be responsible for six more unsolved slayings across the US.
Investigators in three states are now sifting through cold cases and missing persons reports to determine whether Gibson’s crimes are real – or just sick boasts designed to court infamy and waste police time.
Police sources told DailyMail.com that Gibson is insisting he was just 13 when he claimed his first victim, bashing a ‘black man’ with a brick in 1999.
He says the murder took place in woodland near his home in Kennesaw, a suburb of Atlanta, where he struck again one year later, throwing a special needs child into a river.
Gibson was convicted of rape in June 2000 and spent seven years locked up at the Illinois Youth Center in Harrisburg, Illinois.
He told detectives that after his release he killed a Russian man in Tampa Bay, Florida before attacking an African American he smoked marijuana with in Compton, California.
Mystery death: Essi Puhakka, 27, was a Finnish woman found drowned in Biscayne Bay, Florida, in February 2015. An autopsy was inconclusive. Nicholas Gibson, 32, tells cops he killed her. They are now investigating; records suggest he was in prison in Georgia at the time
Proud to be in America: Essi Puhakka had posted a photograph of the work visa which she obtained before coming to the U.S. saying ‘it’s happening!’ and posted pictures showing her enjoying life in Miami, including watching the Miami Panthers hosting the Minnesota Wild
Sources say Gibson went into gruesome detail in his videotaped confession, describing how he sliced the man’s throat with a finger knife while they sat on a beach.
He claims to have used the same blade to murder a homeless man in Key West, his supposed fifth slaying.
Gibson says he murdered his penultimate victim, a female tourist, by drowning her in Biscayne Bay, close to Miami Beach, in 2015.
One of the investigators from the Miami Beach Police Department remembered a similar case from February of that year, when the body of Finnish national Essi Puhakka bobbed to the surface along a seawall.
An autopsy suggested the 27-year-old had been in a struggle before she was submerged in water, although pathologists could not be sure she drowned.
The Miami New Times reported that the blonde business graduate’s fingernails were damaged and she had abrasions on her right calf and left thigh.
Gibson’s criminal history seems to suggest he was behind bars when the body was found, having been sentenced to two years in prison in February 2014 for failing to register as a sex offender in Cobb County, Georgia.
Nonetheless Miami Beach Police Department spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez said officers were consulting law enforcement across three states to see if the claims are credible.
‘Mr. Gibson was interviewed by Miami Beach detectives after his arrest on Sunday [May 5]. In that interview, he admitted to his involvement in the murder of Mr. Stocker.
‘We also recovered physical evidence to support the murder charges that will be filed against him once he is returned to Miami.
‘Mr. Gibson also made additional statements about his involvement in six other murders during earlier times in his life.
‘He said these occurred in Florida, Georgia and California. We are evaluating the information he has provided.
The one-bedroom home (ringed) of Erik Stocker in the Miami Beach, Florida complex where his body was found on April 30. Nicholas Gibson has confessed to the murder, said to have been committed with a samurai sword
Savage Angel: Nicholas Brent Gibson has been in prison for over 16 years. He served seven years for rape in 2000, four-and-half years for rape in 2008, nine months for failing to register as a sexual predator in 2013, two years for again failing to register in 2014 and 30 months for failing to register in 2017
Nicholas Brent Gibson, posing in front of eight Emmy Awards and holding another, told his followers on instagram in 2015 he was in a relationship with an actress
‘We will be working with law enforcement in these locations in an attempt to determine the credibility of his statements.
‘This will be a lengthy process. At this time we cannot corroborate what Mr. Gibson has told us about his involvement in any of the other murders.’
Stocker’s decomposing body was found on April 30 after neighbors reported a foul odor coming from his first floor apartment in South Beach.
Cops believe he had been dead inside for about two weeks but the corpse went undetected because most of the neighboring units are vacation homes.
Tattoo artist Gibson, who sources said was living with Stocker and possibly serving as a health aide, allegedly killed and mutilated him, then stole his wallet and credit cards.
The former barman and Dunkin’ Donuts server then used one of the cards to buy a bus ticket to New York City, where he used it again at a Pronto Pizza near the Rockefeller Center on May 3.
Two days later police saw him get off an L train in Manhattan’s East Village and detained him after a brief struggle, before charging him with resisting arrest and being a fugitive from another state.
Since his first rape conviction at age 13 and subsequent release in June 2000, Gibson has drifted from state to state, repeatedly re-offending and failing to alert authorities to his whereabouts.
The wiry pervert, who also goes under the name Brent Savage, pleaded guilty to raping a person under 16 in Tyrone, Pennsylvania in May 2008 and was given a four and a half year sentence.
Since his release in June 2012 he has been convicted of failing to register as a sex offender on four different occasions.
During one stint behind bars, Gibson’s then girlfriend Stephanie Stocks gave birth to his only child in early 2017.
According to friends, Stocks died from an overdose four months later and the child was taken into care.
Gibson appears to have had both male and female partners, with at least one man in the Miami area describing him as a boyfriend in social media posts.
‘I don’t want anything to do with that man or anything that he has done,’ the former partner told DailyMail.com. ‘I barely knew him.’
On his own Instagram page Gibson claimed in December 2015 to have been in a relationship with an Emmy television-award winning actress.
Posing in front of eight Emmy awards while clutching another in his hand, he wrote: ‘Yes…they are real….not mine. But I am ******* an actress….name withheld of course….lol’
In other posts he can be seen smoking marijuana and waving wads of bank notes. In 2016 Gibson spent time in a South Florida mental health unit after he tried to slit his wrists.
A nurse who let him stay at her home for a couple of days afterwards told DailyMail.com that Gibson claimed he was from New Zealand and spoke with an Kiwi accent.
She and her son kicked him out several days later when police revealed to her that Gibson was wanted for failing to register as a sex offender.
‘He said all kinds of crazy stuff, I have no idea if any of it was true,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘I think I had a lucky escape getting rid of him so quickly.’