A former Virginia doctor was sentenced on Monday to 50 years in prison for the alleged murder of his girlfriend.
Dr John Gibbs was found guilty in December of first-degree murder following the disappearance of nurse Zumba Pabon, of Chesterfield, whose body was never found.
She was last seen alive in June 2014 leaving her shift on a Friday evening at St Francis Medical Hospital. Her co-workers reported her missing the following Monday.
Former Virginia doctor, John Gibbs (left) was sentenced on Monday to 50 years in prison, after he was found guilty of first-degree murder following the disappearance of his girlfriend, nurse Zumba Pabon (right), whose body was never found
Pabon (pictured) was last seen alive in June 2014 leaving her shift on a Friday evening at St Francis Medical Hospital. Her co-workers reported her missing the following Monday
At Gibbs’ trial, multiple people testified that the doctor was acting strange in the days following his girlfriend’s disappearance.
He did not express grief, did not tell his own sister that Pabon had disappeared, and went on a 10-day trip out of town with no notice, reported WTVR.
Prosecutors presented a multitude of evidence, including a quick succession of 27 calls between her phone and Gibbs’s and Pabon confessing to a co-worker that she wanted to leave Gibbs and had begun cutting herself.
Her car was also seen being driven away from the couple’s home on June 7 with Gibbs returning on foot not long after.
At Gibbs’s trial, multiple people testified that the doctor was acting strange in the days following his girlfriend’s disappearance. Her car was also seen being driven away from the couple’s home on June 7 with Gibbs returning on foot not long after (above)
Also presented were purchases that Gibbs (center, in black) had made of 23 bottles of drain cleaner, and muriatic acid, weeks after Palbon disappeared as well as that he searched on Google how much ether is required to knock someone out
Surveillance footage captured her car being towed at night from a parking lot near her home. The following week it was found outside a trailer park.
Also presented were purchases that Gibbs had made of 23 bottles of drain cleaner, and muriatic acid, weeks after Pabon disappeared as well as that he searched on Google how much ether is required to knock someone out.
But Gibbs’s attorneys said he maintains his innocence and plans to appeal.
Gibbs, who was a doctor at Sheltering Arms Rehabilitation, dated Pabon for more than six years.
Gibbs and Pabon dated for more than six years and had one child together named Joseph (pictured, with Pabon)
Attorneys for Gibbs, who was a doctor at Sheltering Arms Rehabilitation, said he maintains his innocence and plans to appeal
The couple had a child together named Joseph, who is currently in the custody of Gibbs’s family members.
Yalitza Soba, Pabon’s sister, told the judge during the trial that Joseph asks for his mother all the time, even asking for a phone as a Christmas gift so he could contact his mother, reported WTVR.
‘My sister was a strong, independent, loving woman,’ Soba said at the time. ‘Great mother, amazing person, inside and out. It breaks my heart that this had to happen. I’m glad he’s not going to be able to do anything like that to anybody else.’
The jury was told that prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gibbs killed Pabon, even if a body has not been recovered.
The verdict marked the second time in less than two years that Chesterfield authorities won a conviction in a rare ‘no body’ homicide case, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.