SUSPECT: Timothy Lane Gribble

ProDeathPenalty.com

Timothy Gribble was sentenced to die for the September 9, 1987 rape and strangulation of Elizabeth "Libby" Jones of Clear Lake Shores, Texas. Gribble was working as a roofer at Libby's home while it was being remodeled. He told police he returned to the house several hours after work and raped Jones after she let him in to search for the wallet he claimed to have left behind. He admitted to later driving her to an isolated area and strangling her with the belt of her robe. He was arrested on 9/30/87 and led police to her body after he confessed. Libby's purse was recovered from a nearby creek. Gribble had previously served less than a year and a half of a 5 year sentence on a rape and false imprisonment conviction and was released under mandatory release in May 1985. He has also been indicted in the June 13, 1987 strangulation death of Donna Weis in Galveston County.

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By the time he was 18-years old,
Timothy Lane Gribble was well on his way
to a criminal career which would eventually
lead him to a date with the Texas executioner.
Gribble was born and spent the early
years of his life in Cook County, Illinois,
then moved to Texas with his parents
where he got work as a half-*advertiser censored* mechanic
and sometime roofer.
In January of 1981 young Gribble was
arrested for burglarizing a motor home
owned by his father. Three months later,
in April, he was busted for using false pretenses,
lying, to gain entry into the home
of a 54-year old woman, whose 15-year
old daughter he knew, then he sexually
assaulted the mother. Six months after
that, in October, the cops caught him with
some drugs and jailed him again.
He drifted along until August 1983
when he forced a 15-year old girl by
threatening her to accompany him to his
place then forced her to engage in oral
sex and sexual intercourse over a period
of several hours.

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(March 16, 2000) HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) --

Condemned killer Timothy Lane Gribble welcomed his execution. Unlike the scene in the Texas death chamber 24 hours earlier, when another prisoner resisted his lethal injection and spit a key from his mouth in a final act of defiance, Gribble peacefully accepted his punishment for killing a Galveston County woman more than a dozen years ago. "I was wrong what I did," he said in a final statement in which he apologized for the killings. "Just please, find peace." In a handwritten statement read by prison chaplain James Brazzil, Gribble said he had been living with guilt and pain.

Prayed himself into unconsciousness But he added that he needed to speak out against the death penalty, "although I have no regrets in my case," he said. "The death penalty is an unnecessary punishment for a society who has other means to protect itself." "I go with God," Gribble said after the chaplain finished reading. Then he began chanting a prayer, and gasped and snorted as the drugs began taking effect. He slipped into unconsciousness and eight minutes later, he was pronounced dead. "I feel very satisfied justice has been served," Mike Guarino, the Galveston County district attorney who prosecuted Gribble, said after watching the prisoner die. "I sincerely hope he meant what he said. "I hope, sincerely, that he has come to grips with the horrible things he did."

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A few weeks later he fled to Tennessee, where he was questioned again and was returned to Texas. He then confessed to raping and abducting Jones and taking her to a remote area near League City, north of Galveston. According to his confession, Gribble told Jones he was going to tie her naked to a tree and leave her there, and when she began to scream and struggle he took the sash from her bathrobe and tied it around her neck until she died.

He drew a map that directed authorities to her remains under some brush near a tree. "I don't know why this happened," Gribble said from death row last week. "I'd like to say I lost my mind, but I can't. I've been asking myself that question every day for 12 years. "I wish I could answer so I could tell my family, so I could tell the victim's family, so I could apologize and make sure it never happens again, but I don't know."

Gribble was charged but never tried for killing another woman, 23-year-old Donna Weis, who disappeared in June 1986. Her remains were found 18 months later. At the punishment phase of his trial for the Jones murder, 3 women told jurors how he raped them. "I think he's a serial rapist, a serial killer," Mike Guarino, the Galveston County district attorney who prosecuted Gribble, said this week. "I think he's a very dangerous predator."

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Timothy Gribble
Timothy Lane Gribble, 36, was executed by lethal injection on 15 March 2000 in Huntsville, Texas, for the rape and murder of a homeowner he was working for.

In September 1987, Elizabeth "Libby" Jones, 36, was having her home remodeled. At about 7:30 p.m. one evening, she called Terry Hahn, her boyfriend, and mentioned that one roofer was still at the house, hammering on her roof. Jones missed work the next day and, noting her absence, some of her friends went to her house that evening. After looking through the house, they became suspicious and called police.

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TEXAS:

Condemned killer Timothy Lane Gribble welcomed his execution.
Unlike the scene in the Texas death chamber 24 hours earlier, when another
prisoner resisted his lethal injection and spit a key from his mouth in a
final act of defiance, Gribble peacefully accepted his punishment for
killing a Galveston County woman more than a dozen years ago.
"I was wrong what I did," he said in a final statement in which he
apologized for the killings. "Just please, find peace."

Click to expand...