Jury rejects all charges in child's death in car

A Jackson County jury believed Michelle Gibson never intended to hurt her 8-year-old son, who died from heat exposure in her car while she worked a double shift at a nursing home.

The jury acquitted Gibson, a 37-year-old single mother, of all charges late Monday, the one-year anniversary of Devin Miles Gibson's death. She faced up to 22 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder and two counts of felony child abuse.

"Putting me behind bars wasn't going to solve anything," Gibson said Tuesday. "No matter what the outcome was, it wasn't going to bring Devin back."

Gibson admitted responsibility for her son's death, but the jury refused to convict her even of a lesser charge, involuntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors were shocked. "It falls into one of those jury decisions that is not explained," District Attorney Mike Bonfoey said.

One juror, Greg Duff of Balsam, said jurors were not blinded by sympathy for Gibson but instead focused on the legal definitions before them. They instantly ruled out second-degree murder, believing Gibson's actions did not meet the test for malice, Duff said. The judge told jurors that if they believed Devin's death was an accident, they must return a verdict of not guilty.

Gibson's struggle to find child care, steady work and a stable home led to her son's death, said her lawyer, Randal Seago of Sylva. "Homelessness caused most of her problems," he said.

Defense witnesses testified about how Gibson and her children, Devin and an older daughter, were often homeless. At times, the family lived at a homeless shelter and in a car. When Devin died, they were living with friends in Asheville, and Gibson was saving for an apartment.

Witnesses testified that Gibson, a nursing assistant who worked for a temporary agency, was a loving mother who was very involved in her son's life. She went on field trips at Devin's west Asheville school and wrote many notes to his teacher.

"She deeply loved and cared for the child and struggled to provide for him and herself," Seago said.

Gibson's work schedule wasn't conducive to finding good day care. Her shifts often started at 7 a.m., but before-school day care wasn't available. "There is no morning day care anywhere -- not in Asheville," said Jenny Klein, an assistant principal at the school where Devin was a second-grader.

On that Sunday, Gibson had her second shift as a nursing assistant at the Mountain Trace Nursing Center near Sylva, an hour west of Asheville.

She couldn't find a baby sitter for the 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. stint, so she took her son with her and let him stay in her 2001 Ford Escort. The high in the area that day was 78 degrees, according to weather records.

Co-workers testified that they noticed Gibson kept taking breaks to go to her car but didn't know why. Investigators found a pillow, a blanket and a Power Rangers toy in the car, as well as food wrappers and a toy from a Burger King kid's meal.

Partway through her shift, Gibson realized her son was dead.

Devin's internal body temperature had reached at least 106 degrees, a medical expert testified.

"Every day, I relive that scene -- every hour, every minute," Gibson said.

Now that she has been acquitted, Gibson said, she wants to press lawmakers to make child-care assistance for working families a funding priority.

"I'm going to beat the pavement until someone hears what I have to say," she said. "There are other single working mothers out there in the community right now in the same predicament I was in."

There are 37,000 children on the state's waiting list for child-care subsidies offered to poor families. On Tuesday, state Senate leaders released a proposed $18.8 billion budget, which included an additional $20 million that Gov. Mike Easley recommended for the child-care subsidy fund.

Advocates say it's not enough. "It hardly touches the waiting list," said Barbara Bradley, executive director of Action for Children North Carolina.

Beyond that, advocates say, what really needs to be changed is the state's formula for calculating the subsidy, which so far hasn't been high enough to keep day cares operating and available for working parents.

Zach Comer, a specialist on affordable housing who was working with Gibson before her son's death, said he hoped her story "could open some eyes, open some hearts and catch the attention of legislators."

Gibson's supporters say that, even without prison, she will suffer for the rest of her life.

"She's walking in a part of hell that none of us will ever know anything about," said Klein, the assistant principal. "I think desperate people make desperate choices."

(Correspondent Becky Johnson reported from Asheville.)