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Keith Gibson Is Convicted of Four 2021 Philadelphia Murders, His Mother Among Them

A jury found Gibson guilty of killing two store owners, his mother and a Dunkin' manager. He was given four more life terms, for eleven in all with Delaware.

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Illustration: courtroom exhibit table with sealed bags and binders

Christine Lugo got to the Dunkin' on West Lehigh Avenue in North Philadelphia just before six on the morning of June 5, 2021, to open the store she managed. A man in gloves followed her in. The surveillance video, with sound, shows him demanding the safe, and Lugo telling him she did not have the code. She led him to the office, emptied three drawers of cash, about $300 in all, and handed it over. He checked his watch, turned and shot her in the head.

On June 9, 2026, a Philadelphia jury found Keith Gibson guilty of first-degree murder in Lugo's death and in three others from the first half of 2021, including the killing of his own mother. Judge Giovanni Campbell sentenced him the same day to four consecutive life terms plus up to 76 years. He was already serving seven life sentences in Delaware for two more killings that spring, so Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner put his total at eleven.

Four killings

The first came on January 28, 2021. Police answering a robbery call on the 3600 block of Germantown Avenue found Roy Caban and Erik Flores shot dead at the back of their store, Al-Madinah Traders. On the morning of February 8, Christine Gibson was found shot in the head in an office at the United Peers Community Center on Ridge Street, where she and her son worked Saturdays doing COVID-19 cleaning. He had recently been released from prison and was staying with her. People close to her told investigators she had said she felt unsafe living with him, was afraid of him and wanted to get away from him. Prosecutors told the jury he killed her to try to collect her life insurance.

In all four killings, prosecutors said, the motive was robbery and the victims were shot in the head.

The tracker

Lugo's killing was what broke the case. Philadelphia police put out pictures and video of her killer, and the next day detectives in Elsmere, Delaware, called about a strikingly similar robbery and killing at a cellphone store there on May 15. In both cases a woman managing the store had been shot in the head in the back office. Wilmington police sent over a photo of a man they thought resembled Lugo's killer. It was Gibson.

In the early hours of June 8, 2021, a clerk at a Rite Aid in Wilmington was robbed at gunpoint and slipped a tracking device in with what the robber took. It led police to Gibson at a house in Wilmington, and to a revolver. An expert testified that bullets and fragments from three of the Philadelphia shootings matched that gun; a fragment from the Germantown Avenue shooting had similar characteristics but could not be matched exactly. "Without her placing that tracking device, he likely would not have been arrested that day," said Assistant District Attorney Katherine Wood, who tried the case with Jeff Hojnowski.

Gibson was already serving seven life terms plus 296 years in Delaware for two killings committed during robberies there, among them the woman shot at the Elsmere store.

Gibson told the judge he would file an appeal, and offered his condolences to the families. "No child should have to bury their parent under these circumstances," said Francis Rodriguez, Lugo's daughter. "We won't forget our mother and the joy she brought to her community and family." Lugo's sister, Vittoria Arroyo, said nothing could bring her back, "but at least we can say we finally got our justice." Carmella Smiley, Christine Gibson's niece, said, "We finally can put her to rest."

The account of the killings and the investigation is the Philadelphia District Attorney's and the prosecution's case at trial, which the jury accepted. Gibson said in court that he will appeal. The DA's office spells the second Germantown Avenue victim's name Erik Flores; some reports spell it Eric.

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