A deranged Florida woman allegedly admitted to fatally stabbing her elderly roommate, a beloved veteran, when he tried to evict her — and cowardly stashed his body underneath a tarp.
Shannon Rose Giblin, 48, clashed with 76-year-old Paul De Wayne Bradley at their Charlotte Ranchettes home late Sunday evening, just a week after the duo started sharing a living space.
During the argument, Giblin allegedly slashed Bradley — and, realizing she’d injured him “beyond help,” concealed his body beneath a tarp and left him to die alone, according to a press release from the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office.
Giblin fled from their Punta Gorda home in Bradley’s coveted pickup truck. By the time police arrived, Bradley was dead.
Giblin was tracked down with Bradley’s truck, and taken in for questioning. She allegedly confessed to the gruesome knifing, the release said.
In her mugshot, a bedraggled Giblin stared down the camera, one brow cocked while she pursed her lined lips.
Neighbors in the unlikely pair’s community said that Bradley shared the home with his wife until she died a few years ago. He recently opened his doors to Giblin in hopes she could help him around the house, WINK News reported.
Adam LaFleur, a friend of Bradley’s, told the Gulf Coast News Now that Giblin had “started doing some strange things” and even “lied to him” in the short week they lived together.
Bradley caught on to Giblin’s ruse and attempted to evict her, which LaFleur speculated sparked the fatal feud.
Now, Bradley’s neighbors are trying to figure out what their community will be like without its charitable veteran.
“He went through wars and came back, he survived a heart attack not long ago, and then this is what takes his life. Nobody deserves that,” neighbor Jody Scharping told WINK News.
Scharping said that Bradley reminded her of her own father, the type of “old veteran who wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
“Nobody hated him. He was just a super nice dude. I didn’t think anybody would ever do that to him,” Scharping’s son, Parker Daigle, added.
Giblin’s family alluded to “demons” the accused murderer battled as part of “The Mental Health Crisis” plaguing the world. They assured they wouldn’t neglect Giblin’s “blame or responsibility for this crime” in their rush to support her.
“We only wish the paths that have led us here today could have been altered so many years ago, so as not to have resulted in so many losses for so many people,” the family wrote in a statement to WINK News.
Giblin was charged with murder and grand theft of a motor vehicle. She is being held without bond.
