Indiana Supreme Court upholds convictions of Floyd County serial killer

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WDRB) -- The Indiana Supreme Court on Thursday upheld murder convictions against Floyd County serial killer William Clyde Gibson III, who killed three women, including two in 2012 in grisly attacks that included dismemberment.

Court documents show that Gibson’s counsel had argued that before and during the murder trials, his attorney was ineffective, which led to harmful self-incriminating statements, unreasonable delay in assembling a defense team and failure to challenge certain evidence presented by the state as false, prejudicial, misleading or unreliable.

Gibson also argued that the guilty plea he entered in one of the cases was a result of his trial attorney’s uninformed advice, and that the plea therefore was “void as a violation of due process.”

However, the Indiana Supreme Court said in its ruling Thursday that it found the arguments “unpersuasive and largely unsupported by the record,” and agreed with a lower court’s ruling to uphold the convictions.

Court documents show that Gibson in March 2012 invited Stephanie Kirk, 35, to his home, where, in an extended attack, he brutally strangled her to death and sexually assaulted her corpse. Gibson hid her naked and broken body in his garage overnight and buried her the next day in a shallow grave in his backyard.

The following month, the documents show, Gibson invited to his home his late mother’s best friend, Christine Whitis, 75, whom he also violently strangled to death before sexually abusing her corpse. He dragged Whitis’ nude and lifeless body to the garage, where he severed one of her breasts before leaving for a night out drinking at bars.

Gibson’s sisters found Whitis’ body the following day and contacted police. Gibson was arrested that evening after a brief car chase. In the vehicle’s center console, authorities found Whitis’ severed breast.

While in custody, Gibson confessed to killing Karen Hodella, whose murder had gone unsolved since police had found her decomposing body in 2003.

Gibson was given a 65-year prison sentence for murdering Karen Hodella and received a death sentence in 2013 for the Whitis murder and in 2014 in the Kirk murder.

He appealed both death sentences, but the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the death sentence in the Whitis murder in 2015 and in the Kirk murder in 2016.