Episode 4: The Grand Jury

Summary

Deep Cover: Season 4 - The Nameless Man Episode 4: The Grand Jury Release Date: May 13, 2024

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Introduction

In Episode 4 of Deep Cover Season 4, titled "The Grand Jury," host Jake Halpern delves deeper into the intricate investigation surrounding the murder of Aron Wood. This episode spotlights the relentless efforts of federal agents Scott and Terry, alongside Philadelphia's Assistant District Attorney Carmen Lineberger, as they navigate the complexities of a cold case fraught with limited evidence and fading memories.

Case Background

The murder of Aron Wood occurred in April 1989 in North Philadelphia, marking a heinous hate crime that left the Wood family yearning for justice for nearly two decades. Initial investigations struggled due to the passage of time, which had eroded crucial evidence and witness testimonies.

Carmen Lineberger (00:02:07):
"I think that when it comes to certain particular deaths, I think that sometimes we put on a front with the world like we've gotten over it."

Investigation Progress

By the summer of 2006, Scott and Terry had made significant strides by securing a confession from Craig Peterson, an alleged accomplice, and identifying Tom Gibson as the prime suspect believed to be responsible for Wood's death.

Jake Halpern (00:03:07):
"With the help of the Philly PD, the agents had identified the man they believed to be the victim, Aron Wood."

Carmen Lineberger’s Dedication

Carmen Lineberger, a seasoned prosecutor with over a decade of experience, had built her career with a steadfast commitment to justice, influenced by her father’s advice to "always do the right thing and don't take any blank off of anybody" (00:04:48). Her mentorship under the legendary prosecutor Roger King was pivotal in her pursuit of this case.

Carmen Lineberger (00:06:35):
"This was a hate crime. It's hard to fathom the depraved nature of someone that could just kill someone in cold blood based on the color of their skin."

Gathering Evidence

Despite two years into the investigation, Scott and Terry faced challenges in corroborating Craig's confession. Their efforts focused on uncovering additional evidence and securing testimonies that could withstand a grand jury's scrutiny.

Jake Halpern (00:04:33):
"When I graduated high school, I knew I wanted to be a prosecutor. When I went to the University of Pennsylvania, I knew I wanted to be a prosecutor."

Key Leads and Challenges

The investigation hinged on three primary leads:

1. The Murder Weapon: Scott and Terry sought the .38 caliber revolver Tom Gibson allegedly used. Despite locating Tom's old guns in federal storage (00:13:02), ballistic testing proved inconclusive due to bullet deformation (00:14:35).

2. Prom Night Testimony: Investigators revisited the events of Tom Gibson's high school prom in 1989, where witnesses, including Tom's girlfriend Jen, recalled him boasting about his new spiderweb tattoo and hinting at violent intentions (00:16:17).

   Scott (00:17:36):
   "What Terry and I liked from talking to each and every one of them was they all told the same story."

3. Memory Test with Craig Peterson: In a bold move, Scott and Terry attempted to jog Craig's memory by driving him to the crime scene location near Girard College. The endeavor yielded ambiguous results, highlighting the difficulties of relying on memories from decades past (00:22:14).

Witness Credibility

Carmen emphasized the credibility and remorse exhibited by Craig Peterson, viewing his cooperation as a genuine effort to make amends.

Carmen Lineberger (00:28:35):
"I found him to be very credible. I also think he was remorseful."

Additionally, testimonies from Tom's ex-girlfriends Jen and Patricia were instrumental in strengthening the prosecution's case, as they independently corroborated Tom's predisposition towards violence.

Carmen Lineberger (00:28:10):
"They knew him better than anybody else, so they knew what he was capable of."

Grand Jury Proceedings

By the summer of 2006, the accumulated evidence and testimonies led Carmen and her team to convene a grand jury. The grand jury process served as a preliminary hearing to assess the strength of the case against Tom Gibson without his knowledge.

Jake Halpern (00:05:56):
"The grand jury was so important, so the prosecution could figure out, was this a case they could win?"

Ultimately, the grand jury found probable cause to indict Tom Gibson on charges including first-degree murder, setting the stage for a high-profile trial.

Arrest of Tom Gibson

The arrest of Tom Gibson was meticulously planned and executed by Scott and Terry, involving coordination between the FBI, ATF, and the Philadelphia Police Department. Upon confronting Tom, the tension was palpable as described by Terry.

Tom Gibson (00:33:42):
"I'm yelling. Others are yelling at the top of our lungs. And he just stands there like a deer in the headlights."

Tom's eventual surrender marked a significant victory for the prosecution team, though challenges remained regarding the sufficiency of physical evidence.

Trial Anticipation

The episode concludes with anticipation of the forthcoming trial, where Carmen Lineberger and Roger King would face a formidable defense attorney. The trial promised to ignite discussions on racial violence and the nuances of reasonable doubt in the justice system.

Tom Gibson (00:35:31):
"I believe Tom Gibson is innocent. They had no physical evidence."

Jake Halpern (00:35:35):
"They had no gun."

Conclusion

"The Grand Jury" encapsulates the arduous journey of seeking justice in a cold case burdened by time and limited evidence. Through tenacity and meticulous investigation, Carmen, Scott, and Terry navigate the murky waters of legal proceedings in their quest to secure closure for the Wood family.

Jake Halpern (00:35:40):
"Of scorned girlfriends and Craig Peterson, who had been made an offer he couldn't refuse to escape prosecution in return for full immunity."

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Next Episode Preview:
Jake Halpern sets the stage for the dramatic court proceedings that await Tom Gibson, promising an in-depth exploration of the trial's impact on all parties involved and the broader implications for the community.

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Deep Cover continues to unravel the layers of deception and the pursuit of truth, offering listeners a compelling narrative of crime, investigation, and the relentless pursuit of justice.

Transcript

[Carmen Lineberger]

Foreign.

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[Jake Halpern]

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[Terry]

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[Amy Brown]

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[Jake Halpern]

Hey, it's Jake. I got a quick favor to ask. If you've been enjoying Deep Cover the Nameless man, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It helps new listeners find the show and that in turn helps will help us continue making future seasons. Thank you. Previously on Deep Cover.

[Carmen Lineberger]

I think that when it comes to certain particular deaths, I think that sometimes we put on a front with the world like we've gotten over it. I used to watch the unsolved mystery shows and I often thought about calling how can a person get killed and no one knows anything. She said, you have to forgive the person that killed your brother. And I don't even know who this person is.

[Scott]

Terry and I said it may be that this does not ever go to a court, even with Craig's cooperation, that this is ever going to see the inside of a court. This all may be just to give a Ron Wood's family some sense of understanding.

[Jake Halpern]

By the summer of 2006, roughly two years into their investigation, Scott and Terry had made Real progress. The two federal agents had obtained a confession from the alleged accomplice, Craig Peterson. And with the help of the Philly pd, the agents had identified the man they believed to be the victim, Aron Wood. For years, the Wood family had wanted answers about Iran's death. They yearned for closure and for justice. Now, finally, there was some movement. A case was mounting against the alleged shooter.

[Carmen Lineberger]

Tom Gibson was definitely a different type of case. I don't think there's been really anything similar to it since that I've heard.

[Jake Halpern]

That's Carmen lineberger. Back in 2006, she was an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. She worked in the homicide unit, and she was assigned to work on this case.

[Carmen Lineberger]

You know, a skinhead coming to Philadelphia to kill somebody. A cowardly act. When it all boils down to it, a cowardly act.

[Jake Halpern]

By this point in her career, Carmen had been a prosecutor for well over a decade.

[Carmen Lineberger]

So when I graduated high school, I knew I wanted to be a prosecutor. When I went to the University of Pennsylvania, I knew I wanted to be a prosecutor. When I went to Temple Law School, I knew I wanted to be a prosecutor.

[Jake Halpern]

It sounds like you knew you wanted to be a prosecutor just tad bit. Carmen's father had also been an assistant district attorney. And Carmen says her dad raised her to be tough.

[Carmen Lineberger]

He said, always do the right thing and don't take any blank off of anybody. You can fill in the blank.

[Jake Halpern]

Carmen says she took this advice to heart. Didn't take blank from anybody. And this was important because she's a woman of color, which at the time was a real rarity in the homicide unit at the DA's office in Philly. Carmen was helped out in part by her mentor. His name was Roger King. He passed away in 2016. But at the time, Roger was a legendary figure in the Philadelphia DA's office. It was Roger who first helped Carmen land a spot in the homicide unit back in the early 2000s. And Roger was the lead prosecutor on this case. After 35 years in the courtroom, this was actually going to be Roger's last case before he retired, and he'd brought Carmen on board to help him win. Carmen had seen many grisly murder cases, but there was something about this one that seemed especially unsettling.

[Carmen Lineberger]

Not that any murder isn't disturbing, but this particular murder and the reason for it, the hate. This was a hate crime. It's hard to fathom the depraved nature of someone that could just kill someone in cold blood based on the color of their skin. It was bad luck for that man to be found in North Philadelphia that night in April of 1989.

[Jake Halpern]

The authorities believed that man was Aron Wood. And now it was up to Roger, Carmen, and the DA's office in Philly to see this through. To ensure that the Wood family got the closure and the justice that they needed. Carmen's task was to marshal all the evidence she could. She would have the help of the Philly PD and also of Scott and Terry, the two federal agents. And she and Roger King had one more card to play. Arguably their best. They could convene a grand jury, which is basically like a preliminary hearing, but it's held in secret. The defendant doesn't even know it's happening. The prosecution can subpoena witnesses, require them to testify. So it's like a test run. The prosecution can see how strong the case is before making a final decision on whether to go forward and seek an indictment. If there was an indictment, Tom Gibson would be arrested. There'd be a trial, likely a very high profile trial. And Carmen's boss, the legendary prosecutor Roger King, would have his final day in court in rather dramatic fashion. But Carmen knew it all came down to evidence. It had been almost 20 years since Ron Wood was murdered. And that's the challenge with cold cases. Evidence vanishes, memories fade. Witnesses slip away. Which is why the grand jury was so important, so the prosecution could figure out, was this a case they could win? I'm Jake Halpern and and this is deep cover Season 4 the Nameless Man Episode 4 the Grand Jury.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Amy Brown]

Hey, it's Amy Brown from the Bobbi Bones Show. Join me in supporting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for a chance to win a trip to meet Megan Maroney at the 2025 I Heart Country Festival in Austin, Texas on May 3rd. Hosted by Bobby Bones. We're going to hook you up with tickets, flights, hotel, food credits, and a meet and greet with Megan Maroney. Take action now to support St. Jude and help cure childhood cancer. And you're going to be entered for a chance to win. Visit iheartcountrytrip.com to learn more. You know when the world gets a little crazy and everything is moving too fast, don't you just wish you could get away from all of it for a while? Well, that's exactly what the all new 2025 Nissan Murano can do for you. And to be clear, you don't even have to go anywhere. The Murano is the getaway. It was designed from the ground up to be a refuge from the daily grind. I mean, it has a Bose premium sound system which can play your favorite, most relaxing music. And there's nothing like a world class audio system to just transport you to a better headspace. Then there's the Murano's massaging leather appointed seats. Yeah, massaging seats. Talk about melting away your stress. So could getting stuck in traffic become your happy place? I don't know. It sounds like it could in the all new Murano. You should probably check one out for yourself. You gotta drive the all new 2025 Nissan Murano today. Bose and massaging leather appointed seats are optional features.

[Jake Halpern]

Throughout the summer of 2006, the two federal agents on the case, Scott and Terry, were still scrambling. They were working together with the Philly PD to look under every stone and gather as much evidence as they could in preparation for the grand jury. So far, here's what they had. They had an ex girlfriend named Patricia Miller. You heard about her in episode one. She's the one who claimed that Tom had bragged about killing a black man. She said Tom had a newspaper article covering the man's death and boasted that this was his doing. The Feds also had a confession from Craig, the man claiming to be the accomplice. Craig said that he and Tom had driven into Philadelphia in the spring of 89 and used a.38 caliber revolver to murder a black man. But what else could the Feds find? Was there any physical evidence or were there any other witnesses who could help corroborate Craig's story? Witnesses who Carmen and Roger could then bring before the grand jury. So Scott and Terry, they weren't done yet. There were a few leads they were still chasing down. I'm going to tell you about three of them. Three leads they hoped would tip the balance in the case and provide Carmen and the prosecution just what they needed. Okay, let's start with the smoking gun. And I mean that quite literally, because if Scott and Terry could find the actual murder weapon, the.38 that Tom Gibson supposedly used back in 89, well, that'd be huge. In theory. They could then match the gun with the bullet that killed the victim. Because they had the bullet. It had been recovered from Aran's body. Problem was, according to Craig, Tom said he was going to get rid of the murder weapon. So maybe it had been destroyed. No one knew for sure. Then one day, Terry was talking with his boss over at the atf, and Terry mentioned this problem they were having finding the murder weapon.

[Tom Gibson]

I said, I don't know how I'm going to find this thing. I said, he might even throw it in the river. Who knows? And my boss says to me, you know what he said? Actually, he said, I was on an audit a few months ago, and, you know, they have guybeson evidence up there on the first gun case.

[Jake Halpern]

The first gun case. If you recall, back in the 1990s, Tom Gibson had been arrested and imprisoned on a guns charge. He had since been released. But the evidence from that case, the weapons that the Feds had seized, were still apparently in storage. And Terry's boss over at the ATF knew this because, quite by chance, he'd been involved in a routine audit of stockpiled evidence. Kind of like spring cleaning, like when you open that dusty room in your basement and go through all the junk that you haven't touched in years. The feds, they do this, too, with all their old evidence. Anyway, Terry's boss remembered seeing Tom's old guns. So Terry gets on the phone with someone over at the ATF and asks.

[Tom Gibson]

Hey, do you have any.38 caliber revolvers belonging to Tommy in your evidence? She goes, yes. I'm like, oh, my goodness.

[Jake Halpern]

So now all they have to do is run a test at the ballistics lab to see if there's a match. Terry asked for the test to be expedited, then waited with bated breath. But when the examiner called back, he told Terry that there was a problem with the bullet.

[Tom Gibson]

It's too deformed. I can't make a definitive match. I can't match up the lands, and they're called lands and grooves in a barrel of a firearm that make a unique microscopic signature where you can say, hey, it's like a fingerprint. This is. This was the same gun. So I can't do it. It was too deformed.

[Jake Halpern]

So lead number one didn't pan out. Maybe this was the weapon, maybe it wasn't. There was just no way to know for sure, which meant it was of no real use to Carmen, Roger and the prosecution. Lead number two involved, of all things, a high school prom. You may remember that Craig, the alleged accomplice, said that the murder occurred in the spring of 89 the spring. And Craig remembered this because he said it happened shortly before prom that both he and Tom attended. Tom went with his girlfriend at the time, another teenager named Jen. Were just going to use her first name in order to protect her identity. The agents, Scott and Terry, decided they should really talk with Jen and see if she remembered anything useful from the time. So they met Jen briefly at a coffee shop. They explained, we want to talk to you about Tom Gibson. Jen was visibly shaken, but she agreed to have a sit down with them. A short while later, they met up at her house. And this is when Jen started talking about her prom. Back in 89, her prom was held at the Dupont hotel in downtown Wilmington. This is a grand old hotel built in 1913, with crystal chandeliers, parquet floors, gilded trim, the whole deal. Jen says at some point during the prom, Tom got in an argument with another prom goer. Things apparently got heated. Tom readied for a fight, and he rolled up his shirt sleeves, revealing an elaborate spiderweb tattoo that he'd recently gotten. In the end, tempers cooled. At some point in the night, Tom apparently boasted about his tattoo, saying, quote, do you know what this means? Scott and Terry, they vetted this whole prom night story. They actually tracked down other people who had attended the same prom back in 1989.

[Tom Gibson]

We actually got in contact with more people than I, than I would have expected. I want to say maybe six people, seven people that I was. I think I was pretty, pretty surprised that we actually found them and talked to them and they were willing to talk to us.

[Jake Halpern]

Both Scott and Terry say that to a person. Everyone they spoke with recalled Tom boasting about how and why he'd gotten his tattoo. Here's Scott.

[Scott]

What Terry and I liked from talking to each and every one of them was they all told the same story. They all told it in the same sense of shock. They all relive that moment now feeling guilt. I think one even said, I always had in the back of my mind that it was true, and I am so upset I never told somebody. So they could have looked into it.

[Jake Halpern]

According to Jen, Tom had boasted about this murder on other occasions as well. Tom allegedly showed her a newspaper article from the Philadelphia Inquirer about a man who'd been killed, and he claimed that he was responsible. Bottom line, Jen was another witness that the prosecution could bring before the grand jury to bolster their case. Of course, what she said didn't prove anything definitively, but the accounts from these two ex girlfriends, combined with Craig's Confession felt substantial. This brings us to lead number three. Well, it wasn't so much of a lead as it was a memory test. A very, very hard memory test. That's after the break.

[Ryan Seacrest]

The last thing you want to do when you're sick is go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, because then you're standing in a long line with a whole bunch of sick people and everyone is sick of being sick around other people who are sick. Amazon Pharmacy will deliver right to you fast so you can get meds without congregating among the contagious. Healthcare just got less painful. Amazon Pharmacy.

[Amy Brown]

Hey, it's Amy Brown from the Bobbi Bones Show. Join me in supporting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for a chance to win a trip to meet Megan Maroney at the 2025 I Heart Country Festival in Austin, Texas on May 3rd. Hosted by Bobby Bones. We're going to hook you up with tickets, flights, hotel, food credits, and a meet and greet with Megan Maroney. Take action now to support St. Jude and help cure childhood cancer. And you're going to be entered for a chance to win. Visit iheartcountrytrip.com to learn more. You know, when the world gets a little crazy and everything is moving too fast, don't you just wish you could get away from all of it for a while? Well, that's exactly what the all new 2025 Nissan Murano can do for you. And to be clear, you don't even have to go anywhere. The Murano is the getaway. It was designed from the ground up to be a refuge from the daily grind. I mean, it has a Bose premium sound system which can play your favorite, most relaxing music. And there's nothing like a world class audio system to just transport you to a better headspace. Then there's the Murano's massaging leather appointed seats. Yeah, massaging seats. Talk about melting away your stress. So could getting stuck in traffic become your happy place? I don't know. It sounds like it could in the all new Murano. You should probably check one out for yourself. You gotta drive the all new 2025 Nissan Murano today. Bows and massaging leather appointed seats are optional. Features.

[Jake Halpern]

Iron Wood was killed on the 1300 block of North Stillman street in Philadelphia, a block or so away from the walled campus of Girard College. This was a known fact. And this got Scott and Terry thinking. Could Craig somehow independently verify that this was in fact the site of the murder that he'd helped commit? Because if he could verify this, well, then that might Cement the whole thing. Up until now, Craig maintained that he could not recall an exact location or street name where it all went down. But it seemed like it was worth exploring this a bit further. Maybe they could test his memory. In other words, get him in a car, drive him to Philly, and just hope that he could lead them to the location. If this worked, it could really enhance the value of Craig's confession and help tie it more directly to the murder of Eron Wood.

[Scott]

We say to Craig, you were there, we weren't. Perhaps you've blocked it out. Let's just drive and unblock your mind.

[Jake Halpern]

The idea was that Craig might see something, an exit ramp, a park, a building, some landmark that would spark his memory. It was a gamble. If it worked, it might really help their case. But the danger was if it didn't work, if they drove to 1300 North Stillman street and Craig said, no, this is not the spot, what do you do then the whole case could be at risk. In the end, Scott and Terry felt they had to give it a try, had to roll the dice. So they arranged to make a road trip. They put Craig in the car and they drove to Philly. All right, just situate me. Where are we in the city right now?

[Scott]

We are in North Philadelphia, in and around Gerard College.

[Jake Halpern]

This is me and Scott this past fall. Basically, I asked Scott to show me where exactly they'd taken Craig. So we drove around a bit in Scott's car in the vicinity of the murder site, just like he'd done with Craig back in 2006. And right away I began to see the challenges that this memory test presented. Row houses. I mean, the blocks are kind of indistinguishable. I mean, there's a few landmarks, but a lot of these blocks look almost identical to one another.

[Scott]

Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is the beauty of Philadelphia. You just have these amazing row homes and you can see it's very easy to. To get lost, but it's also very easy to confuse one block from another.

[Jake Halpern]

It was clear to me if this was a test of Craig's memory. The difficulty level was dialed up to expert mode. It had been nearly 20 years and it didn't make it any easier that the cityscape just unfurled like a vast, unvarying canvas. There was at least one feature of the landscape that did really stand out, the wall that surrounded the campus. It was a 10 foot high stone wall that just went on and on for blocks and blocks. And if you recall, when Craig first confessed, he talked about Seeing a wall near the murder site. So it seemed like this might be it, the landmark that jogged his memory. But Scott says when he drove here with Craig down this very street, Craig could not give him a definitive answer. It was all just maybe, Maybe. Scott and I continued on, following the wall for several blocks, then turned right onto North Stillman street, headed down to the 1300 block. And then we pulled up to the intersection where it happened. Where Iran was murdered. The mood in the car turned somber. Neither of us spoke for a moment at this point. I'd spent months looking into the story, and on the one hand, it felt strangely momentous to finally be here at the spot some part of me half expected to see. A marker, a sign, even some wilted flowers. Anything to indicate that here, right here, a man's life had ended suddenly. But in reality, there was nothing. It was just another intersection, similar to all the others, which apparently was exactly how it looked to Craig.

[Scott]

We did come to this intersection, and there was not anything that I remember Craig saying without a doubt, other than this very well could be it, but I couldn't tell you for sure. This is it.

[Jake Halpern]

So in the end, the gamble, it was sort of a push, not really a loss, but not a win either. And it also seemed to underscore a fundamental limitation with this case. A limitation that exists in so many cold cases. Simply that time had passed. Seventeen years, to be exact. Time in which memories had eroded, Time in which the case may have weakened. And this would be the fundamental challenge for Carmen and the Philadelphia DA's office. There was, at the end of the day, only so much that investigators could provide in the way of proof. Some of it was quite compelling, mainly the first person account from Craig. But there were holes, gaps in what was known. And these gaps would become unspoken invitations courting the doubts of all those who might pass judgment. In preparing for the grand jury. Carmen, the assistant da, was clear eyed about the challenges they faced. I asked her what they had in terms of forensic evidence.

[Carmen Lineberger]

Not a big CSI case. Forensically, from the 80s, you got a dead body and you got a bullet from the dead body.

[Jake Halpern]

That's it. The strength of the prosecution's case hinged on three witnesses. There were the two ex girlfriends, Jen and Patricia. They each claimed independently that Tom had boasted about committing a murder. The third witness was Craig, the alleged accomplice. Before the grand jury convened, Carmen spent time with each of the witnesses. She found them all credible and a bit nervous, too. The girlfriends each claimed that Tom Gibson had been violent with them in the Past. What's more, Carmen believed that by agreeing to testify, they were putting themselves at risk.

[Carmen Lineberger]

Well, they knew him better than anybody else, so they knew what he was capable of. It's not easy to get on the witness stand and talk about who you used to care about and how bad they were and the things that they did, whether you still love them or not. Not an easy thing to do.

[Jake Halpern]

The most important witness by far was Craig Peterson.

[Carmen Lineberger]

I found him to be very credible. I also think he was remorseful. And I, in a lot of ways, felt sorry for him because I thought just from the witnesses in general, Iverson was the bully to all of them in different ways. And I believe he was a bully to Craig Peterson.

[Jake Halpern]

I wasn't expecting you to say that. You felt sorry for him.

[Carmen Lineberger]

Yeah, probably wasn't expecting to say that either, but I did. There was remorse. You could feel the remorse. You could see it in this guy. Remorse to his soul. And in a lot of ways, I think him cooperating was purging what he did to him, trying to somewhat make amends to that person that they killed and to the person's family. And I don't feel that way about many defendants. I really don't, especially the homicide defendants. But I did feel that about him, and I still feel it to this day.

[Jake Halpern]

Craig left a lasting impression on Carmen. She can still picture him in her mind's eye.

[Carmen Lineberger]

I can recall Peterson because I looked at him and felt, peterson's a skinhead. He looks like he's mixed with black. I remember that he has an olive complexion. That causes me to believe I'm biracial, So I pay attention to those things. I always thought he was mixed somewhere in there. I don't know if he was adopted. Maybe he didn't realize it, maybe he did. But I always thought, and to this day, I can remember and see his faith. He looked like he could have been a relative. He was very fair, but he wasn't that fair.

[Jake Halpern]

Carmen brought this up to me, totally unprompted, though I wasn't entirely surprised, because I had heard this same thing from Scott Duffy, the FBI agent. Quite the bombshell. Or maybe I should say potential bombshell. Cause I don't know if it's true. If you recall, Craig went to federal prison in the 1990s. His prison records list his race as white. But that's really all I can say. I've been in touch with Craig. We first spoke a few months ago on the phone. I had hoped that he'd go on the record and share his side of the story. I eventually sent him a letter with all the info that we've included on him in this series to give him a chance to respond. And this is what he wrote. Dear Jake, I give my permission and ask to have the following heard. I've not responded because I've been contemplating for many hours the positive and negative things that can occur by participating in your podcast. I'm going to decline but would like to say my life, my beliefs and views are very different now. I do sincerely regret any harm I've caused to everyone involved. In the summer of 2006, the grand jury convened. The prosecution called its witnesses, including Craig Peterson, the two ex girlfriends, the two federal agents, Scott and Terry, and also Luby, the detective from the Philadelphia pd. Was that a winning hand? Well, the prosecution thought so, because in the end, they decided, yes, let's do this. They asked for an indictment against Tom Gibson for the murder of Iron Wood. And the grand jury gave them the green light, confirming that, yes, there was probable cause to believe that a crime had been committed. Charges were issued against Tom Gibisson, including murder in the first degree. When it came time for the arrest, Scott and Terry were actually the ones who planned it all out. It was an elaborate operation involving the FBI, the atf, and the Philadelphia Police Department. Scott and Terry led the arrest team. They showed up early in the morning at the house where he was staying and just waited. Eventually, Tom emerged. He was a big guy with the build of a weightlifter. He walked towards his car. Terry knew this was the moment.

[Tom Gibson]

So we're like, police, police. Get down. Get down. And I'm yelling. Others are yelling at the top of our lungs. And he just stands there like a deer in the headlights, just staring at. Staring at me, staring at them. And I can see in his mind, I can see in his face, he's deciding what to do. He's got, like, a half a dozen dudes, you know, potentially gonna light him up if he does something wrong. And he's just. He's literally thinking, what am I gonna do?

[Jake Halpern]

Finally, Terry says, tom put out his hands, surrendered, and that was it. Everyone took a sigh of relief. They read Tom his rights, handcuffed him, and informed him that he was under arrest for the murder of Iron Wood. He was extradited to Philadelphia, where he would eventually stand trial. And it would be quite a trial, Roger King's last case as a prosecutor. And as it turns out, King would be up against a formidable opponent, a lawyer who would make a tenacious defense of Tom Gibisson and do everything in his power to find the moth holes that time had riddled into the fabric of evidence. It was a trial that would hinge on the credibility of three witnesses and a handful of crucial facts, a trial that would find its way into the newspapers and TV news. It would arouse passions about our nation's history of racist violence and about what constitutes reasonable doubt. Tom Gibson would profess his innocence, the Wood family would hope for justice, and A jury of 12 Philadelphians would argue, agonize and decide. Next time on Deep Cover.

[Tom Gibson]

I believe Tom Gibson is innocent. They had no physical evidence.

[Jake Halpern]

They had no gun.

[Tom Gibson]

They had nothing but the ear witnesses.

[Jake Halpern]

Of scorned girlfriends and Craig Peterson, who had been made an offer he couldn't refuse to escape prosecution in return for full immunity. Deep Cover is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Jacob Smith. It's edited by Karen Shakurji, mastering by Jake Gorski. Our show art was designed by Sean Carney, original scoring and our theme was composed by Luis Guerra. Fact checking by Arthur Gomperts. Our story consultant was James Foreman Jr. Special thanks to Jerry Williams, Sarah Nix, Greta Cohn and Jake Flanagan. I'm Jake Halpern.

[Amy Brown]

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[Terry]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway with the Stock up sale at Safeway and Albertsons. Stock up and earn four times points at your local store when you purchase participating products. Save on household essentials from General Mills, Kellogg's, Philadelphia Quaker and Tide. Clip the offer in the app for event savings and look for participating items throughout the store. Shop in store or online. Plus you can even have your groceries delivered or use Drive up and go to have your groceries brought to your car at the store. Restrictions and exclusions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.