Man sentenced in murder case

In her youth, Rebekah Gibson spent almost every day with her mother as a homeschooler.

“I’m glad we did,” said Nancy Jo Gibson, Rebekah’s mother. “Because it gave me a lot of time with her that I wouldn’t have had.”

Finally finished with the rigors of a slow-moving legal process, Gibson, of Waynesboro, said she now can start to heal.

The daughter she remembers left her world in the frostbitten beginning of 2009, leaving behind an even colder void and a Virginia family that loved her dearly.

Rebekah Gibson was 20 years old when she was murdered by her boyfriend, Ridge Lee Huffman, 20, of Stuarts Draft.

Huffman pleaded guilty to the crime last week, and a West Virginia judge sentenced him to life in prison with mercy Wednesday.

The Aug. 6 plea canceled a jury trial scheduled for today.

The murder occurred on a dark, cold January night. Huffman and Gibson got into an argument while sitting in Huffman’s white Nissan in a Walmart parking lot.

Huffman broke a bottle over Gibson’s head, then used the bottle and a knife to cut her head, face and throat.

“He left her in the car when he went back to where his father resides and they found her in the car later,” Upshur County Prosecuting Attorney Jake Reger said.

Huffman’s sentence carries the possibility of parole. Reger said Gibson’s family deemed the sentence appropriate.

“My heart goes out to that family because they have a tragic loss there,” he said. “It was a life sentence with a recommendation of mercy. It means he is eligible for parole after 15 years, but that doesn’t mean he’ll get it.”

Sitting in court at the sentencing hearing Wednesday, Rebekah’s mother, Nancy Jo Gibson, said her daughter’s murderer never said a word.

Despite his silence, Gibson said she and two other relatives spoke to him directly from the witness stand, a process that helped bring closure to their loss.

“We feel like we can move on and really start to heal now,” Gibson said. “He’s not a monster. He doesn’t look like a murderer. He looks like a lost young man and my heart is heavy for him.”

The mother said she and six others, including the pastor of Church on a Hill in Fishersville, traveled to West Virginia for the hearing. Gibson said her faith in God played an instrumental role in helping her come to grips with the loss.

“For me, it is absolutely God,” she said. “God tells us we need to forgive, and I certainly want to be forgiven for the things I’ve done wrong. But I pray [Huffman] spends his life in jail. That is what should happen.”

Reger and Gibson made special mention of the lead investigator of the case, Sgt. Doug Loudin, of the Buckhannon Police Department. According to an e-mail to family and friends,

Gibson wrote about Loudin’s attention to detail up to the last court date.

“He had to inventory all of Rebekah’s belongings before they could be returned to us,” she wrote. “Everything was placed in Rubbermaid containers, a suitcase and a backpack. When we went to the police station to pick them up, he handed me the little scrapbook I had done for Rebekah and have so longed to have that back in my hands.”

Gibson said she last saw her daughter in November 2009. Rebekah met Huffman, and traveled away with him.

The mother said she remembers feeling he would lead Rebekah down a path of destruction.
Gibson described her daughter as “strong-willed” and “stubborn.”

When she remembers Rebekah, Gibson said she thinks of times spent watching movies together, laughing together and the time Rebekah rescued two kittens.

“We loved our daughter very, very much,” she said. “She was not perfect, she made mistakes.”

Looking to her own future, Gibson said she’s considering speaking for the Christian Women’s Club, and feels drawn to prison ministry.

“We still have deep, deep sorrow in our hearts, dear ones,” she wrote in her
e-mail to friends. “Just pray that the Lord will open doors, and that I will boldly walk through.”