One teen charged in road-rage slaying

Dan Kulin

Tuesday, May 20, 2003 | 9:43 a.m.

Only one of two teens police originally said were involved in a fatal shooting provoked by road rage has been formally charged in connection with the April 21 confrontation that left a 54-year-old man dead on a Henderson road.

Jeffrey Jefferson, 17, of Henderson, faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon in the death of William Shepherd.

Police had said Jefferson and Christopher Giblin, 18, were involved in the shooting, but Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Bowman said Monday that his investigation led him to believe that while Giblin was at the scene, he did not shoot Shepherd.

Bowman alleged Giblin was the passenger in a pickup truck Jefferson was driving when Jefferson stopped the vehicle and shot Shepherd.

Jefferson appeared in Henderson Justice Court on Monday, where he was given a June 2 preliminary hearing date. Jefferson is being held without bail.

Jefferson's lawyer, Special Public Defender Kristina Wildeveld Coneh, said she heard Giblin was released over the weekend but she did not know why.

"At this time it is unclear who the shooter was or if there was an investigation into who the shooter was," Coneh said after the court appearance.

Coneh said she will ask that Jefferson's case be handled in juvenile court.

According to police reports, Henderson Police received a 911 call about 4:40 a.m. April 21 from someone who heard male voices shouting, and then heard a gunshot. About 5:50 a.m. police found Shepherd in the middle of Patrick Lane dead from a shotgun wound.

Shepherd's wife, Valeria, told police he regularly got into fights with other motorists over their driving, the report says.

Initially police had no leads in Shepherd's death. But on May 5 police learned that Jefferson had told an ex-girlfriend that he and Giblin, nicknamed "Gizmo," had been involved in a traffic altercation with an "old man."

The girl told police that Jefferson shot and killed the man because he tried to run the teens off the road and threatened to shoot them, the report says.

Police arrested Jefferson May 8. Police say Jefferson gave conflicting accounts of the incident, eventually admitting to being in the truck but accusing Giblin of being the shooter.

Detectives then interviewed Giblin, who was being held in the county jail on unrelated charges. He blamed Jefferson, saying Jefferson stopped the truck, got out and shot Shepherd in the face with his sawed-off shotgun, the police report says.