In the quiet bedroom community of Powder Springs, Georgia, law enforcement faced a nightmarish murder.Danielle Marshall, 23, was fatally shot in her home while her 9-month-old daughter, Eva, was in the residence.
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First responders found Danielle on her kitchen floor “in the fetal position,” Amy Randolph, a former Powder Springs Police Department detective, told The Real Murders of Atlanta, airing Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Oxygen.
“The child apparently had been wandering around the home the entire time mom was lying in the pool of blood,” Randolph said in the "Death in Powder Springs" episode. “It was terrible.”
Officials came to the home where Danielle lived with her mother, Gloria Marshall, after receiving a 911 call from Joshua Gibson, Danielle’s ex-boyfriend and Eva’s father, at around 1:15 a.m. on January 14, 2013.
Gibson told the 911 dispatcher that he was outside the house and could hear Eva crying inside. He said that he'd been trying to call Danielle but that she hadn't come out or opened the door. Officers from the Powder Springs Police Department were sent to the home to do a welfare check, which led to the grisly discovery.
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What happened toDanielle Marshall?
In addition to being shot in the head, Danielle “had possibly been beaten or pistol-whipped,” Powder Springs Police Department Chief Lane Cadwell, a former investigator for the department, told The Real Murders of Atlanta. "She had defensive marks on her arms and hands.”
Officials collected DNA evidence at the scene, where there were no signs of a forced entry. They recovered a 38-caliber bullet fragment from a kitchen cabinet. Investigators determined that Danielle had been killed around 11 p.m. onJanuary 13, 2013.
In a police interview, Gibson, who lived with his current girlfriend, said that he and his girlfriend were at home asleep at that time.
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Detectives discovered that Gibson was still having sex with his ex, Danielle. “Gloria [Danielle's mother] worked at night,” Randolph said, “and Joshua would come over then.”
Officials took note of the potentially explosive love triangle. “To say that Danielle’s relationship with Joshua was complex would be an understatement,” Jesse Evans, a former prosecutor for the Cobb County District Attorney's Office, told The Real Murders of Atlanta.
“At that point, Joshua agreed to allow us to have access to his cell phone, and he turned over his clothing for further forensic investigations,” Evans added.
Danielle Marshall. Photo: Oxygen
Danielle Marshall’s history withJoshua Gibson
Investigators learned that Danielle became pregnant soon after she began seeing Gibson. “It was so quick,” her friend Pamela said. “They took off like a rocket.”
Gloria, Danielle's mom, had reservations about Gibson. “The guy had control issues,” Gloria told The Real Murders of Atlanta.
Danielle was happy about becoming a parent, but Gibson had a different reaction. “That was too heavy for him,” Pamela said on the show.
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A year-old Cobb County police report showed that there was bad blood between Danielle and Gibson’s girlfriend, who’d nearly run over Danielle with her car.
When she was interviewed by police about Danielle's murder, Gibson’s girlfriend “said that Danielle was not a threat to her,” Randolph said, “and that she didn’t do anything to her.”
Gibson’s girlfriend claimed that she was at work until 9:30 p.m. on the night that Danielle was killed, and then home with Gibson after 11 p.m. Gibson later left to check on Danielle. Investigators obtained a search warrant for the girlfriend's cell phone to confirm her alibi.
Cellular records backed up the girlfriend’s alibi, according to Evans. Gibson’s phone recordsappeared to corroborate his story about texting and calling Danielle several times before heading overto her house.
As detectives tried to get traction on the investigation, Danielle’s loved ones reckoned with the terrible loss. Her mom Gloria couldn’t bear to live in her home.
“I went right to the spot where she died,” the grieving mother said. “I got on my knees, and I told her I was sorry. I kissed the floor in the kitchen where her body had been and told her good-bye.”
Investigators change direction, then case goes cold
Detectives turned their focus to Jeremy Pitts, another man Danielle dated. During a police interview, Pitts said that he had been with Danielle the night of the murder.
But Pitts changed his story. He later told them that he’d been with Danielle a day earlier. He explained that he’d actually been at a party with a group of friends the night she was killed.
That alibi was backed up by other partygoers, according to investigators. “We looked at Jeremy’s cell phone and cell phone records, and we were able to conclusively determine that he was not at the crime scene when the murder was committed,” said Evans.
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Pitts was ruled out as a suspect. “At this point, we try to go back through [Danilelle's] phone and go back over the timeline,” Randolph said. “Eventually, we ran out of phone numbers.”
By the end of 2013, the case went cold. Hoping for a break in the investigation, Danielle’s mother “waited and waited and waited,” she said. “Time is the devil.”
Joshua Gibson. Photo: Oxygen
Danielle Marshall’s case reassigned
One year after the murder was committed, the investigation was turned over to the county prosecutor's cold case team. Nick O’Conor, a former investigator for the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office, headed it.
He began with a deep analysis of Gibson and his girlfriend’s phone records. He found a number common to both phones and a call at 11:22 p.m., when the couple said they'd been asleep.
The call was from a high school friend of Gibson who still lived in the area. The man had never been identified during the initial investigation.
Detectives learned through cell tower information that the man was very close to Danielle’s house at the known time of the murder, said O’Conor.
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Investigators paid Gibson’s friend “a surprise visit at his workplace,” Cadwell said.
“Right off the bat, he denied any knowledge or involvement with anything concerning Danielle’s death,” O’Conor said. But the witness eventually broke down.
“He comes out and admits he went over to Danielle's house the night that Danielle was murdered with Josh,” said O’Conor.
According to the investigator, the friend said that Gibson had mentioned the potential of having a threesome with Danielle and that he drove them in his car to Danielle’s house.
The man “said he could tell that Danielle didn’t expect them. She was very uncomfortable,” O’Conor told The Real Murders of Atlanta. The witness added that he and Gibson went back to his car and that Gibson went back into the house for several minutes.
“That information blew the case wide open,” said O’Conor. Investigators believed Gibson’s friend when he said he never saw a gun or heard a shot.
Who killedDanielle Marshall?
Detectives suspected that Gibson had left his phone home and “was playing a role” during his first police interview, said O’Conor, adding, “There was a massive amount of planning that went into this.”
In September 2015, Gibson was charged with murder. As prosecutors built the case, they discovered a history of domestic violence from Danielle’s journal entries, said Evans.
After a two-week trial, Gibson was found guilty on February 9, 2018. He was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.
To find out more about the case, watch the“Death in Powder Springs” episode ofThe Real Murders of Atlanta, airing Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Oxygen.
