TIBBS PLEADS GUILTY AS 2ND TRIAL IS SET TO BEGIN Jan. 7, 2008 The true gunman in a 13-year-old Dorchester homicide for which an innocent man was convicted pleaded guilty today as his second trial for that crime was set to begin, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced. JOHN TIBBS, 38 (D.O.B. 8/9/71) and formerly of Dorchester, is scheduled to be sentenced tomorrow morning after pleading guilty to the crime of manslaughter for the Aug. 11, 1995, shooting death of 17-year-old Tennyson Drakes. Tibbs, currently serving a 27-year federal prison sentence for a separate homicide, also pleaded guilty to three counts of armed assault with intent to murder, two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and one count of assault with a dangerous weapon. The latter charges were incurred when Tibbs fired on three other men, wounding two of them. “This is an historic accomplishment,” Conley said, noting that Tibbs’ plea comes 12 years after another man – Marlon Passley – was wrongly convicted of Drakes’ murder. “We’ve achieved justice today, but we also, finally, righted a wrong more than a decade later,” Conley said. “Marlon Passley was arrested, tried, and convicted. His conviction was affirmed and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a crime he did not commit. That we were able to exonerate him and build a successful case against the real shooter is unprecedented in Massachusetts. “Our most fundamental goal has been to hold John Tibbs accountable for his crimes. In accepting this plea, we’ve done that, and we’ve brought some small sense of finality and closure to a case that had been an open wound in so many lives.” Tibbs’ last trial in September and October of 2007 ended in a hung jury after three weeks of testimony and about a week’s deliberations. Had the case proceeded to trial again, prosecutors would have introduced evidence to show that Tibbs was gunning for members of a rival gang when he rode on the back of a motorcycle to the area of Nelson and Corbet streets on the night of the attack. An associate of Tibbs had been shot and wounded a day earlier by members of the Corbet Street Crew, and investigators believe Tibbs intended to retaliate against them. Armed with a handgun, Tibbs disembarked and fired multiple rounds at the victims, who had no connection with the gang rivalry and were simply headed to a friend’s house where they would listen to and record music. Because of an earlier confrontation at an area nightclub, the original investigators into Drakes’ homicide pursued leads – including what prosecutors described as good faith but mistaken identifications – suggesting that the shooter had been Marlon Passley, a one-time Cambridge resident who was convicted of first-degree murder after a 1996 trial and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It would be four years before authorities developed additional evidence that exculpated Passley and Suffolk prosecutors moved to vacate his conviction. Among the evidence that sparked efforts to free Passley and charge Tibbs for Drakes’ murder was the identification of the operator of the motorcycle that Tibbs rode to Nelson Street and that individual’s unequivocal statements that Tibbs was the shooter. Tibbs, currently serving a 27-year federal sentence in connection with the murder of Steven Sealey in September 1995, was acquitted last December of the Oct. 25, 1995, murder of 20-year-old Bellamy Williams. He is represented by attorney John Cunha, Jr. Members of the Drakes family, as well as others affected by the case, are expected to address the court prior to sentencing. Those proceedings are expected tomorrow morning at 11:00 before Judge Peter Lauriat in courtroom 907 of Suffolk Superior Court. Return to the Press Releases page.