Huntington Woman Guilty of Murdering Husband

A jury deliberated about three hours Friday before finding a Huntington Beach woman guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of her husband, a high-ranking official with the state Department of Fish and Game.

The same jury will return next week to decide whether Ardith Cribbs, 39, was sane when she handcuffed her fourth husband to a bed and shot him five times in the legs, groin, back and head.

Her attorney contends that Cribbs has serious mental and health problems, and never intended to kill Gordan L. Cribbs, a 49-year-old patrol chief for the local Fish and Game region. She had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Two acquaintances who found his body in the couple’s home Aug. 10, 1994, also found Ardith Cribbs unconscious in a bathroom. She was taken to the hospital and treated for a drug overdose.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carolyn Kirkwood contended that Cribbs knew exactly what she was doing when she repeatedly shot her husband, and had told others she wished she had never married him and that she wanted to kill him.

Cribbs worked as a prostitute at two Nevada brothels before getting a clerical job with the Department of Fish and Game in Long Beach, where she told one co-worker she was looking for a “single, successful, high-ranking man,” the prosecutor said.

She married Gordan Cribbs, a 26-year veteran with the department, in 1991. He had been devastated several years earlier when his first marriage of 22 years ended in divorce, Kirkwood told jurors.

The defendant’s attorney sought to portray Ardith Cribbs as a woman who was not in control of her actions, with a past of attempted suicides, self-mutilation and hospitalization for hallucinations and other mental problems.

Cribbs had been molested by a relative from ages 6 to 16, and suffered from sleeping and eating disorders, defense attorney Peter Larkin told jurors. Her mental problems included delusions people were constantly watching and controlling her, including her husband, he said.

The defense attorney told Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco P. Briseno he plans to call two psychiatrists to testify during the sanity phase of Cribbs’ trial. The prosecutor also plans to introduce testimony from a psychiatrist.

If jurors find Cribbs sane, she faces a minimum of 28 years to life in prison. If they find her insane, she would be treated at a state psychiatric hospital until she is declared legally sane.