Wife Given 30 to Life for Murder

SANTA ANA — A woman convicted of handcuffing her fourth husband to a bed and shooting him was sentenced Friday to 30 years to life in prison as relatives of the slain Fish and Game official pleaded that she never have a chance to hurt another family.

Ardith Cribbs, 39, appeared shaken at times as the family of Gordon Cribbs said they were horrified and haunted by thoughts of his final, helpless moments as the woman he loved shot him in the legs, groin, back and head.

“No doubt he pleaded for mercy, but what mercy did he receive? None,” said Harold Cribbs, the victim’s eldest brother.

“She was just so evil,” sobbed the victim’s daughter, Kendra. “She’ll never know how many lives she affected, and how terribly she did it.”

Superior Court Judge Francisco P. Briseno, in handing down the maximum sentence, called the 1994 murder “brutal” and “completely unwarranted.”

Ardith Cribbs, a former prostitute with a history of mental problems, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but a jury last month rejected that defense and decided the Huntington Beach woman was sane when she killed her husband. The same jury also convicted her of first-degree murder.

Cribbs did not say anything to the judge Friday, but she recently told probation officials she never intended to kill her husband and believes she must have been insane to carry out such an act.

She also said that she was angry her husband, a 49-year-old patrol chief for the state Department of Fish and Game, had been portrayed as perfect during the trial, according to a pre-sentencing report by the county Probation Department.

Family members said they are perhaps most troubled by prosecution evidence that she never loved her husband and wanted him dead.

“We took her into our family,” Harold Cribbs said. “All this was shattered as I sat here in this courtroom and listened to the evidence presented. We found she was a cold, calculating, unprincipled individual who had no trouble lying to get where she needed to go.”

Harold Cribbs, a former Fish and Game official like his brother, said he hasn’t been able to tell his 82-year-old mother just how her son died.

“If she knew exactly how it happened, it would kill her,” he said.

Gordon Cribbs was found dead Aug. 10, 1994, in the Huntington Beach home he shared with his wife of three years. Two acquaintances who found his body also found Ardith Cribbs unconscious in a bathroom from a drug overdose.

Police found the gun used in the shooting on a kitchen counter, along with an apparent suicide note written by Ardith Cribbs in which she apologized and asked for forgiveness.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carolyn Kirkwood contended during trial that Cribbs might have mental problems, but knew what she was doing when she repeatedly shot her husband.

The prosecutor said a mixture of anger and greed may have motivated Cribbs, who stood to inherit her husband’s home.

The defendant said she could not remember specifically what caused her to shoot her husband, although she thought it might have had something to do with a remark he made about her past, according to the probation report.

Cribbs, who grew up in San Pedro, worked as a prostitute at two Nevada brothels before finding a job with the Long Beach personnel division of the Department of Fish and Game, where she told a co-worker she was looking for a “single, successful, high-ranking man,” the prosecutor told jurors.

It was there she met Gordon Cribbs, a 26-year veteran with the department who had been devastated a few years earlier when his marriage of 22 years ended in divorce, according to testimony.

Gordon Cribbs, described as a dedicated worker who saw the best in others, supervised about 100 wardens and other personnel and was responsible for marine and wildlife protection from Santa Barbara to the Mexico border and the Sierra Nevada.

The two dated for several years, then broke up for a year. They reunited and were married on the same day in June 1991, according to the probation report.

During the trial, Cribbs’ lawyer sought to portray her 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.

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

Cribbs told others that while working at the brothel, she had been drugged and a device had been implanted in her brain, the report said.

Her attorney gave notice Friday that Cribbs intends to appeal the conviction.