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Gibbs gets 5 years
probation for role
in Vargas murder

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By Rod thompson
Big Island correspondent

HILO -- Matthew Gibbs, who confessed to participating in events which led to the 1993 murder of Big Island high school girl Sequoya Vargas, was sentenced by Judge Riki May Amano yesterday to five years probation for sexual assault in the case.

In an agreement with prosecutors, Gibbs, now 26, pleaded no contest to the charge in 1995. Sentencing was delayed while authorities sought the suspected main attacker, Richard Damien Serrano.

Gibbs' sentence depended on his testifying against Serrano.

Serrano, 29, was finally located in Mexico last year, and was returned to the Big island where a jury this year found him guilty of kidnapping, rape and murder.

Gibbs and another participant who receive a plea deal, Jason McCubbins, 28, testified they and Serrano got Vargas, 16, drunk. Serrano then repeatedly raped her, beat her, threw her over a sea cliff, and dragged her out to sea to drown.