Name and face affixed to NSB woman gunned down Tuesday night as Sheriff's investigators press on to bring a name and face to killer

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Courtesy photo / The woman gunned down Tuesday night in greater New Smyrna Beach has been identified as Debra Gibson.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- A name and a face have been affixed to a woman shot and killed Tuesday night in a quiet neighborhood in the Westside just outside the city limits. The victim has been identified as Debra Gibson, 46 of New Smyrna Beach.

Volusia County Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said investigators knew who she was from the onset, but didn't release her name until they could identify a relative.

Sheriff's investigators are hoping to pit a name and face to her murderer, who opened fire on her at least five times, including a bullet to her head, in front of 290 Oak St., near the intersection with Washington Street, which runs into the north side of West Canal Street.

While the circumstances behind her murder have yet to emerge, one thing is certain besides the obvious that she's dead. That she as known to Sheriff's personnel became clearer after he identity was released Thursday: Gibson has been booked into the Volusia County Jail at least 13 times dating back to 1994, for offenses ranging from possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia to grand theft auto and violation of probation.

With no particular longstanding address, Gibson was street walker in and around U.S. 1 and further west in the Canal Street area, with a ruddy face and unkempt appearance. Sheriff's deputies responded to 290 Oak after neighbors who called 9-1-1 reported hearing multiple gun shots.

One neighbor in particular told NSBNEWS.net he heard three shots in succession, with a slight pause, followed by two more. When deputies began arriving at 9:45 p.m., they found the victim on the ground in a pool of blood along a walkway that leads to the front of a small white wood-framed house.

Witnesses said they saw a vehicle in the area immediately after the shooting, although it's unknown whether it was connected to the killing. Paramedics found a faint pulse, but she showed no other real signs of life and was pronounced dead on scene at 9:53 p.m.

Sheriff's investigators continued processing the scene well into the next morning, even using a metal detector after the sun came up to recover shell casings for ballistics evidence.

Whether the slaying was intentional or random has yet to be determined, Davidson said, adding "More information will be released as developments in the investigation dictate."

The way in which she died was particularly frightening to the several neighbors, who said shed hang around that intersection every once in a while.

"It doesn't matter what she did or didn't do to get killed like that. Nobody deserves to die like that," one elderly woman told NSBNews.net, adding she couldn't erase the sound of the gun shots from her thoughts.

Gibson's death has officially been ruled a homicide after an autopsy conducted Wednesday by the Volusia County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed that the victim died from multiple gun shot wounds.

Her's is the third homicide of 2011, following a New Year's outside a bar in Ormond Beach by an estranged husband who killed his wife's boyfriend after seeing them together, and the second involved a Deltona woman shot to death by a DeLand man purportedly over a drug debt. Arrests were made in the first two homicides.

Courtesy photos / These mug shots from the Volusia County Branch Jail show how well shooting homicide victim Debra Gibson, 46, was known to law enforcement. Perhaps the killer will see her photos here and be reminded that she is not forgotten and turn himself or herself in.