Jury in trial of skinhead asks for clarification

The Common Pleas Court jury in the trial of a white skinhead accused of murder in what authorities say was a racially motivated killing in 1989 failed to reach a verdict yesterday and will resume deliberations today.

Before breaking for the day, the panel of four black and eight white people asked for clarification of what constitutes "reasonable doubt" and guidance on some of the other charges, including ethnic intimidation and criminal conspiracy, lodged against Thomas Gibison, 37, of Newark, Del.

Gibison is accused of murdering Aaron Wood, 33, on April 16, 1989, on North Stillman Street in North Philadelphia. The prosecution has maintained that Gibison's motivation for killing Wood, an African American, was race: The defendant needed to kill a black to show his commitment to white-supremacist ideology.

- Dwight Ott