The 20-year-old defendant spoke at length during a first appearance after a shooting that left one man dead and four others wounded.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A 20-year-old man accused in a Riviera Beach shooting that left one person dead and four others injured stunned a courtroom Wednesday when he began talking through his first appearance, describing what he said were visions and then admitting to the attack.
Terrell Gibson’s remarks quickly became the focus of the hearing because they came before any trial and while he faced a murder charge that carries a mandatory life sentence if he is convicted. The hearing also gave the public its first close look at Gibson after police said a Monday evening shooting at the Azure Estates community spread into the street, wounded several people and ended with a carjacking and arrest in another county.
Gibson appeared before a judge less than 48 hours after police said the violence began around 6:15 p.m. Monday inside Azure Estates in Riviera Beach. Investigators said five people were shot in all. One man died, two others were left in critical condition and two suffered less severe injuries. During Wednesday’s hearing, Gibson repeatedly interrupted the proceeding and spoke over his attorney. At one point, he told the judge that he was “fighting something” he could not see and said he was seeing things in the courtroom and at night. A short time later, after first saying no one had died, he made a direct statement about the shooting. Courtroom lawyers warned him that anything he said could later be used in the case, but Gibson kept talking.
Police and court records filled in more of what prosecutors say happened before the hearing. Investigators said Gibson had been with a group of men when he suddenly opened fire. According to the arrest paperwork, Dillon Wright was shot in the head first. Detectives said John Richard Halliburton III then tried to intervene and was shot multiple times during a struggle, dying at the scene. Police Chief Michael Coleman said Gibson had told investigators he felt harassed and wanted to “get rid of the demons.” Authorities said the gunfire then spread beyond the apartment complex as people ran. Investigators said James Easley was shot several times during an attempted carjacking, while Anthony Evans and Charles Daniels later reached a hospital with gunshot wounds to their hands and arms. A sixth person, Rommel Cajina Lira, was not shot but was forced from his truck at gunpoint, police said.
The hearing also raised early questions about Gibson’s mental condition, though no court finding had been made on that issue Wednesday. Gibson’s own statements were rambling and at times contradictory. He talked about hallucination-like images while driving and said he needed to speak from his heart. That behavior matched part of what police had already said publicly, with Coleman telling reporters that Gibson appeared to be going through a mental health crisis and had described voices or spirits telling him to kill “demons.” Even so, the case on Wednesday remained at a basic procedural stage. The court was not deciding guilt or innocence, and it was not weighing an insanity defense. The judge’s task was narrower: address the charges, conditions of detention and initial restrictions as the criminal case moved ahead.
By the end of the hearing, the judge ordered Gibson held without bond and imposed no-contact orders covering victims, witnesses and relatives of the man who was killed. Authorities said Gibson faces first-degree murder, four counts of attempted first-degree murder and carjacking with a firearm. Records cited by local media also show a prior 2024 arrest in West Palm Beach on charges including carjacking without a firearm and resisting an officer without violence, though that earlier case is separate from the Riviera Beach shooting. Prosecutors are expected to keep building the present case around witness accounts, ballistic evidence, hospital records, surveillance material and Gibson’s own statements in court and to police. Any later questions about competency would likely come through motions filed by lawyers, not through the outburst itself.
The hearing carried the raw emotion that often surrounds a case before a community has had time to absorb it. Gibson argued with his lawyer, insisted on speaking and moved from confusion to blunt detail in front of the judge. Outside the courtroom, the loss had already become personal for relatives of Halliburton. His mother, Curtisa Brown, told local television that her 25-year-old son had just become the father of a one-month-old girl and was proud of that new role. “He was not a thug,” Brown said. “And what happened to him was not right.” The contrast between a family’s grief and a defendant’s chaotic first appearance gave the case a jarring start in public view.
As of Wednesday evening, Gibson remained in the Palm Beach County jail without bond, and the case was moving from first appearance into the longer process of evidence review, motions and future court dates.
Author note: Last updated March 19, 2026.