UTAH STATE PRISON -- A former registered nurse convicted of killing his adopted daughter admitted Thursday he was responsible for her death but still insisted he was only doing what he was taught.
Donald L. Tibbets, 39, was convicted of third-degree felony child abuse homicide after 3-year-old Krystal Tibbets died on July 8, 1997, a day after she was injured at the family's Midvale home."I love her very much," he said Thursday during his first hearing before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
"I miss her even more. I am tremendously crushed by what I have done. The reason she is not here today is because of what I have done."
Tibbets has served two years of a maximum sentence of five years. Although the hearing was held Thursday, the parole board won't release a decision for several weeks.
In the child's death, Tibbets used a holding technique that is designed to draw out rage and repressed sources of anger. The child had been with the Tibbets family for a year and suffered emotional problems due to abuse and neglect.
Parole board member Curtis Garner described how Tibbets applied the full weight of his body on the girl by lying across her and pressing his fist into her abdomen on July 7, 1997.
The girl vomited, quit breathing and died the next day. A medical examiner's report said she died from asphyxiation.
Tibbets insisted he was taught by a therapist to put his fist into the abdomen of the child as a way to deal with her emotional distress.
Garner pointed out that the therapists and Tibbets' own wife at the time of the killing told him using a fist was improper.
On the day of the incident that led to Krystal's death, Garner noted Tibbets continued to apply the technique on that July day despite being warned by a 12-year-old foster son that he thought the child had stopped breathing and her lips were turning blue.
Tibbets couldn't explain the discrepancies.
"I am telling you the truth as I know it."
But Garner suggested restraining Krystal became an inappropriate form of discipline rather than a therapeutic technique designed to help her.
"This became more than just therapy. It became a control issue between you and the little girl, used in place of lesser punishments."
Garner said the detective who investigated the homicide theorized Tibbets lost his temper, and despite medical training, became irrational and couldn't see the danger in what was happening.
Tibetts said he wasn't angry that day.
He also told Garner he wasn't angry the day he was accused of physically assaulting his wife after she announced she intended to leave him.
Garner said Tibbets used the same holding technique on her as the one that killed Krystal.
"Were you angry?" he asked.
"I was trying to save my marriage," Tibbets replied. "All I was trying to do is talk to her. . . . I laid her on the bed."
"Against her will?" Garner asked.
"I don't know. She didn't really fight. She just screamed a lot."
After his conviction and sentence to prison, Tibbets was also written up for allegedly assaulting a corrections officer, Garner noted.
The officer had asked him to move out of the tray line in the kitchen area and Tibbets allegedly responded by hitting her in the side of the head with a handful of waffles.
Although found guilty by an administrative review in prison, Tibbets has pleaded not guilty to a charge of assault by a prisoner.
Despite the act that killed Krystal, Garner said he didn't doubt Tibbets was a good father and loving husband in all other respects.
"I don't think anyone is questioning the fact you loved Krystal. By all other indications you were a wonderful father and devoted husband."
It was also hard to ignore the 19 family members and friends who attended Thursday's hearing in Tibbets' support.
As he was led away at the conclusion of the hearing, his mother, Ruth Ann Tibbets, said loudly, "Goodbye, Don. We love you."
She then started to sing "Amazing Grace."