Deputies say the victim’s missing pickup led them to the suspect in neighboring Sarasota County.

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. — A 48-year-old woman is accused of killing a 76-year-old military veteran inside his Punta Gorda home on March 8, then covering his body with a tarp and driving away in his pickup truck, according to the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities say the case moved quickly from a death call to a homicide arrest, with detectives tracing the victim’s missing vehicle into Sarasota County and then obtaining what they described as a confession. The victim, Paul De Wayne Bradley, was known in the neighborhood as an older veteran who needed help around the house. The suspect, Shannon Rose Giblin, now faces a second-degree murder charge and a grand theft vehicle charge as the case moves deeper into the court system.

Deputies were sent Sunday evening, March 8, to Bradley’s home on Gewant Boulevard after a report of a person not breathing. When they arrived, investigators said, they found Bradley dead inside the residence with stab wounds. His pickup truck was gone from the driveway. That missing vehicle gave detectives an early path in the case. Charlotte County’s Major Crimes Unit responded to the home and began working through the night. Investigators determined the truck had been driven south into Sarasota County, where deputies there located the vehicle and the woman they believed had been living with Bradley. Sheriff Bill Prummell later said his detectives “worked this case through the night” and identified the suspect quickly, praising both his agency and Sarasota County deputies for their coordinated response.

Detectives identified the suspect as Giblin, whose date of birth listed by the sheriff’s office is Nov. 25, 1977. According to the sheriff’s office, she was detained with Bradley’s truck in Sarasota County and later questioned by Charlotte County investigators. During that interview, deputies said, Giblin admitted she stabbed Bradley after an argument. Investigators said she then realized he was beyond help, covered him with a tarp and left in the truck. Officials have not publicly described the weapon in detail beyond saying Bradley had stab wounds. They also have not laid out a full account of what sparked the argument, how long Giblin had been staying there, or whether anyone else witnessed the confrontation. Those unanswered details remain central to what prosecutors will later have to prove in court.

The setting has become part of the story because neighbors say the living arrangement was meant to help Bradley, not put him at risk. Local residents told reporters that Bradley had hired Giblin to assist him around the house after his wife died a few years ago. Neighbors described him as kind, familiar and well liked on the street. One neighbor, Jody Scharping, said Bradley had apparently been planning to remove Giblin from the house that day and suggested the conflict may have grown out of that tension. That account has not been detailed in court records made public so far, but it has shaped how neighbors have tried to understand the killing. Bradley’s background as a veteran also deepened the shock in the area, where residents said he had survived war and serious health problems only to die in his own home.

Giblin was arrested on charges listed by the sheriff’s office as murder not premeditated and grand theft of a motor vehicle. Authorities later described her as being held without bond, and subsequent reporting indicated a judge ordered her held in pretrial detention. She was first held in Sarasota County after deputies there found her with the truck, then was expected to be moved to Charlotte County to face the case where Bradley was killed. Prosecutors will now decide what formal filings to pursue as the case proceeds through first appearance, arraignment and discovery. Investigators may also seek more forensic evidence from the home, the truck and any digital records tied to the movements of both Bradley and Giblin on March 8. No trial date had been publicly set in the reporting available Monday.

Outside the legal record, the case has left a raw emotional mark on Bradley’s family and neighbors. Residents described the Charlotte Ranchettes area as quiet and spread out, the kind of place where people notice one another’s routines and look after each other. Neighbors said Bradley’s death felt especially hard because they knew him as an older man trying to manage his home and daily life. Giblin’s family, in a statement reported by local television, apologized for her alleged actions and suggested she had been in a mental health crisis. The statement did not dispute the death itself, and it did not change the charges. For Bradley’s relatives and nearby residents, the harder question has been how an arrangement meant to provide help ended with detectives, crime scene tape and a pickup truck tracked across county lines.

Giblin remained jailed and Bradley’s killing remained an active criminal case, with the next major milestone expected to be further court proceedings in Charlotte County.

Author note: Last updated April 6, 2026.