23rd Tacoma Homicide of 2024: Riley Kimbrough

Dec 04, 2023

Forty-six year old Riley Kimbrough had first met sixty-one-year-old Jaime Gibbs about twenty years ago. They’d gone to casinos together and occasionally hung out. Jaime might give him some clothes or food if he needed it. In recent years they saw less of each other. Riley had encountered Jaime in late 2020 or early 2021 when Jaime caught him trying to steal a phone out of Jaime’s car. Jaime had sprayed him with bear repellant.

On the evening of May 19, 2022 Riley Kimbrough arrived in his Buick with two others at Jaime’s mother’s house where Jaime has lived for the past thirty years. One man got out of the car and started taking photos of Jaime’s house. The other man, a 37-year-old Samoan man who went by the nickname ‘Goose’ had a gun and though he had arrived with Riley kept glaring at him.

When Jaime commented on the gun, ‘Goose’ unloaded it and tried to hand it to Jaime. At this point, Jaime asked them all to leave.

The man with the gun, reloaded it, pointed it at Jaime, and demanded the keys to his Lexus. Jaime said he did not have the keys, but Jaime’s girlfriend handed the man the keys. The man with the gun got in the Lexus while Riley and the other man got in the Buick.

Jaime called 9-1-1 and chose to follow the two vehicles. The 9-1-1 dispatcher repeatedly told him not to do so, but eventually Jaime followed them to a house in the 1300 block of East Fairbanks.

Later, the Lexus was spotted being driven by Goose by Fircrest police when he ran a red light. Fircrest Police did not pursue citing the Washington State laws on pursuit, but nevertheless minutes later the Lexus knocked a motorcyclist off his motorcycle and crashed the Lexus into a Honda before attempting to flee on foot only to be brought back to the scene by other motorcyclists.

At this point Goose was identified and detained. It had been fifteen minutes since Jaime had let police know he was back home and ready to talk. It’d be over an hour before police got talked to him. By that time, Citing COVID-19 protocols requiring offenders be violent and given the information they had at the time, the police chose to release Goose from custody and given him a courtesy ride to a 7-11 convenience store in Tacoma’s Central neighborhood.

It is worth noting that while technically adhering to the COVID-19 rules, police still had the opportunity to request an exception and given what Goose was suspected of, it would have been reasonable to do so.

Instead, less than two hours later, Goose arrived at the house in the 1300 block of East Fairbanks and spoke briefly with Riley, demanding the keys to the vehicle. When he said his girlfriend wouldn’t allow it, Goose asked ‘who wears the pants in the family?’ and moments later shot him in the head. At this point Goose left. Riley would die minutes later becoming Tacoma’s 23rd Tacoma homicide of 2022.

Four days later, Goose would be arrested and a gun matching the one used to shoot Riley would be found. When asked for a motive, he mumbled something about Riley having molested Goose’s daughter, but there is no known evidence of this being anything more than an accusation.

This one took a while to write due to all of the circumstances leading up to Riley’s death and attempts to find more information. Nearly everyone in this incident has lengthy criminal records. And there were multiple choices by multiple police agencies, each of which had an impact on what happened.

I could not find out much about Riley’s life. His nickname was ‘Solo’. He doesn’t seem to have had much of a digital footprint. This is where I need help from the community. If you knew Riley Kimbrough and would like to share thoughts or memories of him, just click the comment button below. Also if you happen to have a photo of Riley you’d like to share, email me at jackcameronis@gmail.com.

- Jack Cameron

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