WARREN – A Buffalo (N.Y.) police commissioner’s half brother was
arrested Thursday morning in connection with an unsolved 1996
murder in Warren.

Pennsylvania State Police have charged 54-year-old Donald J.
Gipson, of 48 Schreck Ave., Buffalo with killing Louis Jones, 81,
also of Buffalo, on Sept. 16, 1996. The accused is the younger half
brother of Buffalo police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson, who was
a Buffalo police officer when Jones died.

Police Commissioner Gipson said he “was shocked and dismayed” to
learn of his relative’s arrest in the slaying.

“But I am also accepting of the fact, that if he was involved,
there is a process that must play itself out,” the commissioner
said Thursday in a statement. “I also want to be clear that neither
myself nor the Buffalo Police Department has been involved in any
phase of the investigation.”

Police had found the men in a car, which had wrecked along Route
62 in the Allegheny National Forest in Warren County, but later
determined Jones died of a stab wound to the heart, not the crash.
Authorities also found a mark indicating a stun gun was used on
him.

“Robbery is probably the motive,” Warren County District
Attorney Ross McKeirnan said, according to The Buffalo News. Jones
was known to carry around a large amount of cash, the newspaper
said.

Police say Gipson, who was driving, told them he and Jones had
been carjacked. Gipson claimed to have crashed after the carjackers
escaped and he was driving for help.

Gipson was badly injured in the crash, and Jones was pronounced
dead at the scene. But an autopsy later revealed that Jones died of
a stab wound to the heart, not accident-related injuries.

Also, police found a stun gun and paring knife in the car. A
receipt for the knife, bought earlier that day, was found on
Gipson, police said.

Police say new information links Gipson to the killing.

After reviewing old evidence, obtaining new evidence and
conducting several interviews, police charged Gipson with criminal
homicide. This is the first case for the PSP’s new cold case team,
which was established Oct. 1, 2007, to investigate unsolved
homicides.

According to police, surveillance video taken outside Jones’
building does not show the other men, while footage from other
cameras nearby show Gipson in the area alone.

Gipson, who did not have a lawyer at the arraignment, was being
held without bond in the county jail, District Justice Cynthia K.
Lindemuth said. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Feb. 5.

New York State Police, The Erie County (N.Y.) District
Attorney’s Office and the FBI assisted in the investigation.