Leslie Liceth Ruiz-Basilio, a 28-year-old female of Mexican origin, was killed on May 15, 2021, during what began as an ordinary shift inside a Metro by T-Mobile/Metro PCS store on Kirkwood Highway in Elsmere, Delaware, just outside Wilmington. Family members and news reports described her as the store manager, a mother of two, and someone who was working alone that Saturday evening when a gunman entered the business. Police were called to the store around 5:30 p.m.
for a possible burglary, but when officers arrived, they found Leslie dead inside.
The killing unfolded during a robbery. Investigators later said the gunman shot Leslie while robbing the store and then fled in her vehicle, identified in early reports as a black 2008 Cadillac Escalade. At the time, police released images of the suspect and warned the public that he should be considered armed and dangerous. Family members gathered in grief almost immediately, speaking about the shock of losing a young mother so suddenly and violently. Her death was not treated as a random unexplained death; it was investigated as a robbery-murder from the start.
Authorities later connected the killing to Keith Gibson, a man accused of carrying out a violent crime spree across Delaware and Pennsylvania in 2021. Prosecutors said Gibson robbed the Elsmere cellphone store, fatally shot Leslie, and stole her vehicle. Her SUV was later recovered in Philadelphia near Gibson's home. During Gibson's Delaware case, prosecutors relied heavily on surveillance footage and ballistic evidence. Court records and news reports described video showing Leslie being shot at close range while her arms were raised, a detail that became central to the prosecution's account of the killing.
Gibson's arrest came weeks after Leslie's death. He was taken into custody on June 8, 2021, after a robbery at a Rite Aid in Wilmington, during which a clerk was pistol-whipped. When police arrested him, he was reportedly wearing body armor and carrying weapons. Investigators said ammunition and a revolver connected him to multiple shootings, including the killing of Leslie Ruiz-Basilio and the later killing of Ronald Wright in Wilmington. Prosecutors also tied him to other robberies and shootings that occurred during the same period.
In November 2023, a Delaware jury convicted Keith Gibson in connection with Leslie's murder and other crimes. He was found guilty of murdering Leslie during the robbery of the Metro PCS store, as well as killing Ronald Wright less than a month later. The same case included additional convictions for attempted murder, robbery, assault, conspiracy, weapons offenses, wearing body armor during a felony, and theft of a motor vehicle. Gibson's defense did not present its own witnesses, but challenged the state's case by pointing to the lack of DNA or fingerprint evidence directly tying him to the crime scenes. The jury still found him guilty.
In March 2024, Gibson was sentenced in Delaware to seven life terms plus nearly 300 additional years in prison. The sentence covered the Delaware convictions, including the murder of Leslie Ruiz-Basilio. At the same time, authorities in Philadelphia continued to pursue separate murder charges against him for other killings he was accused of committing in Pennsylvania. For Leslie's family, the case began with a robbery inside a small cellphone store and ended with her death being placed within a much larger pattern of violence attributed to the same suspect.
