Alleged killer has previous murder conviction

ASOUTHWEST Philadelphia man with one murder conviction on his record was charged Wednesday with another murder after police arrested him in the Nov. 17 shooting death of college student Zykia Sanders.

Amin Gibbs, 33, of Dicks Avenue near 68th Street, allegedly was in a car whose occupants pulled up to a crowd outside the West Park Apartments, in Powelton, and began blasting away.

Sanders, who had just attended a friend's birthday party there, caught a bullet in the back as she fled. She died at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania at 2:30 a.m., about 10 minutes after the attack.

Sanders, 22, was working toward a bachelor's degree in business administration through the University of Phoenix. She lived with her mother in Cheltenham Township, but frequently stayed with her grandmother, who lived in the West Park Apartments, on Busti Street near Holden, relatives said.

Gibbs was arraigned and jailed without bail Wednesday morning.

It was far from his first brush with the law.

In April 1995, when he was 15, he acted as a lookout while his friend fatally shot a man in South Philly, court records show. Gibbs was convicted of third-degree murder and sentenced to 7 1/2 to 20 years in state prison. It's unclear, from records, how much of his sentence he served, and the Daily News was unable to reach state Department of Corrections officials for comment.

Gibbs had three subsequent arrests on charges including robbery, assault and gun offenses, but none resulted in conviction, records show.