Grant Gibeault’s mother called the woman who admitted to killing her son a “predator.”

“She went there to rob him and then brutally shot him,” Shawn Gibeault told an Allegheny County judge on Monday. “The waste of it all just breaks me. My beautiful child died alone and scared.”

Jaelyn Nowlin, 21, of Pittsburgh’s Brighton Heights neighborhood pleaded guilty to fatally shooting Gibeault, 25, on Dec. 30, 2023.

As part of her plea deal, Nowlin will serve 23 to 50 years in state prison.

Nowlin told Gibeault’s family she was sorry.

“He wasn’t a bad person at all,” Nowlin said. “What I went in there to do was wrong. I didn’t want it to go that way.”

According to a criminal complaint, Gibeault had begun talking with Nowlin, who used the name “Unique,” on a dating app in December.

On Dec. 29, she negotiated with Gibeault for him to pay $700 via CashApp for sex, according to text messages reviewed by detectives that were included in the complaint.

Nowlin went to Gibeault’s apartment on Arlington Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Arlington section, according to the complaint.

Police said Nowlin told them that Gibeault “kept coming toward her, being funny, and giving her a weird vibe.”

But after Nowlin left that evening, she told police, Gibeault canceled the payment. She returned to his apartment to confront him, police said, and the two fought. Nowlin pulled a gun and shot Gibeault several times.

Police said they recovered 17 fired bullets and casings.

Gibeault’s upstairs neighbor told police that Gibeault texted her around 8:10 p.m. and said, “Just got robbed at gunpoint.”

Moments later, the witness heard five or six bangs, the complaint said.

“Please tell me that was ur drums,” the person texted Gibeault.

She went down to check on him. He was found unresponsive.

Gibeault died at the scene.

Nowlin told police during her interview that she had previously sold marijuana and “weed pens’ to Gibeault, and that she thought he’d be “an easy target to rob.”

On Monday, Gibeault’s family said his kindness made him vulnerable.

After Gibeault moved to Pittsburgh from Ohio, his mom said, he was lonely and started dating online.

“He just wanted a girlfriend to spend time with,” Shawn Gibeault said.

She said her son was comfortable in his own skin and made others feel welcome and loved.

“He accepted people as they were,” his mom, Shawn Gibeault, said . “He was one of the least judgmental people I’ve ever known.”

Although her son sometimes didn’t fit in, his mom said that helped him develop empathy.

Gibeault was the singer in a band — the Parking Lot Seagulls — and had been working on a screenplay.

“He was so smart and creative. Who knows what he would have contributed to the world?” she said.

Paige Gibeault, Grant’s sister, said it was her phone the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office called the next morning to alert the family that her brother had been killed.

“I felt like my entire world stopped,” Paige said, recounting the phone call.

Just the day before, the two had been playing video games together on FaceTime.

“One person’s choice has shattered an entire network of lives,” Paige Gibeault said. “I was the little sister, and I am now alone.

“I will never have a day of complete happiness and peace again.”

Among those speaking about the impact of Gibeault’s death was his uncle, Derek Maynard.

For much of his statement, Maynard spoke directly to Nowlin. He said he’d spent 30 years of his career working with kids.

“Although I grieve for my nephew who I love dearly, and I grieve for my family,” Maynard began, “I grieve for you, too. I grieve for what you gave away, and I grieve for what you could have been.”

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