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Gary Gilmore
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Gary Mark Gilmore (December 4, 1940 — January 17, 1977) was an American criminal and spree killer who gained international notoriety for demanding that his death sentence be fulfilled following two murders he committed in Utah. He became the first person executed in the United States after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision Gregg v. Georgia (these new statutes avoiding the problems that had led earlier death penalty statutes to be deemed unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia).
Mark Gilmore was born in rural Stonewall, Texas, the second of four sons born to Frank and Bessie Gilmore.
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Encyclopedia
Gary Mark Gilmore (December 4, 1940 — January 17, 1977) was an American criminal and spree killer who gained international notoriety for demanding that his death sentence be fulfilled following two murders he committed in Utah. He became the first person executed in the United States after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision Gregg v. Georgia (these new statutes avoiding the problems that had led earlier death penalty statutes to be deemed unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia).
Early life
Gary Mark Gilmore was born in rural Stonewall, Texas, the second of four sons born to Frank and Bessie Gilmore. His parents drifted around the country while he and his brothers grew up, his father earning a living selling advertising space in magazines. Gilmore was raised in a dysfunctional family and had a horrible relationship with his father, a violent alcoholic. Gary's brother Mikal described their father as "a cruel and unreasonable man." Frank Gilmore's mother claimed that he was the illegitimate son of magician Harry Houdini, who rejected his paternity. Mikal has said he does not believe the story is true, but suspects that his father believed it.
The Gilmore family settled in Portland, Oregon, in the early 1950s. Gilmore began getting into trouble with the law as a teenager, with offenses ranging from shoplifting, car theft and assault and battery. Although Gilmore had an I.Q. of 133, had high scores on scholastic tests, and clear artistic skills, he dropped out of high school at age 14 in the ninth grade. He went with a friend to Texas to see his place of birth, returning to Portland after a few months.
Criminal career
By the age of 14, Gilmore started a small car theft ring with other friends, resulting in his first arrest. He was released to his father with a warning. Two weeks later he was back in court on another car theft charge. The court ordered him, at age 14, to Oregon's MacLaren Reform School for Boys, where he was released the following year. He was sent to Oregon State Correctional Institution on another car theft charge in 1960, and was released in 1961.
In 1962, Gilmore was arrested and sent to the Oregon State Penitentiary for robbery and assault. He faced assault and robbery charges again in 1964, and was given a 15-year prison sentence as a repeat offender. He was granted conditional release in 1972 to live in a halfway house in Eugene, Oregon on weekdays, and study art at a community college. Gilmore never registered, and within a month he was arrested and convicted for armed robbery. Due to his violent behavior in prison, he was transferred from Oregon to the maximum security federal prison in Marion, Illinois in 1975. He was conditionally paroled in April 1976 and went to Provo, Utah to live with a cousin who tried to help him find work. Gilmore worked briefly at his uncle's shoe store, but he soon returned to his previous lifestyle, stealing items from stores, drinking, and getting into fights.
Gilmore robbed and murdered Max Jensen, a Sinclair gas station employee in Orem, Utah, on July 19, 1976. The next day, he robbed and murdered Bennie Bushnell, a motel manager, in Provo. He had also attempted to murder a guest at that motel in Provo named Peter Arroyo, but was unsuccessful. As he disposed of the gun, a .22 caliber pistol, he accidentally shot himself in the hand, leaving a trail of blood when he retrieved his truck at a service garage. The garage owner, seeing the blood and hearing on a police scanner of the shooting at the nearby motel, wrote down Gilmore's license number and called the police. Gilmore gave up without a fight. He was charged with the murders of Bushnell and Jensen, although the latter case never went to trial apparently because there were no witnesses.
Trial
Gilmore's trial began at the Provo courthouse on October 5. Peter Arroyo, a motel guest, testified that he saw Gilmore in the motel registration office that night and that Gilmore robbed Bushnell by opening the cash register. After taking all the money, Gilmore was said to have ordered Bushnell to lie down on the floor and then to have shot him in cold blood. The next witness was Gerald F. Wilkes, a local FBI ballistics expert, who testified that he found the shell casing at the crime scene which he compared to Gilmore's pistol that was left there. Gilmore's two court-appointed lawyers, Michael Espin and Craig Snyder, surprised both the prosecutor Noall T. Wootton and Judge J. Robert Bullock by not cross-examining the witnesses and offering no defense. Gilmore wanted to testify on his own behalf, but suddenly withdrew the request the following day. Both sides made closing arguments.
On October 7, at 10:13 AM, the jury retired to consider the verdict. By mid-day, they returned with a guilty verdict. Later that day, the jury also unanimously recommended the death penalty because of special circumstances to the crime. At the time, Utah had two methods of execution, firing squad or hanging, so Judge Bullock allowed Gilmore to choose between the two. Gilmore's reply was, "I'd prefer to be shot."
In November 1976, Gilmore said, "They always want to get in on the act. I don't think they have ever really done anything effective in their lives. I would like them all — including that group of reverends and rabbis from Salt Lake City — to butt out. This is my life and this is my death. It's been sanctioned by the courts that I die and I accept that." The execution was set for sunrise on December 6, 1976, but three days earlier, Gilmore received a stay of execution. During the time Gilmore was on death row awaiting his execution, he attempted suicide twice, the first time on November 16 and the second exactly a month later. While incarcerated, Gilmore developed a deep dislike for two of his fellow inmates, convicted murderers and rapists Pierre Dale Selby and William Andrews, the "Hi-Fi Murderers." Gilmore had to pass the men's cells on his way to the firing squad and called out, "I'll see you in Hell, Andrews and Pierre!" The two were eventually executed for their crimes in 1987 and 1992 respectively.
Execution
Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad January 17, 1977, at 8:07 a.m., after angrily telling his lawyers to drop the appeals they had filed in defiance of his wishes. The night before, Gilmore had requested an all-night gathering of friends and family at the prison mess hall. On the morning of his execution, he enjoyed a last meal consisting of a steak, potatoes, milk and coffee, of which he only consumed the milk and coffee. He was then taken to an abandoned cannery behind the prison which served as the prison's death house. He was strapped to a chair, with a wall of sandbags placed behind him to absorb the bullets. Five gunmen, local police, stood concealed behind a curtain with five small holes cut for them to place their rifles through which were aimed at him. After being asked for any last words, Gilmore simply replied, "Let's do it." Gilmore had requested that, following his execution, his eyes be used for transplant purposes. Within hours of the execution, two people received his corneas. His body was sent for an autopsy and cremated later that day. The following day, his ashes were scattered from an airplane in Utah.
See also
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