Gary Gilmore

This article is about the American murderer. For the Australian cricketer, see Gary Gilmour.

Gary Mark Gilmore (December 4, 1940 – January 17, 1977) was an American criminal who gained international notoriety as the first person executed in the United States after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 after Gregg v. Georgia lifted the four-year moratorium instated by Furman v. Georgia.

Biography

Early life

Gary Mark Gilmore was born in a rural Texas town on 4 December 1940, the second of four sons. His parents drifted around the country most of the time while he and his brothers were growing up, his father earning a living selling advertising space in magazines. Relations between Gary and his father were bad, his father being cold and indifferent to him as a child.

The Gilmore family settled in Portland, Oregon, in the early 1950s, where Gary Gilmore began getting into trouble with the law, with offenses ranging from shoplifting to assault and battery charges. He dropped out of high school at age 15 and drifted across the Midwest making a living out of robbing houses and stores.

Robbery and homicide

He was convicted of armed robbery in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1964, and received an 18-year prison sentence. He was conditionally paroled in March 1976 and sent to Provo, Utah to live with a distant cousin of his who tried to help him find work and make a living for himself. Gilmore briefly worked as a roadie on Wings' 1976 Wings_over_America_Tour, but Gilmore's self-destructive nature soon got the best of him, as he couldn't stay away from the quick and easy life of crime as he saw it. Gilmore began stealing money and items from stores and homes.

Gilmore was convicted of killing Ben Bushnell, a motel manager, in Provo, Utah, on July 20, 1976. He had also been charged with murdering Max Jensen, a Sinclair gas station employee in Orem, Utah, the previous day, but that case never went to trial apparently because there were no witnesses. Gilmore's trial was held from October 5 to October 7 1976 — he was quickly convicted of the murder, mostly because there was no defense on his part. The jury also recommended the death penalty for Gilmore due to the special circumstances to the crime. At the time, Utah had two methods of execution, firing squad or death by hanging, so Gilmore was allowed to choose between the two. His reply was, "I'd prefer to be shot."

Execution

During the three months Gilmore was on death row awaiting his execution, he attempted suicide twice. The first was on November 16 1976 and the second was a month later on December 16. The execution was stayed three times. 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 as he was led past he laughed at the men and called out, "I'll see you in Hell, Andrews and Pierre!"

Gilmore was shot by a firing squad on January 17, 1977, at 8:07 AM, 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 the 17th, he enjoyed a last meal consisting of a hamburger, hard-boiled eggs, a baked potato, a few cups of coffee, and three shots of whiskey. 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 prison guards stood concealed behind a curtain with five small holes cut for them to place their rifles through which were aimed at him. Gilmore's last words were in Latin: "There will always be a father."

Gilmore requested that, following his execution, his eyes be used for transplant purposes. Within hours of the execution, two people received his corneas, inspiring the British punk rock band The Adverts to write and release "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" later that year. Gilmore's body was cremated.

According to his brother Mikal Gilmore's memoir, Utah's tradition dictated that five men comprise a firing squad - four of them with live rounds, and one with a blank, so as to not know who fired the fatal shot. Upon inspecting the clothes worn by Gary Gilmore at his execution, Mikal noticed five holes in the shirt — indicating, he wrote, that "the state of Utah, apparently, had taken no chances on the morning that it put my brother to death" (p. 390).

References to the execution

• The Oakland-based performance artist Monte Cazazza sent out photos of himself in an electric chair on the day of Gilmore's execution. One of these was mistakenly printed in a Hong Kong newspaper as the real execution. Cazazza was also photographed alongside COUM Transmissions/Throbbing Gristle members Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti for the "Gary Gilmore Memorial Society" postcard, in which the three artists posed blindfolded and tied to chairs with actual loaded guns pointed at them to depict Gilmore's execution. [1]

• A December 11, 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live featured the cast singing a Christmas-themed medley enitled "Let's Kill Gary Gilmore For Christmas." Among its more memorable lyrics are set to "Winter Wonderland": "In the meadow we can build a snowman/One with Gary Gilmore packed inside/We'll ask him, "Are you dead yet?" He'll say, 'No, man'/But we'll wait out the frostbite 'till he dies."

• In 1977, The Adverts had a top 20 hit in the UK with the song "Gary Gilmore's Eyes". The lyrics describe an eye donor recipient realizing his new eyes came from the executed murderer. The song was later covered by the German punk-rock band Die Toten Hosen and by Paul Roland.

• Gilmore's story is documented in Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song (1979), which was adapted by Mailer for the 1982 television movie of the same name starring Tommy Lee Jones as Gilmore. Jones won an Emmy for his portrayal of Gilmore.

• One of the main characters in Colombian writer Rafael Chaparro's novel "Opio en las Nubes" (Opium In The Clouds) is called Gary Gilmore. In the book he dies in the Electric Chair

• Gilmore is also the main character of artist Matthew Barney's Cremaster 2 (1999), the second part of The Cremaster Cycle.

• One of Gilmore's brothers, Mikal (a well-known music journalist), wrote a memoir, Shot In The Heart, that chronicles his relationship with his brother, and their often troubled family history. In 2001, it was made into an HBO movie starring Giovanni Ribisi, Elias Koteas, and Sam Shepard.

• The episode "Whacked" of CSI: Miami (first aired: 5/16/2005) involves a murderer on death row. The murderer indicates to the police at one point that "Gary Gilmore had it right," referring to his last words, eager to die.

• The hip hop group The X-Ecutioners make a reference to Gary Gilmore's execution in their theme song. The piece begins with the voice of a man describing the event.

• On The Police's second album Reggatta de Blanc, The song "Bring on the Night" was about Gilmore's execution. Sting also stated this fact in a 1981 concert in Melbourne, Australia.

See also

• Capital punishment in the United States
• John Albert Taylor
• List of individuals executed in Utah

External links

• Gary Gilmore (on Crime Library).