Gary Gilmore
Gary Mark Gilmore (born Faye Robert Coffman; December 4, 1940 – January 17, 1977) was an American criminal who gained international attention for demanding the implementation of his death sentence for two murders he had admitted to committing in Utah. After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision Gregg v. Georgia, he became the first person in almost ten years to be executed in the United States.[1] These new statutes avoided the problems under the 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia, which had resulted in earlier death penalty statutes being deemed "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore unconstitutional (The Supreme Court had previously ordered all states to commute death sentences to life imprisonment after Furman.). Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in 1977.[2] His life and execution were the subject of the 1979 nonfiction novel The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer, and 1982 TV film of the novel starring Tommy Lee Jones as Gilmore.
This article is about the American murderer. For other people with the same name, see Gary Gilmore (disambiguation).Early life[edit]
Gary Mark Gilmore was born in McCamey, Texas, on December 4, 1940, the second of four sons, to Frank and Bessie Gilmore. The other sons were Frank Jr., Gaylen, and the writer and music journalist Mikal Gilmore. Frank Harry Gilmore (c. November 23, 1890, Lincoln, Nebraska – July 31, 1962, Seattle, Washington), an alcoholic con man, had other wives and families, none of whom he supported. On a whim, he married Bessie (née Brown) (August 19, 1913, Provo, Utah – June 29, 1981, Portland, Oregon), a Mormon outcast from Provo, Utah, in Sacramento, California. Gary was born while they were living in Texas under the pseudonym of Coffman to avoid the law. Frank christened his son Faye Robert Coffman, but once they left Texas, Bessie changed it to Gary Mark. This name change proved to be a sore point years later. Frank's mother, Fay, kept the original "Faye Coffman" birth certificate, and when Gary found it two decades later, he assumed he must be either illegitimate or someone else's son. He seized on this as the reason that he and his father never got along; he became very upset and walked out on his mother when she tried to explain the name change to him.[3]
The theme of illegitimacy, real or imagined, was common in the Gilmore family. Frank Sr.'s mother, Fay Gilmore, once told Bessie that Frank Sr.'s father was a famous magician who had passed through Sacramento, where she was living. Bessie researched this at the library and concluded that Frank was the illegitimate son of Harry Houdini. Houdini was only sixteen years old in 1890, the year of Frank Gilmore's birth, and did not begin his career as a magician until the following year. Whether Fay meant that Frank Sr.'s father was someone who would later become known as a famous magician is unknown. Mikal Gilmore, Gary's youngest brother, believes the story to be false, but has stated that both his father and mother believed it. Gary's oldest brother, Frank Jr, was the illegitimate son of Robert Ingram, who was Frank Sr's son from an earlier marriage. Ingram had a brief affair with Bessie shortly after she had married his father. Frank Sr had believed Gary was the illegitimate son.[4]
During Gary's childhood, the family frequently relocated throughout the Western United States, with Frank supporting them by selling fake magazine subscriptions. Gary had a troubled relationship with his father, whom his youngest brother Mikal described as a "cruel and unreasonable man." Frank Gilmore Sr. was strict and quick to anger, and would often whip his sons, Frank Jr., Gary, and Gaylen, with a razor strop, whip, or a belt for little or no reason. Less often, he would beat his wife. He mellowed somewhat with age: Mikal reported that Frank whipped him only once, and never did it again after Mikal told him, "I hate you." In addition, Frank and Bessie would argue loudly and verbally abuse each other. Frank would anger Bessie by calling her crazy, and defame Brigham Young, the second president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as "Bring 'em Young". Bessie would retaliate by calling him a "Cat-licker" [Catholic] and threatening to kill him some night. This abuse continued for years and caused considerable turmoil within the Gilmore family.[5]
In 1952, the Gilmore family settled in Portland, Oregon. As an adolescent, Gary began engaging in petty crime. Although Gilmore had an IQ test score of 133, gained high scores on both aptitude and achievement tests, and showed artistic talent, he dropped out of high school in the ninth grade. He ran away from home with a friend to Texas, returning to Portland after several months.
Trial[edit]
Gilmore's murder trial began at the Provo courthouse on October 5, 1976, and lasted two days. Peter Arroyo, a motel guest, testified that he saw Gilmore in the motel registration office that night. After taking the money, Gilmore ordered Mr. Bushnell to lie down on the floor and then shot him. Gerald F. Wilkes, an FBI ballistics expert, matched the two shell casings and the bullet that killed Mr. Bushnell to the gun hidden in the bush, and a patrolman testified that he had traced Gilmore's trail of blood to that same bush. Gilmore's two court-appointed lawyers, Michael Esplin and Craig Snyder, made no attempt to cross-examine the majority of the state's witnesses, and rested without calling any witnesses for the defense. Gilmore protested, and the following day asked the judge if he could take the stand in his own defense, perhaps arguing that due to the dissociation and lack of control he felt at the time, he had a good case for insanity. His attorneys presented the findings of four separate psychiatrists, all of whom had said that Gilmore was aware of what he was doing and that he knew it was wrong at the time. While he did have an antisocial personality disorder, which may have been aggravated by drinking and drugs, he did not meet the legal criteria for insanity. Gilmore withdrew his request. During closing statements, Esplin did mention that since Gilmore had accidentally shot himself, he might have accidentally killed Bushnell. Mentioning the lack of witnesses to the shooting, he asked the jury to find Gilmore guilty of second degree murder or even acquit him. On October 7, the jury retired to deliberate and by mid-day, they had returned with a guilty verdict for first degree murder. Later that day, the jury unanimously recommended a death sentence due to the special circumstances of the crime.[9]
Gilmore chose to not pursue habeas corpus relief in federal court. His mother, Bessie, sued for a stay of execution on his behalf. In a five-to-four decision, the US Supreme Court refused to hear his mother's claim. The Court's per curiam opinion said that the defendant had waived his rights by not pursuing them. At the time, Utah had two methods of execution—firing squad or hanging. Believing a hanging could be botched, Gilmore chose the former, declaring, "I'd prefer to be shot." The execution was set for November 15 at 8:00 a.m.
Against his expressed wishes, Gilmore received several stays of execution through the efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The last of these occurred just hours before the rescheduled execution date of January 17. That stay was overturned at 7:30 a.m., and the execution was allowed to proceed as planned.[10] At a Board of Pardons hearing in November 1976, Gilmore said of the efforts by the ACLU and others to prevent his execution: "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."[11]
During the time Gilmore was on death row awaiting his execution, he attempted suicide twice; the first time on November 16 after the first stay was issued, and again one month later on December 16.
Other references[edit]
Many musicians have explored the Gilmore case. In 1977, the Adverts had a top 20 hit in the UK with the song "Gary Gilmore's Eyes".[31] The lyrics describe an eye donor recipient realizing his new eyes came from the executed murderer.[32] The song was later covered by German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen and a country version of the song was recorded by Dean Schlabowske. In 1978, Los Angeles punk band the Deadbeatz released a song called "Let's Shoot Maria" which featured the chorus, "Gonna finish off what Gary Gilmore started."[33] In 1977, New York City experimental punk band Chain Gang released the song "Gary Gilmore and the Island of Dr. Moreau" as the B-side to their single "Son of Sam" about David Berkowitz.[34] The Police's song "Bring on the Night", from their 1979 album Reggatta de Blanc, speculated on Gary Gilmore's possible feelings on the evening before the execution took place. In 1980, the Judy's released the song "How's Gary?" on their album Wonderful World of Appliances. The song presumably asks Gary Gilmore's mother what's wrong with him, saying that he never comes out to play anymore. The song also inquires about the holes in his vest and why he is wearing a blindfold.
Several playwrights have integrated the Gilmore story into their work in one way or another. The Oakland-based performance artist Monte Cazazza sent out photos of himself in an electric chair on the day of the 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 loaded guns pointed at them to depict Gilmore's execution.[35] In Christopher Durang's play Beyond Therapy (1983), the character Bruce claims that he "wanted to see Gary Gilmore executed on television."