January 17: On This Day in World History … briefly
Gary Gilmore was an American criminal who gained international attention for demanding the implementation of his death sentence.
1977: Gilmore gets his death wish
For the first time in a decade, an American prisoner was taken from Death Row to face execution – ending a lengthy campaign to abolish the death penalty.
“Let’s do it.” said murderer Gary Gilmore as prison officials led him out to face a firing squad at the State Prison in Provo, Utah. Seconds later, four bullets thudded into his heart.
He had been found guilty of killing two students at Brigham Young University in 1976. On the evening of July 19, 1976, Gilmore robbed and murdered Max Jensen, a gas station employee in Orem, Utah. The next evening, he robbed and murdered Bennie Bushnell – a motel manager in Provo. Although both men had complied with his demands, he still murdered them. When he tried to dispose of the .22 caliber pistol used in the murders, he accidentally shot himself in the right hand. He left a trail of blood while heading towards the service garage where he had taken his truck for repair before murdering Bushnell.
Garage mechanic Michael Simpson saw Gilmore hiding the gun in the bushes and seeing the blood on Gilmore’s crudely bandaged right hand while he paid for the repairs, he heard of the shooting at the nearby motel on a police scanner, wrote down the truck’s license number and called the police. Gilmore’s cousin Brenda turned him in to the police after he phoned her asking for bandages and painkillers for an injury to his hand.
The Utah State Police apprehended Gilmore as he tried to drive out of Provo, and he gave up without attempting to get away. Although he was charged with the murders of Jensen and Bushnell, the Jensen case was never brought to trial because there were no eyewitnesses. Despite his wish for the death penalty to be carried out, protestors made an appeal on his behalf. His life and execution were the subject of the 1979 Pulitzer Prize-winning true crime novel ‘The Executioner’s Song’ by Norman Mailer, and 1982 TV film of the novel starring Tommy Lee Jones as Gilmore.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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