Shot in the Heart

by Mikal Gilmore

  Draper Prison is located at a place in the Salt Lake Valley known as the “Point of the Mountain.” Because of the heavy pollution in the valley, one doesn’t even become aware of the mountains until the final, winding approach to the prison. It rests at the center of a flat basin, surrounded by tall, sharply-inclined snowy slopes. It is perhaps the most beautiful vista in the entire valley.

  The car had to stop at a central tower, where a guard gave us clearance to drive down the narrow road to maximum security, a small building surrounded by another tower and two barbed-wire fences. We were told we would be allowed a ninety-minute, uninterrupted visit. Gary was still under maximum restrictions at this point and technically wasn’t even allowed visitors, except for his attorneys. This family visit was an “exception.” We were led into an open triangular room where no guards were present and informed that we would be allowed a physical contact visit.

  Gary strolled in through sliding doors dressed in prison whites and red, white, and blue sneakers, twirling a comb and smiling broadly. For so long, I’d seen only the grim, cold-looking photos and film clips that I’d forgotten how charming he could be. “You’re looking as fit as ever,” he said to Frank, and to me: “And you’re just as damn skinny as ever.”

  He rearranged the benches in front of the guard-room window. “So those poor fools can keep an eye on me,” he said.

  For the first few minutes we exchanged small talk, trying to get comfortable with the surroundings and to approach the inevitable subject. Gary’s face narrowed as we mentioned the decision of Robert Excell White—a condemned man in Texas whose request for execution had occurred at about the same time as Gary’s—to fight for his life. He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you could say he equivocated. Well, that has nothing to do with me. You see, for a while I felt guilty about this whole capital punishment thing, and that’s partially why I tried to kill myself. But I’m tired of everybody pinning that on me. I don’t care what happens to all these rapists and torturers. They can take them out and shoot them tomorrow. What happens to me won’t affect them; their cases will be judged on their own merits.”

  I broached the prospect of intervention, but Gary cut it off right away. “Look, I don’t want anybody interfering, no outside causes, no lawyers like Amsterdam.” He reached out and took hold of my chin, staring me in the eyes. “He’s out of this, I hope.” Before I had a chance to reply, the visitors’ door rolled open and in walked Uncle Vernon and Aunt Ida. We had been assured a private visit. As far as I knew, this was our only time with Gary, and here we were, fifteen minutes into what we expected to be our last conversation with our brother, and in walk Uncle Vernon and Aunt Ida, like it’s old folks’ week. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Ida, who stood to be richer than they had ever been before if Gary would just sit down in a large wooden chair one week from now and allow five strangers to pump bullets into his heart. That Vernon and Ida—our uncle, our aunt. I was so furious, I wanted to rip the cheery, familial smiles off their fucking faces and turn them upside down.

  The rest of the visit was aggravating. Gary and Vernon did most of the talking, discussing numerous people Gary wanted to leave some money to and cracking an occasional macabre joke. Vernon had brought along a bag of green T-shirts adorned with the legend GILMORE—DEATH WISH and a computerized photo of Gary. Apparently the shirts had been ordered by either Gary or Vernon. They talked about the possibility of Gary wearing one on the execution morning, and then auctioning it off to the highest bidder. I felt bilious. After the ninety minutes, the visit was terminated.

  As we were leaving, Gary offered me a T-shirt. “I’m not sure it would be of much use to me, Gary.”

  “Well,” he drawled, smiling, “it’s a little big for you, but I think you can grow into it.” I accepted the shirt.

  “Is there anything I can do for you while you’re in town?” Vernon asked. I replied that I wanted him to arrange a meeting with Gary’s attorneys, Ron Stanger and Moody, and with Larry Schiller.

  Back in Salt Lake City, I decided to stay for a couple of days and attempt to visit Gary on my own. At Giauque’s office, I told him of my ambivalence over the situation—how, on one hand, I was firmly opposed to capital punishment, no matter the crime or the wishes of the condemned, but also how I felt it was important not to take any action without giving Gary fair warning—that I wasn’t prepared to save Gary’s life when it might only result in providing the impetus for a final suicide attempt.

  I asked Giauque if he could tell me the names of some of the journalists who were in town covering this affair. I thought that a well-connected reporter might be able to apprise me of what was going on behind the scenes in this complex situation. Most of the names he mentioned— journalists like Geraldo Rivera—were people I had no interest in talking to. Then he mentioned Bill Movers, the former press aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson, and a writer and journalist I had much respect for.

  “Can you put me together with Movers?” I asked.

  A couple of hours later I was having dinner and a much-needed drink or two with Movers at his hotel. He clearly had some misgivings about the moral dimensions of covering this story, and he was not glad to see the death penalty returning to America. He agreed to talk with me and tell me what he knew, and he assured me that he would never use any of the information I gave him in his reporting unless he cleared it with me. He told me that I should be cautious about the advice that any legal, business, or journalistic people might give me in the days ahead—that instead, I should try to come to terms with my own conscience and try to reconcile that with the communications that would go on between me and Gary. Even now, all these years later, I remain certain that Bill Moyers’s gentle concern was a key influence in helping me hold on to my sanity during that week.

  AT NINE O’CLOCK THAT NIGHT I CALLED VERNON to ask if any arrangements had been made for a meeting with Moody and Stanger. The lawyers were unavailable at the time, but Schiller was flying in from Los Angeles and was willing to meet me at the Salt Lake Hilton at one in the morning. I was a little drunk and in need of sleep, but I didn’t want to pass up a meeting with Gary’s keeper.

  At the Hilton, I recognized Schiller from his picture in the December 20th New West article, “The Merchandising of Gary Gilmore,” by Barry Farrell (who later became one of Schiller’s researchers and collaborators); he recognized me because of my resemblance to Gary. I had wanted to meet Schiller—who had something of a reputation as a death-minded entrepreneur for his interviews for Albert Goldman’s infamous Lenny Bruce biography, and for his handling of projects and stories involving Marilyn Monroe, Jack Ruby, and Sharon Tate murderer Susan Atkins— because it occurred to me that he might be trying to exploit this execution for his own ends. Also, I realized that to deal with Gary at this stage, I would also have to deal with the man who owned Gary’s story.

  Schiller and I talked for nearly two hours. Each of us asked pointed questions about what we were doing in Utah and about our interests in Gary. I spoke frankly of my concerns about Gary’s choices and their possible ramifications, and Schiller responded sympathetically to those concerns, but stopped short of professing to share them. Finally I asked Schiller what I considered an inescapable question: Was Gary worth more to him dead than alive?

  Schiller hesitated for a few moments, then said: “Many years ago, when I was working as a news photographer, I was sent out to cover a fire. There were firemen carrying a person through a window, and I had to ask myself whether I should take a picture of that moment, or put down my camera and go help them drag that person to safety. I chose to take the picture. I decided then it was my obligation as a journalist to preserve what existed.

  “To answer your question, I’m here to record history, not to make it.”

  At the end of the session, Schiller had impressed me with his forth-rightness. Also, I trusted his intentions toward the Bushnell and Jensen families, and felt I could believe him when he promised to keep our conversations confidential. He drove me back to m
y hotel and, as I was getting out of his rental car, he made a curious comment.

  “What’s your middle name?” he asked. I told him. He jotted it down in a notebook and then wrote out a phone number and handed it to me. “This is where you can leave a message for me if you need to get in touch and can’t find me at either the Hilton or the Travelodge in Orem. But just use your middle name and not your last. That’s Stanger’s office and you shouldn’t tip him off about where you’re staying. Gary doesn’t have the best attorneys in town, but then I didn’t choose them.”

  I TRIED TO CALL FRANK AT HIS HOTEL the next afternoon, but he had checked out. I called my mother back in Oregon to see if Frank had headed home, but as far as she knew, he was still in the Salt Lake area. This time, I would have to see Gary alone.

  When I was signing the visitors log at Draper, I noticed that Moody and Stanger had signed in just before me. I glanced over to the phone cubicle and could see them talking to Gary. I explained to the officer in charge that I wanted to speak with my brother privately. He said he would do his best, and let me in the same triangular room I’d been in the day before. I sat in the far corner, away from the phone cage. Moments later a guard came in and told Stanger that the watch commander wanted to see him for a minute. After Stanger disappeared through the rolling bars, Moody asked Gary how the family visit had been. I couldn’t hear my brother’s reply. “Listen, Gary,” Moody continued, “Schiller met with your brother late last night at the Hilton. He thinks Mikal might try to stop the execution.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I moved over to the bench next to the cage. “Did you know that Giauque brought your brothers out here in a Rolls-Royce yesterday?” I couldn’t hear the next sentence but it included a mention of the hotel where I was registered.

  The guard reentered. “Mr. Moody, will you come with me for a minute?” As he got up to leave, Moody glanced at me, then did a double take. “Who is that?” I heard him ask, farther down the corridor. I had to wait about thirty minutes before Gary came in, spinning a Scotsman’s cap on his finger and wearing a black sleeveless sweatshirt. Stanger and Moody were standing behind him. Gary introduced us. “Sorry we have to meet under these circumstances,” said Stanger, “but if there’s anything we can do for you, just give us a call.” I nodded.

  “Uh, I’m glad you came back,” said Gary, after Moody and Stanger had left. Gary took a seat on the back of the bench.

  “Gary, I don’t want to play any games with you. I overheard what your lawyers said and, yes, it’s true. I did meet with Schiller last night. I am thinking of seeking a stay.”

  The smile on Gary’s face fell away; in its place I saw the stern stare I’d come to know from newspaper and magazine photos. “Is it true that Giauque brought you out here in a Rolls-Royce yesterday?” Schiller had asked me the same question the night before. The Rolls had become a symbol of powerful, outside intervention, I surmised, yet it seemed so trivial. I explained the situation to Gary. He spoke angrily: “Amsterdam and Giauque are cum-sucking nigger-fuckers who are just trying to use you for some cause. Why do they want to meddle with my life? Because they’re opposed to capital punishment? Does that make them special, or holy men? I was given a sentence to die. Now is that some kind of joke? I don’t want that over my head.”

  I decided to avoid a discussion of legal ethics or lawyers. “If you want to believe all that shit about Giauque and Amsterdam, then go ahead,” I replied, “but it doesn’t have anything to do with you and me. I could take action independently that might achieve a stay, that could result in a commutation of your sentence.”

  Gary shook his head. “That’s impossible,” he declared. “I couldn’t even stop this thing if I wanted to.” He paused for several moments. “Could you really do that?”

  I replied that I believed I could. Gary stood up and started to walk around the room.

  “They’d never let me free, man, and I’ve spent too much time in jail. I don’t have anything left to me.” He came face to face. “I killed two men. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in jail. If some fucker gets me set free, then I’m going to go get a gun and kill a few of those damn lawyers who keep interfering. Then I’ll say to you, ‘See what your meddling accomplished? Are you proud?’”

  “Time’s up,” announced a voice from the guard’s nest.

  Gary tried to flash a relaxed-looking smile. “Come back and talk to me some more about this tomorrow,” he said. As I was passing through the door, he called: “Where were you ten years ago when I needed you?” All the way back to Salt Lake those final words reverberated in my head. I felt confused and broken. An hour earlier, I thought that the only right decision was to argue for a stay, to choose life over death. But I couldn’t make that choice for Gary. I wanted to disappear, to fold up into a void where choices and conscience didn’t exist. Where I could forget the look in Gary’s eyes.

  THAT NIGHT I HAD DINNER WITH MOYERS AGAIN. I told him about my conversation with Gary. After listening, Moyers asked me if I thought there was any chance he might be able to visit and speak with Gary. I told him that Schiller had an exclusive deal with my brother, and that no other journalists could talk to him. Moyers said he was willing to assure me and Gary and Schiller that he would not use the conversation for journalistic purposes. He did not want to tape it or film it, and unless he had the appropriate consent of those involved, he would not disclose the contents of the conversation in his report. He just thought that, since both he and Gary were men who had been born in Texas, they might have some common ground for talking. He also thought he might have a philosophical view or two to offer about Gary’s situation that my brother might find interesting, maybe even persuasive. I trusted Moyers and told him I would see what could be done.

  I went on a long walk around the cold, snow-covered streets of Salt Lake that night. I was walking over by the Mormon Temple when I ran into Frank. At first he didn’t see me. He was going along with his hands jammed into his pockets, staring at the ground. I called his name.

  I told him I’d been to see Gary, and I told him what we had discussed. I also said that Frank could go back and visit with Gary some more himself, either with or without me. Apparently the prison’s stipulation of a one-time visit had been forgotten.

  “No,” said Frank, “I can’t do that. I can’t go see him again.” And then, as the tears began to fall from his eyes, my brother turned and walked off into the cold night.

  Fifteen years later, Frank and I visited Salt Lake together, to try to reestablish some family contacts and to make sense of some of what had happened all those years before. One afternoon, Frank took me over to Liberty Park. It was here, when we were all children and were living with my parents in the haunted house in Salt Lake, that Frank and Gary used to come nearly every afternoon to play. They would run around, play ball, pull pranks on the stodgy Mormons. Frank thought it was maybe the happiest hours the two of them ever spent together. All this was just before Gary began stealing things and hiding them in the garage—before he changed forever into a bad boy.

  As we sat there in the park that day, Frank explained to me why he had decided, those years before, not to visit Gary anymore at Draper. After seeing him that one time, Frank said, he came to this park and sat where we were now sitting, and he gave some long thought to what had happened, and what would yet happen.

  “I hated what Gary had done,” Frank said to me. “What he did was hideous. But I also hate what had been done to him.

  “Do you think if Gary hadn’t been in prison for twenty-two years, he would have shot that one man in the back of the head in front of his pregnant wife and little kid? What about the other guy? He shot him in the gas station and they say he didn’t die for hours. That’s the story I heard. That he didn’t die for hours and he suffered, suffered to death. I am convinced that the twenty-two years of training that Gary got from the animalistic prison society he had lived in turned him into the animal that brought on those tragedies.


  “He’d seen things in prison. He told me about those things. He had seen people maimed—he saw a man get his hands cut off—and he had seen men murdered. He’d seen so fucking many assaults, and when he was younger, he himself had been assaulted. Beaten. Raped. Terrorized. But he learned to go with it. As he got older and bigger and meaner, he became the assaulter. After that, they had nothing they could scare him with. It was like being in Vietnam for twenty-two years. He’d been the victim and the victimizer of so many hideous things. He could say, ‘Yes, I’ve been destroyed, but now I’m the one who does the destroying.’

  “You’ll find thousands and thousands of men in this country that lived a similar life, and many of those men would probably make the same kinds of choices as Gary—the same ways of killing and dying. All those years in the horror and brutality of prison changes them. They reach a point of no return. They sort of live a day at a time, and to them, after a while, death starts to look like a way but of life, which is what it is—a way out of everything. They’re afraid of almost everything but dying, some of those guys. And they become really dangerous. You can’t lock them up, because that’s home to them. You can’t kill them, because they want that. They are your truly dangerous people, and there are thousands of them in this country walking around, because of our jails and prisons, who are exactly like Gary. Take some kid that has problems— maybe emotional problems, maybe family problems—put him in these outrageous horror house reformatories and prisons, and chances are, eventually, that kid will become like our brother.

  “Gary had reached that point of no return. He wanted the release of death. That’s one reason I didn’t go back and visit him again. I knew he really wanted it, and it bothered me. Not only did he want it, it was like it was a holiday. He was celebrating. He was trying to be set free. It was his exodus.

  “That last time I saw him—he was so different from the brooding man I visited throughout the years. This time, he sat there and he was snapping his fingers, he was laughing and he was making jokes. It was like Christmas Eve. He had found the perfect way to beat the system by having them kill him. Then he’s out of it. It’s over. In his way of thinking, I’m convinced he believed he had won. Most of us couldn’t win the way he did. But that was his idea of freedom, and, of course, it was the only freedom he had left. That’s the reason I stood back. I know you and Mom wanted to save him, and I never held that against the two of you. But I had to stand back because if I had gone on and done something, if they had kept him locked up in that hell, I would have felt to blame for it.