Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Friday, May fifteenth, and he
Speaker 1: had nine different execution dates. He was served three last meals,
Speaker 1: but yesterday he walked out of prison. Welcome to this
Speaker 1: what in the World episode of Amy and TJ just
Speaker 1: to hear that why what?
Speaker 2: It is a remarkable story that is far from over,
Speaker 2: but twenty nine years in the making. We're talking about
Speaker 2: sixty three year old Richard Glossip. He was freed from
Speaker 2: an Oklahoma jail on Thursday on a five hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars bond to much fanfare. There was cheering, there was crying,
Speaker 2: tears of joy, My god, nearly three decades behind bars
Speaker 2: waiting to die, and he came close multiple times a.
Speaker 1: Bunch of times. We're gonna get into some of these instances,
Speaker 1: but we are not overstating that he did have execution
Speaker 1: dates set nine different times. He did have a last
Speaker 1: meal several times. Get into how close he came on
Speaker 1: one of those occasions, Robes to being executed, but he
Speaker 1: is breathing free air today. This story and Robe. We
Speaker 1: watch a lot of trials, and this is why we
Speaker 1: see judges take attorneys to task for mistakes they make
Speaker 1: anything that could lead to a possible mistrial or bring
Speaker 1: this into question and Robes to think that mistake like
Speaker 1: this is unconscionable, that this should be allowed. And somebody
Speaker 1: was on death row this long based on something Robes,
Speaker 1: it sounds like was easily fixable in the moment.
Speaker 2: Look this even sounds like prosecutorial misconduct, is what it
Speaker 2: sounds like. And look this case. Glossop's case has garnered
Speaker 2: international attention. If his name sounds familiar at all, or
Speaker 2: his case sounds familiar at all, it may be because
Speaker 2: Kim Kardashian has been on X talking about this case
Speaker 2: for years now. Susan Sarandon, doctor Phil, you got celebrities
Speaker 2: surrounding this man proclaiming his innocence and frustrated that they
Speaker 2: couldn't get anyone to do anything about it until now.
Speaker 1: And what's being done now? And we should make clear
Speaker 1: he is on death row. But he was never accused
Speaker 1: of killing anybody with his own hand, is what we
Speaker 1: are talking about. This is a murder for higher situation.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was accused and convicted twice of being the
Speaker 2: mastermind in the brutal beating death of his boss where
Speaker 2: he worked at a motel there in Oklahoma, and it
Speaker 2: was actually in twenty twenty five, so it was last year.
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court throughout that conviction, but he still had
Speaker 2: to remain behind bars. They would not let him out
Speaker 2: on bail until yesterday, where a judge said, the court
Speaker 2: finds it cannot deny bail to Glossip based on a
Speaker 2: letter they found from twenty twenty three three written and
Speaker 2: signed by the Oklahoma Attorney General acknowledging that the evidence
Speaker 2: that was presented against him, now now that they understand
Speaker 2: the full scope of it, quote does not support that
Speaker 2: he is guilty of first degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 2: So the judge said, if you actually are acknowledging that,
Speaker 2: how can you possibly justify keeping him behind bars while
Speaker 2: he awaits this third trial, And so he ordered bond
Speaker 2: to be set.
Speaker 1: This is an argument for why we should get rid
Speaker 1: of the death helding this man got that close to death.
Speaker 1: The mistakes get made, and maybe even well meaning people,
Speaker 1: but oftentimes we see sometimes robes they're not well meaning.
Speaker 1: This is a very good argument. We got so close
Speaker 1: to getting this wrong. Now, is this man innocent? That
Speaker 1: don't know? I do not know that. But according to
Speaker 1: the courts, right now, Robes, he is because the conviction
Speaker 1: was actually thrown out.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Supreme Court of the United States tossed out
Speaker 2: his conviction and his death sentence in February of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five. And look, I don't know how the system works.
Speaker 2: But June of twenty twenty five, another judge said, yep,
Speaker 2: you still can't get out.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: And now finally he was released yesterday. He has a
Speaker 2: GPS ankle monitor, he has a ten pm to seven
Speaker 2: am curfew. He can't have any contact with any potential witnesses,
Speaker 2: the victims' family members. But he is free for the
Speaker 2: first time in three decades.
Speaker 1: They say they're going to retry on Robes. I guess
Speaker 1: they are ill. I guess they will, But this is Robes.
Speaker 1: This is a scary, scary story. We've hear heard some
Speaker 1: of exonerations before, but to hear how many times they
Speaker 1: tried and how close they got to killing him to
Speaker 1: now to a point where well, we can say we're
Speaker 1: leaning more in the direction of that we almost killed
Speaker 1: an innocent man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that is very much where a lot
Speaker 2: of people stand, and it could be proven to be true.
Speaker 2: He was convicted in nineteen ninety eight. Get your head
Speaker 2: around that for the nineteen ninety seven murder of his
Speaker 2: former boss, an Oklahoma City motel owner. His boss's name
Speaker 2: was Barry Van Trees, and Van Trees's actual killer and
Speaker 2: admitted killer, his name is Justin Snead. He was nineteen
Speaker 2: years old at the time. And what he basically did
Speaker 2: is he walked into a room in the motel room
Speaker 2: one oh two and beat Van Trees to death with
Speaker 2: a baseball bat.
Speaker 3: Justin Snead was on the property.
Speaker 2: He was basically given a motel room in exchange for
Speaker 2: being the maintenance man at this motel chain. So that's
Speaker 2: the connection. And we have Richard Glossip was the motel manager.
Speaker 2: So the allegation and his conviction was that Glossip accord.
Speaker 2: The motive according to prosecutors, and I guess according to
Speaker 2: Justin Sneed himself, was that he had been in bezzling funds,
Speaker 2: didn't want to get fired, and.
Speaker 3: So he asked.
Speaker 2: He asked me to kill his boss so that he
Speaker 2: could become the motel manager and not get caught for embezzlement.
Speaker 1: It's a hell of a motive. Didn't see all that evidence,
Speaker 1: said trial and don't know what records they have financially
Speaker 1: and whatever else. But from all intents and purposes, by
Speaker 1: all accounts, robes that we can see overwhelmingly the evidence
Speaker 1: connecting Glossop to the crime was this guy and this
Speaker 1: guy's word alone correct.
Speaker 3: And here is the deal.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors knew that Justin Sneed was giving false testimony, at
Speaker 2: least in part of his testimony, did not reveal or
Speaker 2: convey that to jurors who didn't get to take that
Speaker 2: into consideration when they heard Justin Sneed testify against his
Speaker 2: I guess coworker so to speak, or I guess his
Speaker 2: boss as well too. So this is what justin Justice
Speaker 2: Sodomoyar wrote for the reason why they allowed him now
Speaker 2: to get out on bond and to overturn the conviction.
Speaker 2: That correction of the testimony would have revealed to the
Speaker 2: jury not just that Sneed was untrustworthy, but also that
Speaker 2: Snead was willing to lie to them under oath, And
Speaker 2: with that in mind, they had to throw out the conviction.
Speaker 2: And that makes sense because according to everyone, Justin Snead,
Speaker 2: his testimony against Glossip is the only actual evidence against Glossip.
Speaker 2: So if you can't trust his testimony. It will be
Speaker 2: interesting to see what the prosecution will be able to
Speaker 2: present to the jury this time around.
Speaker 3: To have the option.
Speaker 1: They didn't have the context. The jury didn't have it,
Speaker 1: and they could have made a different decision. They could
Speaker 1: have thought, Okay, yeah, he lied about that other stuff,
Speaker 1: but I believe him on this. Sure, maybe they could have,
Speaker 1: but they didn't get that option. And because of that,
Speaker 1: this guy should get another trial. And Robes, oh, man,
Speaker 1: that's that's a travestic And as we sit here, he's innocent.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, Robes. This is terrifying stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: about our justices, it is.
Speaker 2: And when we I'm going to go through how this
Speaker 2: all happened. It's fascinating and you can see how it happened.
Speaker 2: So the murder happens January seventh, nineteen ninety seven. Again,
Speaker 2: Snead's staying at the motel as a maintenance worker. Gossip
Speaker 2: is the motel manager. We have the owner, Barry Van Trees,
Speaker 2: beaten to death with a baseball bat, and Gossip initially
Speaker 2: denied knowing about the killing, but then later to police
Speaker 2: admitted that he knew because Sneed told him he killed
Speaker 2: him right so Gossip is initially just charged with accessory
Speaker 2: after the fact, so that's the only charge against him.
Speaker 3: Sneed's charged with the murder.
Speaker 2: Golossip gets accessory after the fact, but then Sneed testified
Speaker 2: the Golssip asked him to kill the entries to run
Speaker 2: the motel himself, and offered him ten thousand dollars, and
Speaker 2: so then police went to him or investigators. Prosecutors went
Speaker 2: to Glossip and said, hey, we know that you actually
Speaker 2: were the mastermind, so if you just plead guilty, we'll
Speaker 2: give you.
Speaker 3: A life sentence. He said, no, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: do it. I'm innocent.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors then offered Sneed, hey, if you'll testify, we'll offer
Speaker 2: you life in prison and we won't pursue the death penalty.
Speaker 2: He took the deal, and so then prosecutors upgraded Glossip's
Speaker 2: charge to capital murder, painted him as the mastermind, and
Speaker 2: had Snead as the star witness.
Speaker 1: That could all be true, but prove it, that's all
Speaker 1: is every word of that their theory of the crime
Speaker 1: could still be true. This under oath liar could be
Speaker 1: telling the truth about the one thing. Yes, maybe, but
Speaker 1: is that enough to convict the guy and put him
Speaker 1: on death rough. I don't know, that's up to a
Speaker 1: jury to decide. But if a jury you get an
Speaker 1: uncon man, you have to have a perfect trial close
Speaker 1: to it if you're going to send some maia to death.
Speaker 1: So again, when we first started, he comes as we
Speaker 1: talk about it more, the gravity of what this is,
Speaker 1: the exact thing we can never let happen. And we
Speaker 1: see a walking, talking, breathing example of how close we
Speaker 1: got to screwing this up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and twenty nine years if even that is yes,
Speaker 2: if Glossip is in fact innocent, he has lost paam
Speaker 2: twenty nine years of his life. When we come back,
Speaker 2: we are going to tell you because he has been
Speaker 2: convicted not once but twice and he is facing his
Speaker 2: third trial, what is in store for him? And just
Speaker 2: how close he came to being executed. Wait until you
Speaker 2: hear how he was hours away from lethal injection. Welcome
Speaker 2: back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We
Speaker 2: are talking about a room markable, fascinating story out of
Speaker 2: Oklahoma where a death row inmate, Richard Glossip. He's sixty
Speaker 2: three years old right now, but he has spent three
Speaker 2: decades behind bars. And as we pointed out, has had
Speaker 2: nine execution dates, three final meals, after he was convicted
Speaker 2: twice for the murder of his boss back in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven. This is a remarkable story. On September thirtieth,
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, he came three hours from his scheduled execution,
Speaker 2: a doctor realized that a pharmacist supplied the wrong drug
Speaker 2: for the lethal injection, and so they were forced to
Speaker 2: call off the execution again three hours he had his
Speaker 2: final meal. So this happened three times. Not that close,
Speaker 2: but that's the closest he came. Can you imagine just
Speaker 2: the mental aspect of that.
Speaker 1: No, this guy is I mean, he's been through it,
Speaker 1: and I said pay him early, I mean pay him
Speaker 1: for the wrongful conviction. You might need to pay him
Speaker 1: for pain and suffering at this point for what you
Speaker 1: put that's mental anguish that this guy has gone through.
Speaker 1: And again he at this point es he is an
Speaker 1: innocent man. So what we're looking at is, I don't
Speaker 1: know how robes we I don't know how we can
Speaker 1: be supportive of this ceremony we keep going through. We
Speaker 1: wait forty years to execute somebody just to make sure, well,
Speaker 1: we waited thirty years and we got this one wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So time doesn't even help, it seems sometimes if this
Speaker 1: has been weighted out to the only reason this dude
Speaker 1: is alive is because they screwed up the drugs.
Speaker 3: Yes, not because oops.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court stepped in. Oops, we think he might be innocent? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: we just screw ups with the drugs.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And by the way, if he had been executed, then
Speaker 2: we wouldn't even be talking about this. There would be
Speaker 2: no rallying cry to prove his innocence because no one
Speaker 2: wants to admit. Certainly not a state or any prosecutor,
Speaker 2: or anyone involved in administering the punishment would want to
Speaker 2: admit or acknowledge even or investigate whether or not they
Speaker 2: got it wrong.
Speaker 3: There's no incentive now.
Speaker 2: His first trial, by the way, he was convicted, but
Speaker 2: that conviction was thrown out because of a defense attorney issue,
Speaker 2: some legal defense attorney issue. So he gets a second trial.
Speaker 2: He's convicted and sentenced to death for a second time.
Speaker 2: And by the way, each time, we have sneed testifying
Speaker 2: against glossip. So this third trial, now, the trial date
Speaker 2: has not been said. He does have a court date.
Speaker 2: His next court date is June twenty third, and look,
Speaker 2: the state of Oklahoma is maintaining they have quote strong
Speaker 2: evidence against Glossip, but they do also say Snead the
Speaker 2: man in question, the man whose testimony the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: of the United States and even the Attorney.
Speaker 3: General said.
Speaker 2: Is not trustworthy, he is going to be testifying against
Speaker 2: Gossip once again in this third trial. This will certainly
Speaker 2: be a spectacle to watch. But in the meantime he's
Speaker 2: home with a few restrictions, but he is a freeman
Speaker 2: with an ankle monitor and we will of course continue
Speaker 2: to follow this very much developing story in the meantime, though,
Speaker 2: thank you as always for listening to us.
Speaker 3: I'm a net roboch alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to
Speaker 3: you soon.