Pod Insights True Crime All The Time Richard Glossip About this episode Richard Glossip spent years on Oklahoma’s death row for a murder he says he did not commit. He has come within hours of execution and has been served his last meal three times. Richard has filed numerous appeals and professed his innocence for over 20 years.
Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Richard Glossip. He was convicted of murdering his boss and sentenced to death row. The trial revolved around circumstantial evidence and testimony from an alleged accomplice. But many believe Glossip may not be guilty, or at least he deserves a new trial.
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1:48 Speaker 00 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 427 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Give me, how are you?
1:57 Speaker 01 Hey, I'm doing good. How about you?
1:59 Speaker 00 I'm doing great.
2:00 Speaker 01 That's good.
2:00 Speaker 00 We just got done taping our weekly Patreon thing that we do, talking about what we're watching.
2:08 Speaker 00 The crazy Ohio weather. Crazy. That is swinging from 70 to like 26 in a day's time. And that's probably why so many people are sick. Yeah, yeah, everybody's sick. My wife's sick. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Billy Hammett. What's going on, Billy? Holly Levitt. Hey, Holly. And then just Holly. The other Holly. Mm hmm. Yeah. Jermaine Robertson. What's going on, Jermaine? Lissy Johnson. Hey, Lissy. Stephanie Keel. Hey, Keel. Nino Reyes. I like that, Nino. That's a cool name, right? It is. Ben Kirk. Hey, Ben. Jamie Miller. There's Jamie. Bridget Hester. Ah, good old Bridget. Samantha Wamsley. Wamsley, I just like that name. You like that? Yeah.
2:53 Speaker 00 And last but not least, Allison Himmler. Hey, Allison. And then if we go back into the vault. This week, we selected Simon Brunt. Okay, I'm not gonna go down that hole. Oh, yeah, that was like a five minute conversation about famous Simons on Patreon and some, for some reason, I thought George Michael was in Duran Duran. It was a whole mess. It was a mess. And. I tried to correct you. I know. You got me back on the right track, but I was way off there. So Gibbs, right now, we have an episode out on True Crime All The Time Unsolved, where we're talking about Joseph Smedley. And he was a 20 year old student at Indiana University who died under mysterious circumstances.
3:36 Speaker 00 His death was officially declared a suicide, but his family has questioned the ruling. And we've had some cases like this before, but sometimes they are very fascinating. They are. They are. And I think we're fine that this one is as well. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All The Time? I am ready. We're talking about Richard Glossip. He spent years on Oklahoma's death row for a murder that he says he didn't commit. And he's come within hours of execution and even been served his last meal. Three different times. He's filed numerous appeals and has professed his innocence for more than 20 years.
4:16 Speaker 01 I can't imagine what it would feel like to be on death row. If you 100% knew you did not do it, obviously you would know 100% or not, right?
4:27 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:28 Speaker 01 If you didn't do it, how that would feel. And then the fact that each time you get so close. You know, you're eating your last steak or pizza or whatever the heck it is.
4:40 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:40 Speaker 01 Thinking, uh huh, well, this is it. And then find out that nope, it's not it. And then you go through the cycle again and then again.
4:49 Speaker 00 Well, let's face it, there are a lot of people in prison. And I'm sure there are a lot of people on even on death row who say, yeah, I didn't do this, right? A lot of people will not own up to what they've done. But the fact is there are people in prison who are innocent.
5:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:06 Speaker 00 Now, I don't know which ones they are, you know? But they're, it's proven that we've convicted wrongly convicted people. And, and I have a feeling there's a really good chance we've put a number of people to death. Who were not guilty sadly.
5:24 Speaker 01 I was just thinking about the trauma that this individual goes through. But also the trauma that the victim's family must go through. Cause they're probably thinking, finally going to have some closure on this. We're going to go down, watch this. Oh, I guess we're going to have to come back again.
5:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, but also his family.
5:41 Speaker 01 And his family as well.
5:42 Speaker 00 Right. Cause they're thinking he's about ready to die and then no, he gets a reprieve. Richard Gloss was born on February 9th, 1963. He's currently 62 years old. According to his attorney, Don Knight, Richard grew up in a chaotic household. He had 15 siblings.
5:59 Speaker 01 Holy crap, man.
6:00 Speaker 00 We talk, we talk about, um, big families, but that is a big number.
6:06 Speaker 01 Yeah. I don't even know how a parent remembers a kid's name at that point.
6:10 Speaker 00 And I don't know. You know, I've said it before, you and I each have two children and you know, providing for them is expensive. I mean, there's numbers out there. People have calculated how much it costs to have a child from birth to whatever, age, whatever. It's not an inexpensive proposition.
6:33 Speaker 01 No.
6:33 Speaker 00 To raise a child.
6:35 Speaker 01 Not at all.
6:36 Speaker 00 To raise 16 of them. First of all, I don't know how you can have enough fridge space, enough pantry space to house all the food needed to feed 16 kids.
6:50 Speaker 01 I know. That's a lot. I mean, I think you need like a few side by sides, a couple of deep, deep freezer chest and.
6:57 Speaker 00 Yeah. But you know.
6:59 Speaker 01 Couple stoves.
7:00 Speaker 00 Here again, you know, are we talking about a rich family with a big mansion? No, I don't think we are because there was a lot in the research about how his family members struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. Growing up, Richard never got in trouble with the law. He started working after dropping out of school and he actually became a manager at a Domino's pizza store and then later started managing motels. Knight would say at a later hearing, it may not seem like much, but for a guy with the seventh grade education, it was pretty good.
7:39 Speaker 01 I would say so. Sounds like he found his way.
7:43 Speaker 00 We've talked a lot about people who have dropped out in high school, right? 10th grade, 11th grade. They didn't graduate.
7:50 Speaker 01 Right.
7:50 Speaker 00 Maybe they went back, got their GED later. You know, dropping out in the seventh grade, that's pretty early.
7:56 Speaker 01 It is.
7:57 Speaker 00 I mean, you are definitely missing out on quite a bit of just even high school education. So I think, you know, to be able to rise to the level of manager and hold down a job, it does seem to me that even though.
8:18 Speaker 00 His family was chaotic. There was drug abuse and all that. I think he was doing halfway decent. Maybe compared to others in his family.
8:27 Speaker 01 Oh, for sure.
8:28 Speaker 00 Before he was charged with murder, Richard's worst offense was a traffic ticket.
8:33 Speaker 01 Well, we're all guilty there.
8:35 Speaker 00 Speak for yourself. I have never had a ticket in my life.
8:39 Speaker 01 Never had a ticket?
8:40 Speaker 00 Never.
8:41 Speaker 01 No speeding ticket?
8:42 Speaker 00 Never.
8:43 Speaker 01 Well, you are pretty smooth when they pull you over. So I'm guessing you talk yourself out of them.
8:48 Speaker 00 Yep.
8:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:50 Speaker 00 I, I have my ways.
8:51 Speaker 01 I've seen you unbutton your shirt before. And he's like, you can go ahead and move on, son.
8:57 Speaker 00 Well, sometimes I use that Jedi mind trick. You don't want to give me a ticket. No, I, I just had never had a ticket for whatever reason. In 1995, Richard was hired to manage the best budget inn in Oklahoma City. According to nonprofit news organization, The Intercept, by all accounts, the motel was a dump. It was located just off the interstate on the city's west side. It hosted drunks, drunks fighting, drug dealers, and there were a lot of police drug stings.
9:31 Speaker 01 Sounds like a top choice to stay at.
9:35 Speaker 00 Well, unfortunately, we have a few of these, um, not far off the interstate of the city that, the big city that we live in.
9:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, we do.
9:45 Speaker 00 There, there are some that you would just look at and say, no.
9:50 Speaker 01 No way.
9:51 Speaker 00 You know, I am not taking my family in there. But, you know, let's face it. I don't know how many of those rooms are rented for the entire night? How many of those are rented by the hour?
10:05 Speaker 01 Well, when they give an hour rate.
10:06 Speaker 00 I don't know. Owner Barry Van Trees lived 90 miles away and he owned motels in Tulsa and Weatherford. He relied on Richard to take care of daily operations and he stopped by a couple of times a month to pay staff and check on the property. So, you know. He owns this hotel motel, right? But he's not gonna live there. This is not a great area. He's gonna live 90 miles away from there. And yeah, I'll stop in a couple of times, but hey, I'm not staying long. Here's your check and I'm getting the heck out of here.
10:41 Speaker 01 I'm not even gonna meet you there. Come on down here. That's what I'd say.
10:44 Speaker 00 Richard was paid $1,500 a month, plus room and board. He and his girlfriend, Deanna Wood, lived in the apartment adjacent to the motel office. So, all right, $1,500 a month, you know, is not a lot of money. Even in 1995, that's not a ton of money.
11:04 Speaker 01 It's not.
11:05 Speaker 00 But you're getting free room and board, which does go a long way. On slow nights, Richard locked the front door at 2 a.m. Guests who wanted to check in after that had to ring a buzzer. It wasn't unusual for Richard and Deanna to hear noises outside in the early morning hours. And again, I think that would be kind of tough. It's almost like you're on call 24/7.
11:31 Speaker 01 I don't think I'd like that.
11:33 Speaker 00 What, you wouldn't like living in a dumpy motel?
11:37 Speaker 01 Not only a dumpy, just A, but I just wouldn't like to, you know, knowing that you're basically on 24/7 if you have to be. You'll have a little separation from work and life.
11:50 Speaker 00 Well, you're on 24/7, but for different reasons.
11:53 Speaker 01 Different reasons, yeah. Now, growing up, I had a buddy that him, his dad, mom and sister all lived at the hotel. They managed two big hotel chains.
12:04 Speaker 00 Yeah.
12:05 Speaker 01 And they actually had, it's like three hotel rooms where the walls were open. And they lived in there.
12:11 Speaker 00 So like a little Schitt's Creek type action?
12:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:15 Speaker 00 But nicer.
12:16 Speaker 01 It was pretty cool. I mean, we could go down to the kitchen.
12:19 Speaker 00 Get something to eat.
12:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, anytime you want it, you know, so.
12:22 Speaker 00 So maybe a little different than what, you know, Richard was dealing with here. Because you think about kind of a rundown hotel. And I said it, right? There's a lot of drunks. There were drug dealers. I'm sure there was some prostitution going on as well. You're, you're gonna have a lot of loud, raucous people. It might be hard to sleep. You're gonna hear a lot of noises. There's going to be a lot going on. Richard closed up in the early morning hours of January 7th, 1997, around 4:00 a.m. He was woken up by pounding on the wall outside his apartment. Deanna described it as scraping on the wall.
13:05 Speaker 00 Okay, sounds like something you might see in a horror movie.
13:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:08 Speaker 00 When Richard opened up the door, he saw the maintenance man, 19-year-old Justin Sneak, who had a black eye. According to Richard, Justin said some drunk guest broke a window. Richard told Justin to fix it. Justin denied that the drunk guest caused his black eye, but he did say he ran them off. As Justin walked away, Richard asked, come on, Justin, really? What happened to your eye? According to Richard, Justin looked at him and said, he killed Barry Van Trees. Richard turned to look at the spot by the front office where Barry always parked his car. It wasn't there, so he assumed Barry had not returned from Tulsa.
13:50 Speaker 00 He'd gone there the night before to pay employees at the other motel. Richard thought Justin was messing with him and went back to bed. And we talked about this before, right? Somebody says something to you, and you're like, ah, yeah, this person's just messing around. Now, this is a very serious thing.
14:09 Speaker 01 It is.
14:10 Speaker 00 You know, I just killed the owner, right? The guy that, that you work for, the guy that pays our bills.
14:16 Speaker 01 It's also 4 o'clock in the morning, you're half asleep, you're going, man, I just want to go back to bed. Why are you messing with me right now?
14:24 Speaker 00 Right.
14:25 Speaker 01 Uh, we'll talk about this tomorrow.
14:27 Speaker 00 Authorities know that at 8:30 a.m., Richard and Justin went outside to cover the broken window in room 102 with Plexiglas. Richard then went to his room to take a nap. In the afternoon, he woke up to run errands. He went to the optician to get glasses, and he spent $100 on an engagement ring for his girlfriend, Deanna. Afterwards, he and Deanna went to Walmart together. Now, It's 1997, a hundred dollars even then is not a lot to spend on an engagement ring. No. What do they say, three months salary? Something like that.
15:08 Speaker 00 Obviously, we know he makes more than $300 a month, but he wasn't a guy making a lot of money. Let's, let's face it. Maybe it was just a down payment he put on it, made payments after that. It could have been. Yeah. But it did say he spent a hundred dollars on an engagement ring. That's all it said. It's not how much it costs, it's the, it's the thought. Really? Cause my wife has never subscribed to that there. No. I can tell you that right now. By then Barry's car had been found in a parking lot near the motel. The motel desk clerk called Walmart and asked the store to page Richard. So they paged him, he returned to the motel. Former security guard Cliff Everhart was the first to point the finger at Richard.
15:52 Speaker 00 Everhart also claimed he owned a 1% interest in the hotel. However, Barry Van Trees's widow later testified she had no knowledge of his alleged ownership stake. After Barry's car was found, but before anyone knew where he was. Everhart drove around with Richard and Deanna to search dumpsters. Everhart has since died, but he testified that it was his idea to check dumpsters and surrounding areas for signs of Barry to see if he had wandered off and passed out somewhere. Okay, I get it. Something doesn't seem right, but I don't know if my first inclination is to start searching dumpsters.
16:37 Speaker 00 I don't either. I mean, unless this guy had a past of sleeping in dumpsters. Well, Barry tied one on, he might be in that dumpster down there, like, you know, he likes getting those dumpsters every now and then. You know, those dumpsters are very gross and nasty. They are. I don't know how many people are just going to decide, yeah, I'm just gonna lay it in here.
16:59 Speaker 01 I would pass on that. I mean, I don't know if you ever dumpster dive before I've dumpster dive before because something fell in there that I needed.
17:08 Speaker 00 Uh huh.
17:08 Speaker 01 And I got in there and I'm like, this is disgusting, but I found what I needed.
17:14 Speaker 00 It must have been very important because there's not many things that would cause me to go into one of those nasty dumpsters. Oklahoma Police Sergeant Timothy Brown became involved when he saw the group checking a dumpster by a McDonald's. Everhart then ordered the motel staff to search the rooms. Justin later said he pretended to search.
17:36 Speaker 01 Why would you pretend to search? Too lazy to search or because you know the search isn't going to find anything?
17:44 Speaker 00 Or just lazy? And I really don't know. Around 10:00 PM on January 7th, Sergeant Brown and Cliff Everhart found Barry's body under a pile of bedding in room 102. This was the nicest room in the motel and Barry usually stayed here when he came to the best budget in. Okay, seems like maybe that would be the first place you'd check instead of.
18:10 Speaker 01 All the dumpsters?
18:10 Speaker 00 All the dumpsters? It was said that the walls and carpet were covered in blood. Justin's fingerprints were found all over the room. Justin's DNA was also found on a hundred dollar bill that was stolen from several thousand dollars of motel cash receipts stored under the seat of Barry's vehicle. Well, that doesn't look good for Justin.
18:33 Speaker 01 It doesn't.
18:34 Speaker 00 But if he's a handyman there, could it be pretty easily explained why his fingerprints were found around the room?
18:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, you'd almost expect him to be there.
18:45 Speaker 00 In the aftermath of finding the body, Cliff Everhart told the police that Richard gave inconsistent stories about the last time he saw Barry. Sergeant Timothy Brown said that Richard claimed he last saw Barry in the motel parking lot on the morning of January 7th, when authorities knew he was already dead by then.
19:07 Speaker 01 Going to raise a few eyebrows.
19:08 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, anytime that the police believe you're saying something that can't possibly be true, it's going to bump you up on the list. Now, no one had ever heard Richard or Justin talk about wanting to kill Barry. None of Barry's belongings were found in Richard's possession. There was no forensic evidence linking Richard to the crime. However, the police scrutinized what he did after the murder. Richard sold multiple furniture items suggesting that he was planning to leave town. Deanna Wood later testified at a preliminary hearing that her birthday was in May, and she wanted breast implants, which is why Richard sold their furniture.
19:52 Speaker 00 However, Richard said he did it to pay for an attorney, because a friend warned him not to talk to the police without a lawyer. So we've got some conflicting statements here. You know, I get it. She wants breast implants.
20:06 Speaker 01 So sell your furniture.
20:07 Speaker 00 Which are, from my understanding, quite expensive.
20:10 Speaker 01 Yeah. So why have a couch and a place to sit or even a bed to sleep on? I mean, get those implants because that's what she wants.
20:20 Speaker 00 To go with her hundred dollar ring.
20:21 Speaker 01 Exactly. Sometimes you just have to prioritize. Sometimes you just have to prioritize.
20:27 Speaker 00 And sometimes you have to figure out how to say the word.
20:30 Speaker 01 Yes.
20:31 Speaker 00 Prioritize that. We got it. We understood what you meant. But you know, I was kind of thinking 1997 to today. You know, a hundred dollars, what would that be in today's value? People, people, people, people.
20:47 Speaker 01 Eight hundred dollars.
20:48 Speaker 00 Okay, I think that might be even high, but I don't know. I don't think it would be a lot for an engagement ring today.
20:57 Speaker 01 No.
20:57 Speaker 00 I really don't. Richard was first questioned by the police on January 8th, 1997. And he didn't mention Justin's statement that he killed Barry. He later testified that he wanted to say something, but Deanna told me not to tell anybody until they knew for sure Barry was dead. Deanna later confirmed this in her testimony. And it's such a big thing. Yes. I mean, you have a man who turns up dead, who you say another guy.
21:33 Speaker 00 Justin confessed to his murder, but you don't tell that to the police.
21:38 Speaker 01 It's a problem. It's a problem because it doesn't carry the weight.
21:42 Speaker 00 Later on.
21:43 Speaker 01 Later on, yeah.
21:44 Speaker 00 Richard was arrested on January 9th, leaving a lawyer's office. He had $1,700 on him, which he said came from his recent paycheck, his savings and selling his furniture. The state later claimed that this was half the amount Justin admitted to stealing from Barry's car. It was during his questioning on January 9th when Richard told the police about Justin's confession. So Justin was arrested on January 14th and he confessed to the murder, but he claimed it was all Richard's idea.
22:20 Speaker 01 He said, hey, you're gonna turn me in. I'm gonna bring you in with me. Or maybe it was Richard's idea.
22:26 Speaker 00 Maybe it was. We don't know at this point.
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24:56 Speaker 00 Justin told the police that around 3:30 a.m. on January 7, Richard called him in his motel room and said it was time because Barry had just returned from Tulsa and was in room 102. Richard offered him several thousand dollars and suggested a baseball bat as a weapon. He told Justin that if he didn't do it now, they would both be kicked out of the motel. Justin thought it over. While he went to a nearby gas station to buy a Coke, he later said, "I guess I let my pride get a little bit in the way." And I'm always amazed by some of these statements. That people make.
25:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:37 Speaker 00 When they're talking about killing someone, taking someone's life to say, I guess I let my pride get a little bit in the way.
25:47 Speaker 01 A little? Yeah. Try a lot. But hey, at least you thought it over while you drank a Coke.
25:53 Speaker 00 Yeah. Get a Coke before you do the deed. Justin admitted that he entered room 102 with his master keys and attacked Barry with the bat. Barry fought back and knocked him backwards, which broke the window. Justin overpowered and beat him to death. The medical examiner determined Barry suffered nine blows to the head. So, you know, this does a couple of things, right? It explains the broken window.
26:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:20 Speaker 00 First of all, it probably also explains maybe Justin's black eye.
26:26 Speaker 01 It does.
26:27 Speaker 00 That most likely occurred during the struggle. Justin acknowledged going to Richard's apartment and confessing to the murder, but he insisted that Richard was expecting him. He claimed Richard had been pressuring him for months to kill Barry. Justin later agreed to plead guilty to first degree murder. He was spared the death penalty in exchange for his testimony against Richard. Richard was charged with first degree murder and the prosecution sought the death penalty. I mean, let's just stop and think about this for a minute. Now, I'm not saying that Richard is innocent, but as we said right up front, Richard has maintained his innocence.
27:09 Speaker 01 Right.
27:10 Speaker 00 Let's say that it did kind of go down the way that Richard has said, in that Justin committed the murder and kind of brought him in to it after the fact. It wouldn't be that hard to do, really, if you think about it.
27:27 Speaker 01 No, it wouldn't be.
27:29 Speaker 00 Because Justin knew that Richard was there on sight.
27:32 Speaker 01 But he must really have a dislike for Richard to pull him into this.
27:36 Speaker 00 Or did he know that he was going down? And as you've often said, the first one to make a deal reaps the benefit.
27:47 Speaker 01 Well, for sure.
27:48 Speaker 00 So. He's going to get life, but he's not going to get the death penalty. Why is that? Because he made a deal agreeing to testify against Richard at trial. Yeah. So. Saved his own skin. You could make an argument that he really benefited from bringing Richard into the, the plot to kill Barry. Well, he gets to live. Yeah. Where Richard presumably is, if convicted, going to die. Right. Richard's trial began on June 3rd, 1998. The defense argued, Richard was a victim of a conspiracy to make him a scapegoat in the murder, while the prosecution painted Richard as the mastermind.
28:33 Speaker 00 Shocking that the prosecution and defense have differing ideas of what happened. Think that happens often. Yeah, I think it's every trial. As a motel manager, Richard knew Barry picked up large amounts of cash to deposit when he came to check on the property. Richard promised Justin that Barry would have up to $37,000 on him. However, when Justin killed Barry, he found just 3,600, which he and Richard split. The prosecution described Justin as a desperate sort of a 19-year-old young man. He depended on Richard for everything, including meals.
29:15 Speaker 00 Justin was not paid for his work at the motel, but he did get room and board. Okay. Wow. Working for free. Sorta. Sorta. You get a bed and a place to shower. And apparently some meals. And yeah, depend on whatever they had in the fridge that day. He came to Oklahoma from Texas with a crew of roofers. Justin testified that he had enough money from that job to sustain his use of marijuana and meth. He also worked side gigs to support himself and did not entirely rely on Richard. So he has a little bit in common with you. You also work a number of side gigs. I do. To help support yourself.
30:00 Speaker 00 As far as I know, you're not big on the marijuana and meth. Do not do meth. Okay. But the side gigs, for sure. Oh, side gigs are important. You have a number of side hustles. The prosecution argued that Richard was going to be fired because of financial shortages at the motel and alleged he embezzled money to avoid being fired and to secure a managerial position at the Tulsa motel, Richard planned to kill Barry and convince his widow to let him run the business. And I get it, right? This is what the prosecution is putting forth as a motive for the murder.
30:41 Speaker 00 We have seen people make the decision to kill for, you know, just all kinds of different reasons. Oh, for dollars. Yes. This does not seem to be, you know, one of those really big windfalls, right? He's not getting a million dollars. He is going to what? Keep his managerial job where he makes $1,500 a month? I don't know. People have killed for less, so you can't, you know, completely dismiss it. Accounting records showed a $6,100 shortage at the Oklahoma City motel at the end of
31:26 Speaker 00 1996. More detailed records requested by the defense were destroyed in a flood. However, Richard received a bonus 11 out of 12 months in 1996 as a reward for bringing in business above the income baseline set by Barry. That says something, right? He was hustling, getting more income in that Barry wanted. And no other employees or long-term guests were aware that Barry was unhappy with Richard's performance. So if all that is true, then, you know, does that motive make even less sense?
32:07 Speaker 00 Because he's not worried about losing his job.
32:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, if he's performing and Barry's happy with the amount of money he's bringing in, why would you want to get rid of that individual?
32:19 Speaker 00 Yeah, this is the guy giving you the bonuses.
32:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:22 Speaker 00 However, Barry's brother Ken Van Trees testified that Richard was about to be fired. According to the Daily Oklahomans 1998 trial coverage, despite Justin's confession, Richard's defense attorney Wayne Fornarat proposed alternative suspects without any evidence. Twice during trial, he told the judge, "It would be in Richard's best interest to take a blind plea."
32:51 Speaker 01 That sounds like a really bad idea.
32:53 Speaker 00 Hmm, also sounds like a bad idea.
32:55 Speaker 01 That too.
32:56 Speaker 00 Again, is this an attorney who is seeing that this case is not going well? Or is he just giving really bad advice to his client? Richard took the stand and denied any involvement in the murder. Justin was the prosecution's star witness. Their case was primarily based on his testimony. And I think those are very tough cases. You know, where you have so very little evidence and you're relying on the testimony of one person. And in this case, that one person happens to be the person who actually committed the murder. That's a tough one.
33:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, you would think you would want something more solid if you're going to convict somebody to death.
33:49 Speaker 00 Justin told the court, "Every time that Mr. Van Trees showed up at the best budget end, Richard was wanting me to kill him every time."
33:59 Speaker 01 Every month.
34:00 Speaker 00 Hey, you're going to kill him?
34:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:02 Speaker 00 Hey, you're going to kill him this time?
34:04 Speaker 01 Today's the day.
34:05 Speaker 00 He gave different explanations for why Richard wanted Barry dead. He said, "Richard was trying to tell me that with Mr. Van Trees out of the way, he might be able to con the wife of the deceased into letting him run both of the motels." He also said that Richard offered to let him manage one of the motels. So kind of an incentive, right, to to get this done.
34:31 Speaker 01 You do this, I'll oversee both hotels, but you're running this one, buddy. You're being charged. You'll be the man.
34:37 Speaker 00 According to Justin, Richard was worried that Barry, who showed up on January 6th, with plans to examine all 52 rooms for repairs and renovations, would find out he wasn't doing a good job maintaining the property and would fire it.
34:54 Speaker 01 Well, if you're not doing your job, you would be fired, right?
34:57 Speaker 00 I mean, Yeah, but doesn't it also contradict the fact that nobody seemed to think that, you know, Barry had a problem with Richard? You know, 11 out of the previous 12 months, he'd actually gotten a bonus.
35:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:12 Speaker 00 Daytime desk clerk Billy Hooper, who has since died, testified that after she came into work on the morning of January 7th, Richard told her that Barry left an hour earlier, most likely to get breakfast or materials for renovating the rooms. Richard told her Barry stayed in room 108 the night before, and he rented room 102 out to some drunk guests who broke the window. She thought this was strange because 102 was the nicest room and Barry was a teetotaler and didn't like people who drank at all.
35:49 Speaker 01 So it is strange. Why tell her that? That you rented the room to some drunks instead of that Barry rented the room out to some drunks?
35:58 Speaker 00 If what Billy Hooper said was true, that does not make Richard look good. You know, with 102 being the nicest, why wouldn't Barry just stay there and rent room 108 out to these drunks? You know, if that's what he wanted to do. Is it because he had to try to craft an explanation for this broken window?
36:20 Speaker 01 Maybe.
36:21 Speaker 00 Richard also told her to leave room 102 off the housekeeping list because he and Justin were going to take care of the window. Now, Richard denied saying any of this to Billy Hooper and Justin testified that he was the one who told the housekeeper to ignore room 102. So there's a, there's conflict all over the place when it comes to who said what, what was said. Richard said he and Billy had a decent relationship until she got injured on the job and was unable to work for a while. During that time, he ran the motel alone. Barry told him he was going to put Billy back on the payroll, even though she wasn't back at work and he scoffed.
37:06 Speaker 00 When she returned, their relationship was not the same. So I, I think you're kind of getting the idea that maybe she was upset with Richard, wanted to get back at him. At least that's maybe what Richard is putting out.
37:20 Speaker 01 Sounds like it.
37:21 Speaker 00 Richard has also denied telling anyone. He saw Barry on the morning of January 7th. He testified that people misinterpreted his statement, that he saw Barry around seven o'clock. He saw Barry around 7:50 PM on January 6th, not 7:00 AM on January 7th.
37:42 Speaker 01 Well, that's a difference.
37:43 Speaker 00 It's a big difference, right? It's a essentially 12 hour difference. On June 10th, 1998, Richard Glossip was found guilty of first degree murder. The following day, the jury voted for the death penalty after just 75 minutes of deliberation.
38:01 Speaker 01 Pretty quick.
38:02 Speaker 00 That seems very quick, especially for, you know, voting to put someone to death.
38:10 Speaker 01 Sounds like they were pretty convinced.
38:12 Speaker 00 And, and based on a lot of the statements, and I think on some of the testimony, it did make Richard look guilty. The question is, you know, were all of these people telling the truth? Cause you know, we've said it before, right? The jury can only go by the evidence that is presented in court. If you have a couple of people who are lying and the jury is relying on those statements as, as being truthful, well.
38:41 Speaker 00 You can convict someone that is not guilty. Yeah. Who didn't commit the offense. We're not saying that's what happened, but that's how it could happen. ADA Fern Smith said, per the Daily Oklahoman, "Glossip was more culpable than Sneed, because he was the mastermind. But for Glossip, Sneed would not have done what he did." And you actually do see that in many cases, right? You have the person who carries out the murder. You know, maybe they're the shooter, the stabber, the strangler, whatever the means of murder are. But then you have the person who actually set them in motion. The mastermind.
39:25 Speaker 00 The mastermind. And a lot of times, those people are held, at the very least, to the same standard and oftentimes to a higher, more severe standard. Well, it's because the murder most likely would have never happened. And that's what, you know, the prosecution is saying in this one. On July 17, 2001, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals made a unanimous decision to vacate Richard's conviction and death sentence. The court ordered a new trial, agreeing with the findings of a judge who reviewed the case at the court's request. The court ruled that there was credible
40:04 Speaker 00 evidence to show at least one Bible was brought into the jury room and may have well been referred to in and during jury deliberations. Okay, I think that is a first for me. I mean, I've heard of a number of reasons for someone getting a new trial. Sure. I don't think I've ever heard of it being because someone brought a Bible into the jury room during deliberations. I have never heard it either. Interesting, though. As reported by the Daily Oklahoman, the court said, "It was not deciding the case by concluding
40:45 Speaker 00 that using the Bible constituted an improper influence on the deliberations. However, we are compelled to caution trial courts to remind jurors they are to utilize only the jury instructions and consider only the evidence presented at trial in arriving at their determinations of guilt and sentence."
41:06 Speaker 01 And now go off what the Bible says, I guess.
41:08 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think that's what they're saying. The court also found that no forensic evidence linked Richard to the crime. And the evidence presented to support Justin Sneed's testimony was quote, extremely weak. However, the court did not need to make a finding on the evidence because trial counsel's conduct was so ineffective that we have no confidence that a reliable adversarial proceeding took place.
41:36 Speaker 01 Wow, that is saying a lot.
41:38 Speaker 00 I mean, they're basically coming out and saying, you know, his counsel was dog shit.
41:44 Speaker 01 Right.
41:44 Speaker 00 Essentially, and that's on top of someone, you know, bringing the Bible into the jury deliberations. The court found that trial attorney Wayne Fornera failed to introduce Justin's videotaped confession as evidence and failed to use the tape to cross examine Justin in one of his interrogators.
42:07 Speaker 01 It's like law 101.
42:09 Speaker 00 Yeah. I mean, that's a kind of, you know, one of the biggest things in these types of trials where you have a videotaped confession. Well, what's on there? What did Justin say? And what did he say? Maybe that wasn't captured by the camera. You know, that's often what you see in some of these older trials. You find out that, yeah, they had 45 minutes worth of videotaped confession.
42:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:38 Speaker 00 But they had 11 hours worth of interrogation before they turned the tape on. Well, what happened during that?
42:45 Speaker 01 Exactly.
42:49 Speaker 00 As reported by The Intercept, during the interrogation, Detective Bob Bemo told Justin that before he decided whether or not to waive his rights. I want you to hear some of the things that we've got to say to you. Justin was read his rights and then BMO said, we know this involves more than just you. Okay. Justin said he didn't know what to say about what happened to Barry. BMO replied, everybody is saying you're the one that did this and you did it by yourself. And I don't believe that you know, Rich is under arrest, don't you? Well, Justin wasn't aware of this. BMO replied, so he's the one, he's putting it on you the worst.
43:33 Speaker 00 BMO said that if Justin didn't want to talk about anyone else's involvement, he would book him for murder and you would be facing this thing on your own. And I don't think it's just you. And that's when Justin confessed and then blamed Richard. Kind of a strange sequence. It is, but you know, here again, this is what you see in many of these interrogations. Right? The police often lie and they can lie. You know, higher courts have ruled that they can. Yeah. If it helps them eventually get a conviction. But here's the thing, Gibbs, if you're the defense attorney, if you're the, the Matlock,
44:15 Speaker 00 right? Wouldn't you want to put that interrogator, BMO on the stand? And just pepper him with questions. Oh, all day long. And you want to kind of expose the tactics used to the jury. And I think what the court was saying is that, you know, Richard's counsel was ineffective because they didn't do any of that. No, and they should have. Now, if Justin had come in right from the beginning and said, hey, yeah, I did it. Richard and I were both involved. He was the mastermind, but that's not the way it happened. It was like he was led. Yeah. He only implicated Richard after he was kind of led down that path.
45:00 Speaker 00 By BMO is, is the way it seemed. Richard declined a plea deal offer before his 2004 retrial. During the trial, Barry's brother Kenneth Van Trees testified that the motel account shortages were insignificant and wouldn't have worried Barry because the Oklahoma City motel was profitable. So again, that, you know, to me, that goes back to, all right, were there shortages? You can have shortages in any type of business, especially a cash based business. People make mistakes. They give the wrong change back, whatever. But he's saying they were insignificant.
45:42 Speaker 00 It was making money, which kind of goes back to why Richard was getting all these bonuses month after month.
45:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, he was sitting and going above his target.
45:53 Speaker 00 Much of the evidence presented by the prosecution was the same, although there were some discrepancies in Justin Sneed's testimony. And you would think that would be a bad thing. Right? Why would there be discrepancies? Did it not happen the way you said it happened the first time?
46:12 Speaker 01 What happens when you lie?
46:14 Speaker 00 On June 1st, 2004, Richard Glossip was convicted of first degree murder for the second time and the jury once again voted for the death penalty. Richard's lawyers failed to introduce Justin Sneed's interrogation video at the 2004 trial.
46:31 Speaker 01 How's that happen?
46:32 Speaker 00 I don't know. However, in subsequent appeals, the court found that the decision was part of a valid defense strategy. So they're basically saying, hey, obviously they knew that the court had previously ruled his prior counsel ineffective because of this reason, but part of their strategy became not to introduce it for whatever reason.
46:57 Speaker 01 It just doesn't make sense to me.
46:59 Speaker 00 No, me neither, but there are times when a defense attorney.
47:05 Speaker 00 Makes a calculated decision. They don't want to introduce something because then that opens up something else that could be damaging, right, to their client. I don't know what that would be. But we talk about Justin's kind of inconsistencies. His story's changed between 1997, 1998, and 2004. During the first trial, Justin said Richard offered him $7,000 to kill Barry, but the money under Barry's car seat was only 4,000, and he and Richard split it. At the 2004 trial, he testified that Richard offered him up to $10,000.
47:46 Speaker 00 Every time he spoke to Richard about killing Barry, the amount increased.
47:51 Speaker 01 That's a pretty sizable difference.
47:54 Speaker 00 Well, and it's also a lot of money compared to, I think, where, you know, Richard was in his life. And we talked about his $1,500 a month salary, right? He bought a $100 engagement ring. This was not a guy who had a ton of money, I don't think. Now, someone could make the argument that, as Justin said, Richard knew there might be a bunch of cash inside the hotel room, and that's where he was going to get the money to pay Justin. In 1997, Justin said that Richard instructed him to cover up the broken window with Plexiglas.
48:37 Speaker 00 However, at both trials, he added that Richard told them to get trash bags, a hacksaw, and acid.
48:44 Speaker 01 So now Justin's bringing in the fact that they need to get a hacksaw, some trash bags, some acid to dispose of the body?
48:50 Speaker 00 Yeah. What else could you assume that that would be used for? At the retrial, Justin testified that when Richard went to room 102 with him to make sure Barry was dead, Richard opened Barry's wallet, pulled out a $100 bill, and put it in his pocket. But no forensic evidence supported this claim. And to me, Gibbs, this is a big part of this case. There really was no forensic evidence tying Richard to the crime. Now, if you're the mastermind...
49:23 Speaker 00 Does that mean you're likely to leave forensic evidence? Maybe not, because you just put it in motion. You weren't actually at the scene. Yeah, well, that makes sense. In 1997, Justin claimed he'd only met Barry a couple of times. In 2004, he recounted an incident where he went to the boiler room to fix a TV with Richard and Barry, while Barry was crouched down with his back to them. Richard asked him repeatedly to do it right now. Why don't I just take that little hammer and knock him over the head with it? He said Richard told him to kill Barry five or six times, but Barry became paranoid and left the room. Well, you know, I don't know if Barry's in within earshot.
50:08 Speaker 00 It sounds like he would have been. Yeah. I think that would make you paranoid. Do it now. Yeah. Do it now. I think I'm done here. Also at the retrial, Justin testified that he had no idea. Richard was arrested when he made his 1997 confession. However, the interrogation transcript proves this is a lie because the detective told him Richard was arrested. So he's not a truthful person. No, I, I think what all of this really highlights are the inconsistencies in Justin's statements between, you know, the, the different trials. Over the years, Richard had acknowledged that he shouldn't have ignored Justin's statement about killing Barry.
50:52 Speaker 00 He regrets not telling the police the first time he was questioned. He maintains he was not involved in the murder in any way. Richard told The Intercept about an incident with Justin that he didn't mention during his 1998 testimony. He said when Barry came to Oklahoma City, a month before he was murdered, Barry told Richard he woke up one morning to find Justin standing in his room, just staring at him. Justin left quickly. Richard suggested firing Justin, but Barry waved it off. You know, and to me, Gibbs, these cases are so tough because, you know, what you have are people saying all of these things.
51:35 Speaker 00 But a lot of the times, the person who could back it up is the victim. Obviously, in this case, that's true. And in some of them, there's just no way to corroborate that what the person says is true. So I think if you're a juror, you're just weighing all this stuff. You're trying to figure out which statements are true, which statements are not true.
52:00 Speaker 01 That can be tough.
52:00 Speaker 00 That can be very tough. Richard also said there was no reason for him to kill Barry because if he was after money, he could have just stolen from him. He regularly stored large amounts of cash for weeks before Barry came to collect it. He could have taken the money and fled if he wanted to.
52:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, that kind of makes sense, but if you were skimming off the top this whole time and just giving Barry what Barry thought was a decent amount, but it wasn't everything, and maybe Barry found out that it should be more, that could have been a reason.
52:35 Speaker 00 It could have been, but even as Barry's own brother said, the shortages were insignificant.
52:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:41 Speaker 00 And Barry didn't have a problem. In October 2014, Justin Sneed's daughter, Orion Justine Sneed, wrote a letter to the Oklahoma Pardon and Prol Board stating that she strongly believes Richard is innocent. She wrote, "For a couple of years now, my father has been talking to me about recanning his original testimony. I feel his conscience is getting to him." The letter never got to the board because it arrived too late for Richard's attorneys to submit it. And I think that's huge.
53:17 Speaker 01 I think so, too.
53:18 Speaker 00 I mean, this is not someone in Richard's family. This is Justin's daughter, basically saying, "My dad didn't tell the truth."
53:28 Speaker 00 And he's admitted it to me. Therefore, I know Richard is not guilty. Which you would think would at least demand a review. Yeah, or consideration by the parole board, something. Richard was the lead plaintiff in Glossop versus Gross, which challenged Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol. On June 29th, 2015, the US Supreme Court upheld the use of lethal injection in Oklahoma, ruling that executions carried out with the three-drug protocol did not violate the Eighth Amendment.
54:06 Speaker 00 It was a five to four majority decision. In September 2015, Richard's defense team presented evidence that Justin Sneed was addicted to meth at the time of the murder and habitually broke into vehicles in the motel parking lot during his employment. Well, you know, one reason why someone might kill to get their hands on a bunch of money? Drugs. Drugs. They're addicted to drugs. The defense interviewed Richard Allen Barrett, one of Justin's former drug dealers, who also said he sold meth with Richard's brother Bobby Glossop
54:45 Speaker 00 in 1995 and 1996. In September 1996, Barrett began meeting with Bobby in room 102 at the Best Budget Inn where Barry was murdered. During this time, Barrett met Justin. Barrett said that each time he came to the motel, Justin was purchasing and using drugs. Well, there's no doubt we, we know Justin was using. Yeah. The question is, did he make the decision to kill Barry solely on his own, without any influence from Richard, or were they in it together? That's really the question. Sure.
55:27 Speaker 00 This guy, Richard Allen Barrett, said that Richard Glossip would occasionally come to room 102 to see his brother. He mostly came to tell the men to be quiet. Bobby Glossop was not kind to Richard and frequently told him to stay out of his business.
55:44 Speaker 01 It's like a kind of a jerk.
55:46 Speaker 00 And it also maybe points to the, the fact that Richard wasn't involved in all of this stuff.
55:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:53 Speaker 00 Maybe his brother didn't want him to be. The defense team also had a report from Richard Leo, an expert on false confessions. Leo's report stated that police interrogators fed Justin the theory that Richard was the mastermind of the murder and put pressure on him to implicate Richard. These tactics increase the risk of false confession.
56:17 Speaker 01 Well, we kind of went over what the, uh, police interrogator, what the police interrogator said.
56:23 Speaker 00 Yeah. And, and you see it time and time again, right? When something is proven to be a false confession, you know, what were the tactics used to elicit the confession? You know, I think I mentioned to you on Patreon, Gibbs, that I went back and I watched the, the Paradise Lost series.
56:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:43 Speaker 00 Ah, forgot how good that was. But you know, when you, you talk about, uh, Ms. Kelly kind of giving his statement to police that's saying he was involved, but also implicating the other two boys. And then you have people on there kind of breaking down how the interrogators got him to do that. You know, first he said it was like in the morning and then they said, well, what time did you get there that night?
57:12 Speaker 01 Right.
57:13 Speaker 00 You know what I'm saying? At first he said he got there at nine and then I think he said maybe noon. And then later on they had, they had him saying it was like seven o'clock at night. Because they just, they knew what he was saying couldn't be correct. So they had to get him to a point that could be plausible.
57:34 Speaker 01 And it fit the, fit the puzzle.
57:36 Speaker 00 That year, the police also released a 1999 report showing that a box of evidence was marked for destruction. The report was never given to the attorneys who represented Richard in his second trial or his appeals. Okay. What was in this box of evidence?
57:54 Speaker 01 I'm sure the defense wished they had it.
57:57 Speaker 00 Richard's execution was set for September 16th, 2015. But hours before the execution, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted a two-week reprieve to review Richard's claims of new innocence, including another inmate's claim that he overheard Justin Sneed admit to framing Richard.
58:18 Speaker 01 Well, that's interesting. Now, we know because it's another inmate saying it, you can't take it full, full face value.
58:26 Speaker 00 Yeah. I mean, I, I do think by and large inmates come forward because they're looking for something. And oftentimes they're willing to say just about anything, you know, if they think they can get a reduced sentence, if they think they can get a pack of ramen or, you know, back in the day, a carton of smokes or
58:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:48 Speaker 00 strawberry milkshake.
58:50 Speaker 01 Okay.
58:50 Speaker 00 They put it on anybody. But by and large, I think for the most part inmates are hoping to get time shaved off their sentence. I mean, if you were in prison, Gibbs, what would you not do to get a shorter sentence, to get out of prison earlier?
59:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, you almost do about anything.
59:08 Speaker 00 I think a lot of people would. On September 22nd, 2015, the defense filed papers referring to a July 1997 psychiatric evaluation of Justin Sneed where he said he understood he was charged with murder in connection with a burglary and made no reference to Richard's involvement. On September 23rd, the defense filed papers asserting that two witnesses were being intimidated. One witness claimed Justin laughed about lying in court and another said that based on his conversations with Justin, he acted alone. The Attorney General's Office responded on the 24th, arguing the new witnesses were inherently suspect.
59:53 Speaker 00 And again, I mean, you can't be hypocritical and say that some of Justin's testimony, which was not able to be corroborated, is true or false and not saying the same thing about, you know, these witnesses coming forward now.
1:00:09 Speaker 01 Right.
1:00:10 Speaker 00 Who knows who's telling the truth. But I think what it does do is, is kind of Make you wonder, you know, was there more to this than, you know, how it played out at trial?
1:00:23 Speaker 01 Seems like there was.
1:00:25 Speaker 00 On September 28th, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals voted to proceed with execution. On September 30th, 2015, the Supreme Court refused to block the execution. As prison officials prepared to go through with it, Governor Mary Fowler issued a 37 day stay. After it was found, the DOC received the wrong drug. And I do know there was a point in time, I don't know if it was 2015 or not, but you know, there, there was a, a few years there where they were having trouble getting the drugs. They were, some places had the wrong drugs. There were lethal injections that were not taking place.
1:01:10 Speaker 01 Definitely causing some problems.
1:01:11 Speaker 00 Yeah, it caused problems, but you know, let's go back to knowing that you're going to die on a certain day. And then you get a reprieve. In this case, it's 37 days. Gibbs, you know, you have 37 more days to live. I don't know how someone processes that.
1:01:30 Speaker 01 I don't either.
1:01:31 Speaker 00 Now, if Richard had something to do with the murder, then I'm not all that worried about it.
1:01:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, you don't care. Why would you care?
1:01:38 Speaker 00 If he's a, an innocent man, boy, it really makes it tough, right? To think about knowing that you're going to die in 37 days.
1:01:52 Speaker 00 On October 2nd, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals put all executions on indefinite hold for an inquiry into execution procedures. The moratorium ended on September 20th, 2021, when the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals scheduled seven executions. In March 2022, Richard married anti-death penalty advocate Leah Rogers. He was 59 at the time. She was 32. It's quite a disparity in age.
1:02:24 Speaker 01 It is.
1:02:25 Speaker 00 Something. Sounds like a relationship you might have.
1:02:30 Speaker 01 Kind of close, just a little bit smaller gap.
1:02:33 Speaker 00 And this was Richard's second marriage. In 2018, he married a New Jersey woman named Leah Joy Jurisic. She was 21 at the time. They divorced in 2021. She later said she believes Richard took advantage of her, and she regrets the marriage. The AP quoted her as saying, "I am older, wiser, and have learned a lot. Since my marriage ended, I could not be more happy to be on the other side of that."
1:03:04 Speaker 01 I bet.
1:03:05 Speaker 00 You also made the decision to marry a man on death row.
1:03:08 Speaker 01 Exactly. I mean, I'm really sure how he took advantage of her while he was on death row.
1:03:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, there was nothing in the research that was that, you know, detailed to say how she thought he took advantage of her. But we talk a lot about, you know, why would somebody marry a person in prison? And sometimes those people are serial killers that, you know, I don't understand at all.
1:03:34 Speaker 01 Sure, yeah.
1:03:34 Speaker 00 Now, you're talking about this Leah Roger, who is an anti-death penalty advocate. And I'm sure she was probably working on Richard's case or something to that effect, and believed completely in her heart that he wasn't guilty.
1:03:52 Speaker 01 Well, and sometimes when you're working so close with somebody, emotions are there.
1:03:56 Speaker 00 Yeah, you could develop a bond.
1:03:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, you could.
1:03:59 Speaker 00 In 2021, state legislators commissioned the Texas law firm Reed Smith to conduct an independent review of Richard's case. Reed Smith spent over a year conducting the investigation, interviewing over 40 witnesses, gathering records, and producing reports. The final report was released on June 15, 2022. The firm determined...
1:04:25 Speaker 00 No reasonable jury would have convicted Richard Glossip.
1:04:29 Speaker 01 Well, that's a big finding.
1:04:31 Speaker 00 It is a huge finding. I'm also amazed that, you know, the state is going to this length. Cause you don't see that very often, right? Normally what you see is the state kind of fighting to keep the conviction.
1:04:50 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:04:51 Speaker 00 But here, it seemed like some people had some real concerns about putting this guy to death.
1:04:58 Speaker 01 So before we move forward, let's make sure we're in a good spot, guys. And it sounds like now they have to consider, are they really in a good spot moving forward? I don't think so.
1:05:08 Speaker 00 Well, according to this independent law firm, no, they're not. But that is what you want to see, right? You don't want someone put to death. If there are any concerns about that person's guilt. During the review, Reed Smith discovered that Justin Sneed was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed lithium while incarcerated. At trial, he testified that he had never seen a psychiatrist. His attorneys were not made aware of his condition. The former prosecutor appointed to review the case wrote, "The state's murder case against Glossip was not particularly strong
1:05:49 Speaker 00 and would have been, in my view, weaker if full discovery had been provided." And I think, you know, that's a sentiment argued by a lot of defense attorneys. Right? If, if we'd have known about this or that.
1:06:05 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:06:05 Speaker 00 Because it sometimes does come out years later that something was withheld. You know, maybe it constitutes a Brady violation, maybe it doesn't. But it's something that the defense team thinks they could have worked with if they had known about it during a trial.
1:06:24 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, it changes your whole game plan.
1:06:26 Speaker 00 It could. On July 1st, 2022, Richard was one of 25 inmates scheduled for execution. His execution date was set for September 22nd. In August, 71 lawmakers urged the Oklahoma Attorney General to support Richard's request for a new hearing. And again, I'm kind of blown away by this, Gibbs. This is not what we normally see, that you have a number of legislators, lawmakers, kind of viewing this as a real concern. And at the very least, they're supporting a new hearing with all the facts laid out
1:07:09 Speaker 00 there, maybe to feel better about whatever decision is made.
1:07:14 Speaker 01 I mean, there seems to be a lot of uncertainty.
1:07:19 Speaker 00 Which is the last thing you want when somebody is about ready to be put to death.
1:07:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, you should feel really good about the court's decision to move forward with it. And if you don't, I think you gotta stop and pause and kind of figure it out.
1:07:33 Speaker 00 Which sounds like what they're doing. On August 16th, the governor granted Richard a 60-day stay of execution. So this is number three, right? He's had three different execution dates, and this is his third stay. That month, the firm Reed Smith cited the need for an evidentiary hearing and released new evidence, including a 2,000 letter from Justin Snead, implying his testimony was a mistake.
1:08:02 Speaker 01 It's a big piece right there.
1:08:03 Speaker 00 Yeah, it could be. Snead wrote to public defender Gina Walker, "First off, before I get too deep into this letter, I need to know if you're still there, like, work there still. There are a lot of things right now that are eating at me. Some things I need to clean up. If I can't get into contact with you or anyone who gets your mail, I'm going to try to contact the indigent defense over his case or the DA's. I think you know where I'm going. It was a mistake reliving. Please write me back so I can talk to you further." So, I mean, to me, Gibbs, it's clear. He wants to tell her something. He wants to
1:08:45 Speaker 00 get something off his chest that has to do with Richard's case. The public defender responded and suggested that if he recanted his story, he would face the death penalty.
1:08:57 Speaker 01 So is that a, that's good, you want to tell the truth? And you should, but FYI, if you do...
1:09:03 Speaker 00 This could happen to you.
1:09:04 Speaker 01 This could happen to you. Just full disclosure.
1:09:07 Speaker 00 Which, let's be fair...
1:09:10 Speaker 00 If he did lie, it was probably the reason why he lied in the first place. Because he didn't get the death penalty because of his cooperation.
1:09:19 Speaker 01 Right.
1:09:20 Speaker 00 On November 3rd, 2022, Richard was granted another stay to allow the Court of Criminal Appeals to address his pending proceedings. His execution was rescheduled for February 16th, 2023. But then in January of 23, his execution was rescheduled to May 18th of that year. And, you know, we talked about it a little bit, but, you know, these dates of when you're being told you're going to be put to death.
1:09:51 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:09:52 Speaker 00 What a roller coaster ride.
1:09:53 Speaker 01 Oh, man.
1:09:55 Speaker 00 I mean, even for a guilty person, it would be a roller coaster ride for a person who claims they're innocent and let's just say is innocent. That would be really tough.
1:10:07 Speaker 01 It would be.
1:10:08 Speaker 00 In March 2023, Oklahoma Attorney General Getner Drummond announced they would seek to stay the execution to allow an independent counsel to review the case. Drummond does not believe Richard is completely innocent and is guilty of at least accessory after the fact for his failure to tell detectives about Justin Sneed's statements. Drummond does not believe Richard is guilty of first degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt. This is the Attorney General.
1:10:39 Speaker 01 That's pretty big.
1:10:40 Speaker 00 Saying, I don't think this guy on death row is guilty of first degree murder. On April 6th, 2023, due to evidence of serious prosecutorial misconduct revealed by the independent review, Attorney General Drummond filed a motion asking the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to call off the execution, vacate the conviction, and grant Richard a new trial. Drummond conceded that prosecutors violated their constitutional duties when they used false evidence and suppressed other evidence.
1:11:15 Speaker 01 This is big.
1:11:17 Speaker 00 This is huge, and I think it's what should scare the shit out of everyone. The idea, or even the thought, that you could be charged and convicted based on things that are not true.
1:11:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:11:34 Speaker 00 That is a very scary thought.
1:11:36 Speaker 01 So the highest law enforcement individual for the state of Oklahoma is saying, we didn't do this right, folks. We need to pull back, reexamine it, and do a new trial.
1:11:49 Speaker 00 And I will say this, I applaud him for that, because we've seen it time and time again, Gibbs, where, you know, it's like, people don't want to admit that mistakes were made, even if it was by their predecessors. But that doesn't seem like what happened here.
1:12:10 Speaker 01 Right.
1:12:11 Speaker 00 Drummond wrote in his brief, as quoted by the Equal Justice Initiative, "The prospect of executing an individual based on a conviction that the state's chief law enforcement officer believes, after careful scrutiny, was secured by prosecutorial misconduct in violation of due process, is all but unthinkable. Our system of justice places awesome powers and responsibilities in the hands of prosecutors. When those prosecutors themselves recognize that they have overstepped, that judgment cannot be dismissed as just another litigation position."
1:12:50 Speaker 01 Well said.
1:12:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think it's very well said. It's also something that, you know, we've talked about before. Are prosecutors out to seek the truth? Or are they out to convict at all costs?
1:13:08 Speaker 01 Sometimes it seems like they are.
1:13:10 Speaker 00 And, yeah, to me, that is the wrong way to go about it. Now, sometimes they might believe that a person is truly guilty, but if they have evidence that contradicts that, and it's suppressed, I mean, that is just so blatantly wrong.
1:13:27 Speaker 01 I mean, you've had two independent firms, look at the case, both citing the same. Then you have the top law enforcement person for Oklahoma backing that up. I mean, that should carry a lot of weight.
1:13:43 Speaker 00 Yeah, it should. But on April 20th, 2023, the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the Attorney General's motion and confirmed the May 18th execution date.
1:13:55 Speaker 01 Wow, that's just a shocker.
1:13:58 Speaker 00 Drummond issued a statement per the EJI. While I respect the Court of Criminal Appeals opinion, I'm not willing to allow an execution to proceed, despite so many doubts. Ensuring the integrity of the death penalty demands complete certainty. I will thoroughly review the ruling and consider what steps should be taken to ensure justice. And I'm liking this guy. I am because he's basically saying, I hear what you're saying, but I'm going to figure out a way to not allow this execution to go through.
1:14:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, he said it perfectly, right? I mean, if we're going to, if we want to keep the integrity of the death penalty where it's at, we need to make sure.
1:14:43 Speaker 00 It's deserved.
1:14:43 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:14:44 Speaker 00 I mean, there's no way around it.
1:14:47 Speaker 01 And I don't think, no matter what side of the fence you're on, you can't really feel good about the direction this is headed right now.
1:14:55 Speaker 00 No, no. I mean, obviously, if you're anti-death penalty, this is just another reason.
1:15:01 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:15:01 Speaker 00 To be against it. But even if you're for the death penalty.
1:15:04 Speaker 01 Right.
1:15:05 Speaker 00 Or you're okay with it.
1:15:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:15:07 Speaker 00 You can't be okay with a person who is innocent or even potentially innocent to be sent off to be killed. You can't be okay with that.
1:15:20 Speaker 01 Think you just got to pull back the reins and say, okay, let's dive back into the skin. Let's make sure, double check, triple check that we're going in the right direction with this, folks.
1:15:30 Speaker 00 A hearing was scheduled for April 26 before the parole and pardon board, which has the power to recommend clemency to the governor. Many thought the board would vote for clemency, but the board was tied 2-2, which meant a default denial of clemency. The Attorney General appeared at the hearing, along with other prominent lawmakers.
1:15:53 Speaker 00 Christina Vitale, a lawyer who was part of the Reed Smith investigation, presented evidence that had come to light in the past year, including letters from Justin Sneed to his attorney, expressing a desire to recant his testimony. The evidence also included the contents of a box from the DA's office that was turned over to investigators in January 2023. The box contained notes written by prosecutors, revealing that after the murder, Justin Sneed was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed lithium in prison. As we talked about earlier, at trial, he denied that the evaluation ever took place.
1:16:36 Speaker 00 So, I mean, it's clear that they knew about this, but it was not disclosed to the defense.
1:16:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:16:43 Speaker 00 Now, whether that was something that legally they had to disclose, I don't know.
1:16:49 Speaker 01 Well, I think it speaks to the credibility of Justin.
1:16:54 Speaker 00 Yeah, well, we talked about it, right? He was on meth, he was, he was doing some other things. If he also had, you know, some mental health issues to the point where he was prescribed lithium, okay, is there an argument to be made around that as to the validity of some of his statements? Richard made a brief statement at the hearing and said in part, "I'm not a murderer and I don't deserve to die for this." Later that afternoon, Richard's attorney filed for a stay of execution from the Supreme Court. He argued that the fifth board member, who withdrew due to a conflict of interest, should have been replaced to avoid a tie.
1:17:36 Speaker 00 The defense also cited the new evidence casting doubt on Justin Sneed's reliability.
1:17:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, I agree with them. I mean, if you knew you had a conflict, they should have brought somebody else in, knowing that the potential was to have a tie. When you only have four people.
1:17:53 Speaker 00 Hard to have a majority. Harder, less likely. Yes, exactly. Yeah. On May 5th, 2023, the Supreme Court stayed Richard's execution pending the outcome of his petitions. On January 22nd, 2024, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Richard and the Attorney General's appeal. Over a year later, on February 25th, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Oklahoma must grant Richard a new trial because his conviction and sentence were tainted by prosecutorial misconduct. The court ruled it was unconstitutional for the prosecutor to have knowingly elicited false testimony
1:18:38 Speaker 00 and suppress evidence compromising the key witness in the case. Yeah, do it the right way, folks. But it took until 2025, this year, Gibbs, for all of this to kind of culminate. The Supreme Court found that the only direct evidence of Glossip's guilt of capital murder was provided by a witness whose statements the prosecution knew were false as he testified to them. Yeah. I mean, that, that is really tough. The suppression of additional evidence reinforced the court's conclusion that Richard's due process was violated.
1:19:19 Speaker 00 AG Drummond and Oklahoma County DA Vicki Behenna, who once directed the Oklahoma Innocence Project, will review the evidence and make a decision about whether to prosecute. So Gibbs, as we wrap this one up, it is possible that Richard Glossip will be retried for murder. He could be retried on a lesser charge, or he could not be retried and completely released from prison. I think what he has going in his favor is that the Attorney General seems to be on his side. The other person.
1:19:59 Speaker 00 Helping to make the decision about whether to prosecute was once the director of the Oklahoma Innocence Project.
1:20:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:20:07 Speaker 00 So I think you have two people who seem to be very fair and balanced, who are going to make this decision. I would be shocked if he was retried for first degree murder. Shocked.
1:20:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, same here.
1:20:25 Speaker 00 Based on the evidence that they had, because what was the evidence, right? The Supreme Court said it. Basically, it was Justin Sneed's testimony and not really much more than that.
1:20:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:20:40 Speaker 00 So if he's made statements that he wants to recant, and you know, the defense would have all of this ammunition about his drug use, his psychiatric diagnosis, would a jury see it the same way that the first jury did? And my thought is probably not.
1:21:01 Speaker 01 I don't think so.
1:21:02 Speaker 00 Now, does that mean that Richard had nothing to do with this? I can't sit here and say that.
1:21:07 Speaker 01 No, can't.
1:21:08 Speaker 00 There is a distinction to be made between being innocent in the state having enough to prove you're guilty.
1:21:18 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:21:18 Speaker 00 Does that make sense?
1:21:19 Speaker 01 It does. Yep.
1:21:20 Speaker 00 I, I thought this is a fascinating case that is still going on right now. But when you think about the timeline, right, the murder happened in 97. He's convicted in 98, and here we are now in 2025. He's faced the brink of execution three times.
1:21:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, been in prison for 20 plus years.
1:21:43 Speaker 00 Yep, and still has to wait to see what his fate will be.
1:21:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, maybe they're in a, coming up with some type of agreement that he's found guilty at a lesser charge.
1:21:55 Speaker 00 Time served.
1:21:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean. They don't have to pay him out.
1:21:58 Speaker 00 It could be, it could end up being an Alford plea like the, the West Memphis Three did, just to get out of prison and be done with it. We don't know, or they could just say, hey. You've already served almost 30 years in prison.
1:22:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:22:13 Speaker 00 We're not going to retry you.
1:22:15 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:22:15 Speaker 00 Live the rest of your life. Good luck to you. I don't know.
1:22:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:22:20 Speaker 00 But that's it for our episode on Richard Glossip. We've got some voicemails. You want to check those out?
1:22:24 Speaker 01 Let's hear them.
1:22:25 Speaker 02 Hey, Mike and Gibby. I just wanted to call and say that I'm a huge fan. I hate to upset either of you, but I am Team Gibby. Sorry, Mike. But yeah, I have been listening to you guys for years. You bring a lot of kindness and empathy to your stories, but also, you know, we love to hear you guys rib on the killers as well. But hey, I did have a suggestion for you to maybe cover the San Ysidro.
1:23:02 Speaker 00 Uh, it just cut off.
1:23:03 Speaker 01 Just like that?
1:23:04 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:23:05 Speaker 01 No worries at it, though.
1:23:06 Speaker 00 Yeah, San Ysidro. I don't, I'd have to look it up, but.
1:23:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're close.
1:23:12 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:23:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:23:13 Speaker 00 I think that's how you say it.
1:23:14 Speaker 01 I was going to correct it for you, but.
1:23:16 Speaker 00 I'll just let you go at that.
1:23:17 Speaker 01 I appreciate that.
1:23:17 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah, we'll look it up. But I wanted to play it. You know, he's Team Gibby, which, you know, is cool.
1:23:23 Speaker 01 Which is awesome.
1:23:24 Speaker 00 If you want to go that route.
1:23:25 Speaker 01 Obviously, probably another member of Mensa.
1:23:29 Speaker 00 You had a lot of members of Mensa in your fan.
1:23:32 Speaker 01 Listener base.
1:23:33 Speaker 00 In your fan base somehow.
1:23:35 Speaker 03 Hi, my name is Christina. I'm from Tampa, Florida. Woo woo. And I just wanted to tell you guys how much I love your podcast. And I kind of had a suggestion. I don't know if you guys have ever done the story. I didn't find it when I searched for Kelly and B. Really interesting story. Just came across it. And I think you guys would do really well to cover it. I love Gibby Gibbyism. I kind of miss when he used to tell us the price of inflation, but anyway, I love you guys. You guys are both awesome. Podcast is great and keep your own time ticking.
1:24:10 Speaker 00 All right. Woo woo.
1:24:11 Speaker 01 I'll say woo woo back at you.
1:24:13 Speaker 00 But hey, we actually did a little inflation.
1:24:16 Speaker 01 We did.
1:24:16 Speaker 00 In this episode.
1:24:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, just for you.
1:24:18 Speaker 00 We don't always do it, but we did it.
1:24:20 Speaker 01 You and the rest of Tampa.
1:24:22 Speaker 00 Yeah. Woo woo. Yeah. Big Gibby Mensa base. In Tampa. Yeah. Everybody going woo woo. Exactly. We actually had some mailbag this week. Aaron Bizarro and Kevin Newnetz sent us a wedding invitation. Well, we had to share it with me. Well, it's in Massachusetts. Maybe I'll go. So we'll have to talk about it. But I wonder what they had to, I think they had to keep Aaron's last name. It's a pretty bizarre. I know. Bizarro is a badass name. I mean, I like Kevin's last name too. Yeah, I'm not downplaying his. Think about it. Aaron, that last name, you know. Maybe hyphenate or do something like that. That would be cool. Yeah. And then Mike Walston sent in a signed Lieutenant Joe Kenda piece for the studio. That's awesome. Yeah, it's very cool.
1:25:07 Speaker 00 Is it going to replace the piece that you put up that I signed? That is worth exactly zero. I mean, it's actually negative. It's lost value somehow since you signed it. You're like, why did you sign that? The piece of paper that you signed was actually worth at least one cent. And now it's worth nothing. Yeah. Now, but we appreciate it very much. All right, Gibbs, that's it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So for Mike. And Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.
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