|
Gary Mark Gilmore (December 4, 1940 – January 17, 1977) was an American criminal who gained international notoriety for demanding the execution of his death sentence for two murders he committed in Utah. After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision ''Gregg v. Georgia'', he became the first person in almost ten years to be executed in the United States. These new statutes avoided the problems under the 1972 decision in ''Furman v. Georgia,'' which had resulted in earlier death penalty statutes being deemed as "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore unconstitutional. (The Supreme Court had previously ordered all states to commute death sentences to life imprisonment after Furman v. Georgia.) Gilmore was executed by firing squad in 1977. ==Early life== Gary Mark Gilmore was born in McCamey, Texas, on December 4, 1940, the second of four sons, to Frank and Bessie Gilmore. Frank Gilmore Sr. (1890–1962), an alcoholic con man, had numerous wives and families, none of whom he supported. On a whim he married Bessie (née Brown) (1914 – June 1980), a Mormon outcast from Provo, Utah, in Sacramento, California. Gary was born while they were living in Texas under the pseudonym of Coffman to avoid the law. Frank christened his son Faye Robert Coffman, but once they left Texas, Bessie changed it to Gary Mark. This name change proved to be a sore point years later: Gilmore's mother Faye kept the original "Faye Coffman" birth certificate. When Gary found it two decades later, he assumed he must be either illegitimate or someone else's son. Gilmore seized on this as the reason that he and his father never got along; he became very upset and walked out on his mother when she tried to explain the name change to him.〔Gilmore, Mikal. ''Shot in the Heart''. p. 84–85.〕 The theme of illegitimacy, real or imagined, was common in the Gilmore family. Fay Gilmore, Frank's mother, once told Bessie that Frank's father was a famous magician who had passed through Sacramento, where she was living. Bessie researched this at the library and concluded that Frank was the illegitimate son of Harry Houdini. Houdini was only sixteen years old in 1890, the year of Frank Gilmore's birth, and did not begin his career as a magician until the following year. Mikal Gilmore, Gary's youngest brother, believes the story to be false, but has stated that both his father and mother believed it. The other brothers were Frank, Jr. and Gaylen. During Gary's childhood, the family frequently relocated throughout the Western United States, with Frank supporting them by selling fake magazine subscriptions. Gary had a troubled relationship with his father, whom his youngest brother Mikal described as a "cruel and unreasonable man." Frank Gilmore, Sr. was strict and quick to anger, and would often whip his sons Frank, Jr., Gary and Gaylen with a razor strop, whip or a belt for little or no reason. Less often, he would beat his wife. He mellowed somewhat with age: Mikal reported that Frank whipped him only once, and never did it again after Mikal told him, "I hate you." In addition, Frank and Bessie would argue loudly and verbally abuse each other. Frank would anger Bessie by calling her crazy, and defame Brigham Young, the second president and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as "Bring 'em Young." Bessie would retaliate by calling him a "Cat-licker" () and threatening to kill him some night. This abuse continued for years, and caused considerable turmoil within the Gilmore family.〔Gilmore, Mikal. ''Shot in the Heart''. p. 123–127, 174–175.〕 In 1952, the Gilmore family settled in Portland, Oregon. As an adolescent, Gary began engaging in petty crime. Although Gilmore had an IQ test score of 133, gained high scores on both aptitude and achievement tests, and showed artistic talent, he dropped out of high school in the ninth grade. He ran away from home with a friend to Texas, returning to Portland after several months. At the age of 14, he started a small car theft ring with friends, which resulted in his first arrest. He was released to his father with a warning. Two weeks later he was back in court on another car theft charge. The court remanded him to the MacLaren Reform School for Boys in Oregon, from which he was released the following year. He was sent to Oregon State Correctional Institution on another car theft charge in 1960, and was released later that year. In 1961, Frank, Sr., was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer; he died at the end of June 1962, while Gary was still in prison. One of his jailers told Gary when his father died. Despite his dysfunctional relationship with his father, Gary was devastated and tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gary Gilmore」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|