The Executioner's Song (78 page)

                Some student started calling him Milly from Philly. Just wild. That was his name thereafter. Milly from Philly. He was an intense person and had so many funny stories to tell, and was into so many weird things. Tamera really liked him.

Nicole was fascinated with Milly that night. Tamera had told him, Don't talk about Gilmore, but try to cheer Nicole up. Milly really had her laughing. Tamera began to realize that Nicole, in a funny way, was kind of sheltered and didn't know a lot about certain aspects of life like music and backpacking in Oregon, or even rap sessions like this. She just listened all night as if they were feeding her, and Tamera left with an optimistic feeling. Told Milly on the way back, "Maybe if we keep hanging around, we can change her attitude about life a little bit." Tamera felt it was going to be a while before Gilmore was executed, if he ever was. She had about concluded they could discount a suicide.

Chapter 5

TESTAMENTS

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Church Leaders Air Capital Punishment Views

Nov. 13, 1976—Msgr. McDougall said the majority of modern theologians oppose capital punishment, believing the death penalty tends to work against the socially and economically disadvantaged.

                The Rev. Jay H. Confair, pastor of Wasatch Presbyterian Church, 1626 17th East, said "The Old Testament idea of 'an eye for an eye' was replaced by the New Testament concepts of love and rehabilitation."

                But the Gilmore case presents a different problem, Pastor Confair said. "The man wants to die. He doesn't want to be rehabilitated," and pointed out it is similar to the case of a person being kept alive by machines in a hospital who wants the "plug pulled."

                Many here, although saying they believe in the death penalty, especially for crimes as brutal as Gilmore's, say also that they cannot stomach taking part in the execution itself.

                "You couldn't drag me up there," said Noall T. Wootton, the county attorney who prosecuted Gilmore.

                "I've done my job, I asked for it and got the death penalty—and I believe in it. But execution is a dirty, messy job and I don't want to be part of it."

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Old Rifle Ready Again If Needed

Nov. 13, 1976—A gun at present in a rifle shop, and used in previous Utah executions, will be among the five loaned to the Salt Lake County Sheriff's office if and when convicted murderer Gary Mark Gilmore is executed.

                Leo Gallenson, one of the corporate managers of the shop, estimated that the unsold rifle has been used in 6 to 12 executions..

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Former Boss of Utah Killer Would Serve on his Firing Squad

Nov. 14, 1976 Provo, Utah . . . Spencer McGrath gave Gary Mark Gilmore a good job and an extra $10 to $20 a week out of his own pocket. He fixed Gilmore's car and kept Gilmore on the payroll even when the ex-convict took to drinking and showed up late for work.

                Now McGrath, a kindly sort of man who runs an insulation factory and who has helped many former convicts, says he would willingly serve on the firing squad Gilmore wants to have execute him, "just to show Gary that laws do apply to him."

November 14

Honey, I'm becoming very famous.

                I don't like it not like this, it's not right.

                Sometimes I think I know about fame and how it feels because I was famous in a previous life. I seem to understand it. But l don't want to get to the point where we're enjoying fame and not being ourselves anymore. We are just GARY AND NICOLE and we've got to remember that.

November 4

Hey Geebs

                He was just-a-heed.

                Nice to hear from you you know you got a little class yourself.

                If at some time you are flush and have a few dollars to spare, I'm sure my mother could use it. She's old, crippled, and on welfare. Or if even now you'd care to write her a letter to help ease this thing a bit.

                Thanks for the ten spot.

                A friend GARY

Gibbs thought to himself, how do you write to someone's mother you've never met?

Dear Mrs. Gilmore, it's going to be alright. Only 4 of the 5 rifles are really loaded.

He asked Big Jake to pick him up a nice card and Gibbs enclosed $30 and mailed it off to her.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Death Lawyer's Lively Career

Nov. 14—Only last January Boaz became a self-styled crusader against what he called the "hypocrisy of the system," as he unsuccessfully tried to get himself arrested for smoking marijuana in the lobby of the Federal Building here.

                Now he has turned up at Utah's state prison at Draper as both a lawyer for the condemned Gary Gilmore as well as his biographer.

                This double role is one he cannot play and still observe the canons of the Utah State Bar, Craig Snyder asserted. The canons demand a lawyer represent a client and not one's own pocketbook. "If that execution takes place," Snyder said, "Boaz stands to profit from it."

                Although Boaz has been criticized for exploiting his client in this manner, he is nevertheless remembered in a kindly way by the Assistant Dean of Boalt Hail, James Hill.

                "He's a shy, modest, tender guy, a hell of a good guy," recalls Hill who says he has seen Boaz occasionally since his graduation.

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Nov. 15, 1976. . . Utah—Condemned killer Gary Gilmore wanted to die at 8 A.M. today. Instead he breakfasted on sweet rolls, cereal, oranges, milk and coffee and returned to his cell on Death Row.

                Gilmore will be visited today by Nicole Barrett, a divorcee and mother of two.

                "He thought a lot of that girl and she must have thought something of him or she wouldn't be doing what she's doing now (visiting Gilmore)," his uncle Vern said.

                Boaz, who spent 3 1/2 hours with Gilmore Sunday night, said his client would like to meet singer Johnny Cash.

                "There is no greater Johnny Cash fan," Boaz said.

                He dispatched a telegram to the singer informing him of Gilmore's wish.

Vern hadn't seen Gary in close to six weeks, not since the last day of the trial. Going to visit him, he felt awkward. Vern had just gotten out of the hospital after an operation on his bad knee, and walking, even with a cane, felt like hammering a nail into his bone. It was one painful stretch from where he had to leave his car near the prison gate all the way out to Maximum Security. A real jaw-grinder putting each step in front of the next all that hundred yards and more of walking between two parallel fences of barbed wire.

                Yet, in the visitors' room, there was Gary looking stronger than Vern had ever seen him, and right away, bringing up the angry letter Ida had written.

                Vern said, "Well, you wrote a bad letter first. You didn't want to have anything to do with us anymore."

                They looked at one another, and Vern said, "Gary, we're not mad. We want to help you."

                "All right," said Gary, "I feel bad about writing that letter to Ida and I want to apologize."

                "Ida wants to apologize to you," said Vern. "She wants you to tear up her letter, just as she tore up yours. Flush it down the toilet."

                That was the end of that. Gary looked relieved, and they talked and forth a little while. Wasn't a bad visit at all.

By the time Dennis got to the prison on Monday morning, Vern had finished. It didn't take Boaz long to figure that old Uncle Vern was back in the picture, all right. Gary was speaking of his uncle in praiseworthy, loving terms.

                Dennis had not heard him do that before. A lot of resentment had been aired up to now. All of a sudden, Gary was nurturing this whole change toward his uncle. It was obvious to Dennis that Gary really wanted to be loved by his family. Didn't matter what had gone down before.

Yesterday, Dennis had a funny hassle with him. On Saturday, Gary had kept saying he wanted Dennis to smuggle in fifty Seconals. At first Dennis even promised he would, but found he couldn't fall asleep on that. By the next day, he had to tell Gary he couldn't do such a job under any circumstances, but it left him shaken. Sunday night going back to Everson's house, Dennis could practically smell suicide coming up from the day. The moment he turned on the radio, he heard Blue Oyster Cult. They had been on the radio like crazy these last two days, and now he was actually listening to the words of "Don't Fear the Reaper." It could freeze your synapses.. "Come on baby, don't fear the Reaper," Dennis heard himself humming "Romeo and Juliet are together in eternity." My God, you could go crazy getting off on synchronism, thought Dennis, feeling the great linking-in of all the little things. It was awful. The mind could undulate like a jellyfish.

Monday, after Vern's visit, Brenda got a call from Gary who asked the name of the doctor that was taking care of her daughter.

                He wanted the doctor to make certain his pituitary gland would go to Cristie after the execution. Since Johnny and Brenda were always broke trying to keep Cristie in pituitary extract, which was the most expensive thing on God's earth, this call from Gary, out of the blue, telling Brenda he wanted the doctor to credit his pituitary after death to Johnny's account, was like handing over a thousand bucks. It was a crazy conversation. Brenda didn't know if they were now friends.

                "Take care, Gary," she said at the end. He just hung up.

That same morning as Tamera came into the newsroom her editor said, "We're getting a lot of calls about Nicole. Your story won't hold till Gary is executed. I want you to get permission from Nicole to run it."

                Driving over to Springvllle, Tamera didn't know how to ask.

                When she laid her predicament on Nicole, however, there was a smile and Nicole said, "Well, I got to tell you something, too. I decided to give an interview for $2,000." Some kind of affiliate for NBC out of Boston—at least as Nicole understood, it—had sent over this good-looking tall fellow, Jeff Newman with curly hair, blue eyes, and a beard. He had talked her into it. She would be giving the interview this Friday. Later Tamera found out it was really the National Enquirer, not any Boston affiliate of NBC. But for now, her only reaction was that Nicole had told her to go ahead. So, Tamera left on real good terms. Went back to the office, and spent the rest of the night working on the story.

Over the last week, Nicole had gone to several doctors she had picked from the phone book and told them she was from out of state and had trouble sleeping. The only thing that worked were reds. Seconal was what did it.

                She managed to collect fifty of them and twenty Dalmanes. Now, with Gary on her case about it, she decided Monday morning was the time to pass them over. So she split the stuff down the middle, twenty-five Seconals and ten of the Dalmanes for Gary, same for herself, and put Gary's capsules in a kid's balloon, two balloons, in fact. Both yellow, one inside the other. Then she inserted the balloons her vagina.

She felt afraid all the way over to the prison that Gary would scold her. He had kept telling her to get more. Pushed her and pushed her to go to more doctors, but she had the feeling none of those doctors trusted her, and if she went to even one more, it could blow the whole thing. Those doctors might even be calling the prison ten minutes after they wrote the prescription. She really sweated it out all day Sunday. Now, here she was inside Maximum with those balloons inside her.

They gave her a skin search, but the matron didn't put her fingers anywhere, just looked under her armpits and in her cheeks, went through her long hair. It wasn't an indecent search, and, in fact, the matron would have had to have a long finger, the balloons were pushed up that far.

In the visiting room, there happened to be nobody else, just the guard in the glass booth, and she and Gary went to the chair by the window and she sat on his lap. Sometimes they allowed you to do that, sometimes not, but this day the guard wasn't bothering them. They could do some heavy petting. It was really lucky. Sometimes as many as four or five people could be in the room, or a couple of lawyers, but she and Gary were the only ones this time.

                As she sat on his lap, Gary made a pass with his finger for the balloon, but got nowhere. It was too far up. Finally Nicole had to stand by the window with Gary hugging her from behind so the guard couldn't see her body. In that position, with his arms around her shoulders, she reached down under her skirt to get the balloon. It was a real sweat. She had shoved it up so high, there was nothing to touch with her fingers, and she got to the point where she had to try to push it down as if she were pushing a baby out. In fact, she pressed so hard in her gut, while reaching up so far with her fingers, that before she finally got ahold of it, her head hurt. She was seeing stars. They kept rocketing off. Her head, in fact, felt like it had just broken, or some blood vessel had certainly shattered. Gary didn't know what she was going through. He was just making sweet and encouraging remarks.