Chapter 17

CAPTURED

1

After the arrest, on the drive to the hospital, Gary said to Gerald Nielsen, “When we get alone, I want to tell you about it.” Nielsen said okay.

It alerted him to look for a confession. Most of the time they were silent, but Gilmore did say again, “I want to talk to you about it, you know.”

At the hospital, Gerald Nielsen stayed close while they doctored him. The Provo police had already called to say they wanted a metal detection test on his hand, but Gilmore refused. He said, “I want to talk to an attorney first.” Gerald said, “Well, we’ll get you an attorney, but he can’t help you there. That’s legal evidence.”

Gilmore said, “Do I have a legal right to refuse it?” “Yeah,” Gerald said, “you can. And we always have the legal right to do it by force.” “Well,” said Gilmore, “you’re going to have to force me.” He swore a couple of times and cussed and hollered and said he wasn’t going to do it, and a couple of times Nielsen thought it might end up in a brawl, but finally he consented. The tests revealed he had held metal in his hand. Gilmore replied, “Yes, I had to do some filing today at work.” It must have been four in the morning before they got to the Provo City Jail.

While the doctors were setting plaster of paris on Gilmore’s hand, Nielsen decided to take a gamble and said, “Put a ring in it, will you, so we can get the handcuffs on.” Gary said, “God, you have a polluted sense of humor.” Nielsen felt it got them started.

2

Noall Wootton, the prosecutor for Utah County, was a small guy with light hair, a high forehead, and a large nose that looked like it had been flattened. He was usually a bundle of energy. When he got stoked up, he was like a tugboat chug-chug-chugging at any big job assigned to him.

In Noall Wooton’s opinion the best lawyer he ever met was his father. Maybe for that reason he could never go into a courtroom without a stomach tied in knots. He won cases and still felt badly because they hadn’t been up to what they should have been. For that reason he was more than careful to observe all the legal amenities on the night they brought Gilmore to the Provo City Police Station.

Tuesday night, or, rather, Wednesday 1:00 A.M. when the call came in to Wootton’s home that the police had a man in custody for the motel murder in Provo, Noall sent a deputy to the hospital, and himself proceeded to the murder scene at the City Center Motel, where he spent an hour and a half directing the search for a gun. Having talked to Martin Ontiveros, and learned that Gilmore had come in bleeding, he backtracked up the street from the gas station following the trail of blood to its source near a bush on the street. They looked into the twigs and found a Browning Automatic .22.

Wootton was sitting on the desk in the detectives’ room at the Provo Police Station, wearing his boots and Levi’s, and not looking very official, when Gilmore was brought in. The prisoner looked pretty messed up. His left arm was bandaged in a cast and his hair was unruly. His Vandyke goatee looked wild. He was glaring. Seemed pissed off about the whole deal.

Gilmore acted particularly angry that he had chains on his feet. It made Wootton glad there were a number of cops around. Chains and all, he would not have wanted to be alone in that room with Gilmore.

Just so soon as Wootton learned that the only man Gilmore would talk to was Gerald Nielsen, he took the Lieutenant aside and told him what strategy to use: calm Gilmore down; get him into a befriending type of thing; be sure to advise him of all his rights. Also make sure he was not under the influence of alcohol, knew where he was, what he was doing. Most important, don’t put pressure on him.

Wootton was taking care not to get into a dialogue with Gilmore. Such a conversation could easily become evidence, and then he might have to get up on the stand. Since he was going to prosecute the case, he didn’t wish to be in Court wearing a second hat. So he listened through a speaker to the conversation Nielsen conducted in another room.

3

July 21, 1976 5:00 a.m.

By the time Wootton got home on Wednesday morning, he had about decided to charge Gilmore with First-Degree Murder on the motel case. While the only print on the gun was too smudged to check out, they had the paraffin test and a witness, Peter Arroyo. He had seen Gilmore in the motel with the gun and the cash box. It looked promising to Wootton.

4

Around three-thirty that morning, Val Conlin received a phone call. A voice said, “This is the police. We have impounded a car of yours.”

Val was so drowsy, he said, “Well, okay, fine.”

“We want to let you know we have the car. There’s been a homicide.” “That’s fine,” said Val and hung up and his wife said, “What was that all about?” He said, “They’ve impounded a car. There’s been a homicide. I don’t know why, I don’t know why, gee, you know.” He went back to sleep. In the morning he’d forgotten about it.

When he came into the office next morning, Marie McGrath was there waiting to tell him.

“You got to be kidding,” said Val. “Did he kill that guy the other night?”

Marie said, “What do you mean, the other night? Last night.”

“Last night?” said Val. He was bringing up the rear in every heat.

“Yes,” said Marie, “they caught him on the one he killed last night.” That was when Val heard about the motel murder. The call at 3:30 A.M. came back to him.

A little later, the police were out examining the Mustang. Started taking out clothing and looking for blood. Val was asked, “Did he ever trade any guns with you?”

“Not to me,” said Val, “I don’t like guns. I don’t like guns.” “Well,” said the cop, “he stole a bunch of guns. We’re looking for them.” “Hey,” said Val, “not me.”

The police were there an hour. After they left, Rusty took some trash out to the back. She came in saying, “Look what I got.”

The wind had been blowing everything around. She had discovered a sack stuffed under an old soft-drink chest. Opening it, she found several pistols wrapped in newspaper.

When Val saw them, he shouted, “Hold it, wait a minute. JUST DON’T TOUCH THAT STUFF! Get on the phone. Call a detective!”

When the police came out, they again asked whether Gilmore offered any guns. Val said, “No. If he had, I would have shit. I don’t like guns.”

5

At 9 A.M., Gary was on the phone. “Where are you?” Brenda asked. He kind of snickered. “It’s all right,” he said, “I’m in custody. I can’t get to you.”

She said, “Oooh, God, thank goodness.” Her voice sounded awful in her ear. She was as strung out from lack of sleep as she’d ever been. “Hey, really,” Brenda said, “you okay?”

“Why,” asked Gary, “didn’t you come?”

“I was scared,” said Brenda.

“What about John?” Gary asked.

“They wouldn’t let him come, Gary.”

“You betrayed me,” he said.

“I didn’t want to see you smeared all over Highway 89. I didn’t want to see policemen I knew getting sent out and their wives left as widows. They’re my neighbors.” She added, “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“It would have been a lot simpler if they’d wasted me out there.”

“I really didn’t want you to get blown away like some common criminal,” she said. “To me, you’re very uncommon. You’re crooked, but you’re not common.”

“You could have taken me,” he said, “to the state line.”

“Gary, that’s good dreaming, but it isn’t real.”

“I’d have done it for you,” he said.

“I believe that,” she said, and added, “Gary, I love you very much, but I couldn’t’ve done that for you.”

“You betrayed me.”

“I didn’t know any other way to round you up,” Brenda said. “I love you.”

There was a long pause, and then he said, “Well, I need some clothes.”

“Why did they take yours?” she asked.

“Evidence.”

“I’ll bring some.”

“I gotta have them by ten o’clock.”

“I’ll be there,” she said.

“Okay, coz,” he said, and hung up.

She went down to the Provo City Center where they had the new modern jail with the dark brown stone. It looked a lot like the modern Orem City Center with the dark brown stone that also had a jail. She took some of John’s old work clothes. Since she couldn’t get them back, no reason to give away his best things.

When she arrived, they had him in some cell downstairs. Told her he hadn’t been arraigned yet, so she couldn’t see him.

“Goddamn,” said Brenda, “the man can’t go into court naked.” “We’ll take it to him,” they said.

Now, while Brenda was still in the lobby, a TV crew arrived, and the hall became jammed with cables and minicameras, and people she’d never seen before in her life. She didn’t have any makeup on, her hair was in a dumb ponytail, she had a pair of shorts on, and must have looked as overweight as she felt. She just wasn’t about to get on camera.

Gary was being brought up the stairs, however, so she stepped behind a TV rig and a big cameraman, and watched as he went down the hall. She could see he was looking for her. To herself, she said, “I guess I really hate facing him.” She thought she probably shouldn’t feel ashamed, but she did.

6

Mike Esplin, the court-appointed defense attorney, looked a little bit like a rancher. In fact, he came from a ranching family. He was of reasonable height, pleasantly built, and wore a small brush mustache. His eyes were a watery blue-gray as if he had been staring into harsh sunlight for too long. He was, however, dapper in his dress, real dapper: a gray shirt, red tie, a gray plaid suit with a red stripe.

The first he heard of Gary Gilmore was when the Clerk in the City Court of Provo called that morning to say the Judge had asked Esplin to come over, if he could, for the arraignment.

It was no problem. There was hardly a lawyer in Provo who didn’t have offices within a block or two of the Court. But things were moving so quickly, Mike Esplin didn’t have an opportunity to discuss anything with his new client. In fact, he only met him in the courtroom.

Of course, there was nothing unusual about that. A Court-appointed lawyer didn’t even have to be there for the arraignment. They had called him in this early only because it was a First-Degree Murder case. Esplin found himself standing with Gilmore in front of the Court one minute after he had introduced himself.

After the charges were read, they went to an anteroom, and that gave a brief opportunity to chat. But the scene was confusing. What with four or five officers and several news people, they were hardly alone, and Gilmore seemed ill at ease. He immediately said to Mike, “I’m new in the area and don’t know any lawyers.” Then he said he had no funds.

Since Esplin wanted to interview him a little more agreeably than this, they were moved down to the holding room in City Jail, a small cell with two bunks. Gilmore seemed paranoid that someone might be listening in on a bug, so they whispered, therefore, in low voices, and Gilmore said he had gone down to City Center Motel and happened to walk right into the robbery.

When Esplin asked Gilmore why he didn’t go to the police after he was shot, Gilmore said being an ex-con, he was afraid they wouldn’t believe him. To the lawyer, the story sounded like a bunch of bullshit.

In First-Degree Murder cases, the defense was allowed two attorneys, so, after the interview, Esplin went back to his office and called a few people. When two other lawyers told him that Craig Snyder, whom he knew slightly, did good defense work, he phoned and asked Snyder if he wanted to be involved. While he, Esplin, would be doing this as part of his regular salary, $17,500 a year, a Court-appointed attorney like Snyder, Mike explained, would be paid $17.50 an hour for legal work and $22 an hour for Court time. Snyder said that would be agreeable.

Esplin then went back to the jail around noon, and told Gilmore the name of his new attorney. He also mentioned that they would charge Gary with the Jensen murder. Gilmore looked him in the eye and said, “No way, man.”

7

After the police had driven off, Nicole kept saying that Gary was crazy and she should have left him a long time ago. “That crazy bastard, that crazy bastard,” she was still telling herself in the morning. When the Orem police called, however, a little before noon, to say they wanted Kathryne and Nicole to come down, she was pretty deliberate and cool about it. Even kind of flat.

She told Lieutenant Nielsen that she had had fights with Gilmore, and left because she was afraid of him. One time, she said, she had to get out of the car and run down the highway because he started to choke her. Then she told Nielsen that Gary had stolen the guns from Swan’s Market in Spanish Fork. Added, “I can’t tell you much more than that.” “Look,” said Nielsen, “I’m not going to prosecute you.” So she told him that Gary had given her a Derringer for protection, but that after a while she felt she wanted protection from him.

When the interview was over, Nicole said, “Please don’t tell him I told you these things because…” She paused and her mind seemed to slide away from all of them. It was as if she was looking for something a distance away, and then she murmured, “Because I still love him.” A little later Lieutenant Nielsen drove her to the apartment in Springville and Nicole turned over her gun and a box of bullets. Nielsen couldn’t get over how depressed she was about it all. He was used to taking the depositions of people who were real down, but Nicole would equal any of them.

After he came back to the station, the Lieutenant began to look into what evidence had accumulated. Two casings had been found under Jensen’s body, and one in the blood by Bushnell’s head. Those were useful, because an Automatic’s markings were easy to identify. It looked like Provo would have authentication for Bushnell, and Orem for Jensen. If they could tie the gun to Gilmore, the case was solid.

Nielsen went over to see Gary about five in the evening. They had moved him already from Provo City Center to County, and that was one old jail. It was dirty. It was noisy. A real slammer. Nielsen had a real interview.

He brought along a briefcase on which you could flip the handle, and a tape recorder inside would start functioning unseen. He didn’t dare take it, however, into the cell. Gilmore would have the right to inquire what was in that briefcase, and whether he was being recorded. Nielsen would then have to open it up. That would destroy all confidence Gilmore might have in him. So he left it turned on in the hall just on the other side of the bars. It would pick up what it could.

The county jail had to be one of the oldest buildings in Utah County. By July, it was hot enough inside to offer a free ticket to hell. With its windows open, you had to breathe the exhausts of the freeway. The prison sat on the edge of the desert in a flat field of cinders midway between the ramp that came off the freeway and the one that went up to it. The sound of traffic was loud, therefore. Since a spur of railroad track also went by, boxcars rumbled through the interview. When Nielsen tried listening to the tape recorder in his office, the sound of traffic on a hot summer evening was the clearest statement he could hear.

The detective had hopes for the interview. He felt Gilmore would talk ever since the moment right after the capture in Pleasant Grove when Gary asked for him. Nielsen had a strong feeling then that there would be a chance to get his confession. So he moved quickly and not at all unnaturally, into the role of the old friend and the good cop.

In police work, you had to play a part from time to time. Nielsen liked that. The thing is, for this role, he was supposed to show compassion. From past experience, he knew it wouldn’t be altogether a role. Sooner or later, he would really feel compassion. That was all right. That was one of the more interesting sides of police work.

He had had his experiences. Years ago, when a patrolman, Nielsen did some undercover work in narcotics. There was a working agreement then with the Salt Lake City Police. Because Orem was still small, its police were well known to the locals. To get any effective undercover work, they had to import officers from Salt Lake City. In turn, Orem paid back the debt by sending a few of their own cops. That was how Nielsen first got into it.

His personal appearance, however, presented a problem. He had been a scoutmaster for seven or eight years and looked it. His substantial build, his early baldness, his eyeglasses and red-gold hair gave him the appearance of a businessman, rather than a fellow who might be dealing in drugs. For cover, therefore, he had pretended to be a Safeway meat-cutter, a job he knew something about, since he had done a little of that while working his way through BYU. He even had a union card.

In Salt Lake City he became known for a time as the meat-cutter who was always looking for dope on the weekend. That worked. A lot of meat-cutters weren’t known as the straightest people. Nielsen even used to wear working clothes that showed bloodstains on the chest of his white smock, and below the knees of his white slacks where the apron gave no protection.

8

On this hot July evening, Nielsen began by saying that Gilmore’s story, unhappily, was full of holes. They were checking it out, but it did not add up. So he wanted to know if it would be all right if they talked. Gilmore said, “I’ve been charged with a capital offense, and I’m innocent, and you’re all screwing up my life.”

“Gary, I know things are serious,” Nielsen said, “but I’m not screwing with anybody’s life. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to, you know that.”

Gary walked away and then came back a little later and said, “I don’t mind talking.”

Nielsen was with Gilmore about an hour and a half. There, in a Maximum Security cell, the two of them locked in together, they spoke. Nielsen came on very light at first. “Have you seen your attorney?” he asked, and Gilmore said he had. Then Nielsen asked him how he was feeling. “How’s the arm?” Gilmore said, “Hey, I’m really hurting. They only give me one pain pill, and the doctor said I was supposed to have two.”

“Well,” Nielsen said, “I’ll tell them I heard the doctor say two.”

Nielsen tried to be as easygoing as he could. He inquired if Gary liked to fish, and Gilmore answered that with the time he’d spent in jail, there just hadn’t been much fishing. Nielsen began to talk a little about fly casting and Gilmore showed interest at the idea that you had to get good enough to guess under different circumstances, what a trout was likely to accept in the way of a fly. The detective told him of taking overnight camping trips with his family up in the canyons.

Gilmore, in turn, talked about a few of his experiences in prison. Told of the fat girl who died, and the time they gave him too much Prolixin, and he swelled up, and couldn’t move. Spoke of how prison demanded you be a man every step of the way. Then he asked a little more about Nielsen’s background. He seemed interested that Nielsen had a wife and five children.

Was his wife a good Mormon? Gilmore asked. Oh, yes. He had met her at BYU where she had gone to get away from Idaho. What did she major in? asked Gilmore, as if he were truly fascinated. Nielsen shrugged. “She majored in home economics,” he said. Then he grinned at Gilmore. “Her interest was to—you know, maybe, you know, kind of find a husband.” Now they both laughed. Yes, said Nielsen, they had met in freshman year and were married the next summer. Well, said Gilmore, that was interesting. How did Nielsen become a cop? He didn’t seem much like a cop. Well, actually, Gerald explained, he had planned on being a science and mathematics teacher when he went up to Brigham Young University from the family ranch at St. John’s, Arizona, but he was an active Mormon and in his church work he met a detective on the police force whom he liked and so got interested and took a job as a patrolman.

Now he was a lieutenant, Gilmore remarked. Yes, in a little more than ten years he’d risen to be a detective, then a sergeant, now a lieutenant. He didn’t say that he’d taken courses at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia.

Well, that was interesting, said Gilmore. His mother had been a Mormon, too. Then he paused and shook his head. “It’s going to kill my mother when she finds out.” Again, he shook his head. “You know, she’s crippled,” said Gilmore, “and I haven’t seen her for a long time.”

“Gary,” said Nielsen, “why did you kill those guys?”

Gilmore looked him right back in the eye. Nielsen was used to seeing hatred in a suspect’s eyes, or remorse, or the kind of indifference that could lay a chill on your heart, but Gilmore had a way of looking into his eyes that made Nielsen shift inside. It was as if the man was staring all the way to the bottom of your worth. It was hard to keep the gaze.

“Hey,” said Gilmore, “I don’t know. I don’t have a reason.” He was calm when he said it, and sad. Looked like he was close to crying. Nielsen felt the sorrow of the man; felt him fill with sorrow at this moment.

“Gary.” said Nielsen, “I can understand a lot of things. I can understand killing a guy who’s turned on you, or killing a guy who hassles you. I can understand those kind of things, you know.” He paused. He was trying to keep in command of his voice. They were close, and he wanted to keep it just there. “But I just can’t understand, you know, killing these guys for almost no reason.”

Nielsen knew he was taking a great many chances. If it ever came to it, he was cutting the corners on the Miranda close enough to send the whole thing up on appeal, and he was also making a mistake to keep talking about “those guys” or “why did you kill those guys?” If any of this was going to be worth a nickel in court, he should say, “Mr. Bushnell in Provo,” and “Why did you kill Max Jensen in Orem?” You couldn’t send a guy to trial for killing two men on two separate nights in separate towns if you put both cases into one phrase. Legally speaking, the killings had to be separated.

Nielsen, however, was sure it would be nonproductive to question him in any more correct way. That would cut it off. So he asked, “Was it because they were going to bear witness against you?” Gilmore said, “No, I really don’t know why.”

“Gary.” said Nielsen, “I have to think like a good policeman doing a good job. You know, if I can prevent these kinds of things from happening, that makes me successful in my work. And I would like to understand—why would you hit those places? Why did you hit the motel in Provo or the service station? Why those particular places?” “Well,” said Gilmore, “the motel just happened to be next to my uncle Vern’s place. I just happened on it.”

“But the service station?” said Nielsen. “Why that service station in the middle of nowhere?”

“I don’t know,” said Gilmore. “It was there.” He looked for a moment like he wished to help Nielsen. “Now you take the place where I hid that thing,” he said, “after the motel.” Nielsen realized he was speaking of the money tray lifted from Benny Bushnell’s counter. “Well, I put the thing in that particular bush,” he said, “because when I was a kid I used to mow the lawn right there for an old lady.”

Nielsen was trying to think of a few Court decisions that might apply to a situation like this. A confession obtained in an interview that was conducted without the express permission of the man’s attorney would not be legal. On the other hand, the suspect himself could initiate the confession. Nielsen was ready to claim that Gilmore had done just this today. After all, he had asked Gary in their first interview at 5 A.M. this morning if he could come back and talk to him after the story was checked out. Gilmore had not said no. With the present Supreme Court, Nielsen had the idea a confession like this might hold up.

9

Nevertheless, Nielsen wasn’t forgetting the Supreme Court decision on the Williams case. A ten-year-old girl in Iowa had been raped and murdered by a mental patient named Williams, who had been picked up in Des Moines and taken back to the place where he was to be charged. Williams’s attorney in Des Moines told the detectives transporting him, “Don’t question him out of my presence,” then told his client, “Don’t make any statements to policemen.” All the same, on the way back, one of the detectives accompanying the suspect started playing Williams on his Christian side. The old boy was deeply religious and so the detective said: “Here we are, just a few days before Christmas, and the family of that little girl doesn’t know where the body is. It sure would be nice if we could find the body and give the little girl a good Christian burial before Christmas. The family could at least have that much peace.” He went on in such a low-key way that the old guy finally told them where the corpse could be found, and got convicted. The Supreme Court, however, had just overruled. They said once a guy has an attorney, the police could not interview him without permission.

Yet here he was, talking to Gilmore while his attorneys were not aware of it. Still, a couple of technicalities could be argued. Gilmore had already, out on the road, in Nielsen’s presence, been read his Miranda rights. Also, the attorneys had been appointed for the Provo case, not for Orem. He might still be, therefore, on legal ground. Besides, the key thing was not to get a confession but a conviction.

What would be good about a confession, even if they couldn’t use it, was that it would produce information they could then employ to dig up further evidence against the guy, and get a good solid case. If they never used the confession in Court, they would have no trouble with the Miranda.

Besides, it would be good for morale. Once the police knew their man was guilty, they could feel more incentive to keep plugging hard on detail work. It would also avoid any power conflict with officers who wanted to work other leads. The confession would integrate the case, make it a psychological success.

They went through the cycle again. Nielsen talked about the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints and what his kids contributed on family night each week. Gilmore was interested in the details, and mentioned again that not only was his mother a Mormon, but all of her folks, and he talked about his father who had been a Catholic and drank like hell, and they stayed off the real subject as if they had earned a rest.

Then they would get back to it. Nielsen would ask one question, then a couple of questions. So soon as Gilmore began to assume a look that said, “No more questions,” Nielsen would talk of other things.

Jensen’s coin changer had been missing from the service station, and the police had spent much of yesterday going through garbage at the Holiday Inn with no results. Casually, Nielsen now asked about that. Gilmore stared at him for a long time, as if to say, “I don’t know whether to answer you or not. I don’t know if I can trust you.” Finally he muttered, “I really don’t remember. I threw it out the window of the truck, but I can’t recollect if it was in the drive-in or on the road.” He paused as if searching into his recollection of a movie and he said, “I honestly don’t remember. It could have been at the drive-in.”

“Would April know?” Nielsen asked.

“Don’t worry about April,” Gilmore said. “She didn’t see a thing.” He shook his head. “For all practical purposes, she wasn’t there.”

When Nielsen began to wonder whether April had any idea of the murder, Gary repeated, “Don’t worry, she didn’t see a thing. In her head, that little girl was never there.”

He gave a turn to his mouth that was almost a smile. “You know,” he said, “if I’d been thinking as straight the last couple of nights as I am today, you guys would not have caught me. When I was a kid I used to pull off robberies…” He had a look on his face like a pimp bragging of the number of women who worked for him over the years. “I guess,” he said, “I must have pulled off fifty or seventy, maybe even a hundred successful robberies. I knew how to plan something and do it right.”

Nielsen then asked him if he would have gone on killing, if he hadn’t been caught. Gilmore nodded. He thought he probably would have. He sat there for a minute and looked amazed. Not amazed, but certainly surprised, and said, “God, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’ve never confessed to a cop before.” Nielsen thought he probably hadn’t. His record was certainly hard-core all the way. Egotistically speaking, Nielsen felt bolstered. He had gotten a confession out of a hard-core criminal.

“How many guns did you steal?” Nielsen asked. “Nine,” Gilmore told him. “Where did they come from?” “Spanish Fork.” “Then we’ve recovered all but three.” That left three unaccounted for. Where might they be? “They re gone,” said Gilmore. Nielsen didn’t bother to follow up. The way Gilmore said that made it obvious they had been sold, and he would never tell who he sold them to. “I’m responsible,” said Gilmore. “Don’t blame other people.”

Then he asked, “Did Nicole tell you about her gun?” “No,” Nielsen said, “I asked her.” Gary said, “I don’t want her to get in any trouble about those guns.” Nielsen assured him.

Nielsen tried to get a few more facts about the homicides themselves. Gilmore would give details up to the point where he entered the service station and then he would talk of everything after he left. But he did not wish to describe the crime itself.

Nielsen was trying to determine what went on during the act. Gilmore had asked Jensen to lie on the floor. He must then have told him to put his arms beneath his body. No one would ever be found lyirig face down in such an uncomfortable position of their own choice. Next Gilmore had fired the shots right into Jensen’s head. First with the pistol two inches away, then with the pistol touching. It was the surest way to kill a man and cause him no suffering. On the other hand, ordering those arms to stay under the body was the surest way to be certain the victim didn’t grab your leg as you were putting the muzzle to his head. He could not, however, get Gilmore to talk about this.

“Why’d you do it, Gary?” Nielsen asked again quietly.

“I don’t know,” Gary said.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not going to talk about that,” Gilmore said. He shook his head delicately, and looked at Nielsen, and said, “I can’t keep up with life.”

Then he asked, “What do you think they’ll do to me?”

Nielsen said, “I don’t know. It is very serious.”

“I’d like to be able to talk to Nicole,” Gilmore said. “I’ve been looking for her and I’d really like to talk to her.”

“Hey,” Nielsen said, “I’ll do anything I can to get her here.” They shook hands.

10

About five o’clock that afternoon, while Nielsen was talking to Gary, April came home. She had heard about the murders on the radio and said it wasn’t true. Gary hadn’t done it. She also said she wasn’t going to no police station.

Charley Baker had come in from Toelle when Kathryne phoned to say April was missing. Now, so soon as April saw them together, she got hostile and began shouting that if they tried to take her to the police station by force she would call on her protection to stop them. Then, all of a sudden, she seemed to give in. Said she would go.

Now, Kathryne did not want to bring April over on her own. Didn’t know if the child would open the door of the car and jump out. So she begged Charley to come along, but he was hesitant. Said, “If she changes her mind even halfway over, then to hell with them. Turn around and bring her back.” No way did he want to go.

July 21, 1976

When April came out of the interview, she said, “Mama, they told me Gary killed two men. Do you believe that?”

Kathryne said, “Well, April, I guess he must have.”

“Gary couldn’t kill someone, Mama.”

“Well, April,” Kathryne said, “I think Gary told them he did.”