Gary Gilmore - Criminal Career

Criminal Career

In 1962, Gilmore was arrested and sent to the Oregon State Penitentiary for armed robbery and assault. He faced assault and armed robbery charges again in 1964, and was given a 15-year prison sentence as a habitual offender. A prison psychiatrist diagnosed him with antisocial personality with intermittent psychotic decompensation. He was granted conditional release in 1972 to live in a halfway house in Eugene, Oregon, on weekdays, and study art at a community college. Gilmore never registered, and within a month he was arrested and convicted of armed robbery. Because of his violent behavior in prison, he was transferred from Oregon to the maximum security federal prison in Marion, Illinois, in 1975. He was conditionally paroled in April 1976 and went to Provo, Utah, to live with a distant cousin, Brenda Nicol, who tried to help him find work. Gilmore worked briefly at his uncle Vern Damico's shoe store and for Spencer McGrath's insulation company, but he soon returned to his previous lifestyle of stealing, drinking, and getting into fights. Gilmore, then 35, had a relationship with Nicole Baker, a 19-year-old widow and divorcee, with two young children. The relationship was at first casual, but soon became intense and strained because of Gilmore's aggressive behavior and pressure from Baker's family to stop seeing him.