Gary Gilmore - Early Life

Early Life

Gilmore was born in a hospital in McCamey, Texas, on December 4, 1940, the second son of Frank and Bessie Gilmore. Frank Gilmore Sr. was an alcoholic con man who sold fake magazine subscriptions. He had married Bessie, a Mormon outcast from Provo, Utah, on a whim, in Sacramento, California. Frank had many wives and families before her, none of whom he supported. They had a son, Frank Jr., and then Gary came along while they were living in Texas under the pseudonym of Coffman to avoid the law. Frank christened his son Faye Robert Coffman, which Bessie quickly changed to Gary, once they left Texas. However, this birth certificate proved to be a sore spot years later (Gilmore's mother had kept his original birth certificate). Many years later, in the early 1960s, upon finding the birth certificate that stated his name was "Faye Robert Coffman", Gilmore thought that he had been illegitimate or someone else's son; he felt that it was the reason he and his father did not ever get along, and he was very upset and walked out on his mother, Bessie, when she tried to explain the name change to him.

The family relocated throughout the Western United States during his childhood, and his father supported the family by selling fake magazine subscriptions. Gilmore had a troubled relationship with his father, whom his brother Mikal described as a "cruel and unreasonable man." Frank Gilmore's mother claimed that Frank was the illegitimate son of magician Harry Houdini. Mikal has said he believes the story is false, but that his father and mother believed it. Fay (Frank Gilmore's mother) who was from Sacramento, told Bessie about Frank's father, with whom she had a short relationship, mentioned he was a famous magician who had stopped into town, and so Bessie went to the library to research it and came up to the conclusion that Harry Houdini had been Frank's father. However, Houdini was only sixteen years old in 1890, the year of Frank Gilmore's birth. Furthermore, he did not start his career as a magician until the following year.

Frank Gilmore, Sr. was strict and quick to anger. Often, he would whip Gary and Frank, Jr. with a razor strap or a belt for little or no reason. Less often, he would beat his wife, Bessie. He mellowed somewhat with age, and the youngest Gilmore son, Mikal, reported in his book Shot In The Heart, that Frank whipped him only one time, and he never did it again after his son told him "I hate you". He showed Gary, Frank, Jr., and the third son, Gaylen, no such mercy, however; he would beat them with a whip, sometimes badly. In addition, Frank and Bessie would argue loudly and call each other hateful names. Frank would anger Bessie by calling Brigham Young, the second president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, "Bring'Em Young" and call her crazy, and then Bessie would retaliate by saying that she would kill him one night. Bessie also called him a "Cat-licker", which was supposed to be an epithet for "Catholic", because Frank was Catholic. This went on for years, and caused considerable turmoil within the Gilmore family.

The Gilmore family settled in Portland, Oregon, in 1952. Gary Gilmore began engaging in petty crime as an adolescent, with offenses ranging from shoplifting, car theft and assault and battery. Although Gilmore had an IQ of 133, had high scores on both scholastic and academic 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.

By the age of 14, Gilmore started a small car theft ring with other friends, resulting 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 colon cancer. He died a few months later, at the end of June 1962, while Gary was in prison; Gary heard about his father's death from one of his jailers; despite his dysfunctional relationship with his father, Gary was devastated, and tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists.