Gary Gilmore murdered gas station employee and motel manager, On Monday, July 19, 1976, Max Jensen went to work as usual at the self-service gas station in Orem, Utah. That night, Gilmore had a spat with his girlfriend and went driving with her mentally unstable younger sister, April.
At around 10:30 pm he told April he wanted to make a phone call. He left her in the truck and walked away. Gilmore went around the corner, out of her sight, and into the Sinclair service station.
He spotted the attendant and quickly saw that no one else was around. He walked up to Max Jensen and pulled out a .22 Browning Automatic. He instructed Jensen to empty his pockets, which the young Mormon quickly did. Then he told Jensen to go into the bathroom and lie down on the floor with his arms under his body. Jensen got into the position. He was obeying everything that Gilmore said.
Then inexplicably, Gilmore put the gun close to Jensen's head. "This one is for me," he said, and fired. Then he placed the muzzle right against Jensen's skull and shot him once again, this time "for Nicole." (girlfriend Nicole Baker Barrett)
Gilmore spent the night with April at a motel and the following night, he walked into the City Center Motel in Provo, not far from Brigham Young University. He confronted the attendant, Ben Bushnell, who lived on the premises with his wife and baby. Gilmore told Ben to give him the cash box and get down on the floor. Then he shot Bushnell in the head. Bushnell's wife came in, so Gilmore grabbed the cash box and left. Trying to dispose of the gun in a nearby bush, Gilmore shot himself in the hand.
By Wednesday, Gilmore's cousin, Brenda Nicol, turned him into the police. Gilmore gave up near a roadblock without a fight. At first, he denied the murders, but later admitted both.
In October, Gilmore was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. He chose death by firing squad and waived all appeals. Despite the efforts of other groups to stop it, 6 months after the murders, the execution was carried out.
Gary Gilmore was the first person executed in the U.S. in almost 10 years. In prison most of his life and paroled only four months before the murders, Gilmore becomes a celebrity with his efforts to hasten his execution. His last words: “Let’s do it.”
