ST. LOUIS — As his execution approaches, Missouri inmate David Hosier accepts “his fate,” his spiritual adviser said on Tuesday.
Hosier, 69, will be put to death Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the state prison in Bonne Terre for the 2009 deaths of Angela Gilpin, a woman with whom he had an affair, and her husband, Rodney Gilpin.
Hosier’s attorneys said no appeal is pending in court.
Gov. Mike Parson on Monday a request for leniency rejected, partially citing Hosier’s lack of remorse. Hosier continues to claim he had nothing to do with the shootings. Investigators and prosecutors say Hosier killed the couple in a fit of rage after Angela Gilpin broke off the relationship and reconciled with her husband.
The Rev. Jeff Hood, Hosier’s spiritual adviser, said he “accepts his fate and his faith. I think he feels like he has stood up for himself and gained a lot of dignity in the process.”
Hosier said in a final statement to The Associated Press that he will face death with love in his heart.
“Now I can go to heaven,” he said as part of the statement. ‘Don’t cry for me. Just come with me when your time comes.
Hosier’s father was an Indiana State Police sergeant who was killed in the line of duty. Glen Hosier entered a house in 1971 looking for a murder suspect when he was shot dead. Other officers returned fire and killed the suspect.
David Hosier, 16 at the time, was sent to military school and enlisted in the Navy after graduation. He served four years of active duty and later moved to Jefferson City, Missouri, where he worked for many years as a firefighter and EMT.
In interviews with the AP, Hosier acknowledged an affair with Angela Gilpin that she ended before returning to her husband. In September 2009, they were shot dead in the doorway of their Jefferson City apartment.
Detective Jason Miles told the AP that in the days before the killings, Hosier made numerous comments to other people threatening to harm Angela Gilpin. After the shootings, police found an application for a protective order in Angela Gilpin’s purse, and another document in which she expressed fear that Hosier would shoot her and her husband.
Hosier was an immediate suspect, but police were unable to find him. They used cell data to track him to Oklahoma. A chase ensued when an Oklahoma officer tried to stop Hosier’s car. When he got out, he told officers, “Shoot me and end it,” court records show.
Officers found 15 guns, a bulletproof vest, 400 rounds of ammunition and other weapons in Hosier’s car. The weapons included a submachine gun made from a kit that investigators say was used in the killings, although tests on it were inconclusive.
A note was also found on the front seat of Hosier’s car. “If you go with someone, don’t lie to them,” it read in part. “Be honest with them if something is wrong. If you don’t, this could happen to you!!”
Hosier said he didn’t run to Oklahoma, but simply took a long drive to clear his head. He had the guns because he likes hunting, he said. He couldn’t remember there being a note in the car.
The Missouri Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 2019.
Hosier sometimes wheezed when he spoke to AP by phone last week, and his voice was weak. In mid-May he was taken from prison to a hospital – a rare move for death row inmates. He was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.
Hosier would be the seventh person to be executed in the US this year and the second in Missouri. Brian Dorsey was executed in April for killing his cousin and her husband in 2006.
Missouri is about to execute another man. Marcellus Williamson September 24, even as Williams is still awaiting a hearing on his claim of innocence in the 1998 death of Lisha Gayle.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell requested a hearing in January after DNA technology unavailable at the time of the crime showed that someone else’s DNA — but not Williams’ — was found on the knife that was used in the stabbing. Williams was hours away from execution in 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens granted a reprieve.