Missouri inmate facing execution next month is hospitalized with heart problem

ST. LOUIS — A Missouri inmate scheduled to be executed next month has been hospitalized due to a “medical emergency,” a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections said.

David Hosier, 69, will be put to death June 11 for the 2009 slayings of a Jefferson City couple, Angela and Rodney Gilpin. His attorney, Jeremy Weis, said a prison doctor diagnosed Hosier with heart failure this week stated. Hosier’s sister, Barbara Morrill, said he has atrial fibrillation, which causes an irregular heartbeat.

Morrill said her brother became ill about a week ago and has gotten worse, with leg swelling and severe pain. She wondered why it took so long to get him out of his cell.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” she said. ‘He can’t walk. He can barely talk.”

Karen Pojmann, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said she could not release further information, citing privacy requirements.

Hosier’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, said at a news conference Friday that Missouri faces the prospect of executing a man who is seriously ill.

“His family has been told he has acute heart failure,” Hood said. “The question becomes: How sick does someone have to be to not be executed in the state of Missouri?”

It was not immediately clear whether the state would delay the execution. Hosier has always maintained his innocence, but police and prosecutors say the evidence against him was overwhelming.

Hosier is the son of a murder victim: a police officer killed in the line of duty. Indiana State Police Sergeant Glen Hosier was fatally shot by a murder suspect in 1971, when David Hosier was 16. Other officers killed the shooter.

The night his father was shot, David Hosier woke up to find a soldier at his bedside. “I heard mom crying downstairs and when that happens, you know what that usually means,” he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press last week before he became ill.

Hosier was sent to military school and later joined the Navy, where he served four years on active duty. In the late 1970s, he visited his sister in Missouri, met a woman who would become his first wife, and they settled in Jefferson City. He worked for several years as an EMT and firefighter.

Hosier acknowledged that he had an affair with Angela Gilpin in 2009. She ended it and reconciled with her husband. Not long after, in September 2009, they were shot dead in the doorway of their apartment.

Hosier said he didn’t do it.

“How can you find a person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and sentence that person to death when you have no witnesses to a crime, you have no fingerprints to link this person to a crime, you have no DNA to link this person to a crime ? ?” Hosier asked.

Court records and investigators point to significant circumstantial evidence.

“He (Hosier) had a romantic relationship with the victim,” said Randy Dampf, who was a Jefferson City police officer at the time of the killings and now works as an investigator for the district attorney. “She wanted to end the relationship and he was angry about that.”

Detective Jason Miles said that in the days before the murders, Hosier made numerous comments to other people threatening to harm Angela Gilpin. 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.

“I am completely convinced of his involvement in this case and I believe all the evidence supports that,” Miles said.

Hosier was an immediate suspect, but police were unable to find him. They used cell phone data to track Hosier to Oklahoma. A chase ensued when an Oklahoma officer tried to stop Hosier’s car. When he got out, he told the 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. Among the weapons was a submachine gun, made from a kit, which investigators determined was used in the killings.

A note was 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 a lot of guns because he liked hunting, he said. He couldn’t remember there being a note in the car.

The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 2019.

Hood said the law enforcement community is known for its support of the families of fallen officers. They should do the same for Hosier now, he said.

“The difficulties in David’s life stem from the fact that in the course of his duty he had to experience the death of his father,” Hood said. “How can they say, ‘Leave no family member of the fallen behind,’ and applaud the execution of David Hosier?”