The Other Trial
With both the national, state and local media paying attention to the trial of Donald D. Thompson, the Alleged Masturbating Judge, another very important trial that concluded last week in Oklahoma may have escaped widespread attention.
That was the trial of Glen Dale Gore, 45, charged with the 1982 rape and strangulation of Deborah ‘Debbie’ Sue Carter in Ada, OK.
Gore, previously convicted in the case and sentenced to death in 2003 won an appeal which tossed out his previous conviction and death sentence resulting in the retrial, just concluded. The appeals court tossed Gore’s previous conviction because his defense was not permitted to suggest that other parties committed the crime.
In the retrial Gore was once again found guilty but this time the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty, leaving sentencing to District judge Tom Landrith who sentenced Gore to life in prison without parole.
Gore was the state’s ‘star witness’ back in 1988 when Dennis Leon Fritz and Ronald Keith Williamson were falsely convicted of the same crime and ultimately spent over 11 years in prison with Fritz serving a life sentence and Williamson coming within five days of execution, for a crime they did not commit.
Both men were freed in 1999 when DNA testing conducted on Fritz’s behalf proved the men innocent and implicated Gore as the rapist and murder. Williamson had already exhausted all appeals and his family had made arrangements for his burial following execution. Williamson who had a past history of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, both of which were greatly aggrivated during his false imprisonment on death row, died in 2004.
If ever there was a convicted murder that deserved the death penalty it is Glenn Dale Gore. And this not only for the brutal crimes he committed against Deborah Sue Carter but for his framing of Dennis Fritz and Ronald Williamson, stealing years of their life and freedom and almost sending Williamson to the executioner. Arguably the strain of 11 years on death row for a crime he did not commit was a contributing factor in the death of Ronald Williamson.
Glenn Dale Gore, is a monster, unfit to walk the earth among civilized people. That he is forever locked away is hopefully at least some comfort to the familes of Debbie Carter and the many others his evil deeds have harmed over the years.
