Bio

George Clifton Gilmore was born on August 5, 1946. By 1979, he was married, had children and lived in Dallas, Texas, where he operated or worked in a small used-car towing, repair and resale business. His later attorneys said his parents were alcohol-dependent and argued that he had fetal alcohol syndrome and organic brain damage, but these claims were presented as mitigation during his final appeals and did not overturn his convictions or sentences.

Gilmore developed the belief that elderly people living in rural areas kept substantial cash in their homes because they distrusted banks. He recruited relatives and acquaintances into robbery plans and insisted that victims be killed to prevent later identification. By October 1980, he was living in a crowded trailer in Mineral Point, Missouri, with his wife, her five children, his brother Norman, his sister, her six children and Leonard Laws. The adults were unemployed, and Gilmore presented the robberies as a source of “easy money.”

Psychiatric evidence presented in his trials placed his reported IQ within a range of approximately 70 to 85. Courts found that this evidence did not establish a legal mental-disease defense or remove his responsibility for planning and directing the crimes.

Murder Story

Gilmore’s first documented murder occurred on August 24, 1979, when he, Norman Gilmore and Kirk Sebastian broke into Mary Watters’s rural Franklin County home. After finding little money, an accomplice spoke Gilmore’s name. Gilmore then shot Watters twice through the chest to eliminate her as a witness. He later returned to Texas and described the killing to his wife.

In October 1980, Gilmore formed another group with Norman Gilmore and Leonard Laws. He proposed robbing elderly and vulnerable people and killing them afterward. On October 8, they attacked Woodrow Elliott, stole approximately $4,600 and killed him before burning his home. Three weeks later, they restrained and robbed Clarence and Lottie Williams. Gilmore personally shot both victims and shot Clarence a second time when he tried to escape.

Gilmore later discussed the crimes with relatives Robert Gilmore and Bobby DeClue. After checking his account and speaking with Norman, the relatives contacted police and agreed to assist with the arrests. On January 2, 1981, they persuaded Gilmore and Laws to leave their trailer, and officers arrested them at a roadblock. Gilmore later admitted shooting Clarence and Lottie Williams.

Gilmore faced separate prosecutions for the killings. He was convicted in March 1982 and sentenced to death for Mary Watters’s murder. He also received death sentences for the Elliott and Williams murders. His first convictions for killing the Williamses were reversed in 1983 because of defective indictments, but a second jury convicted him again and reimposed death. Contemporary execution reports state that he was convicted of five murders in total, receiving four death sentences and one life sentence.

The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the Watters conviction in November 1983, the Elliott conviction in December 1984 and the renewed Williams convictions in October 1985. Gilmore then pursued state and federal post-conviction claims involving his representation, jury selection, courtroom restraints, prosecution arguments and the consideration of mitigating evidence. A federal district court initially ordered a new penalty proceeding in the Watters case, but the Eighth Circuit reversed that ruling and reinstated the death sentence in November 1988. His second federal habeas petition was rejected in July 1990.

Gilmore’s final lawyers argued that evidence of prenatal alcohol exposure and organic brain damage had not been adequately presented to the sentencing jury. Missouri authorities rejected the clemency request, and last-minute appeals failed. He was executed by lethal injection at Potosi Correctional Center shortly after midnight on August 31, 1990.