Richard Glossip interview

Glossip is interviewed after his release from prison

June 2026

After fac­ing nine exe­cu­tion dates, and being giv­en three last meals, Richard Glossip was released on bail on May 14, 2026 and set foot out­side of prison walls for the first time in near­ly three decades. In an inter­view with The Intercept, Mr. Glossip dis­cuss­es adjust­ing phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly to his new life as he awaits a pos­si­ble retri­al for the 1997 crime that sent him to death row, despite his long­stand­ing claims of inno­cence. Oklahoma County District Judge Natalie Mai ordered his release on a $500,000 bond, stat­ing ​“The Court hopes that a new tri­al, free of error, will pro­vide all inter­est­ed par­ties, and the cit­i­zens of Oklahoma, the clo­sure they deserve.”

“I tried nev­er to let myself become insti­tu­tion­al­ized… But I mean it’s hard. You go through all these hor­ri­ble things and all these dif­fer­ent dates … and last meals and every­thing. And then it doesn’t look like this day will ever get here. But you always hope that it will“.

Mr. Glossip said of the wide­spread atten­tion on his case, ​“It’s over­whelm­ing but it’s amaz­ing at the same time.” Since his release, he has been able to reunite with his wife Lea, with whom he first cor­re­spond­ed and lat­er mar­ried while in prison. In a con­ver­sa­tion with The Intercept, Mr. Glossip described ini­tial­ly hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty sleep­ing with­out the con­stant noise of prison, eat­ing at a neigh­bor­hood Italian restau­rant with his wife, and going food shop­ping. He also dis­cussed feel­ing sup­port­ed by his com­mu­ni­ty in Oklahoma. He recount­ed sev­er­al sto­ries of being rec­og­nized, includ­ing by a bar­ber who refused pay­ment for his hair­cut, telling Mr. Glossip it was ​“an hon­or” to cut his hair.

“Once you’re out here and you see all the things that was tak­en away from you — and all the times they almost took every­thing away from me, my life and every­thing — you see all of it now… And it kind of still makes me angry at times because none of this should have ever hap­pened. And this should have nev­er been tak­en from me in the first place”.

Mr. Glossip is now await­ing a pos­si­ble retri­al for his alleged involve­ment in the 1997 ​“mur­der-for-hire” of Barry Van Trees, his boss at an Oklahoma City Motel. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who pre­vi­ous­ly con­fessed error in the pros­e­cu­tions that end­ed in Mr. Glossip’s death sen­tence, announced that his office will not seek the death penal­ty in his new tri­al. The Supreme Court vacat­ed Mr. Glossip’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence in February 2025, find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors allowed a key wit­ness to lie in court and with­held cru­cial infor­ma­tion from the defense about the same wit­ness. AG Drummond, who sup­port­ed Mr. Glossip’s appeal to the United States Supreme Court, now says “…my office will make sure Mr. Glossip receives a fair tri­al based on hard facts, sol­id evi­dence and truthful testimony.” 

They’ll make the right deci­sions. I know they will. I wouldn’t be out here today if they wasn’t… So I’m just going to let them han­dle it. … I’m just gonna enjoy life.

This text is from the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty

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