Missouri executes man convicted of killing former lover and her husband

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A man convicted of killing his former lover and her husband in what prosecutors described as a fit of rage was executed Tuesday evening in Missouri.

David Hosier, 69, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. following a single-dose injection of the sedative pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre. Hosier was convicted of the 2009 killings of Angela and Rodney Gilpin in the state capital of Jefferson City.

Hosier turned his head a couple of times and breathed hard twice as the drug was administered. All movement stopped within seconds, even as his spiritual adviser seated next to him, the Rev. Jeff Hood, continued to pray.

Investigators said Hosier had a romantic relationship with Angela Gilpin and was angry with her for breaking it off and reconciling with her husband. Hosier maintained until the end that he was innocent and shouldn’t have been convicted on circumstantial evidence.

The way was cleared Monday when Gov. Mike Parson declined to grant clemency, citing Hosier’s “lack of remorse.” Parson, a Republican and former county sheriff, has overseen 10 executions since taking office in 2018. Hosier’s lawyers said no court appeals were pending in the hours before the scheduled execution.

“I leave you all with love,” Hosier had said as part of a final statement released before the execution. “Now I get to go to Heaven. Don’t cry for me. Just join me when your time comes.”

Hosier was the son of an Indiana State Police sergeant killed in the line of duty. Glen Hosier went into a home searching for a murder suspect in 1971 when he was shot to death. Other officers returned fire and killed the suspect.

David Hosier, then 16, was soon sent to military school and enlisted in the Navy after graduating. 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 previous interviews with The Associated Press, Hosier acknowledged having an affair with Angela Gilpin that she ended before getting back with her husband. In September 2009, the two were fatally shot near the doorway to their apartment.

Detective Jason Miles told AP that Hosier made numerous comments to other people threatening to harm Angela Gilpin in the days before the killings. 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 might shoot her and her husband.

Hosier was an immediate suspect, but police couldn’t find him. They used cellphone 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 the officers, “Shoot me, and get it over with,” court records show.

Officers found 15 guns, a bulletproof vest, 400 rounds of ammunition and other weapons in Hosier’s car, the court documents state. The weapons included a submachine gun made from a kit that investigators maintain was used in the killings, though tests on it were inconclusive.

A note was found in the front seat of Hosier’s vehicle. “If you are going with someone do not lie to them,” it read in part. “Be honest with them if there is something wrong. If you do not this could happen to YOU!!”

Hosier said he wasn’t fleeing to Oklahoma, but was simply on a long drive to clear his mind. He had the guns because he likes to hunt, he said. He didn’t recall a note in the car.

The Missouri Supreme Court upheld Hosier’s conviction in 2019.

Hosier wheezed at times when he spoke by phone to AP last week, and his voice was weak. In mid-May, he was taken from the prison to a hospital — a rare move for death row inmates. He was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.

Hosier was the seventh person executed in the U.S. this year and the second in Missouri. Brian Dorsey was executed in April for killing his cousin and her husband in 2006.

Missouri is scheduled to execute another man, Marcellus Williams, on Sept. 24, even though Williams is still awaiting a hearing on his claim of innocence in the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle.

In January, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell requested a court hearing after DNA technology unavailable at the time of the crime showed that someone else’s DNA — but not Williams’ — was found on the knife used in the stabbing.

Williams was hours away from execution in 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens granted a reprieve and appointed a board of inquiry to examine his innocence claim. The board never reached a conclusion and Parson dissolved it last year.