Plot Summary for
The Executioner's Song (1982) (TV) More at IMDbPro »

Based on the true story of murderer Gary Mark Gilmore, spanning the last nine months of his life (May 1976-January 1977) in which at age 35, after being released for serving a long prison term in Utah for armed robbery, the unstable Gilmore murdered two men in two seperate and senseless robberies in which after a brief public trial in October, he was sentenced to death by firing squad which drew a lot of media attention when Gilmore insisted that his execution be carried out and he became the first man to be executed in the USA since the government reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Written by Matthew Patay

Mr. Gilmore was not sentenced to "death by firing squad". He was sentenced to death. He chose firing squad over lethal injection because of a misguided belief he held that he could, in some part, atone for the murders by spilling his own blood. Lethal injection would have precluded that from happening. I lived in Provo/Orem/SLC through the crimes, trial and execution, then actually wound up working as Tommy Lee Jones' stand-in and photo-double during the shoot. Written by Paul H. Forster

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