Beginning over fifty years ago, the personal ties of Dennis R. Stilson with one of America’s key historical murder cases began. The Gilmore Gun books give a unique and qualified perspective of the epilogue of a murder weapon. As an experienced firearm dealer, bail bondsman, and bounty hunter his background adds to this rare view of the execution that brought back capital punishment to America and the events which surround one of America’s rarest collectible firearms. Articles, documents, and court records all solidify the extraordinary tale of the Gilmore Gun.
The Gilmore Gun, is a fascinating account of a key crime in American history and the tale of the gun involved. Amazingly, there are times when the criminal has a higher commitment to justice than many in the system. Stilson preserves an important record with this book. Larry D. Pratt – Executive Director of Gunowners of America.
St. George author Dennis Stilson has dedicated himself to researching a string of Utah murders that forever changed the United States legal system.
Stilson, who is originally from Spanish Fork and now resides in St. George, tells the story of Gary Gilmore and his infamous murder weapon in his new book “Life After Execution: The Gilmore Gun.”
The publication is the latest edition of a series Stilson has published two other times under different titles as an ongoing and ever-expanding project. https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/st-george-author-publishes-new-book-on-infamous-utah-murder-case/article_7294f87a-a6ed-11ef-9d27-dbf586b08b54.html
Gary Mark Gilmore (born Faye Robert Coffman; December 4, 1940 – January 17, 1977) was an American criminal who gained international attention for demanding the implementation of his death sentence for two murders he had admitted to committing in Utah. After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision Gregg v. Georgia, he became the first person in almost ten years to be executed in the United States. These new statutes avoided the problems under the 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia, which had resulted in earlier death penalty statutes being deemed “cruel and unusual” punishment, and therefore unconstitutional (the Supreme Court had previously ordered all states to commute death sentences to life imprisonment after Furman). Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in 1977. His life and execution were the subject of the 1979 nonfiction novel The Executioner’s Song, by Norman Mailer, and the 1982 TV film of the novel starring Tommy Lee Jones as Gilmore.
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