June 1977:  Sometimes Truth is Stranger than Fiction….Murderer Gary Gilmore helps a 11-year old amateur female boxer in her boxing career

Gary Mark Gilmore – who took an interest in an 11 year old female amateur boxer – Wiki info on Gilmore: (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.   Gary became the first person in almost ten years to be executed in the United States.

On the evening of July 19, 1976, Gilmore robbed and murdered Max Jensen, a gas station employee in Orem, Utah.  The next evening, he robbed and murdered Bennie Bushnell, a motel manager in Provo.  Although both men had complied with his demands, he murdered them. The young men were each ordered to lie down and then were shot in the head. Both were students at Brigham Young University; both left widows with infants. While disposing of the .22 caliber pistol used in both killings, Gilmore accidentally shot himself in his right hand, leaving a trail of blood to the service garage where he had left his truck to be repaired prior to murdering Bushnell. Garage mechanic Michael Simpson witnessed Gilmore hiding the gun in the bushes. Seeing the blood on Gilmore’s crudely bandaged right hand when he approached to pay for the repairs to his truck, and hearing on a police scanner of the shooting at the nearby motel, Simpson wrote down Gilmore’s registration plate number and called the police. Gilmore’s cousin Brenda turned him in to police shortly after he phoned her asking for bandages and painkillers for the injury to his hand. The Utah State Police apprehended Gilmore as he tried to drive out of Provo, and he gave up without attempting to flee. Although he was charged with the murders of Jensen and Bushnell, the Jensen case was never brought to trial, apparently because there were no eyewitnesses.  Gilmore was executed on January 17, 1977,  by a firing squad in Draper, Utah.

Credits:  Wiki, and Boxing Illustrated, June 1977 issue.