Ex-Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip pleads guilty to a lesser
charge in 1997 killing
[November 13, 2026]
By JIM VERTUNO
Former Oklahoma death row prisoner Richard Glossip, who spent nearly 30
years incarcerated and was on the brink of execution three times for a
1997 killing, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, his attorney said
Thursday.
Glossip had been sentenced to death over the killing in Oklahoma City of
his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese. Van Treese was beaten
with a baseball bat in what prosecutors have alleged was a
murder-for-hire scheme.
Another man, Justin Sneed, admitted robbing and killing Van Treese, but
testified that he did so after Glossip promised to pay him $10,000.
Sneed was the state’s key witness against Glossip and was sentenced to
life in prison.
The U.S. Supreme Court previously threw out Glossip’s conviction, and he
was released on bond in May to await retrial. His longstanding claims of
innocence have drawn support from Kim Kardashian and other prominent
figures.
With Glossip's plea to a lesser accessory charge, the murder charge was
dismissed, said Don Knight, Glossip’s attorney. He said Glossip will be
sentenced in December, when he could be released or sent back to prison
for another 15 years.
“We believe Rich has more than paid his debt to society by spending
nearly 30 years on death row, during which time he was served three last
meals and came within minutes of being executed for a crime he did not
commit,” Knight said.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond had previously said the state
would seek to retry Glossip on a murder charge but would not pursue the
death penalty again. In a statement sent to media outlets, Drummond said
prosecutors would seek more prison time.
Accepting the plea to a lesser charge “was a difficult decision for me
and, more importantly, the Van Treese family. We both recognize that
this path ensures a conviction related to Mr. Van Treese’s killing and
gives us the best chance to secure additional prison time for Glossip,”
Drummond said.
By pleading guilty to being an accessory, Knight said Glossip
acknowledged the prosecution’s allegations that he helped place
plexiglass over a broken window at the motel. Van Treese’s body was
inside the room, but Glossip did not know it was there and never saw it,
Knight said.
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Richard Glossip stands before a hearing at the Oklahoma County
Courthouse, June 23, 2026, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate
Billings, File)
The prosecution also said Glossip did not immediately tell police
that Sneed had told him he killed Van Treese. Knight said Glossip
did not believe that was true at the time.
“He had nothing to do with the murder, none of the planning, or
carrying it out,” Knight said.
During his time on death row, courts in Oklahoma set nine different
execution dates for Glossip, and he came so close to being put to
death that he ate three separate last meals. In 2015, he was even
held in a cell next to Oklahoma’s execution chamber, waiting to be
strapped to a gurney and die by lethal injection.
But the scheduled time for his execution came and went. Behind the
walls of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, prison officials were
scrambling after learning one of the lethal drugs they received to
carry out the procedure didn’t match the execution protocols. The
drug mix-up ultimately led to a nearly seven-year moratorium on
executions in Oklahoma.
Van Treese’s family had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to leave
Glossip’s conviction and sentence intact.
Glossip’s case attracted international attention after actress Susan
Sarandon — who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of death
penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean’s fight to save a man on
Louisiana’s death row in the 1995 movie “Dead Man Walking” — took up
his cause in real life. Glossip’s case was also featured in the 2017
documentary film titled “Killing Richard Glossip.”
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