Former death row inmate Richard Glossip granted bond, after nearly being executed 3 times in Oklahoma

An Oklahoma inmate who was given a new trial after nearly three decades on death row has now been granted bond, laying the groundwork for his first release from prison since 1997.

Richard Glossip, 63, was arrested that year in the killing of his former boss, Barry Van Treese. After numerous legal challenges, execution dates and “last meals,” Glossip on Thursday was presented with a path out of incarceration.

Oklahoma Judge Natalie Mai set Glossip’s bond at $500,000 in the new order, which would also require him to wear a monitoring device and bar him from traveling outside of the state, communicating with potential witnesses in his case and consuming alcohol or drugs.

The order cited a letter written to Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board in 2023 about Glossip’s situation, which acknowledged that the record “does not support that he is guilty of first-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt.”

At the time of his death, Van Treese owned the Oklahoma City motel where Glossip worked. He died after being bludgeoned with a baseball bat, court filings show.

Another man, Justin Sneed, confessed to physically carrying out the killing but claimed Glossip paid him to do it. Sneed, who received a lifetime prison sentence, was a crucial witness for the prosecution during Glossip’s capital murder trial. But the validity of his testimony was called into question in 2022, after the state of Oklahoma found evidence that he may have had a mental illness known to prosecutors that went undisclosed in court.

That was the focus of a Supreme Court case that ultimately determined the prosecution’s failure to correct Sneed’s testimony violated Glossip’s constitutional right to due process, granting him a new trial with an order issued in February 2025. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in June that the state intended to retry Glossip for Van Treese’s death and would not toss out the first-degree murder charge against him, although his office planned to seek a sentence of life imprisonment rather than the death penalty.

Glossip was convicted twice of capital murder. He maintained his innocence throughout his time on Oklahoma’s death row, which saw him narrowly avoid execution three separate times. Nine execution dates were scheduled for him in total. In one instance, an execution was called off after correctional officers had already strapped Glossip to a gurney and begun preparing to give him a lethal injection.

“Mr. Glossip now has the chance to taste freedom while his defense team continues to pursue justice on his behalf against a system that the United States Supreme Court has found to be guilty of serious misconduct by state prosecutors,” said Glossip’s attorney, Donald Knight, in a statement to The Associated Press on Thursday.

Glossip’s wife told AP in a text that the couple were “grateful for the court’s decision.”

“We have been praying for this day,” she said.