OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma prosecutors dropped the first-degree murder charge against Richard Glossip on Thursday, ending one of the longest-running death-row cases in American history after the former prisoner pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
Glossip, 63, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to first-degree murder in the 1997 killing of Barry Van Treese, his boss at an Oklahoma City motel. In exchange, the state withdrew the murder charge at a hearing before Oklahoma County District Judge Natalie Mai. He will be sentenced in December.
Judge Mai can sentence Glossip to anywhere from five to 45 years in prison, but she can also give him credit for the nearly 30 years he has already served — which would allow him to remain free. “It’s a tightrope,” his attorney, Don Knight, told USA TODAY.
The plea closes a case that has drawn national and international attention for decades. Glossip spent 30 years on death row, and his execution was scheduled nine separate times before being called off. He came closest on September 30, 2015, when he was three hours from execution before a doctor realized a pharmacist had supplied the wrong drug for the lethal injection. He was served three last meals.
The U.S. Supreme Court threw out his 2004 murder conviction in February 2025, ruling 5–3 that prosecutors had allowed a key witness to lie in court and withheld crucial evidence. Glossip was released on $500,000 bail in May and has been living in Oklahoma City with his wife, whom he married while still on death row around 2021.
Glossip was accused of ordering the killing of Van Treese, 54, who was found beaten to death in Room 102 of the Best Budget Inn on January 7, 1997. Prosecutors said Glossip, the motel manager, wanted Van Treese killed to keep from being fired for embezzlement. Justin Sneed, a motel maintenance man, confessed to beating Van Treese to death with a baseball bat and testified that Glossip had offered him $10,000. Glossip’s lawyers say Sneed killed Van Treese during a botched robbery and blamed Glossip to avoid the death penalty himself.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond made the rare acknowledgment last year that prosecutors at Glossip’s trial hid evidence that might have led to an acquittal, though the state maintained it had strong evidence for a third trial. A retrial had been scheduled to begin in December. Knight said a new trial “would have been rolling the dice” and that the plea was the best way to end the case.
Glossip has maintained his innocence of ordering the killing. “For 30 years Richard Glossip has maintained his innocence,” Knight said in a statement. “After nearly executing him nine times, the State of Oklahoma has now dismissed the murder charge against him.”
