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GameChanger [Music] [Applause] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:43
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always this gun is For Hire ladies and gents the captain they like
00:01:50
to call me Big Boss applesauce it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
00:01:57
your father [Music] this week we are featuring Bourbon Barrel aged milk and cookies by The
00:02:07
Crafty Brewers at Wicked Weed Brewing in beautiful Asheville North Carolina this
00:02:12
is an imperial milk stout so very much a dessert Stout as indicated from the clever name of milk and cookies garage
00:02:19
grade four in a quarter bottle caps out of five and this beer was loaded with kindness into the garage fridge by these
00:02:26
crafty garage friends first up a big cheers to a in Riverside California the big we like
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your jib to Shannon in Chicago next up a long distance cheers to Alex in Adelaide
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Australia and a big shout out to Mary in Louisville Kentucky and here's the cheers to Darren in San Diego and last
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but not least we have Taylor and Mansfield Ohio so thanks everybody for helping us out with this week's show if
00:02:53
you want to help us out with next week's show go to truecrime garage.com and click on the Donate button and in the
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next couple weeks going to be restocking a lot of the stuff in the store that has
00:03:02
been missing for a while plus we're finally going to have some stickers so check out the store Page at true Crim
00:03:09
garage.com and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
00:03:15
talk some true [Music] crime [Music] the psyche of a murderer has fascinated us for
00:03:57
centuries what could they have possibly been been thinking or were they even thinking at all when we look into these
00:04:04
crime stories much of the time we find ourselves asking the same question why what drives seemingly normal
00:04:16
peaceful average people to do horrible violent criminal things within these stories after all
00:04:24
the digging sometimes we get our answer a crime of P sudden rage hidden compulsions an
00:04:34
accident followed by a cover up in this week's case we take a close look at a small town
00:04:43
doctor beloved by his community who suddenly and without warning commits a heinous and brutal murder of someone
00:04:53
close to him what drove this Doctor Who had a passion for healing and caring for his
00:05:01
fellow man to kill and destroy a [Music] life this is the case of Dr Vince Gilmer this week Captain we pay homage
00:05:26
to a great show called this American life you are a regular regular I'm a rabid fan very you listen to it on the
00:05:36
rag as Kenny Powers would say I step in and check it out from time to time with your um
00:05:44
suggestion and they covered a case a while back that has inspired us to take a deeper look into something brought to
00:05:52
light by their fantastic show and we're going to start off by talking about Dr Benjamin Gilmer Dr Ben Benjamin Gilmer
00:06:00
was looking for a smalltown medical clinic where he could establish a medical practice MH well he found it in
00:06:07
200 2009 Dr Benjamin Gilmer set up shop at the Cane Creek Family Clinic but Ben was a little weirded out the clinic was
00:06:15
originally founded and run by a man who shared his occupation and name Dr Benjamin Gilmer would be the second Dr
00:06:24
Gilmore to run the Cane Creek Family Clinic the first was Dr Vince Gilmer and the two were not related in fact they
00:06:34
never even met before Ben took over the practice and Dr Benjamin knew very little about Dr Vince Gilmer but he did
00:06:43
know a couple of things he knew from the patients and staff that Dr Vince was in
00:06:49
fact a very good and caring doctor but he was also a convicted murder then when patients at the clinic
00:06:57
were told that there was was a new Dr Gilmer they were weirded out as well Dr Ben noticed how many of the patients and
00:07:07
staff of the clinic raved about how wonderful Vince Gilmer was Ben heard stories of the caring generous
00:07:14
Dependable doctor and he couldn't reconcile that impression with what he knew to be true that Vince was a violent
00:07:21
confessed murderer right so he started to do some digging looking into Vince's past and even accessing the trial
00:07:32
materials Dr Ben sent a letter to Vince in prison 8 years after the murder and Vince wrote back but Dr Ben was
00:07:41
horrified at the letter he received it was virtually elgible scrolled across the paper as though written by a child
00:07:49
mhm Vince rambled on and on for multiple pages about the effects of SSRI withdrawal one thing Dr Ben could make
00:07:59
out for sure was that the letter was asking for help the two continued to correspond and Vince made it clear in
00:08:07
his letters that he believed he needed Lexapro or Celexa but was not receiving it in
00:08:15
prison now a little side note here to discuss these drugs that that Vince is talking about and the
00:08:23
implications so Lexapro is a drug designed to treat generalized anxiet disorder and depression an important
00:08:32
neurotransmitter chemical in the body serotonin helps to send signals to the brain and is often associated with
00:08:40
contentment or happiness however serotonin is actually linked to many complex functions and regulates
00:08:48
cognition learning memory and other processes if your brain is lacking in serotonin it can impact your mood
00:08:58
anti-depressants work to redress this by increasing serotonin levels these drugs
00:09:04
called selective serotonin reuptake Inhibitors or ssris for short are intended to build up in the body over
00:09:14
time improving depression symptoms if you stop taking them abruptly this could have severe effects including Suicidal
00:09:23
Thoughts agitation and even psychosis so Lexapro is an SS RI now that's just my general garage guy understanding of the
00:09:34
drugs that we are going to be discussing and how they work that's a guy that studied computers yeah that's his
00:09:41
understanding of drugs take that with a grain of salt I guess m eventually Dr Ben and Dr Vince they began conversing
00:09:48
by phone and Dr Ben noticed that Vince's speech was often slurred and he seemed to have extreme trouble articulating
00:09:56
what he was trying to say right and let's be clear this is not just a doctor this is a doctor that is running a
00:10:03
entire clinich mhm and he goes from doing that to barely being able to write a letter barely being able to talk on
00:10:12
the phone and on top of that Vince tells Ben about the uncontrolled movements that he started to exhibit around the
00:10:19
time of his arrest and this continued and it got worse over time Ben decided that an inperson visit to Vince in
00:10:28
prison was in order and he was shocked at what he saw Dr Vince The Prisoner looked very ill mhm he seemed unable to
00:10:37
control his body's jerking and sudden movements and he had trouble talking like a normal person he was also missing
00:10:45
some teeth and he was getting in fights with all the other inmates right he Vince walked with a shuffle he seemed
00:10:53
anxious and paranoid and he was the one that tells Ben about stories of him aggressively attacking other inmates
00:11:02
right in no uncertain terms in these phone calls and visits Vince asked Ben repeatedly and often emotionally for
00:11:09
help he was unable to grasp what was wrong with him and he guess that it was a deficiency in serotonin Vince had been
00:11:18
asking prison officials for years to prescribe him an SSR like Celexa right but he was ignored now Captain let's go
00:11:28
back and take a look right at the once beloved smalltown doctor back in 2004 Dr Vincent Donald Gilmer a Burly balding
00:11:38
41-year-old doctor of Family Medicine worked in Fletcher North Carolina at a small Medical Clinic that he founded the
00:11:47
rural town is about 15 mil from Asheville and catered to the locals in the somewhat isolated area but Vince
00:11:54
wasn't your everyday dispassionate impersonal medical service provider he was truly a member of the community
00:12:01
having chosen Fletcher as the place that he wanted to work and live he was fully
00:12:07
invested in his patients lives and he truly cared yeah he even made house calls I believe yeah he cared to the
00:12:14
point that he not only dedicated his time to meeting with and listening to his patients but he found a way to
00:12:22
diagnose or treat them even if they couldn't afford it some patients received their medications out of free
00:12:28
samples the doctor got from the drug companies some patients received long Grace periods for their bills or large
00:12:36
discounts on necessary Services right and then there's even some stories of situations where if a patient couldn't
00:12:44
pay at all Vince would accept Bartered goods or services like food or work and trade for the doctor
00:12:51
bills and he even gave free checkups to the local firefighters which is a fantastic thing right Dr Vince Gilmore
00:12:59
was known and loved as a generous thoughtful caring man who would buy people presents for no reason or help
00:13:06
anybody out at any time his nickname was Bear because he was known to give great
00:13:12
big bear hugs Dr Vince was married to a woman named Karen she was also a doctor and she started the Cane Creek Family
00:13:21
Health Center with Vince and they worked side by side there the couple didn't have children but they didn't seem to
00:13:28
missed that aspect as they stayed quite busy with their practice and socializing
00:13:33
with their friends this included Vince and Karen's close friend and office manager Terry warley everything seemed
00:13:41
to be as normal as can be as American as apple pie this up until without the cheese on it yeah this up until around
00:13:50
2003 about one year earlier when things began to change and the good doctor began to change so how had this caring
00:14:00
beloved small town doctor morphed into a violent murder seemingly out of the blue
00:14:06
it seemed to be completely totally out of character for Vince Gilmer what possibly could explain this change well
00:14:13
there are some things that one might be able to point to as possible triggers that may have pushed this man to the
00:14:20
Limit and then over for one thing about a year before the murder Vince was in what can only be explained or described
00:14:29
as a serious car accident M he was driving his truck Vince hit a light pole and flipped his truck the vehicle was
00:14:36
total and Vince suffered a significant head injury Vince's office assistant Terry warley saw Vince in the hospital
00:14:44
on the day of the accident she said at first that Vince didn't even know who he was right he didn't recognize his wife
00:14:52
or he didn't even know that he was married mhm after a short period of time Vince was back to his senses and he was
00:15:00
allowed to go home about 24 hours later but it was evident that he had hit his head very hard in this accident right
00:15:09
much later and strangely Terry Express expressed to journalist Sarah kanig of the serial Fame and This American Life
00:15:18
right that she wondered whether Vince had possibly crashed his truck on purpose and I know this seems very
00:15:24
strange but go with me on this she was suspicious for a couple of reasons one she noted that Vince was scheduled to
00:15:33
take his medical boards pretty soon after this accident right to like reinstate yeah is that like I'm guessing
00:15:41
that's some kind of uh confirmation of continued education or or keeping up on your uh knowledge of of your very
00:15:48
important job yeah that's what I think it was okay well she had some suspicion that he couldn't handle that kind of
00:15:55
pressure very well of knowing that these tests were coming up so he was stressed
00:15:59
about that also Terry said Vince wanted a new truck but his wife who handled the
00:16:05
finances was telling him no right so with this accident he was able to postpone taking his boards and got a new
00:16:15
truck right of course and it only almost cost his life right now of course there
00:16:22
is no evidence that Vince's accident was anything or any way deliberate this is just a you know suspicion of someone who
00:16:31
knew Vince quite well this simply could just be what it appears to have been an accident another thing that happened was
00:16:40
Vince divorced his wife Karen right after this accident according to people who knew the couple this was totally out
00:16:48
of the blue yeah but there was some speculation cuz I believe she said that they were having some issues before that
00:16:55
yeah Terry warley who we've discussed says Karen asked Vince to consider counseling before you know ending the
00:17:02
marriage but he says no he doesn't want to do the counseling right and that he actually already had a place to live and
00:17:09
he moved out that weekend when they start discussing the possibility of counseling sometime around this point it
00:17:18
could be just before just after Vince starts drinking quite a bit and he is frequenting bars three or four nights a
00:17:26
week yeah and this is weird too cuz you go did this guy bump his head or is he just having a midlife crisis yes yes
00:17:34
very much so and but keep in mind this is also someone that no one considered him to be a big drinker before this
00:17:42
right you know so we're seeing almost a complete shift in in personality but I mean have you had a friend that has done
00:17:48
that as far as like once they hit middle age they they kind of go off the deep end for a while um I usually they'll buy
00:17:57
a fast car or motorcycle or or you'll see somebody get into a hobby that they've always talked about right he's
00:18:04
getting into a hobby going to bars going going to bars and driving a brand new truck right uh people close to Vince
00:18:11
also noticed that he started behaving differently he was easily distracted and seemed to lose focus very quickly well
00:18:19
and they talk a lot about when somebody has an accident especially when there's head trauma that they can have a shift
00:18:26
in personality mhm yeah and and just overall Behavior yeah that's why I've recommended to you to run your head into
00:18:34
a wall a couple times wow uh one friend personality one friend tells a story in which Vince ran over his dog's tail with
00:18:44
his vehicle this was very likely an accident and he called the friend crying hysterically and what the friend would
00:18:53
later say you know Vince was reacting completely disp disportionately to his to this minor accident for
00:19:01
someone who is a Doctor Who's used to you know stressful situations it is after the divorce and after the car
00:19:10
crash that Vince starts he says he started taking Lexapro now the Washington County
00:19:16
Sheriff told a news show that their department they were unable to locate any prescription for Lexapro issued to
00:19:26
Vince Gilmer so it seems likely that Vince Gilmer was self-medicating yeah but if he's getting he could be getting
00:19:34
a bunch of free samples mhm so maybe he's just taking those in any event the changes in Vince people notice them and
00:19:43
they say these were significant well and think about Ben Gilmer the the guy taking over Vince's practice as he's
00:19:51
talking to these patients and learning a lot about them some of these patients are coming in and saying you know f was
00:19:58
a sweetheart and he loved his wife and the fact that uh that he would even want to divorce his wife is strange mhm and
00:20:07
then you're being compared to him people were saying you look like him you act like him right uh you're you're a saint
00:20:15
like him and then to hear all these little stories I didn't have you know maybe insurance and he and he SL you
00:20:22
know gave me some uh samples to get me by mhm I mean that's what you're hearing and that's
00:20:30
what you're seeing every day and then but there's this other side to this doctor mhm you know almost
00:20:39
like ja and Hyde well and this is weird too I mean it's obviously very weird but
00:20:46
I think everybody out there think about your own personal life and your own work
00:20:51
history for a minute many of us have walked into a job that we sought that we were lucky to get hired for and you are
00:21:01
interacting with customers who worked with the person that you replaced you are working with co-workers and bosses
00:21:10
of people that worked with the person that you replaced and you this it's very normal to hear a lot about the person
00:21:19
that that worked at that position before and even hear situations of you being compared to that person right and
00:21:28
the the weird thing here is not only do they share the same occupation not only do they share the same goals of running
00:21:36
this practice of this Clinic they share the same last name and the really weird thing here is you have two very smart
00:21:46
individuals Dr Vince Gilmer and then Dr Benjamin Gilmer and you almost have a situation
00:21:55
where Dr Benjamin Gilmer is trying to make sense at out of what the heck happened to the guy he replaced mhm
00:22:02
hearing these wonderful stories from from the the uh patients and from the staff and then can you can you imagine
00:22:12
being a a patient and you're like yeah I read about man my doctor was arrested for a murder right and then the next
00:22:19
time I go in for a checkup uh Dr Gilmore would be in to see you shortly right I like a lot of people
00:22:26
thought it was a prank what what happened I I read about that in the paper they let him out but then you have
00:22:33
Dr Benjamin Gilmer who's trying to make sense out of something that happened to the guy that that he's replacing well I
00:22:41
think some of that too is like we kind of have a fear of that I think when you think of of these horror stories or
00:22:48
these urban legends when you look at like the Amityville Horror it was this whole thing where the family moves into
00:22:55
a house and then the the crazy guy that lived in the house before now the father
00:23:01
is becoming crazy just like he was you know what I mean and you're going oh no you know like and so I think maybe part
00:23:10
of Benjamin's thought was am I going to become this guy right which doesn't sound like a sane thought but no but who
00:23:17
knows we've all seen The Shining right and I think Dr benjaman Gilmer he saw it a lot I think he referred to it on This
00:23:28
American Life as there's there's a ghost in this building there's a ghost in this
00:23:33
Clinic the ghost of Dr Vince Gilmer or the ghost of something you know he can't really put his finger on yeah or the
00:23:41
possible fear of what if this guy gets out and does he come looking for me yeah does he know about me I know about him
00:23:49
he's on the inside does he know about me and and then you have a guy that did some uh pretty insane
00:23:59
stuff and is this guy going to kind of freak out because a Dr Gilmer took his place mhm wasn't there even a story
00:24:10
where where some somebody gave some information or passed something along to the staff there that said hey I heard Dr
00:24:17
Vince Gilmer's getting out of prison soon yeah like a technicality or something yeah yeah so could you imagine
00:24:26
constantly like double to see and and you don't know this guy you've just seen pictures of him you never met him in
00:24:32
person mhm so that' be pretty pretty intense well as we said the changes to Dr Vince Gilmer people noticed this they
00:24:43
were significant changes in his personality and his behavior and then the murder happened and it became even
00:24:50
clear that there was something very wrong with Dr Vince Gilmer this show is sponsored by better help do
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when you Angie that all right cheers mates and a big cheers to My Buddy Joe which I got a
00:27:18
text last night that they had a baby oh congratulations Anna so I hope everybody's doing well and Joe's a great
00:27:26
guy so cheers to you Joe all right I think we have set this up pretty good so far we have talked about Dr Ben Gilmer
00:27:35
taking over the practice him learning about the previous doctor Vince Gilmer the two sharing letters phone
00:27:41
conversations and Ben even visiting Vince in prison we have talked about some of the events in Vince's life that
00:27:49
led up to the murder but we are yet to talk about the murder so on the day in question this is a Monday June 28th
00:27:58
2004 Vince Gilmer told his office manager Terry to close the clinic early on this day afterward Vince left to
00:28:07
drive to Bron Hospital Bron hospital is a psychiatric facility located about 60 miles away from
00:28:15
Morganton Vince was going there to pick up his father right Vince's father Dalton Gilmer aged 60 was a resident at
00:28:24
Bron hospital now I don't fully know the ins and outs of why Dalton was a patient
00:28:30
at this psychiatric hospital but court records indicate that Dalton could barely walk he used a wheelchair or
00:28:37
Walker and he was on antis psychotic medication and did he have some form of dementia well so one of Vince's former
00:28:47
patients later told a reporter that Dalton had Alzheimer's right so it's possible that that he may have had that
00:28:55
or possible that Vince told people that he had Alzheimer's but we don't know whether that's the actual case or
00:29:01
whether suffered from some different physical Affliction or just mental impairment now but the key thing here is
00:29:10
Dalton needed assistance to perform everyday functions such as bathing eating and getting dressed right okay so
00:29:18
apparently Vince picked up his father that day as part of a plan he said to move Dalton to a nursing facility closer
00:29:26
to Cane Creek presumably so that Vince could visit his father more often on Tuesday June 29th Vince returned to work
00:29:37
at can Creek Family Medical Center he told Terry you know one of the staff members there and others on his staff
00:29:44
that he had brought his father Dalton home with him on Monday but that Dalton wandered off during the night and he
00:29:51
hadn't been able to locate him yet Vince said that he filled out a he filed a police report which he which he did um
00:30:00
but this was not technically until June 30th the the report that I saw says June
00:30:06
30th as the date but Vince continued to work as normal that day seeing his first
00:30:12
patient of the day Terry's son for astho right on schedule at 9:00 a.m. he seemed
00:30:19
completely normal according to those who interacted with him that day he did not
00:30:24
seem at all anxious or worried despite the fact that his elderly ailing father was missing at this time in fact he
00:30:33
completely he was completely normal all week long even taking the staff out to lunch on Friday at a spot that they
00:30:40
liked called ianucci it was while he was at this lunch that Dr Vince Gilmer received a
00:30:49
phone call this call was from Washington County Virginia Sheriff's Department Detective Mike Martin and informing
00:30:57
Vince that a body had been found in Virginia Terry warley reported afterwards that upon hearing this news
00:31:06
Vince nearly fainted he turned Ashen and had to lie down on a bench at the restaurant
00:31:14
someone brought him a cold compress they're trying to tend to the doctor to everyone present it seemed that Vince
00:31:22
was reeling from the shock of the loss of his father right he was unable to continue to converse with Detective
00:31:30
Martin and insisted that Terry take over the phone call Washington County Sheriff Fred
00:31:37
Newman later told the media that Vince Gilmer's hysterical reaction well he considered this to be overthe toop quote
00:31:47
he was just torn all to pieces more so than was actually normal he said authorities made arrangements for
00:31:54
detective we also have him overreacting to running over his dog's tail that's true that's very true authorities made
00:32:03
arrangements for detective Martin to meet with Vince at his home when the time came for the arranged meeting
00:32:10
between Vince and detective Martin detective Martin says that Vince was polite and composed asking no questions
00:32:17
and showing no emotion here is detective Martin in his own words about what went
00:32:24
down in this meeting quote during the interview at Mr Gilmer's home he told me that he had
00:32:35
brought his father to North Carolina to stay with him and that upon their arrival that Dalton was so delighted to
00:32:42
be there they had went out into the yard and played with the dog throwing a frisbee I already knew that could not be
00:32:50
true because the people at Bron Hospital told me that Mr Gilmer senior could not have walked on his own at any
00:32:59
time he said you don't believe me what I'm telling you I said no sir not at all not in the least I do not believe you I
00:33:10
said the very questions that any person would be asking in reference to his parents' death you've not
00:33:17
asked which is an excellent indicator that you already know he wasn't scared he wasn't
00:33:24
agitated he told me he said look he said you don't know who you are messing with
00:33:31
he said I am a doctor of medicine I am well respected in the state of North Carolina and I will have your damn job I
00:33:39
said sir it is my job to do the investigation and based on what I know I will consult with the Commonwealth
00:33:48
Attorney and I will ask for a warrant for your arrest for murder when we left we said sir thank you for your time
00:33:57
and he closed the door and never said a [Music] word so a heated exchange between the
00:34:07
doctor and the detective yeah an interesting exchange as well because what I find fascinating here is you have
00:34:17
a very much seasoned detective somebody that's that done the job for quite some time and his first reaction is saying
00:34:25
you know he's he's just saying what he's thinking he's saying look doctor I told you that your your father
00:34:34
is dead you're not asking certain questions that through my experience in conducting this job I'm used to hearing
00:34:44
right you know but again that's we always assume how people are supposed to act no I know that but but there's
00:34:52
there's some indicators here that are interesting to me right because we don't we only have this small window of their
00:35:00
interaction this little heated exchange here what we don't have is some of the questions and interaction that may have
00:35:07
led up to this but what I'm thinking that the detective is finding interesting and that he may have found
00:35:14
his first suspect is look if if I tell you that your father died and you don't ask me
00:35:20
well how did he die that's weird I already know it's could to be just like well that's that's what dying on the
00:35:29
crap no but that's what the detective is simply saying to the doctor is that because you're not asking me certain
00:35:35
questions that indicates to me that you already know the answer to a lot of these questions that I would expect you
00:35:42
to be asking there I think there was probably something else happening though because if somebody said that my father
00:35:50
died or or or a grandparent died or something like that there I mean there's been times that people have told me this
00:35:57
stuff and and I don't know exactly what to react you know like or how to react so there isn't a reaction of what
00:36:06
happened because I'm just contemplating oh crap they're gone you know but I mean
00:36:12
we might get to that eventually you know in this same exchange though we have Dr
00:36:18
Gilmore saying hey this is what happened when I last saw my father and the detective outright saying look that
00:36:24
cannot be true cannot be true that your your father was out playing with the dog
00:36:30
in the yard right based on what I've been told by the people that were taking care of him at the facility that you
00:36:36
placed him that can't be true the man can't dress himself he can't feed himself he can't walk without assistance
00:36:43
he's not out in the dog in the yard throwing the Frisbee with the dog right he seems like there there Comes A Time
00:36:51
and my grandpa used to talk about this all the time is when he'd go to the nursing homes or the fa facilities where
00:36:57
they have older patients M and they there was nothing that they could do for the patient and they didn't have enough
00:37:04
staff to like be oneon-one with the patient so they basically get the patient dressed and wheel the patient
00:37:11
out into the hallway yeah you make them comfortable and try to yeah yeah I mean it's aw it's awful so well you and I
00:37:21
will be there in about three or five years yeah two and a half two and a half at this pace well in the course of this
00:37:27
meeting detectives they did search Vince Gilmer's home this was due to a warrant
00:37:33
that they brought with them that day now it was not known exactly what was found
00:37:38
but we do know that the police collected a receipt from a local Wallmart dated early on the morning of June 29th which
00:37:46
showed the purchase of five bottles of peroxide the cops they presumed that this meant that Vince had used the
00:37:54
peroxide to clean something up right and in combination with the perceived lies about Dalton playing
00:38:01
frisbee with the dog the cops had enough for an arrest warrant for first-degree murder which they obtained and returned
00:38:10
to execute but after the meeting with Detective Martin and a search of his home by law enforcement Dr Vince Gilmer
00:38:18
had not acted like an innocent man instead of mourning his father's passing he packed up some basic camping gear and
00:38:27
fled when he was finally found chased down and arrested he was living in a tent behind a Lowe's Home Improvement
00:38:34
store in the uh at the Asheville Mall so you want to get in touch with nature but not too far not too far right
00:38:43
you want to be close to a dumpster in some public restrooms yeah police received a tip from an unknown source
00:38:50
that Vince was hiding out in the area uh and that's how they tracked him down now
00:38:56
when they approached him or attempted to do so he ran from police through the wooded area behind the Lowe's building
00:39:04
hiding behind trees and this is like a dark forested area right but look in the initial let's say confrontation between
00:39:13
the detective and the doctor they have to be seeing that something's not right not only is he not acting like an
00:39:21
innocent man or a grieving son he's just acting a little strange as well M they have to see that now we have the this
00:39:31
doctor again a doctor right right a smart guy right super smart guy and a guy that's trying
00:39:39
I mean cops and firefighters are close that's normally a close-knit organization um even though they're kind
00:39:48
of separate entities they they know each other really well so they'd hear about him doing all these checkups for free on
00:39:56
the firefighters mhm and now we have this situation where this guy is after his dad is dead and we we think he's our
00:40:06
number one suspect that it's murder he has a tent behind Lowe's and then when they go to arrest
00:40:15
him he's running from them yeah there has to be red flags well and he's already threatened the detective I mean
00:40:23
as soon as the detective is up front and says look man I don't believe you to put
00:40:27
it as Frank as possible look man I don't believe you the doctor then immediately
00:40:32
like you said pointed out goodbye you a smart guy he immediately jumps into threatening the detective of do you know
00:40:40
who I am do you know how important I am I can have I'll have your damn job I'll have you fired right for this accusation
00:40:46
so we have Dr Gilmore and he is running from the cops yeah from his little tent site yeah in a wooded area in the middle
00:40:55
of the night mhm and when police Searchers finally sent in a canine Vince charged the dog and the police Handler
00:41:04
and it was said by an officer on the scene that Vince Gilmer charged at the officer in K9 with absolutely no
00:41:10
expression on his face he's lucky he didn't get shot Vince Gilmore was finally apprehended around 1 a.m. so this
00:41:20
desperate and somewhat pitiful flight from Justice was just the tip of the iceberg
00:41:27
on July 6th Vince Gilmer was charged with the first-degree murder of his father Dalton Gilmer what came out about
00:41:35
the killing and the arrest shocked everyone in the community when Dalton Gilmer's body was found it was
00:41:42
determined that he was strangled to death the implement used was a rope an autopsy confirmed death by rope
00:41:50
strangulation the medical examiner specifically noted that Dalton Gilmer had been strangled twice
00:41:56
there were two distinct rope marks visible on his throat the body was discarded at the
00:42:03
side of Good Hope Road near the Virginia Tennessee Border in Washington County on
00:42:10
the Virginia side not five miles from a medical clinic where Dr Vince Gilmer had
00:42:16
previously practiced years before the body had been found where it was still it was still worn by a
00:42:23
resident right who was driving home from the movies just after midnight the body
00:42:28
was lying visibly on the side of the road dressed in shorts and a pulled up t-shirt the no shoes no teeth now I I do
00:42:37
want to make a side note of this because there doesn't seem to be from the articles I could find there doesn't seem
00:42:43
to be any indication that teeth were removed from the victim it's very likely that Mr Dalton Gilmore may have had
00:42:52
Dentures at his old a you know in these were just removed right um there was also no wallet present it was quickly
00:43:02
identified by clothing labels however reading Dalton Gilmer right because he was in the hospital yeah these these
00:43:10
labels were stamped with Dalton's name inside his polo shirt collar and shorts around the waistband labels that
00:43:20
actually his son Vince had arranged to have attached to help identify Dalton's clothing at the psychiatric hospital
00:43:27
from that of the other patients Vince must have forgotten about these identifying labels because before
00:43:35
dumping the body he severed all 10 of his father's fingers with what some have said to be medical Precision cutting off
00:43:46
each digit right at the base of the Palm he used what he later described as a little Saul to do this the instrument
00:43:55
has also been referred to as a set of pruning shears the fingers have never been
00:44:01
found now the medical examiner determined that it was likely that that Vince the killer had initially strangled
00:44:09
Dalton but that Dalton was still alive and came to and when Vince started to se sever the fingers this is probably when
00:44:18
he came to right cuz there was blood on his body and clothes indicating that his
00:44:25
heart was still pumping when some of the fingers were being cut off right so Vince that's the second strangulation
00:44:33
right Vince strangled him a second time this to com to complete the task I guess
00:44:39
a rubber surgical glove was found in the road near Dalton's corpse so what this suggests very obviously with the
00:44:49
removing of the fingers with the removal of what I believe to be Dentures with finding no wallet is very
00:44:59
simply somebody dumping a body dumping a murder victim right and trying to make it difficult for them to be identified
00:45:08
however we have the situation where we have the name of the victim stamped on the labels and the clothing yeah and
00:45:17
maybe that's just something he forgot about mhm but obviously like you said the removal of
00:45:23
teeth could just not have had hise on him that day but the removal of the fingers I mean it gets me every time
00:45:33
yeah you know especially as a guitar player well the another thing that I find strange about this situation too is
00:45:41
now I now I understand that they drove some distance from um where he picked up his father so
00:45:50
that indicates further trying to conceal the identity of the victim right but what kind of shocks me here is mind you
00:46:01
we've we've both agreed multiple times that we're talking about a smart guy the murderer is a smart guy and the efforts
00:46:10
taken to cover up or hide the identity of his father of his victim it it's almost shocking to me
00:46:18
that the body's just left on the side of the road mhm that there wasn't some further you know concealment of that to
00:46:26
begin with but we have again this is way out of character for him anyways to be committing a crime
00:46:33
like this and so this should be out of character for for for damn near everybody well well not the people on
00:46:42
our show yeah this is in character there was some other information that started
00:46:46
to come out around this time after uh Vince's arrest uh one bit of information Vince had been his father uh Dalton's
00:46:55
legal guardian something that is obviously pretty common in a case where a parent becomes incompetent or is
00:47:04
living in a facility as part of his guardianship Vince was in charge of handling Dalton's
00:47:12
money this responsibility included paying the cost associated with Dalton's Psychiatric Hospital impatient status
00:47:21
but when Dalton was killed it came out that he owed Bron Hospital over $270,000 Vince had not been paying his
00:47:31
father's bills we don't know whether he he kept the money for himself or even whether he ever withdrew it from
00:47:40
Dalton's account at all right perhaps this is how Vince was able to afford possibly cutting his patience so
00:47:48
many breaks right who knows but but either way new truck yeah either way well he would have got something from
00:47:55
the the insurance I'm guessing but either way he owed a lot of money for his father's Care at the time of this
00:48:03
murder yeah but just because you kill him doesn't mean that that bill goes away well another thing that looked bad
00:48:10
for Vince Gomer was a trip to Alaska that he had planned now we don't know exactly when he booked this trip but the
00:48:20
timing of the trip coincided with his father's being released from the hospital now this is how this has been
00:48:29
reported it's unclear exactly what dates the trip was planned for Terry warley the office manager at the clinic says
00:48:37
she had booked the roundtrip ticket to Alaska at Vince Gilmer's request but detectives discovered that at some point
00:48:45
at some time after that someone had changed the ticket to a oneway ticket now it's unclear whether Vince just
00:48:53
decided not to go or whether this is probably more likely uh he probably had plans of going to Alaska
00:49:03
and never coming back you know much better plan than hiding out behind the Lowe's Home Improvement store do you
00:49:10
think possibly a little bit better of a vacation the other interesting thing here too Captain is later when asked
00:49:19
Vince said he could not recall having any plans to go to Alaska that's not like you know it's not like
00:49:27
taking a trip down the road this is this is going to Alaska and booking a round trip ticket right but did did he seem
00:49:35
believable when he was saying he didn't know about this I I don't know because there's I didn't see like an interview
00:49:42
or you know interrogation or anything of that process right just the simple statement of them saying yeah we asked
00:49:51
about Alaska we asked about the the one-way ticket to Alaska and he basically just says yeah don't I don't
00:49:59
recall any plans having any plans to go to Alaska the tricky thing too that makes this a little could be difficult
00:50:06
for investigators is initially the tickets were booked by the office assistant and I mean Vince's office assistant well
00:50:18
she she says Vince requested this of of her but I mean it does make it a little tricky
00:50:26
now finally investigators on the case said that Vince told them that when he picked up his father from the hospital
00:50:33
to bring him to a new nursing home because that's what he was supposed to do he was supposed to pick him up at
00:50:39
Bron hospital and transfer him to another hospital closer to Vince's home as we said presumably to make it more
00:50:48
convenient on the son visiting the father but later after his arrest he's saying hey look when I went to pick up
00:50:55
him up I promised my father that we would stop first for a quick Lake kaying outing Vince said his father once lived
00:51:06
near little Wilbur Lake in Carter County Tennessee and Vince thought the kayaking
00:51:12
outing would be soothing would be nice nice thing to do for his father now a green kayak was apparently seen in the
00:51:20
truck in Vince's truck that day but remember Dalton couldn't walk and reports are that there was no Walker
00:51:28
found right detectives were highly skeptical of this kayak story especially as when Vince picked up Dalton it was
00:51:37
already getting toward the evening hours in fact they said Vince had picked up Dalton that day with the Rope the gloves
00:51:48
and saw or pruning shears already in his truck police believed that this was not
00:51:54
a spur of the moment killing in their minds this was pre-planned premeditated murder all right if you need more of the
00:52:15
garage check out our old episode starting from episode 1 back in what 2015 mhm seems like just yesterday we
00:52:26
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back here in the garage for the rest of today's case until then be good be kind and don't
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