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[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always this gun is for hire ladies and gents the captain they like
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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
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your father this week we are featureing bourbon barrel-aged milk and cookies by the crafty Brewers at wicked weed
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brewing and beautiful Asheville North Carolina this is an imperial milk style so very much a desert style as indicated
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loaded with kindness into the garage fridge by these crafty garage friends first up a big cheers to April in
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garage calm and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's
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talk some true crime [Music] the psyche of a murderer has fascinated us for centuries what could they have
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possibly been thinking were they even thinking at all when we look into these crime stories much of the time we find
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ourselves asking the same question why what drives seemingly normal peaceful average people to do horrible violent
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criminal things within these stories after all the digging sometimes we get our answer a crime of passion
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sudden rage hidden compulsions an accident followed by a cover-up in this week's case we take a close look at a
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small-town doctor beloved by his community who suddenly and without warning commits a heinous
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and brutal murder of someone close to him what drove this doctor who had a passion for healing and caring for his
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fellow man to kill and destroy a life [Music] this is the case of dr. Vince Gilmer
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[Music] this week captain we pay homage to a great show called This American Life you
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are a regular regular I'm a rabid fan very you listen to it on the Reg as Kenny Powers would say yeah I step in
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and check it out from time to time with your suggestion and they covered a case a while back that has inspired us to
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take a deeper look into something brought to light by their fantastic show and we're gonna start off by talking
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about dr. Benjamin Gilmer dr. Benjamin Gilmer was looking for a small-town medical clinic where he could establish
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a medical practice well he found it in 2009 dr. Benjamin Gilmer set up shop at the Cane Creek Family Clinic but Ben was
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a little weirded out the clinic was originally founded and run by a man who shared his occupation and named dr.
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Benjamin Gilmer would be the second dr. Gilmore to run the Cane Creek Family Clinic the first was dr. Vince Gilmer
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and the two were not related in fact they never even met before Ben took over the practice and dr. Benjamin knew very
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little about dr. Vince Gilmer but he did know a couple of things he knew from the
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patients and staff that dr. Vince was in fact a very good and caring doctor but he was also a convicted murderer then
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when patients at the clinic were told that there was a new dr. Gilmer they were weirded out as well dr. Ben noticed
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how many of the patients and staff of the clinic raved about how wonderful Vince Gilmer was Ben heard stories of
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the caring generous dependable doctor and he couldn't reconcile that impression with what he knew to be true
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the Vince was a vial confessed murderer right so he started to do some digging looking into Vince's
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past and even accessing the trial materials dr. ben sent a letter to Vince in prison eight years after the murder
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and Vince wrote back but dr. ben was horrified at the letter he received it was virtually illegible scrawled across
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the paper as though written by a child mm-hmm Vince rambled on and on for multiple
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pages about the effects of SSRI withdraw one thing dr. ben could make out for sure was that the letter was asking for
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help the two continued to correspond and Vince made it clear in his letters that
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he believed he needed lexapro or celexa but was not receiving it in prison now a
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little side note here to discuss these drugs that that Vince is talking about in the implications so lexapro is a drug
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designed to treat generalized anxiety disorder and depression an important neurotransmitter chemical in the body
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serotonin helps to send signals to the brain and is often associated with contentment or happiness however
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serotonin is actually linked to many complex functions and regulates cognition learning memory and other
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processes if your brain is lacking in serotonin it can impact your mood antidepressants work to redress this by
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increasing serotonin levels these drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs for short are
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intended to build up in the body over time improving depression symptoms if you stop taking them abruptly this could
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have severe effects including suicidal thoughts agitation and even psychosis so lexapro
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is an SSRI now that's just my general garage guy understanding of the drugs that we are going to be
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discussing and how they work that's a guy that studied computers yeah tips his understanding of drugs take that with a
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grain of salt I guess eventually dr. ben and dr. Vince they began conversing by phone and dr. Ben noticed that Vince's
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speech was often slurred and he seemed to have extreme trouble articulating what he was trying to say Ryan let's be
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clear this is not just a doctor this is a doctor that is running an entire clinic mm-hmm and he goes from doing
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that to barely being able to write a letter barely being able to talk on the phone and on top of that Vince tells Ben
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about the uncontrolled movements that he started to exhibit around the time of his arrest and this continued and it got
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worse over time Ben decided that an in-person visit to Vince in prison was an order and he was
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shocked at what he saw dr. Vince the prisoner looked very ill mm-hmm he seemed unable to control his body's
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jerking and sudden movements and he had trouble talking like a normal person was
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also missing some teeth and he was getting in fights with all the other inmates right he Vince walked with a
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shuffle he seemed anxious and paranoid and he was the one that tells Ben about stories of him aggressively attacking
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other inmates right in no uncertain terms in these phone calls and visits Vince asked Ben repeatedly and often
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emotionally for help he was unable to grasp what was wrong with him and he guessed that it was a deficiency in
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serotonin Vince had been asking prison officials for years to prescribe him an SSRI like celexa but he was ignored
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now captain let's go back and take a look right at the once beloved small-town doctor back in 2004 dr.
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Vincent Donald Gilmer a burly balding 41 year old doctor of Family Medicine worked in Fletcher North Carolina at a
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small medical clinic that he founded the rural town is a fifteen miles from Asheville and catered
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to the locals in the somewhat isolated area but Vince wasn't your everyday dispassionate impersonal medical service
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provider he was truly a member of the community having chosen Fletcher as a place that he wanted to work and live he
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was fully invested in his patients lives and he truly cared he even made house calls I believe yeah he cared to the
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point that he not only dedicated his time to meeting with and listening to his patients but he found a way to
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diagnose or treat them even if they couldn't afford it some patients receive their medications
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out of free samples the doctor got from the drug companies some patients receive
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along grace periods for their bills or large discounts on necessary services right and then there's even some stories
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of situations where if a patient couldn't pay at all Vince would accept bartered goods or services like food or
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work and trade for the doctor bills and he even gave free checkups to the local firefighters which is a fantastic thing
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right doctor Vince Gilmer was known and loved as a generous thoughtful caring man who would buy people presents for no
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reason or help anybody out at any time his nickname was bear because he was known to give great big bear hugs dr.
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Vince was married to a woman named Karen she was also a doctor and she started the Cane Creek Family Health Center with
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Vince and they worked side-by-side there the couple didn't have children but they
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didn't seem to miss that aspect as they stayed quite busy with their practice and socializing with their friends this
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included Vince and Karen's close friend in an office manager Terry Worley everything seemed to be as normal as can
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be as American as apple pie this up until without the cheese on it yeah this up until around 2003 about one year
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earlier when things began to change and the good doctor began to change so how had this caring beloved small
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town you're morphed into a violent murder seemingly out of the blue it seemed to
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be completely totally out of character for Vince Gilmer what possibly could explain this change well there are some
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things that one might be able to point to as possible triggers that may have pushed this man to the limit and then
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over for one thing about a year before the murder Vince was in what can only be explained
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or described as a serious car accident he was driving his truck Vince hit a light pole and flipped his truck the
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vehicle was totaled and Vince suffered a significant head injury Vince's office assistant Terry Worley saw Vince in the
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hospital on the day of the accident she said at first that Vince didn't even know who he was right he didn't
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recognize his wife or he didn't even know that he was married mm-hmm after a short period of time Vince was back to
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his senses and he was allowed to go home about 24 hours later but it was evident
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that he had hit his head very hard in this accident right much later and strangely teri express expressed to
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journalist Sarah Koenig of the serial Fame and this American life right there she wondered whether Vince had possibly
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crashed his truck on purpose I know this seems very strange but go with me on this she was suspicious for a couple of
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reasons one she noted that Vince was scheduled to take his medical boards pretty soon after this accident right -
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like reinstate yeah is that like I'm guessing that some kind of confirmation of continued education or or keeping up
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on your knowledge of your very important job yeah that's what I think it was okay
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well she had some suspicions that he couldn't handle that kind of pressure very well of knowing that these tests
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were coming up so he was stressed about that also teri said Vince wanted a new truck but his wife who handled the
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finances was telling him no right so with this accident he was able to postpone taking his boards and got a new
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truck of course I don't only almost costs his life right now of course there is no
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evidence that Vince's accident was anything or any way deliberate this is just a you know suspicion of someone who
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knew Vince quite well this simply could just be what it appears to have been an accident another thing that happened was
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Vince divorced his wife Karen right after this accident according to people who knew the couple this was totally out
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of the blue yeah but there was some speculation because I believe she said that they were having some issues before
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that yeah Terry Worley who we've discussed says Karen asked Vince to consider counseling before you know
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ending the marriage but he says no he doesn't want to do the counseling way and that he actually already had a place
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to live and he moved out that weekend when they start discussing the possibility of counseling sometime
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around this point it could be just before just after Vince starts drinking quite a bit and he is frequenting bars
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three or four nights a week yeah and this is weird too because you go did this kind of bump his head or is he just
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having a midlife crisis yes yes very much so and but keep in mind this is also someone that no one considered him
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to be a big drinker before this right you know so we're seeing almost a complete shift in personality but I mean
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have you had a friend that has done that as far as like once they hit middle age
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they they kind of go off the deep in for a while I mean usually they'll buy a fast car or a motorcycle or or you'll
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see somebody get into a hobby that they've always talked about right he's giving the hobby going to bars going to
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bars and driving a brand-new truck right people close to Vince also notice that he started behaving differently he was
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easily distracted and seemed to lose focus very quickly well they talked a lot about when somebody has an accident
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especially when there's head trauma that they can have a shift in personality mm-hmm yeah and
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just overall behavior yeah that's why I've recommended to you to run your head into a wall a couple times Wow
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one friend a person one friend tells a story in which Vince ran over his dog's tail with his vehicle this was very
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likely an accident and he called the friend crying hysterically and what the friend would later say you know Vince
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was reacting completely Dysport dis portion Utley to his to this minor accident for someone who is a doctor
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who's too you know stressful situations it is after the divorce and after the car crash that Vince starts he says he
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started taking lexapro now the Washington County Sheriff told a news show that their department they were
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unable to locate any prescription for lexapro issued to Vince Gilmer so it seems likely that Vince Gilmer was
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self-medicating yeah but if he's given he could be getting a bunch of free samples so maybe he's just taken those
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in any event the changes in Vince people notice them and they say these were significant well and think about Ben
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Gilmer the guy taken over Vince's practice as he's talking to these patients and learning a lot about him
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some of these patients are coming in and saying you know Vince was a sweetheart and he loved his wife and the fact that
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uh that he would even want to divorce his wife is strange mm-hm and then you're being compared to him people were
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saying you look like him you act like him right you're you're a saint like him and then to hear all these little
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stories I didn't have you know maybe insurance and he and he [ __ ] you know gave me some samples to get me by mm-hmm
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I mean that's what you're hearing and that's what you're seeing every day and then but there's this other side to this
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doctor mm-hmm you know almost like this well and this is weird too I mean it's obviously very weird but I think
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everybody out there think about your own personal life in your own work history for a minute many of us have walked into
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a job that we sought that we were lucky to get hired for and you are interacting
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with customers who worked with the person that you replaced you are working with coworkers and bosses of people that
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worked with the person that you replaced and you this it's very normal to hear a
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lot about the person that that worked at that position before and even here situations of you being compared to that
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person right and the the weird thing here is not only do they share the same occupation not only do they share the
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same goals of running this practice of this clinic they share the same last name and the really weird thing here is
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you have two very smart individuals dr. Vince Gilmer and then dr. Benjamin Gilmer and you almost have a situation
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where dr. Benjamin Gilmer is trying to make sense out of what the heck happened to the guy he replaced hearing these
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wonderful stories from from the the patients and from the staff and can you imagine being a patient and you're like
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yeah I read about me and my doctor was arrested for a murder right and then the next time I go in for a checkup dr.
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Gilmore would be in to see you shortly was a prank right what happened what happened I read about that in the paper
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they let him out but then you have dr. Benjamin Gilmore who's trying to make sense out of something that happened to
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the guy they see that he's replacing well I think some of that too is like we kind of have a fear of that I think when
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you think of these horror stories are these urban legends when you look at like the Amityville Horror it was this
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whole thing with family moves into a house and then the the crazy guy that lived in the house
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before now the father is becoming crazy just like he was mm-hmm you know I mean and you're going oh no you know like and
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so I think maybe part of Benjamin's thought was am I gonna become this guy right which doesn't sound like a sane
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thought but no but who'd of all seen the shining right and I think dr. Benjamin Gilmer he saw it a lot I think he
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referred to it on this American life as there's there's a ghost in this building
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there's a ghost in this clinic it the ghost of dr. Vince Gilmer or the ghost of something you know he can't really
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put his finger on yeah or the possible fear of what if this guy gets out and does he come looking for me
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yeah does he know about me I know about him he's on the inside does he know about me and and then you have a guy
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that did some pretty insane stuff and is this guy gonna kind of freak out because
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a dr. Gilmer took his place mm-hmm wasn't there even a story where where some somebody gave some information or
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passed something along to the staff there that said hey I heard dr. Vince Gilmer's getting out of prison soon yeah
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like a technicality or something yeah yeah so could you imagine constantly like double-checking that see and you
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don't know this guy you've just seen pictures of him you never met him a person mm-hmm so I'd be pretty pretty
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intense well as we said the changes to dr. Vince Gilmer people noticed this they were significant changes in his
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personality and his behavior and then the murder happened and it became even clearer that there was something very
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wrong with dr. Vince Gill Robin Hood is an investment app that lets you buy and sell stocks ETFs
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[Music] all right cheers mates and a big cheers to my buddy Joe which I got a text last
00:28:11
night mm-hmm they had a baby Oh congratulations Anna so I hope everybody's doing well and Joe's a great
00:28:19
guy so cheers to you Joe all right I think we have set this up pretty good so far
00:28:25
we have talked about dr. Ben Gilmer taking over the practice him learning about the previous doctor Vince Gilmer
00:28:32
the to sharing letters phone conversations and Ben even visiting Vince in prison we have talked about
00:28:39
some of the events in Vince's life that led up to the murder but we are yet to talk about the murder so on the day in
00:28:47
question this is a Monday June 28 2004 Vince Gilmer told his office manager Terry to close the clinic early on this
00:28:57
day afterward Vince left to drive to bråten Hospital Braaten Hospital is a psychiatric facility located about 60
00:29:06
miles away from Morganton Vince was going there to pick up his father right Vince's father Dalton Gilmer aged 60 was
00:29:16
a resident at Broughton Hospital now I don't fully know the ins and outs of why Dalton was a patient at this psychiatric
00:29:24
hospital but court records indicate that Dalton could barely walk he used a wheelchair or walker and he
00:29:31
was on antipsychotic medication and did he have some form of dementia well so one of Vince's former patients later
00:29:41
told a reporter that Dalton had Alzheimer's right so it's possible that that he may have had that or possible
00:29:48
that Vince told people that he had Alzheimer's but we don't know whether that's the actual case or whether dalton
00:29:55
suffered from some different physical affliction or just mental impairment now but the key thing here is Dalton needed
00:30:03
assistance to perform everyday functions such as bathing eating and getting dressed right
00:30:09
okay so apparently Vince picked up his father that day as part of a plan he said to
00:30:16
move Dalton to a nursing facility closer to Cane Creek presumably so that Vince could visit his father more often on
00:30:25
Tuesday June 29th Vince returned to work at Cane Creek Family Medical Center he told Terry you know one of the staff
00:30:34
members there and others on his staff that he had brought his father Dalton home with him on Monday but that Dalton
00:30:41
wandered off during the night and he hadn't been able to locate him yet hmm Vince said that he filled out a he filed
00:30:50
a police report which he which he did but this was not technically until June 30th the the report that I saw says June
00:30:59
30th as the date but Vince continued to work as normal that day seeing his first
00:31:05
patient of the day Terry's son for asthma right on schedule at 9:00 a.m. he seemed completely normal according to
00:31:14
those who interacted with him that day he did not seem at all anxious or worried despite the fact that his
00:31:20
elderly ailing father was missing and at this time in fact he completely he was completely
00:31:28
normal all week long even taking the staff out to lunch on Friday at a spot that they liked called
00:31:34
aiya new cheese it was while he was at this lunch that doctor Vince Gilmore received a phone call this call was from
00:31:44
Washington County Virginia Sheriff's Department detective Mike Martin informing Vince that a body had been
00:31:52
found in virginia terry Worley reported afterwards that upon hearing this news Vince
00:31:59
nearly fainted he turned ashen and had to lie down on a bench at the restaurant someone brought him a cold compress
00:32:09
they're trying to tend to the doctor to everyone present it seemed that Vince was reeling from the shock of the loss
00:32:18
of his father right he was unable to continue to converse with detective Martin and insisted that Terry take over the
00:32:27
phone call Washington County Sheriff Fred Newman later told the media that Vince Gilmer's hysterical reaction well
00:32:35
he considered this to be over-the-top quote he was just torn all to pieces more so than was actually normal he said
00:32:45
authorities made arrangements for detail though we also have him over reacting to
00:32:51
running over his dog's tail that's true that's very true authorities made arrangements for detective Martin to
00:32:58
meet with Vince at his home when the time came for the arranged meeting between Vince and detective Martin
00:33:04
detective Martin says that Vince was polite and composed asking no questions and showing no emotion here is detective
00:33:14
Martin in his own words about what went down in this meeting quote during the interview at mr. Gilmer's home he told
00:33:27
me that he had brought his father to North Carolina to stay with him then upon their arrival the dalton was so
00:33:34
delighted to be there they have went out into the yard and played with the dog throwing a frisbee
00:33:40
i already knew that could not be true because the people at Broughton Hospital told me that mr. Gilmer senior could not
00:33:50
have walked on his own anytime he said you don't believe me what I'm telling you I said no sir not at all not in the
00:33:59
least I do not believe you I said the very questions that any person would be asking in reference to his parents death
00:34:08
you've not asked which is an excellent indicator that you already know he wasn't scared
00:34:16
he wasn't agitated he told me he said look he said you don't know who you are messing with he said I am a doctor of
00:34:25
medicine I am well respected in the state of North Carolina and I will have your damn job
00:34:32
I said sir it is my job to do the investigation and based on what I know I will consult with the Commonwealth
00:34:40
attorney and I will ask for a warrant for your arrest for murder when we left we said sir thank you for your time and
00:34:49
he closed the door and never said a word [Music] so he did exchange between the doctor
00:35:01
and the detective yeah in interesting exchange as well because what I find fascinating here is you have a very much
00:35:11
seasoned detective somebody that's that done the job for quite some time and his
00:35:16
first reaction is saying you know he's he's just saying what he's thinking he's saying look doctor I told you that your
00:35:25
your father is dead you're not asking certain questions that through my experience in conducting this job I'm
00:35:35
used to hearing right you know again that's we always assume how people are supposed to act no I know that but but
00:35:44
there's there's some indicators here that are interesting to me right because we don't we only have this small window
00:35:52
of their interaction this little heated exchange here what we don't have is some
00:35:58
of the questions and interaction that may have led up to this but what I'm thinking that the detective is finding
00:36:04
interesting and that he may have found his first suspect is look if if I tell you that your father died and you don't
00:36:13
ask me well how did he die that's weird all right no it's gonna be just like Elvis well that's that's dying on the
00:36:21
crap no but that's what the detective is simply saying to the doctor is that because you're not asking me certain
00:36:27
questions that indicates to me that you already know the answer to a lot of these questions that I would expect you
00:36:35
to be asking there I think there's probably something else happening because if somebody said that my father
00:36:43
died or or or a grandparent died or something like that there I mean there's been times that people have told me this
00:36:50
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
00:36:58
happened because I'm just contemplating oh crap they're gone you know but in them and we might get to that eventually
00:37:06
you know in this same exchange though we have dr. Gilmore saying hey this is what
00:37:12
happened when I last saw my father and the detective outright saying look that cannot be true it cannot be true that
00:37:20
your your father was out playing with the dog in the yard but based on what I've been told by the people that were
00:37:26
taking care of him at the facility that you placed him that can't be true the man can't dress himself he can't feed
00:37:33
himself he can't walk without assistance he's not out the dog in the yard throwing the frisbee with the dog right
00:37:39
he seems like there there comes a time and my grandpa used to talk about this all the time was when he'd go to the
00:37:48
nursing homes or the facilities where they have older patients and they there was nothing that they could do for the
00:37:55
patient and they didn't have enough staff to like be one-on-one with the patient so they basically get the
00:38:01
patient dressed and wheeled the patient out into the hallway yeah you make them comfortable and they try to yeah yeah I
00:38:09
mean it's off it's awful so well you and I will be there in about three or five years at this pace well in the course of
00:38:20
this meeting detectives they did search Vince Gilmer's home this was due to a warrant that they brought with him that
00:38:27
day now it was not known exactly what was found but we do know that the police collected a receipt from a local Walmart
00:38:35
dated early on the morning of June 29th which showed the purchase of five bottles of peroxide and the cops they
00:38:44
presume that this meant that Vince had used the peroxide to clean something up and in combination with the perceived
00:38:52
lies about Dalton playing frisbee with the dog the cops had enough for an arrest warrant for
00:38:59
first-degree murder which they obtained and returned to execute but after the meeting with detective Martin and the
00:39:07
search of his home by law enforcement dr. Vince Gilmer had not acted like an innocent man instead of mourning his
00:39:15
father's passing he packed up some basic camping gear and fled when he was finally found chased down and arrested
00:39:23
he was living in a tent behind a Lowe's home improvement store in the at the Asheville mall okay I want to get in
00:39:33
touch with nature but not too far not to nature right you want to be close to a raster and some public restrooms yeah
00:39:40
police received a tip from an unknown source that Vince was hiding out in the area and that's how they tracked him
00:39:48
down now when they approached him or attempted to do so he ran from police through the wooded area behind the
00:39:55
Lowe's Building hiding behind trees and this is like a dark forested area and right but look in the initial let's say
00:40:04
confrontation between the detective and the doctor they have to be seeing that something's not right not only is he not
00:40:12
acting like an innocent man or a grieving son he's just acting a little strange as well mmm
00:40:21
they have to see that now we have that this doctor again a doctor right right a smart guy right super smart guy
00:40:30
and a guy that's trying to I mean cops and firefighters are close that's normally a close-knit organization even
00:40:40
though they're kind of separate entities they they know each other really well so they'd hear about him doing all these
00:40:46
checkups for free on the firefighters mm-hmm and now we have the situation where this guy is after his dad is dead
00:40:56
and we are we think he's our number-one suspect that it's murder he has a tent behind Lowe's and then when they go to a
00:41:07
arrest him he's running from them yeah there has to be red flags well and he's already threatened the detective I mean
00:41:16
as soon as the detective is up front and says look man I don't believe you to put it as frank as possible look man
00:41:22
I don't believe you the doctor then immediately like you said point it out goodbye you a smart guy he immediately
00:41:29
jumps into threatening the detective of do you know who I am do you know how important I am I can have I'll have your
00:41:35
damn job I'll have you fired right for this accusation so we have dr. Gilmour and he is running from the cops yeah
00:41:44
from his little tent site yeah in a wooded area in the middle of the night hmm and when police searches finally
00:41:52
sent in a k-9 Vince charged the dog and the police handler and it was said by an
00:41:57
officer on the scene that Vince Gill March arged at the officer and k9 with absolutely no expression on his face
00:42:04
he's lucky he didn't get shot hmm Vince Gilmer was finally apprehended around 1:00 a.m. so this desperate and
00:42:13
somewhat pitiful flight from justice was just the tip of the iceberg on July 6th
00:42:21
Vince Gilmer was charged with the first-degree murder of his father Daulton Gilmer what came out about the
00:42:28
killing and the arrest shocked everyone in the community when Daulton Gilmer's body was found it was determined that he
00:42:35
was strangled to death the implement used was a rope an autopsy confirmed death by rope
00:42:42
strangulation the medical examiner specifically noted that Daulton Gilmer had been strangled
00:42:48
twice and there were two distinct rope marks visible on his throat the body was discarded at the side of Good Hope Road
00:42:57
near the virginia/tennessee border in Washington County on the Virginia side not five miles from a medical clinic
00:43:07
where dr. Vince Gilmer had previously practiced years before the body had been found where it was still it was still
00:43:15
worn by a resident ma'am who was driving home from the movies just after midnight
00:43:20
the body was lying visibly on the side of the road dressed in shorts and a pulled up t-shirt the no shoes no teeth
00:43:29
now I do want to make a side note of this because there doesn't seem to be from the articles I could find there
00:43:35
doesn't seem to be any indication that teeth were removed from the victim it's very likely that mr. Dalton Gilmore may
00:43:44
have had dentures at his old 8 you know and these were just removed but there was also no wallet present it was
00:43:54
quickly identified by clothing labels however reading Dalton Gilmer right missus he was in the hospital yeah these
00:44:02
these labels were stamped with Dalton's name inside his polo shirt collar and shorts around the waistband labels that
00:44:12
actually his son Vince had arranged to have attached to help identify Dalton's clothing at the psychiatric hospital
00:44:19
from that of the other patients Vince must have forgotten about these identifying labels because before
00:44:27
dumping the body he severed all 10 of his father's fingers with what some have said to be medical precision cutting off
00:44:39
each digit right at the base of the palm he used what he later described as a little salt to do this the instrument
00:44:47
has also been referred to as a set of pruning shears the fingers have never been found now the medical examiner
00:44:57
determined that it was likely that that Vince the killer had initially strangled
00:45:02
Dalton but that Dalton was still alive and came to and when Vince started to sever the fingers this is probably when
00:45:11
he came to write because there was blood on his body and clothes indicating that
00:45:17
his heart was still pumping when some of the fingers were being cut off and brain
00:45:22
so Vince the second strangulation right Vince strangled him a second time this to come to complete the task I guess
00:45:32
a rubber surgical glove was found in the road near Dalton's corpse so what this suggests very obviously with the
00:45:42
removing of the fingers with the removal of what I believed to be dentures with finding no wallet is very simply
00:45:52
somebody dumping a body dumping a murder victim right and trying to make it difficult for them to be identified
00:46:00
however we have the situation where we have the name of the victim stamped on the labels and the clothing yeah maybe
00:46:10
that's just something he forgot about mm-hmm but obviously like you said there remove
00:46:15
oil teeth could just not have had his teeth on him that day but the removal of the fingers that mean that gets me every
00:46:25
time yeah you know especially as a guitar player well the another thing that I find
00:46:31
strange about this situation too is now I now I understand that they drove some distance from where he picked up his
00:46:41
father so that indicates further trying to conceal the identity of the victim right but what kind of shocks me here is
00:46:52
mind you we've we both agreed multiple times that we're talking about a smart guy the murderer is a smart guy and the
00:47:01
efforts taken to cover up or hide the identity of his father of his victim it's almost shocking to me that the
00:47:11
bodies just left on the side of the road that there wasn't some further you know
00:47:17
concealment of that to begin with but we have again this is way out of character
00:47:23
for him anyways to be committing a crime like this and so this should be out of character for damn near everybody
00:47:32
well not the people on our show yeah this is in character there was some other information that started to come
00:47:39
out around this time after Vince's arrest one bit of information Vince had been his father Dalton's legal
00:47:49
guardian something that is obviously pretty common in a case where your parent becomes incompetent or is living
00:47:57
in a facility as part of his guardianship Vince was in charge of handling Dalton's money.this
00:48:06
responsibilities included paying the cost associated with Dalton's psychiatric hospital inpatient status
00:48:13
but when Dalton was killed it came out that he owed Broughton hospital over two hundred and seventy thousand dollars
00:48:21
Vince had not been paying his father's bills we don't know whether he he kept the money for himself or even whether he
00:48:30
ever withdrew it from Dalton's account at all right perhaps this is how Vince was able to afford possibly cutting his
00:48:40
patients so many breaks who knows but I but either way sure yeah either way well he would have got
00:48:47
something from the insurance I'm guessing but either way he owed a lot of money for his father's care at the time
00:48:55
of this murder yeah but just because you kill him doesn't mean that the bill goes
00:48:59
away well another thing that looked bad for Vince Gilmer was a trip to Alaska they even planned now we don't know
00:49:10
exactly when he booked this trip but the timing of the trip coincided with his father's being released from the
00:49:18
hospital now this is how this has been reported it's unclear exactly what dates the trip was planned for Terry Worley
00:49:27
the office manager at the clinic says she had booked the roundtrip ticket to Alaska at Vince Gilmer's request but
00:49:36
detectives discovered that at some point as some time after that someone had changed the ticket to a one-way ticket
00:49:43
now it's unclear whether Vince just decided not to go or whether this is probably more likely he probably had
00:49:53
plans of going to Alaska and never coming back you know much better plan and hiding out behind the Lowe's home
00:50:02
improvement store do you think possibly a little bit better of a vacation the other interesting thing here to
00:50:08
captain is later when asked Vince said he could not recall having any plans to go to Alaska that's not like you know
00:50:19
it's not like taking a trip down the road this is good this is going to Alaska and booking a roundtrip ticket
00:50:26
but the did he seem believable when he was saying he don't know about this I don't know because there's I didn't see
00:50:34
like an interview or you know interrogation or anything of that process but just the simple statement of
00:50:42
them saying yeah we asked about Alaska we asked about the the one-way ticket to Alaska and he basically just says yeah
00:50:50
des I don't recall any plans having any plans to go to Alaska the tricky thing too that makes this a
00:50:56
little could be difficult for investigators is initially the tickets were booked by the office assistant and
00:51:07
I mean Vince's office assistant well she says Vince requested this life of her but I mean it does make it a little
00:51:17
tricky now finally investigators on the case said that Vince told them that when he
00:51:24
picked up his father from the hospital to bring him to a new nursing home because that's what he was supposed to
00:51:30
do he was supposed to pick him up at Broughton Hospital and transfer him to another hospital closer to Vince's home
00:51:38
as we said presumably to make it more convenient on the son visiting the father but later after his arrest he's
00:51:46
saying hey look when I went to pick him up I promised my father that we would stop first for a quick Lake kayaking
00:51:55
outing Vince said his father once lived near little Wilbur Lake in Carter County
00:52:01
Tennessee and Vince thought the kayaking outing would be soothing would be nice nice thing to do for his father now a
00:52:10
green kayak was apparently seen in the truck in Vince's truck that day but remember Dalton couldn't walk and
00:52:17
reports are that there was no Walker found Brian detectives were highly skeptical of this kayak story especially
00:52:26
as when Vince picked up Dalton it was already getting toward the evening hours in fact they said Vince had picked up
00:52:35
Dalton that day with the rope the gloves and saw or pruning shears already in his
00:52:43
truck police believe that this was not a spur-of-the-moment killing in their minds this was pre-planned premeditated
00:52:52
murder all right if you need more of the garage check out our old episodes starting from episode one back in 2015
00:53:16
mm-hmm seems like just yesterday we were in your hot garage sweating sweating bullets
00:53:24
you can sweat to the oldies with us yeah by using the free stitcher app is free listening stitcher app it's amazing and
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it's free you have no reason to not check it yeah just go to your App Store it's for Android it's for Apple users
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download the stitcher app and then on the left hand side it will give you the year and you just select what year you
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want and then you can scroll through all the episodes we're almost up to episode
00:53:50
300 and you can check those out for free on the stitcher app also if you want to
00:53:55
come hang out with us if you want to come drink with us and New Orleans or New Orleans however you say it all in
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stalin's you can go I think there's a link on our website if not I believe it's crime con-com crime con-com and our
00:54:13
promo code is TCG 19 and we would love to see everyone at crime Con this year in nollans
00:54:19
and we want to see everybody back here in the garage for the rest of today's case until then be good be kind
00:54:26
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