The Other Dr. Gilmer "cracking the nut of what hope actually feels like "

 Living in the mountains of North Carolina, you get used to the Appalachian stories...most of which may sound pretty incredible, but have basis in facts.

A friend gave me a library book and said I should read it. It sat around a few days while I finished the one I was reading. (In my past I could read two or more books at a time...sigh, those days are gone!). My friend told me a bit of the plot, about 2 doctors in Fletcher, (another small town next to Asheville NC) and that it was non-fiction!

I was in conversation with a friend by texts the day I started reading it, so I told her about the doctor who had written it about another doctor of the same name, who killed his father...right here in the Asheville area (Fletcher to be exact.)

She wanted to know when it happened, since she vaguely remembered something on the news. I finally got to the part where 2008 newspaper publications were mentioned.

My friend who recommended it would ask me how far I was into it, whenever I saw her. When I was 1/3 through she said, just wait, it gets better. When I was 1/2 through she said, keep on reading!

Here's the flyleaf description.

Of course that's hard to read, so I hope you can enlarge it.

I binge read the last 1/3, dealing with having all kinds of efforts to help the sick doctor who was behind bars...would he be pardoned? Would he be taken to a hospital for his Huntington's disease?

And how about the problems that the author found regarding mental health treatment in the legal system...almost non-existent in prisons? I know my friend that recommended the book had been impacted by that almost as much as the other parts of this story.

Anyway, I finished the book, and the man was still in prison! The book's copyright was 2022, and has no conclusion. Now it's Aug. 2022. I wondered if anything in the news would cover this. So a DuckDuckGo search I went...and finally found this dated Jan. 18, 2022. I had to subscribe to the Asheville Citizen-Times for 6 months for $1, or I couldn't even read it. OK. We shall see if this daily paper is still interesting still in 6 months.

Former Asheville doctor pardoned of murder by outgoing Virginia governor

The curious case of Vince Gilmer drew national attention. Now, the former Asheville-area doctor will spend his final years outside of prison.

Brian Gordon

USA Today Network 

Jan 18, 2022

Late one night the week of Jan. 9, advocates and lawyers who have spent years trying to get former Asheville physician Vince Gilmer released from prison received welcome news. 

Gilmer, who was serving a life-sentence for killing his father in 2004, was pardoned Jan. 12 by outgoing Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. As a condition of his release, Gilmer will remain incarcerated until he can be placed in a long-term psychiatric facility that can meet his unique medical needs.

The case of Vince Gilmer sparked nationwide attention when it was discovered years after his conviction that the once-beloved doctor had been suffering from a rare neurological illness called Huntington’s Disease around the time he picked up his father, Dalton Gilmer, from a Western North Carolina psychiatric hospital, strangled him with a rope, sawed off his fingers, and left his body near a lake in southwest Virginia.

That the Huntington’s diagnosis was helped made by Benjamin Gilmer, an unrelated physician who replaced Vince Gilmer as the head of the Family Health Center at Cane Creek in Fletcher, added a hard-to-believe twist to the mysterious homicide. 

The story of the two Dr. Gilmers was featured on a 2013 episode of the public radio program This American Life (titled: “Dr. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde”). The Asheville Citizen Times covered the story next, followed by a CNN documentary. 

Huntington’s by itself didn’t explain Vince killing his father, but it shed more light on the crime. One of Huntington’s main symptoms is the loss of impulse control. Considering Vince said his father routinely and severely sexually abused him, experts say his disease could have contributed to a rash of violence and the erratic behaviors Vince displayed before and after the crime. 

If there’s some kind of a grievance that’s smoldering in the background, and then the individual with Huntington’s thinks about that grievance, they might jump to some action without thinking about the consequences,” said Dr. Burton Scott, a neurologist who directs the Huntington’s Disease Society of America Center of Excellence at Duke University.

Long push for a pardon

Over the past decade, [Dr.] Benjamin Gilmer and a team of pro bono lawyers repeatedly attempted to get Vince released.

In 2016, they filed a conditional pardon request to then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe asking that Vince be released to a secure psychiatric hospital. This request was denied, as was another pardon request made to [VA governor] Northam last summer. 

“Our hopes were destroyed,” Benjamin Gilmer said. “When (Northam) denied the clemency petition in July, with just months left in his tenure, there was little hope because those things just don’t get reversed often.” 

But Vince’s advocates kept pushing. Over the holidays, Benjamin sent advanced copies of his forthcoming memoir, "The Other Dr. Gilmer," to each member of the Virginia governor's cabinet with a personal note written inside the cover. 

Benjamin was surprised that Northam’s office reconsidered Vince Gilmer’s clemency request only days before Northam left office Jan. 15. 

“We we’re completely blindsided when it happened,” he said. “It was an amazing event when we got the news.”

Last week, as word of an imminent pardon grew, Benjamin spoke to Vince by phone. 

“He was joyous like a child,” Benjamin said. “He was just profusely grateful and starting to explore the emotion of hope. It was beautiful to see him start cracking the nut of what hope actually feels like because he had not experienced that emotion in so long.” 

'We’re scrabbling to find a hospital'

Statistically, Vince doesn’t have long to live. According to the Mayo Clinic, people with Huntington’s typically live between 10 to 30 years after the onset of the disease. Vince is now 59 and began showing symptoms in his late 30s.

“It’s a progressive condition that ends in requiring total care in a nursing home and early death,” Scott of Duke University said. 

Vince’s condition has worsened in recent years, Benjamin and Vince's lawyers say. His dementia has advanced, his speech slurs more, and he limps considerably when he walks. Geri Greenspan, a lawyer who has provided pro bono assistance on Vince’s case since 2014, said “it would be really difficult for Vince to give a coherent interview,” at this time. “

"He’s having more and more trouble finding words and communicating effectively,” she said. 

Health experts note stress triggers Huntington’s symptoms, and Greenspan is confident her client will find more comfort spending his final years at a mental health facility.   

“Everybody that has worked on Vince's case has just been really touched by his story and the one thing that we did not want to see happen was for Vince to just to die in prison,” she said.  “We obviously would have preferred that this happened years ago, but Vince is thrilled and sees this as some vindication.”

Despite the pardon, Vince may have to wait for freedom. There is a scarcity of long-term care facilities that would meet his needs, and Vince won’t be released from Virginia’s Marion Correctional Treatment Center until an alternative placement is found. 

Private facilities, Greenspan said, may balk at accepting a high-needs resident who has a murder conviction in his past. State-run facilities like Broughton Hospital in the Western North Carolina town of Morganton would be ideal, but the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has said this facility has waiting lists for beds.

No further quotes for today!