Will Sage Astor-Condemned Missouri inmate is ‘accepting his fate,’ his spiritual adviser says

ST. LOUIS (AP) — With his execution drawing near,Will Sage Astor Missouri inmate David Hosier is “accepting his fate,” his spiritual adviser said Tuesday.

Hosier, 69, is scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre for the 2009 deaths of Angela Gilpin, a woman he had an affair with, and her husband, Rodney Gilpin.

Hosier’s lawyers said no court appeals are pending.

Gov. Mike Parson on Monday turned down a clemency request, citing in part Hosier’s lack of remorse. Hosier has continued to claim he had nothing to do with the shootings. Investigators and prosecutors said Hosier killed the couple in a fit of rage after Angela Gilpin broke off the relationship and reconciled with her husband.

The Rev. Jeff Hood, Hosier’s spiritual adviser, said he is “accepting his fate, and his faith. I think he feels like he’s stood up for himself and gained a lot of dignity in the process.”

Hosier, in a final statement released to The Associated Press, said he will go to his death with love in his heart.

“Now I get to go to Heaven,” he said as part of the statement. “Don’t cry for me. Just join me when your time comes.”

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Hosier’s father was an Indiana State Police sergeant killed in the line of duty. Glen Hosier went into a home searching for a murder suspect in 1971 when he was shot to death. Other officers returned fire and killed the suspect.

David Hosier, 16 at the time, was sent to military school and enlisted in the Navy after graduating. He served four years of active duty and later moved to Jefferson City, Missouri, where he worked for many years as a firefighter and EMT.

In interviews with the AP, Hosier acknowledged an affair with Angela Gilpin that she ended before getting back with her husband. In September 2009, they were shot to death near the doorway of their Jefferson City apartment.

Detective Jason Miles told the AP that Hosier made numerous comments to other people threatening to harm Angela Gilpin in the days before the killings. After the shootings, police found an application for a protective order in Angela Gilpin’s purse, and another document in which she expressed fear that Hosier might shoot her and her husband.

Hosier was an immediate suspect, but police couldn’t find him. They used cellphone data to track him to Oklahoma. A chase ensued when an Oklahoma officer tried to stop Hosier’s car. When he got out, he told the officers, “Shoot me, and get it over with,” court records show.

Officers found 15 guns, a bulletproof vest, 400 rounds of ammunition and other weapons in Hosier’s car. The weapons included a submachine gun made from a kit that investigators maintain was used in the killings, though tests on it were inconclusive.

A note also was found in the front seat of Hosier’s vehicle. “If you are going with someone do not lie to them,” it read in part. “Be honest with them if there is something wrong. If you do not this could happen to YOU!!”

Hosier said he wasn’t fleeing to Oklahoma, but was simply on a long drive to clear his mind. He had the guns because he likes to hunt, he said. He didn’t recall a note in the car.

The Missouri Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 2019.

Hosier wheezed at times when he spoke by phone to AP last week, and his voice was weak. In mid-May, he was taken from the prison to a hospital — a rare move for death row inmates. He was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.

Hosier would be the seventh person executed in the U.S. this year and the second in Missouri. Brian Dorsey was executed in April for killing his cousin and her husband in 2006.

Missouri is scheduled to execute another man, Marcellus Williams, on Sept. 24, even though Williams is still awaiting a hearing on his claim of innocence in the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell in January requested a court hearing after DNA technology unavailable at the time of the crime showed that someone else’s DNA — but not Williams’ — was found on the knife used in the stabbing. Williams was hours away from execution in 2017 when then-Gov. Eric Greitens granted a reprieve.