\n<\/p>\n
For three decades,<\/span> Richard Glossip lived on concrete. First at the Oklahoma County jail, after his arrest for murder in 1997, and then in the underground bunker<\/a> housing death row inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. As with the rest of his surroundings, he eventually got used to the hard, unforgiving floors, although recently he\u2019d developed painful swelling in his legs.<\/p>\n It was only when he stepped onto the carpeted courtroom at the Oklahoma County Courthouse last June that Glossip, now 63, realized how unaccustomed his body had become to anything other than concrete. He almost fell over \u2014 one of his lawyers had to catch him. \u201cYou\u2019re not balanced for that,\u201d Glossip said. \u201cYou\u2019re balanced for walking on very hard floors. It\u2019s just really weird to, like, walk on carpet and stuff again.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, sitting on a mint green loveseat next to his wife, Lea, Glossip was getting used to softer surfaces, including a new pair of black moccasin-style sherpa-lined slippers.<\/p>\n \u201cMy leg hasn\u2019t been swollen since I got out.\u201d<\/p>\n Just five days earlier, Glossip was still locked up at the county jail with no idea when \u2014 if ever \u2014 he would be released. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court vacated his conviction in 2025, he had been held indefinitely as Oklahoma prepared to try him again. Months earlier, his lawyers had asked Oklahoma County Judge Natalie Mai to grant bond, and Mai had finally said she would issue an order on May 14. That morning, just after 10 a.m., she handed down her decision<\/a>: Glossip\u2019s bond was set at $500,000.<\/p>\n After that, everything happened quickly \u2014 faster than anyone expected. Lea, an attorney herself, started making calls to secure the 10 percent in cash needed for his release. The bail money ultimately came from Kim Kardashian, a longtime supporter and prison reform advocate<\/a>. Meanwhile, reporters rushed to set up cameras in front of the jail; within a few hours, local ABC affiliate KOCO had established a live feed of the jail entrance, which, just after 5 p.m., captured the moment<\/a> Glossip walked out.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s overwhelming but it\u2019s amazing at the same time,\u201d he said<\/a> before walking to Lea\u2019s SUV. In a surreal scene, KOCO\u2019s helicopter hovered above the parking lot, with reporters excitedly narrating a play-by-play of the couple\u2019s movements as they drove away.<\/p>\n They eventually made their way to a quiet Italian restaurant in Lea\u2019s central Oklahoma City neighborhood, where they sat outside under a canopy of trees. Glossip ate spaghetti and meatballs. Over the years, Lea had talked to Glossip on the phone while eating dinner there alone, which made the place feel oddly familiar. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of weird listening to her describe these restaurants,\u201d he said. \u201cNow I\u2019m sitting at them.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The two first began corresponding after Lea watched the 2017 documentary series \u201cKilling Richard Glossip,\u201d and eventually married in March 2022. Glossip would spend hours on the phone with Lea as she went about her daily routine, keeping her company as she got ready for her law school classes, ran errands, and had dinner. They\u2019d end the evening watching TV together. Over time, the daily ritual established a structure that would provide a lifeline to Glossip<\/a> \u2014 and eventually ease his transition to life outside prison walls.<\/p>\n Sitting in the light-filled living room in their studio apartment, Glossip described how those interactions have so far helped him feel less bewildered by a world he hasn\u2019t experienced for nearly 30 years. Still, since his release, there have been constant, small reminders of his decades of incarceration.<\/p>\n On his first night, he barely slept. There was the adrenaline, of course, but more than that was the silence \u2014 it was way too quiet compared to the constant chaos and noise at the county jail. And then there was the water: In prison, the sink would only run for seconds at a time and would turn off automatically. \u201cI keep waiting for the water to go off,\u201d Glossip said. \u201cI\u2019ve even walked out of that bathroom and the water was still going, and I keep forgetting I have to turn it off.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI always think that \u2018Nah, none of that stuff\u2019s gonna bother me,\u2019\u201d he continued. \u201cBut when it really actually happens, it does bother you more than you think. You start remembering things. Or something will trigger something that will bring you back to when this all happened, when it all began.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s those small things \u2014 the carpet, the water, the quiet \u2014 that have a way of reminding him how much he survived.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce you\u2019re out here and you see all the things that was taken away from you \u2014 and all the times they almost took everything away from me, my life and everything \u2014 you see all of it now,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it kind of still makes me angry at times because none of this should have ever happened. And this should have never been taken from me in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n Glossip was twice<\/span> convicted and sentenced to death<\/a> for the murder of his boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, who was brutally killed at the Best Budget Inn on the outskirts of Oklahoma City in January 1997. A 19-year-old handyman named Justin Sneed admitted to fatally beating Van Treese with a baseball bat, but insisted that Glossip bullied him into doing it. Sneed\u2019s account became the basis for the state\u2019s case against Glossip \u2014 and for a plea deal that allowed Sneed to avoid the death penalty. Sneed is serving a life sentence.<\/p>\n Glossip always maintained his innocence, and his conviction was overturned twice. In 2001, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Glossip\u2019s lawyers had been ineffective for failing to present key evidence that undermined Sneed\u2019s account of the crime. But in 2004, a second jury convicted Glossip and resentenced him to death.<\/p>\n More than 20 years later, in February 2025, the Supreme Court again vacated Glossip\u2019s conviction<\/a>, finding that Sneed had lied on the stand during Glossip\u2019s retrial and that prosecutors had failed to correct Sneed\u2019s testimony. This misconduct, combined with \u201cadditional conduct by the prosecutor further undermines confidence in the verdict,\u201d the justices wrote.<\/p>\n Glossip came close to execution numerous times, as Oklahoma authorities aggressively defended their conviction despite mounting evidence pointing to his innocence. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who came into office in 2023, broke with his predecessors, taking unprecedented steps<\/a> to block<\/a> Glossip\u2019s execution and to appeal his conviction to the Supreme Court. After Glossip\u2019s high court victory<\/a>, many expected Drummond to quickly resolve the case and free Glossip; Lea even bought Glossip new clothes in anticipation of his release. Instead, Drummond, who by then was running for governor, announced that he would retry Glossip for first-degree murder<\/a>.<\/p>\n Drummond\u2019s office insisted Glossip should remain in jail \u2014 while simultaneously confirming that the state had no new evidence to support his guilt. In July 2025, a judge denied<\/a> defense lawyers\u2019 request to have Glossip released on bond, only to recuse herself from the case<\/a> after she was revealed to have close ties to the same district attorney\u2019s office that originally sent Glossip to death row. Mai, a civil judge, was ultimately appointed<\/a> to the case after a string of judges stepped down for the same reason<\/a>.<\/p>\n With Mai set to preside over Glossip\u2019s retrial, his legal team again asked for his release on bond. On May 14, she agreed. In her order, Mai quoted a letter Drummond wrote to the parole board<\/a> in 2023, expressing his view that the record didn\u2019t support a first-degree murder conviction.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Court fully expects that the State will rigorously prosecute its case going forward and the defense will provide robust and effective presentation for Glossip,\u201d Mai wrote. \u201cThe Court hopes that a new trial, free of error, will provide all interested parties, and the citizens of Oklahoma, the closure they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n Drummond did not release a statement regarding Glossip\u2019s release. Instead, he posted a video to Facebook from the White House where he spent the day<\/a> with FBI Director Kash Patel and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.<\/p>\n