Richard Glossip, 63, stepped out of the Oklahoma County jail in early May after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated his conviction in 2025. Weeks later, in a living room in Oklahoma City, he described relearning ordinary life—from carpet and running water to the at
For three decades. Richard Glossip lived on concrete—first inside the Oklahoma County jail after his 1997 arrest for murder. then in the underground bunker that housed death row inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. His body adapted, he said, to hard floors that gave him no choice. Then, recently, his legs began swelling.
The change came all at once when he finally stepped onto carpeted courtroom space at the Oklahoma County Courthouse last June. He was 63, and he wasn’t just walking into a hearing—he was walking into a world he hadn’t truly known in nearly 30 years. His lawyer had to catch him after he nearly fell.
“You’re not balanced for that,” Glossip said. “You’re balanced for walking on very hard floors. It’s just really weird to, like, walk on carpet and stuff again.”
Now, sitting on a mint green loveseat next to his wife, Lea, Glossip is getting used to softer surfaces—including a new pair of black moccasin-style sherpa-lined slippers. He told MISRYOUM he hasn’t had swollen legs since his release.
Just five days earlier, he had still been locked up at the county jail with no clear answer on timing—if he would be released at all. Even after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated his conviction in 2025, Glossip remained held indefinitely as Oklahoma prepared to try him again.
His lawyers had pushed Oklahoma County Judge Natalie Mai to grant bond. Mai said she would issue an order on May 14. That morning, just after 10 a.m., she set his bond at $500,000.
From there, everything moved quickly—faster than anyone expected. Lea, an attorney herself, began making calls to secure the 10 percent in cash needed for release. The bail money ultimately came from Kim Kardashian, described by the account as a longtime supporter and prison reform advocate.
Reporters rushed to the jail entrance as cameras went live. Within hours, local ABC affiliate KOCO established a live feed of the jail entrance. Just after 5 p.m., it captured the moment Glossip walked out.
“It’s overwhelming but it’s amazing at the same time,” he said before leaving for Lea’s SUV.
In the footage-like scene he described, the couple drove away while KOCO’s helicopter hovered above the parking lot. Reporters narrated the couple’s movements as they headed out.
They ended up at a quiet Italian restaurant in Lea’s central Oklahoma City neighborhood. where they sat outside under a canopy of trees. Glossip ate spaghetti and meatballs. Lea had talked to him on the phone there while she ate dinner alone over the years. which made the place feel strangely familiar.
“It’s kind of weird listening to her describe these restaurants,” he said. “Now I’m sitting at them.”
Glossip and Lea began corresponding after Lea watched the 2017 documentary series “Killing Richard Glossip.” They married in March 2022. Over time. daily calls became routine—Glossip spoke with Lea as she got ready for her law school classes. ran errands. and ate dinner. then watched television together at night. Those conversations. he said. created structure that became a lifeline during the long wait and helped ease his transition to life beyond prison walls.
In his light-filled living room, Glossip said those interactions have made the outside world feel less bewildering. But he still experiences the aftereffects of decades behind bars through small, stubborn reminders.
On his first night home, he barely slept. There was adrenaline, he said, but also silence—too quiet compared with the constant chaos and noise at the county jail. Then there was water.
In prison, he said the sink would run for seconds at a time and then shut off automatically. He described standing in a bathroom at home, waiting for a familiar stop that never came.
“I keep waiting for the water to go off,” Glossip said. “I’ve even walked out of that bathroom and the water was still going, and I keep forgetting I have to turn it off.”
He said he expected other adjustments to be manageable at first. “I always think that ‘Nah, none of that stuff’s gonna bother me,’” he continued. “But 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.”.
Those everyday details—the carpet, the water, the quiet—become reminders of what was taken. Glossip also said the release has stirred anger.
“Once you’re out here and you see all the things that was taken away from you — and all the times they almost took everything away from me. my life and everything — you see all of it now. ” he said. “And 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.”.
The case that consumed his life began with a murder: Glossip was twice convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese. Van Treese was 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 Glossip bullied him into doing it. Sneed’s account became the foundation for the state’s case against Glossip and for a plea deal that allowed Sneed to avoid the death penalty. Sneed is serving a life sentence.
Glossip maintained his innocence throughout. His conviction was overturned twice. In 2001. the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Glossip’s lawyers were ineffective for failing to present key evidence that undermined Sneed’s account. Then in 2004, a second jury convicted Glossip and resentenced him to death.
More than 20 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated Glossip’s conviction in February 2025. finding that Sneed had lied on the stand during Glossip’s retrial and that prosecutors had failed to correct Sneed’s testimony. The justices also wrote that the misconduct, combined with “additional conduct by the prosecutor further undermines confidence in the verdict.”.
The promise of release didn’t arrive the way many expected.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond—who took office in 2023 and, as described here, broke with predecessors—took steps to block Glossip’s execution and appeal his conviction to the Supreme Court. After Glossip’s Supreme Court victory, many expected Drummond to resolve the case and free him.
Lea even bought Glossip new clothes in anticipation of release. Instead, Drummond announced that he would retry Glossip for first-degree murder.
Drummond’s office insisted Glossip should remain in jail while also confirming that the state had no new evidence to support guilt. In July 2025. a judge denied the defense’s request to release Glossip on bond. then recused herself after being revealed to have close ties to the same district attorney’s office that originally sent Glossip to death row. A civil judge, Mai, was ultimately appointed after a string of judges stepped down for the same reason.
When Mai was set to preside over the retrial, Glossip’s legal team again asked for bond. On May 14, Mai agreed.
In her order. Mai quoted a letter Drummond wrote to the parole board in 2023 expressing his view that the record didn’t support a first-degree murder conviction. Mai wrote that the court “fully expects that the State will rigorously prosecute its case going forward and the defense will provide robust and effective presentation for Glossip.” She added: “The Court hopes that a new trial. free of error. will provide all interested parties. and the citizens of Oklahoma. the closure they deserve.”.
Drummond did not release a statement about Glossip’s release. Instead, he posted a video to Facebook from the White House where he spent the day with FBI Director Kash Patel and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
On his way back into normal life, Glossip found the transition both practical and strangely emotional. On his first night home, he wanted to see a store—he hadn’t used a real razor in years and wanted ice cream. The couple went to Target. Glossip said it felt peaceful, especially the music.
“It was like elevator music,” Lea said, laughing.
The next days became a rush of errands: a haircut, a grocery store, and the DMV. Glossip said people recognized him everywhere he went.
At the barbershop, the man who cut his hair refused to accept payment, Lea recalled. “‘He said, ‘No, it’s an honor,’” she said. “He was really happy to be the one to do that.”
At Whole Foods, Glossip said people glanced at them with knowing smiles, while others took surreptitious photos. He marveled at purple potatoes and dragonfruit—two foods he had never seen before.
At the DMV, when a woman called out “Richard,” Glossip and another man both stood up. “Glossip?” the woman asked. Yes, Glossip replied. Then the other Richard replied and asked for a photo, which they took outside by the man’s purple car.
At Walmart, Glossip said a woman simply beamed at them and told him, “Welcome.”
Lea said the attention felt overwhelmingly supportive. “I think it’s nice for Rich to receive that after everything, to walk back into the world after everything he survived, and have people greet him positively.”
Then came the small learning curve of ordinary life. On Monday morning, Lea returned to work and left Glossip keys and some cash. He asked what she left him to count in real time.
“Has money always been this size?” he asked. She told him yes, and he remembered bills being smaller from decades earlier.
That day he stayed home and did chores. The next day, he went out on his own for the first time, walking to a corner store for a Coke. The clerk recognized him. “‘It’s you!’ the clerk said.”
Glossip said he is looking forward to exploring more on his own. He wants to walk barefoot in summer grass, stargaze, and go fishing—so long as he stays home by his court-ordered curfew of 10 p.m. He also wants to renew his vows with Lea in a ceremony outside prison walls.
“I tried never to let myself become institutionalized,” Glossip said. “But I mean it’s hard. You go through all these horrible things and all these different dates … and last meals and everything. And then it doesn’t look like this day will ever get here. But you always hope that it will.”
His release has also brought him back to the memory of what nearly ended his life before: in 2014. facing his first execution date. he reached out to famed anti-death-penalty nun Sister Helen Prejean. Prejean connected him with attorney Don Knight, who agreed to take his case. In the decade that followed. Knight found new witnesses and exposed hidden evidence that undercut the state’s case and helped lead to the Supreme Court’s decision.
Glossip said Knight’s advocacy was responsible for saving his life. He also returned to the darkest moment of his incarceration. including the time authorities came closest to carrying out the execution in 2015. Officials halted the lethal injection at the last second after realizing they were about to use the wrong drug to kill him. Glossip said he would face execution a total of nine times.
“They used to call me the cat man on death row,” he said.
After his release, he met Knight in a local park during the weekend following his freedom. The two sat in the sun and talked.
“It was nice just to sit in that park and watch people go by,” Glossip said. “Him and I just having a conversation with each other.”
He remembered what he told Knight when they first met: “‘I just want people to know the truth,’” Glossip said. “And he’s been able to do that. And that’s been pretty amazing for me because that’s what I wanted more than anything.”
A week after his release, Glossip sent Knight an update saying he had been to the park, an art fair, and brunch with two of Lea’s co-workers. He called it the best week of his life.
“I’ve lived this case for so long,” Glossip told MISRYOUM. “I don’t want to live it anymore.”
Glossip said he knows the case isn’t over, but he trusts Knight and his legal team to handle what comes next.
“They’ll make the right decisions. I know they will. I wouldn’t be out here today if they wasn’t,” he said. “So I’m just going to let them handle it. … I’m just gonna enjoy life.”
Richard Glossip Oklahoma death row U.S. Supreme Court Natalie Mai Gentner Drummond Lea Glossip Kim Kardashian KOCO Barry Van Treese Justin Sneed Don Knight Sister Helen Prejean