After Three 'last Meals' And Nine Execution Dates, Richard Glossip Pleads Guilty To Lesser Charge In Deadly Beating

A guilty plea ends the murder case

A hearing scheduled to handle routine pretrial matters turned into the end of Richard Glossip's murder case Thursday. Oklahoma County District Judge Natalie Mai accepted a guilty plea from Glossip to accessory after the fact to first-degree murder, then dismissed the first-degree murder charge that had defined his case since 1998.

The plea closes the door on a third trial that had been scheduled for December 7. Glossip, 63, remains free on the $500,000 bond Judge Mai set in May, and will stay out of custody until she sentences him in December.

The new charge carries a minimum of five years and a maximum of 45 years in prison under the Oklahoma law in place in 1997, the year Glossip's former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, was beaten to death.

The killing inside a Van Treese family motel

Van Treese owned a motel on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, where Glossip worked as the manager. In 1997, Justin Sneed, then a 19-year-old maintenance man at the motel, beat Van Treese to death with a baseball bat inside Room 102, according to The Intercept and the Death Penalty Information Center.

Sneed confessed to the killing but testified at trial that Glossip had promised him $10,000 to carry it out, allegedly so Glossip could take over running the motel. Sneed avoided the death penalty by testifying against Glossip and is serving life in prison without parole.

By Glossip's own account, Sneed knocked on the wall of his apartment around 4 a.m. the night of the killing, sporting a black eye, and said he had chased off drunks who broke a motel window. When Glossip asked about the black eye, Sneed replied, 'I killed Barry,' according to The Intercept — a remark Glossip said he did not take seriously until Van Treese was reported missing the next morning.

Glossip said he still did not go to police right away; his girlfriend at the time suggested waiting to see what had happened. Sneed, meanwhile, told police that Glossip had orchestrated the killing, and with no other evidence tying Glossip to the crime, Sneed's statement became the core of the state's case.

"We believe Rich has more than paid his debt to society by spending nearly 30 years on death row, during which time he was served three last meals, and came within minutes of being executed for a crime he did not commit." — Don Knight, Richard Glossip's attorney, per the Death Penalty Information Center

Who's who in the case

Richard Glossip, 63, managed the motel Van Treese owned and has spent nearly 30 years insisting he had nothing to do with his boss's death. Barry Van Treese owned the motel with his family and was beaten to death there in 1997.

Justin Sneed was a 19-year-old maintenance man at the motel when he admitted to the killing. He is serving life without parole and was the state's key witness against Glossip at both of Glossip's murder trials.

Judge Natalie Mai, who presides in Oklahoma County, accepted Thursday's plea and set Glossip's bail at $500,000 in May. She is scheduled to sentence him in December. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond ordered the independent investigation that found misconduct in Glossip's conviction, later reversed course to pursue a third murder trial, and now says his office will push for the maximum sentence on the lesser charge.

Don Knight has represented Glossip for years and argues the plea is not an admission that Glossip was involved in the murder itself. Lea Glossip, Glossip's wife, has stood by him throughout the case and spoke alongside him outside court Thursday.

Nine execution dates, three last meals, a Supreme Court reversal

A jury first convicted Glossip of murder and sentenced him to death in 1998. An Oklahoma appeals court overturned that conviction in 2001 for ineffective assistance of counsel, after Glossip's defense failed to show jurors a video of Sneed's police interrogation that revealed coercive questioning by detectives.

A second jury convicted Glossip again in 2004 and sentenced him to death. Over the following two decades, Oklahoma courts set nine separate execution dates for Glossip, and he was served his 'last meal' three times. In 2015, he was held in a cell next to the execution chamber awaiting lethal injection when prison officials discovered the lethal drugs they had received did not match state protocols — a mix-up that led to a nearly seven-year moratorium on executions in Oklahoma.

After taking office in 2023, Drummond ordered an independent investigation by the law firm Reed Smith, which found that Sneed had discussed recanting his testimony, in notes never turned over to Glossip's defense team. Drummond asked Oklahoma's courts and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the conviction.

On February 25, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 in Glossip v. Oklahoma that prosecutors had violated their constitutional duty to correct Sneed's false testimony, entitling Glossip to a new trial. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson; Justice Amy Coney Barrett concurred in part, and Justice Neil Gorsuch did not take part.

Drummond announced in June 2025 that his office would retry Glossip for murder without seeking the death penalty. Judge Mai released Glossip on bond in May 2026, with help paying his bail from Kim Kardashian, and the state set a third trial for December 7, 2026 — the trial Thursday's plea avoided.

What each side said in court

Prosecutors said dropping the murder charge was an 'incredibly difficult decision' for the Van Treese family, but that 30 years had cost the case witnesses and evidence, KGOU reported.

'Today, Richard Glossip finally took some measure of responsibility for the murder of Barry Van Treese,' Drummond said in a statement reported by KGOU. 'While allowing Glossip to plead guilty to the lesser-related charge of accessory to first-degree murder was a difficult decision for me and, more importantly, the Van Treese family, we both recognize that this path ensures a conviction related to Mr. Van Treese's murder and gives us the best chance to secure additional prison time for Glossip.'

Knight, Glossip's attorney, framed the plea as the end of a wrongful prosecution. 'For 30 years Richard Glossip has maintained his innocence,' he said, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. 'After nearly executing him nine times, the State of Oklahoma has now dismissed the murder charge against him. This morning, to finally put this matter to rest, Rich pleaded guilty to be an accessory after the fact. We believe Rich has more than paid his debt to society by spending nearly 30 years on death row, during which time he was served three last meals, and came within minutes of being executed for a crime he did not commit.'

'He had nothing to do with the murder, none of the planning, or carrying it out,' Knight told CBS News. Lea Glossip told reporters outside court, 'We're both people of faith. And we'll continue praying that this is what finally brings this case to a close after 30 years,' according to KGOU. Richard Glossip added, 'I'm grateful for my attorneys and all their hard work, and I'm grateful for Lea for standing by my side,' squeezing his wife's hand, KGOU reported.

What the plea actually admits

By pleading guilty to accessory after the fact, Glossip admitted to two specific things prosecutors alleged — not to planning or carrying out the killing itself: that he helped place plexiglass over a broken window in the room where Van Treese's body was found, and that he did not immediately tell police after Sneed told him he had killed Van Treese.

Knight said Glossip did not know Van Treese's body was in the room and never saw it; CBS News initially reported that Glossip saw the body but later corrected that account, and WWNY's version of the story reflects the correction. Knight maintains Glossip 'had nothing to do with the murder, none of the planning, or carrying it out.'

The sentencing range is five to 45 years. Knight has argued that had Glossip received the maximum sentence on this charge back in 1998, good-behavior credit — unavailable to death row inmates — would have freed him by 2016, meaning he has already served more time than the law required. Drummond's office and the Van Treese family are asking Judge Mai for the maximum 45 years.

What happens next

Judge Natalie Mai is scheduled to sentence Glossip in Oklahoma County in December — December 17, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Prosecutors and the Van Treese family are asking for the maximum 45 years; Glossip's defense is asking the judge to credit his nearly 30 years already served and impose no additional prison time. Until then, Glossip remains free on the $500,000 bond set in May.