Richard Glossip, Days From Execution Nine Times, Finally Pleads Guilty To Accessory In Barry Van Treese's Killing

A hearing that was supposed to be routine

On Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026, Richard Glossip walked into Oklahoma County District Court for what was billed as a second hearing on pretrial motions, ahead of a third murder trial set to begin Dec. 7. Instead, the hearing ended with a deal.

Prosecutors agreed to drop the first-degree murder charge against Glossip. In exchange, Glossip pleaded guilty to one count of accessory to first-degree murder — his attorneys say, more precisely, accessory after the fact — in the 1997 killing of Barry Van Treese, the Oklahoma City motel owner who was Glossip's boss.

The plea closes out a case that has run for nearly 30 years, through two convictions, two death sentences, nine scheduled execution dates and a U.S. Supreme Court reversal.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced the agreement Thursday, saying it secures "a conviction related to Mr. Van Treese's murder" without the risk of a third trial.

The case that started in 1997

Van Treese owned the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City, where Glossip worked as the motel manager. In 1997, Van Treese was beaten to death with a baseball bat.

Justin Sneed, a motel employee, admitted to the killing. At trial, Sneed testified Glossip paid him to kill Van Treese as part of a murder-for-hire plot. In exchange for his testimony, Sneed received a life sentence; Glossip was sentenced to death.

Glossip was first convicted and sentenced to death in 1998. That conviction was overturned, and in 2004 a second jury convicted him and sentenced him to death again.

Over the following two decades, Glossip survived nine scheduled execution dates — including a 2015 last-minute stay after Oklahoma discovered the wrong lethal injection drugs had been shipped — and was served three last meals.

"They never had enough evidence to convict him of that." — Don Knight, Glossip's attorney, told CNN

How the Supreme Court reopened the case

Questions about Sneed's credibility, and about what prosecutors withheld from Glossip's defense, built for years. In 2023, Drummond, a Republican, took the unusual step of asking courts to vacate Glossip's conviction, saying the evidence "does not support that he is guilty of first degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt."

In February 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed, voting 5-3 to overturn Glossip's 2004 conviction in Glossip v. Oklahoma. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority that prosecutors "violated [their] constitutional obligation to correct false testimony" from Sneed and ordered a new trial. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined; Justice Amy Coney Barrett concurred in part; Justice Neil Gorsuch did not take part.

Drummond said in June 2025 his office would retry Glossip, but would not seek the death penalty. Glossip's defense team has also produced a handwritten note, written by Sneed from prison, questioning whether he could recant his testimony — Sneed has never publicly recanted it.

Bond, bail and Kim Kardashian

In May 2026, Oklahoma County Judge Natalie Mai set Glossip's bail at $500,000 and ruled he could be released under strict conditions, including a GPS monitor and an approved pretrial release program. It was the first time Glossip had been out of custody since his 1998 conviction.

A spokesperson for Kim Kardashian, the celebrity and criminal-justice-reform advocate, confirmed to KOCO that she helped fund the bond.

In April 2026, a judge rejected a separate argument from Glossip's attorneys that Drummond had already struck a plea deal with Glossip back in 2023 — one that, they claimed, promised his release for time served if he pleaded to a lesser charge and gave up his right to sue the state.

The retrial on the first-degree murder charge, originally set for September 2026, had been pushed to Dec. 7 before Thursday's plea made it unnecessary.

What the plea carries, and what each side is saying

Accessory to first-degree murder carries a maximum sentence of up to 45 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 17 — CNN reported it could run into Dec. 18 — before Judge Mai.

Prosecutors intend to ask for additional prison time. Drummond said he and the Van Treese family "are hopeful that Judge Mai will consider the full extent of Glossip's deceit and deception along with his complicity in Mr. Van Treese's murder and sentences him to the maximum 45-year sentence," according to KOCO.

Glossip's attorney, Don Knight, said the defense will ask for a sentence of time served. "In 1997, had Rich been given the longest possible sentence for the crime he pled guilty to today, he would never have been on death row and would have been released ten years ago," Knight said, according to the Death Penalty Information Center and KOKH.

Knight has also been emphatic that the plea is not an admission to the killing itself. "He didn't know there was going to be a murder, he didn't take part in the murder. The plea that he made was actually to accessory after the fact," Knight told CNN's Jake Tapper, adding, "They never had enough evidence to convict him of that."

What happens next

Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 17 — CNN reported the hearing could run into Dec. 18 — before Judge Natalie Mai in Oklahoma County District Court. Prosecutors say they will ask for additional prison time, with Drummond hoping for the maximum 45-year sentence; Glossip's defense will ask for time served, meaning no additional custody beyond the nearly 30 years he has already spent behind bars. That hearing will decide how much more time, if any, Glossip serves.