American criminal; a deadbeat dad, a small-time thief, a desperate alcoholic and finally, the killer of three victims. Sampson was arrested on 31 July 2001 for breaking into a house and charged with high-jacking cars on two separate occasions, killing their drivers and driving from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, where he killed a third man.
In a life spiraling out of control, Sampson, bi-sexual, believed that he was HIV+. A haggard and tough looking blond with an underbite, he faced charges wearing ragged jeans and a t-shirt, accused of fatally stabbing a retired gas company man, slashing the throat of a college sophomore and binding and suffocating the former city councilor.
Gary Sampson was the son of a couple described by neighbors as “really nice people” who just celebrated their 40th anniversary. He grew up and married in Abington, Massachusetts in the ’70s before leaving his wife and child. While in North Carolina, he lived with a group of transvestites and he learned to wear makeup and dress in women’s clothes as part of his criminal disguises. His weight fluctuated as much as 75 lbs and his hair changed colors; he even posed once as a black woman! He was known as a drug user and inveterate gambler. He was a suspect in some five bank robberies in the area and a warrant was issued for the 16 June 2001 robbery in Dalton, North Carolina. His record began in November 1976 and included charges of assault and battery in June 1978. In June 1988 he was given five-to-ten, was paroled in January 1997 and back in jail a year later for threatening a woman’s life.
Under pressure, he began to flee in a week of terror. On 24 July 2001, he stole the car of Philip McCloskey, 69, stabbing the man nine times. When Jonathan Rizzo, 19, saw Gary on the roadside and stopped to help him, Gary took Rizzo into the woods behind a mini-golf-course where he tied him to a tree, stabbed him in the neck and chest then slit his throat, driving off in Rizzo’s 1994 Volkswagen Jetta. He drove to New Hampshire where he made camp in an empty summer house. When Robert Whitney, 58, arrived to do some yard work, he tied him up and left him to suffocate.
In August 2001, he was returned to his native Massachusetts to face murder charges. He pleaded guilty in September 2003. On 23 December 2003, the jury in the federal court trial recommended the death penalty for Sampson. The actual sentencing was scheduled for 29 January 2004, but the US District Judge told jurors that since they voted for death, “I will impose that sentence.” He would hear counter-arguments prior to the sentencing. Sampson’s case was particularly important because it renewed debate about bringing back the death penalty in Massachusetts, one of only 12 states without capital punishment.
The defense introduced mental health experts to testify that Sampson had dyslexia as a child, had bipolar disorder, and “suffered from a significant mental impairment” during the killings. A psychiatrist called by the government testified that Sampson did not suffer from any mitigating mental impairment; he was intelligent but violent and deeply antisocial, with antisocial personality disorder.
In 2011, Sampson’s death sentence was thrown out due to juror misconduct, and he was scheduled for a second sentencing trial on 16 September 2015. He was again sentenced to death on 9 January 2017.
Sampson died at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri on 21 December 2021 at the age of 62.
Link to Wikipedia biography