How Missouri prisoner and ‘completely different’ pastor built trust as execution looms

David Hosier, the 69-year-old Missouri prisoner who faces execution in one week, and his spiritual adviser have “completely different perspectives,” according to the Rev. Jeff Hood.

Hosier agrees — there are things the two butt heads on.

“He has his beliefs and I have mine,” Hosier said during an interview last month at Potosi Correctional Center, where death row prisoners are incarcerated in Missouri.

Hosier, whose father was a police officer and grandfather was a minister, was taught not to discuss religion or politics unless he was among good friends. His more conservative values, which can veer into what Hood describes as “toxic masculinity,” are a sharp contrast to Hood’s public views on hot button topics including racism and Palestine.

Yet the two have formed a symbiotic relationship that Hood sees as love.

“I tell him ‘I love you’ every time we talk,” Hood said. Hosier replies, “OK, thank you.”

They first spoke in late February after Hosier’s execution date was announced on Valentine’s Day.

“We talk a lot about the Bible and different things,” Hosier said. “We talk, just trying to get prepared for the state wanting to murder you.”

Elyse Max, co-director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, who has been in touch with both Hosier and Hood, said having a spiritual adviser was important for those on death row.

“From the spiritual perspective, I couldn’t even imagine the kind of questions you’re faced with when you know the date that the state is going to take your life,” Max said. “Somebody who is trained and able to help somebody think through that time in their life — it’s sort of like hospice care.”

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that spiritual advisers could be in the execution chamber.

Max said Hood is “a voice to people that are living out their final weeks. That also makes him somewhat of a contentious spiritual adviser because he doesn’t sometimes always stick into the pastoral lane and he sometimes enters into the advocacy lane.”

In the past 18 months, Hood has helped six men face their execution dates, including Kenneth Smith, who was executed using nitrogen hypoxia in Alabama, the first state to use that method in January.

Hood believes the death penalty is evil and that it should cease “not because of who these guys are but because of who we are.”

‘The left out of the left out’

He hasn’t always held that view. He was raised Southern Baptist near Atlanta under the prevailing ideology of “an eye for an eye” and attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

When a close mentor was dying and disclosed that he was gay, Hood’s worldview was turned upside down. That “took away all of my certainties,” he said, and made him realize that Jesus loves all people.

Hood was drawn to death row activism in 2009 because those guys are “the left out of the left out,” he said.

“What I really believe about the message of Jesus is that God doesn’t give up on anyone,” he said.

As spiritual adviser, Hood’s role has many dimensions: “I engage God through their eyes.” “I just want these guys to be heard.” “I just want to be there for (Hosier).”

Failure is not an option.

With that comes immense pressure. How do two people who see life in fundamentally different ways reach each other? How do you help someone find a sense of love they have not been able to cultivate in their life? How do you balance hope and impending reality? How do you prepare them to walk into the execution chamber where a lethal dose of pentobarbital will be injected into their veins?

For Hood, that means becoming someone’s best friend, fiercest advocate and pastoral expert. And then watching them die.

“I love these guys knowing I’m going to get my heart broken,” he said.

‘Doesn’t love very easy’

There were no signs in Hosier’s early life hinting that he would end up on death row. He was close to his father, an Indiana state trooper and his grandfather, who was a minister.

But his trajectory was irrevocably altered in April 1971 when his father was shot and killed in the line of duty. At the time, he was 16 and sent to military school where he was described as troubled and withdrawn.

Hosier went on to serve in the U.S. Navy and later as a firefighter in Jefferson City.

In 1986, he underwent a psychological evaluation after an altercation with his second wife. A doctor diagnosed Hosier with major depression with psychotic features and concluded that he had never recovered from the loss of his father. His wife filed for divorce and was awarded custody of their two children, according to the clemency petition his attorneys submitted to Missouri Gov. Mike Parson.

He began dating Angela Gilpin, who he had met at a bar in 2007 in Jefferson City. She and her husband Rodney Gilpin had separated. Later, they ended up reconciling.

The couple was found dead on Sept. 28, 2009, in the hallway of her apartment building. Hosier was sentenced to death in Angela Gilpin’s murder and sent to Potosi Correctional Center, about 70 miles south of St. Louis.

Hosier was convicted on circumstantial evidence and maintains he is innocent. His advocates are not promoting his claims, but believe he should be spared from execution.

Like Hood, his opinion on the death penalty has also changed. If Hosier had been asked about the death penalty after his father was killed, he may have said it was appropriate. But now, he says he “can’t see by any justification, the death penalty as being anything but cruel and inhumane.”

He will soon be moved to the nearby Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, which houses the state’s execution chamber.

Hosier, according to Hood, did not want him to be in the chamber with him at the end. Their relationship began tentatively. Hood said Hosier is a skeptical, obstinate man.

“He doesn’t trust very easy so therefore he doesn’t love very easy,” Hood said.

Earlier in the process, Hood asked Hosier how he was going to love himself and experience love in the final months. He said he didn’t know.

‘He’s done a lot for me’

Over the past few months, the two have spoken for countless hours. The process has taken time, but sometimes they now talk three times a day. They have discussed everything from the Book of Jonah to their own families and capital punishment.

Their dynamic is simple — it’s based on love. But love can also be complex. Hood said Hosier has felt abandoned in life and that has hardened him in many ways. He doesn’t know if Hosier could maintain a long-term relationship.

He has also harmed others, including assaults on two other ex-partners. At times, he seems unaware of the pain he has caused and sometimes lives in the world as he sees it, not in the reality that actually exists, according to Hood. In some moments, Hood feels like he is “bouncing around an emotional roller coaster.”

And there are some topics they don’t broach, mostly related to politics. According to Hood, Hosier has called him “his favorite radical.”

In other moments, it is clear to Hood that God is found in moments where people find connection and that he has signed up to “be the love they never experienced in their life.”

Hosier said they are united in their belief in God.

“I’ve grown up believing in Jesus Christ my whole life and God and I accepted him as my Lord and salvation. I put my faith and my trust in him,” Hosier said. “If he wills it that I die on the 11th, then that’s what he wants. If I make it past that, then evidently he didn’t want me to go on the 11th, but I have to believe in what he wants.”

Hood said he reaches Hosier through scripture. John 3:16 says: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Hood has also uncovered a softer side to Hosier.

What’s been meaningful, Hood said, is that Hosier has been able to talk about his life and his emotions. Initially, Hosier did not want to discuss his kids, who he is not in contact with. A couple weeks ago, Hosier said he missed them, according to Hood.

“That’s real,” Hood said.

Hood has also shared parts of his life with Hosier. Sometimes when they talk, Hood is on speakerphone and one of his five children chimes in to tell Hosier about their school day.

When Hosier was hospitalized for a few days in May, he didn’t have access to a phone. He missed having that spiritual connection, he said.

“My relationship through Rev. Hood has been through the Bible and his adamant beliefs in anti-death penalty,” Hosier said. “There are things that he and I would probably not agree upon in other facets of his life and my life, but as far as a spiritual leader and as far as being an advocate for persons in my position, sitting on death row, I believe he does a very good job. He’s trying very hard to help both spiritually and any other way he can.”

“He’s done a lot for me.”

In more recent days, Hood thinks Hosier has realized that June 11 is approaching.

Hood wonders what it will be like that day, what he will say to Hosier. He said Hosier now wants him in the chamber with him in his final moments.

“I think I’m going to be able to tell him you’re finally free.”

Hosier’s attorneys submitted a clemency petition to Parson’s office last week. If the governor does not intervene, Hosier’s death warrant goes into effect at 6 p.m. next Tuesday. Parson has not granted clemency to any of the 10 prisoners facing execution since he took office in 2018.

This story was originally published June 4, 2024 at 6:00 AM.

Katie Moore

The Kansas City Star

816-234-4312

Katie Moore was an enterprise and accountability reporter for The Star. She covered justice issues, including policing, prison conditions and the death penalty. She is a University of Kansas graduate and began her career as a reporter in 2015 in her hometown of Topeka, Kansas.