A man by the name of Richard Glossip, who spent 30 years on death row and was moments away from facing death on three separate instances, has finally been freed. Glossip was convicted of the murder of his former boss, Barry Van Treese, back in 1997. Van Treese was the owner of the Oklahoma City motel, and Glossip served as the motel’s manager. It was reported that Glossip, who was 35 years at the time, orchestrated the murder to hide his alleged embezzlement scheme.

Van Treese, who was 54 at the time, was found beaten to death in a room of Best Budget Inn. At the time of the conviction, Justin Sneed, who was a maintenance worker, confessed to the crime. Sneed was 19 years old at the time of the killing and confessed that he used a baseball bat to beat Van Treese to death.

According to The Mirror, Sneed stated that Glossip was the “mastermind” behind the murder and had offered $9,000 to the 19-year-old to execute the murder. However, Glossip’s legal team argued that Sneed murdered the motel owner of his own accord. The legal team stated that Sneed planned to rob Van Treese to fund his drug habits, and the murder was just a “robbery attempt gone wrong.”

Glossip was originally found guilty and sentenced to death in 1998. What followed was a series of death sentences, with Glossip being given his final meal on three separate occasions. The 1998 death sentence was overturned by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals in 2001 owing to “inadequate legal representation.”

A separate 2004 conviction gave another death sentence. However, Glossip, yet again, narrowly escaped the sentence when the execution chamber staff discovered that they had the wrong drugs to execute death by lethal injection.

Glossip walked out of prison a free man after posting a $480,000 bail. As of writing, he has been ordered to remain in Oklahoma and wear an electronic monitoring device to track his movements. He is also set to face a third trial later, with Sneed set to testify against him yet again.

However, Glossip’s legal team claims it has a strong case to protect its client. “Mr. Glossip now has the chance to taste freedom while his defense team continues to pursue justice on his behalf against a system that the United States Supreme Court has found to be guilty of serious misconduct by state prosecutors,” Glossip’s attorneys said in a statement. 

“The United States Supreme Court has found to be guilty of serious misconduct by state prosecutors,” the attorneys continued. “Mr. Glossip is deeply grateful to the many thousands of people who have expressed support for him over the years and now looks forward to the day when he is exonerated and truly free from this decades-long nightmare.”