The Gary Mark Gilmore Trial was a notorious 1976 trial for the unprovoked murders of two young Mormons. In the account, it enters chiefly through Judge Bullock: his earlier role presiding over the case supplies context for the severity of his later response to Dan Lafferty’s crimes.

The Trial in the Account

The book identifies the proceeding as a history-making trial that Judge Bullock had presided over in 1976. It gives no further account of the trial’s course, evidence, verdict, or sentence, so its place here is a pointed reference rather than a separately narrated episode.

Judge Bullock and the Later Sentencing

Nearly a decade later, Bullock presided over Dan Lafferty’s trial for the murders of Brenda Lafferty and Erica Lafferty. After the jury failed to agree unanimously on a death sentence, Bullock condemned the murders and Dan’s lack of remorse, then ordered that he spend the rest of his life behind bars. Recalling the earlier Gilmore trial frames Bullock as a judge already associated with a notorious murder case, while the later sentencing shows his emphatic response to another.

Narrative Significance

The brief comparison links two trials through the judge who presided over them, not through any stated similarity in their evidence or outcomes. Gilmore’s case serves as background to the account of Dan’s sentencing and underscores how the book places the Lafferty murders within a wider history of high-profile criminal proceedings.