Veterans in the Spotlight: In Service and in Struggle — The Story of One Veteran on Death Row

On Veterans Day, the Death Penalty Information Center will release a new report about vet­er­ans and the death penal­ty, explor­ing the last­ing effects of mil­i­tary ser­vice and explain­ing why mil­i­tary expe­ri­ences mat­ter when vet­er­ans inter­act with the legal sys­tem. This arti­cle tells the sto­ry of Navy vet­er­an David Hosier who was sen­tenced to death with­out a jury ever learn­ing about his men­tal health strug­gles, hon­or­able mil­i­tary ser­vice, and childhood tragedy.

David Hosier’s life was shaped by his fam­i­ly and upbring­ing, the ground­ing influ­ence of his years of pub­lic ser­vice — inspired by his father and mother’s exam­ple — and his life­long strug­gle with mental illness. 

The jury that sen­tenced him to death heard almost none of this.

David was raised by par­ents devot­ed to pub­lic ser­vice. His moth­er, Martha, served in the nurs­ing corps, and his father, Glen, enlist­ed in the Navy in 1944 out of a deep sense of patri­o­tism. After the Navy, Glen returned home and con­tin­ued in pub­lic ser­vice, becom­ing an Indiana State Trooper. Growing up, David shared a close bond with his father, built on a mutu­al love of hunt­ing, fish­ing, and camp­ing. He came to idol­ize his father Glen and aspired to live by his values.

In 1971, when David was 16, his father was killed in the line of duty, rob­bing David of his ​“best friend.” He lat­er recalled spend­ing many nights ​“sit­ting by his father’s grave and cry­ing.” In the wake of his father’s death, David grad­u­al­ly with­drew from friends and family. 

Two years after his father’s death, David joined the Navy to fol­low in his par­ents’ foot­steps of pub­lic ser­vice and car­ry for­ward his father’s lega­cy. During his six years of ser­vice, he excelled, earn­ing recog­ni­tion for his unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to dis­ci­pline, integri­ty, and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. His con­sis­tent adher­ence to mil­i­tary reg­u­la­tions and exem­plary con­duct earned him the Good Conduct Medal and an hon­or­able dis­charge, mark­ing a dis­tin­guished com­ple­tion of ser­vice. Following his time in the Navy, David, like his father, con­tin­ued his pub­lic ser­vice, join­ing the Jefferson City, Missouri Fire Department in 1979 and serv­ing as a fire­fight­er and EMT until 1986.

During this time, David faced mul­ti­ple stress­es: a close col­league and friend com­mit­ted a mur­der-sui­cide, and his wife filed for divorce. His col­leagues at the Fire Department wit­nessed David’s strug­gles and encour­aged him to seek pro­fes­sion­al help. In 1986, Mr. Hosier began ther­a­py with Dr. Robert Stinson, a foren­sic psy­chol­o­gist. Dr. Stinson summed up David’s challenges thus: 

Dr. Stinson observed that the sim­ple life and sta­bil­i­ty that David sought became increas­ing­ly hard for him to sus­tain as he con­tin­ued to strug­gle with the loss of his father. David was sub­se­quent­ly diag­nosed with major depres­sion, recur­rent with psy­chot­ic fea­tures — doc­tors said bipo­lar dis­or­der could not be ruled out.

Over the next two decades, David’s men­tal health declined sharply, lead­ing to repeat­ed hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and peri­ods of incar­cer­a­tion. He also expe­ri­enced a lacu­nar infarct, a type of stroke in which part of the brain dies. Research shows such strokes can sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect mood and behav­ior, con­tribut­ing to anx­i­ety, impulse-con­trol dif­fi­cul­ties, and emo­tion­al reac­tions that may seem dis­pro­por­tion­ate or out of context.

In September 2009, his trou­bled life was upend­ed by the deaths of Angela and Rodney Gilpin, for which pros­e­cu­tors alleged David was respon­si­ble. Despite his con­tin­ued claims of inno­cence and the absence of direct evi­dence — no DNA, phys­i­cal proof, or eye­wit­ness­es link­ing him to the crime — he was con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der and relat­ed charges. In November 2023, he was sen­tenced to death.

Despite David’s sig­nif­i­cant back­ground in mil­i­tary ser­vice and seri­ous health chal­lenges, these fac­tors were not pre­sent­ed in court. Neither his Navy accom­plish­ments, his father’s Navy ser­vice, nor his stroke were men­tioned at tri­al — even as the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies’ mil­i­tary ser­vice was high­light­ed. Several jurors lat­er stat­ed that knowl­edge of the stroke would have sig­nif­i­cant­ly influ­enced their deci­sion. One juror not­ed, ​“David’s stroke and result­ing brain dam­age would have been impor­tant to me and would have had an impact on my decision.”

On death row, David’s health wors­ened; just two weeks before his exe­cu­tion, he was hos­pi­tal­ized with heart fail­ure. His exe­cu­tion date was set for just two weeks after Memorial Day. Although his attor­neys expressed hope that Missouri Governor Parson ​“would spare the life of a vet­er­an so close to Memorial Day,” David was exe­cut­ed on June 11, 2024.