MCALESTER, OKLAHOMA (AP) – Anti-death penalty advocate Lea Rodger said she is keenly aware of the realities facing her and Richard Glossip, who she married this week inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary where he sits on death row.
Glossip, 59, already has narrowly escaped execution three times and could be the next man Oklahoma puts to death with the lifting of a nearly seven-year moratorium on executions.
Rodger, 32, a paralegal, who has spent more than a decade advocating for an end to capital punishment, said that’s one of the reasons she didn’t want to waste time marrying her new husband.
“For Rich, surviving three execution attempts, possibly facing a fourth, the one thing he’s really taken away from that is: Don’t take anything for granted… really live in the moment,” Rodger told the Associated Press (AP) before they wed on Tuesday in a small ceremony inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
In a statement provided to the AP, Glossip said, “After all I have been through, losing so much of my life and everyone in it, I have been blessed beyond all imagination.”
Although marriages of death row inmates don’t happen often, they aren’t completely unusual either said executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center Robert Dunham.
“Marriage is among the fundamental personal rights that prisoners retain,” Dunham said.
