Gilbert Postelle was sentenced to death by the State of Oklahoma for four murders. According to court documents Gilbert Postelle and his brother drove to a trailer park and would murder James “Donnie” Swindle Jr., Amy Wright, Terry Smith and James Alderson. Gilbert Postelle would be sentenced to death and his brother would receive a life without parole sentence
Oklahoma Death Row Inmate List
Gilbert Postelle 2022 Information
Gender: Male
Race: White
Height: 5 ft 11 in
Weight: 189 lbs
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Alias: Gil Postelle
OK DOC#: 585999
Birth Date: 6/22/1986
Current Facility: OKLAHOMA STATE PENITENTIARY, MCALE
Reception Date: 10/20/2008
Gilbert Postelle More News
An Oklahoma County judge has sentenced a man to death for the deaths of two people on Memorial Day 2005.
Gilbert Ray Postelle also was sentenced Thursday to two terms of life in prison plus 10 years for conspiracy in the slayings of four people at an Oklahoma City trailer house.
Postelle, who said nothing during his sentencing hearing, showed no emotion when the judge set a December execution date. That date is essentially meaningless because all death penalty cases are appealed automatically.
Postelle, 22, was convicted by a jury on Sept. 9 of killing James “Donnie” Swindle Jr., Amy Wright, Terry Smith and James Alderson.
Two days later, the Oklahoma County jury that heard evidence in the case decided Postelle should die for killing Wright and Alderson and spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing Swindle and Smith.
He did not react to either verdict, remaining as stone-faced as he had throughout the three-week trial.
Postelle’s trial marked the end of prolonged legal proceedings in the case, which included charges against nine other people.
“It’s a sad case that’s affected many, many, many people,” District Attorney David Prater said. “This has been a long, dark road for the surviving families of the victims.”
Defendants in the case drove to the trailer park to scare Swindle, whom they blamed for a motorcycle accident involving Earl Bradford Postelle, Gilbert Postelle’s father, according to court papers.
Prosecutors claim Swindle, Wright, Smith and Alderson were herded out of a mobile home and then someone emptied a 30-shot magazine of an AK-47 assault rifle into them. Another six shots were fired into Swindle’s head with a rifle, court papers state.
Gilbert Postelle Execution
An Oklahoma man involved in a 2005 Memorial Day shooting that left four people dead was executed by lethal injection on Thursday.
Gilbert Postelle was convicted in 2008, for the murders of Amy Wright, 26; James Alderson, 57; Terry Smith, 56; and James Swindle Jr., 49. He was pronounced dead by officials from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester at 10:15 a.m.
It comes just more than a week before a federal trial that is set to determine the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s use of the lethal injection drugs and whether or not it should be considered cruel and unusual.
According to prosecutors, Postelle, along with his brother, David Postelle, father Brad Postelle and a fourth man carried out the grisly attack at a mobile home park home, believing that Swindle was responsible for a motorcycle accident that badly injured the father.
There is no evidence the 49-year-old had anything to do with the accident
According to police reports, Postelle shot more than “30 rounds” from an “AK-47 style rifle,” striking all four people, two of who were trying to flee at the time.
“In her final moments, Amy Wright was screaming and clawing the ground to escape from Gilbert Postelle,” Assistant Attorney General Julie Pittman told the board. “He heard her screams, saw her desperate attempt to escape from him. Rather than showing Amy mercy, he shot her in the back three times.”
Postelle’s attorney, Robert Nance, argued that his client suffered from a learning disability, that his mother abandoned him at a young age and that he begun abusing methamphetamine on a nearly daily basis starting at age 12.
Postelle previously testified via video link from the prison that he had been using meth for days before the killings and had little memory of the slayings.
“I do understand that I’m guilty and I accept that,” he said. “There’s nothing more that I know to say to you all than I am truly sorry for what I’ve done to all these families.”
His execution will mark the fourth lethal injection in Oklahoma since October, when the state resumed lethal injections following a nearly seven-year hiatus.