A Shasta County killer whose death sentence was overturned by the California Supreme Court will not be retried. In 1995, Gary Grimes and two other men were burglarizing a home off East Stillwater Way near Shasta College when they were interrupted by the resident, 98-year-old Elizabeth Bone. She was stabbed six times and strangled with a telephone cord. Some of the stolen goods were dumped into Lake Shasta along with Bone’s pickup truck, but Grimes and his two companions kept enough of it to later incriminate them. Patrick Wilson took a plea bargain for a life sentence. John Morris hanged himself in jail but before he died he said it was he who actually did the killing. In 1999 Grimes was convicted and condemned to die. That sentence was upheld in an appeal in January of last year by the Supreme Court, but was overturned in August because the court said witnesses to Morriss’ confession should have been allowed in Grimes’ penalty phase. The Shasta County District Attorney’s Office has been reviewing the case ever since and announced their decision Friday. The penalty phase of the trial will not go back to court. It would take almost 3 years for a retrial and the appeals process could drag on for well over 20 years. Grimes is 54-years-old so even if the jury recommends death, it’s very unlikely that an execution would be carried out before he dies of natural causes. California hasn’t executed anyone since 2006. Grimes will spend the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole. The D.A.’s Office points out that living in the general inmate population is considerably more unpleasant than the conditions on death row.
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