Gary McGivern

Who was Gary McGivern?

Gerald “Gary” McGivern was a felon found guilty in 1967 of the armed robbery of a gas station in Pelham Manor, New York, during which two police officers were wounded. McGivern was tried with his partner in the robbery, Charles Culhane, and was sentenced to ten to twenty years in state prison. On September 13, 1968 McGivern, Culhane and a third convict, Robert Bowerman, were being transported by two deputies, from Auburn State Prison to a court hearing in White Plains. During a rest stop along the New York State Thruway, a deputy's gun was seized in an attempted escape. During the struggle inside the police car, a deputy and Bowerman were shot to death.

McGivern and Culhane contended that Bowerman acted alone in the escape attempt, and that Bowerman killed the deputy. Following one trial ending in a hung jury, a second trial in which they were sentenced to death, then a successful appeal of that death sentence, in a third trial they were found guilty of felony murder and sentenced to 25 years to life. In a controversial New Year's Eve 1985 decision, New York Governor Mario Cuomo granted McGivern clemency, and he was paroled three years later.