What an amazing story...a man, shot in the head, who should have been dead, recovers enough to battle a home intruder with a gun, disarms him, gets to his own gun and repels the threat.
The perfect story to display the validity of self-defense with a firearm.
Oh, what I would pay to see the fear in the eyes of Glenn Ellis O'Conner running down the street in fear of his life--of an old man he just shot chasing him down with his trusty rifle.
That sad part is that O'Conner just may taste freedom one day...
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Shot in the head, point blank, an older man wrestles with his would-be killer
Rolland Nesmith should have died. When he didn't, the slight, aging man went after his attacker.
By LARRY WELBORN
Second of two parts
To read Part 1...
Rolland Nesmith was alive.
One of his eyes was permanently blinded, and his vocal chords were severely damaged, causing his whispery delivery.
He was a slightly-built, short and tired 65-year-old retiree. And he had just been shot at near point-blank range in the temple.
But he was still breathing.
One of his many problems at that moment was that his deadly assailant was still there – an 18-year-old, self-proclaimed killing machine with training in martial arts who was getting ready to shoot again.
I have thought about this often since I first heard Nesmith's amazing testimony in 1975.
What were his chances for survival?
The answer is he had no chance. He was as good as dead
•••
"Well," the transcript picks up again.
"I really didn't – didn't do a lot of fast thinking," Nesmith testifies.
"What I physically did was simply lie there, I guess for a split second, wondering – am I a dead man or am I alive? And I recall thinking to myself, that I still had the capability of vision. I could see, and…"
The trial was of headline-making caliber, mainly because it was the first death penalty trial in Orange County since California voters reinstated capital punishment after it was banned by the U.S. Supreme Court as being unevenly applied.
It was also significant because the defendant was 18-year-old Glenn O'Conner, one of the youngest persons in the country ever to face the severest penalty allowed by law, and without a doubt the youngest in Orange County history.
O'Conner pleaded not guilty, even though he led Anaheim detectives on a videotaped re-enactment of his crimes, and also not guilty by reason of insanity.
O'Conner's first victim, Margaret Baker Lissy, a 56-year-old housewife, was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head during a bold daytime robbery at her Anaheim Hills home on Jan. 7, 1975.
But his second victim, Rolland E. Nesmith, somehow survived a similar gunshot wound to the head a few miles away and just two weeks later.
And now he is on the witness stand to tell his story of how he escaped becoming a murder victim. It is one incredible, authentic story. Today, more than three decades later, I still have trouble believing it.
The transcript of his one-hour testimony on Nov. 12, 1975 before the Honorable Judge Byron K. McMillan reveals the miracle.
After the first shot, Nesmith recalled:
"Well, I just simply looked ahead and I realized I could see and that I could hear. My ears were ringing … I was bleeding profusely, kind of strangling in my throat at the time.
"But anyway, I wondered if I was per chance paralyzed. And I sort of tensed my shoulder muscles and I felt I had strength left in my body yet. So that's some of the things I did.
"This must have been just like a split second nearly."
During Nesmith's quick assessment of his condition, however, O'Conner was also doing some things.
"I was certain that I heard a second shot," Nesmith testified.
I'm sitting there in this mostly vacant 7th floor courtroom listening to this testimony, and I'm thinking I must be listening to a dead man.
Nesmith continues.
"I thought I've got to get up and put up some kind of a fight if I want to live or he'll just keep shooting."
Yes. Yes, I nudge the only other observer in the courtroom gallery, reporter Thom Barley of the Orange Coast Daily Pilot. Yes, I think to myself, you have to put up some sort of a fight. Mr. Nesmith. But what can you possibly do?
Nesmith: "
"And so I sprang off the bed and I thought I'll try to get my gun in the hall closet … If I can just get to that gun, maybe I'll have a chance."
Sure, sure I'm thinking. There is no way this plan can work. This 18-year-old killing machine is taking a bead on your head, and you think you're going to just bounce off that bed, make your way to a closet, find an antique gun you haven't used for years, and defend yourself?
"And so, I did spring up off the bed," Nesmith testified.
So, what happened? What happened? How did he avoid getting shot again?
Q. "What did you do when you jumped off the bed?"
A. "I can't testify to what I did. My mind – my mind is a complete blank from the time I did jump up. I came to with the faculty of being able to remember with my gun in my hand."
•••
And somehow, some way O'Conner, the black-belt bully with a revolver in his hand, is nowhere to be seen.
Wait, wait, wait! What do you mean, you can't remember? How can that be? What just happened here?
The crime scene reveals that the bullets from O'Conner's were splayed all over the place. When Nesmith sprang off the bed, he must have grappled with the gunman, causing the revolver – which broke down from the front – to pop open, spilling the bullets,
Meanwhile O'Conner, who told detectives later that believed he had shot his elderly victim "dead in the temple," was completely shocked when Nesmith sprang at him like an Olympic athlete.
The coward raced from the bedroom out through the same back door he had entered a few minutes earlier when he was pointing a gun at Nesmith's back.
Q."When you realized that you had your hands on your gun, what did you do?"
A."I determined to get out of the house and stop him as fast as I could.
What? Cut your losses, man. Get some help for yourself!
Nesmith: "At that point I could hear running again, and I could hear him getting out the back way, the way we had come into the house."
Q."When you went out the front door, did you do something with your gun?
A."Yes. I went out, proceeded out to the yard to the point where I had their truck in full view with the intent of somehow stopping them from getting away.
"So I went about midway into the yard and fired one shot point blank at the side of their truck, right into the side of the door,
No, no, no! That won't do it, I scream silently to myself. A shot in the door won't disable a truck!
Didn't matter. O'Conner was running unarmed down the street on foot, scared out of his wits that the old man he thought he just killed was coming at him with a gun.
The immediate danger for Rolland Nesmith was over.
"At that point, I was getting pretty woozy," he testified, according to the amazing transcript.
So he, as calmly as he could under those extreme circumstances, walked out to his mailbox and tried to wave down a passerby.
Only no one would stop for this bleeding old man who was holding a gun.
Newsmith: "I waved at a couple of cars and they drove by … and I thought, gosh, no one was going to stop and help me. Perhaps if I lie down…"
Eventually, someone did stop.
Nesmith was rushed by ambulance to Mission Community Hospital. Despite massive head injuries, he survived.
Meanwhile, Anaheim police – on alert in the neighborhood anyway because of the bizarre, seemingly unexplainable murder of Margaret Baker Lissy two weeks earlier -- swarmed to the scene.
They brought in a scent dog to follow the trail of the assailant as he left the Nesmith home on Santa Ana Canyon Road. The dog took detectives right to a restroom at nearby Featherly Regional Park.
Inside the restroom was Glenn Ellis O'Conner, who a short time earlier thought he had killed victim number two with a gunshot to the temple.
Before he left the witness stand, Nesmith was asked one more series of questions, aimed at discrediting O'Conner's claim of insanity.
Q."During that period of time was there anything about the defendant's behavior, in terms of the way he walked, the way he looked…the contents of his conversation … that suggested in anyway that there was anything wrong with him?"
A."No, not at all. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing…He spoke and acted normal, I thought."
Case closed.
•••
Postscript: Glenn Ellis O'Conner was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Margaret Baker Lissy and the attempted murder of Rolland Nesmith. His jury also found that he was sane at the time of both attacks.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Byron McMillan sentenced O'Conner to be executed within the walls of San Quentin Prison. McMillan later said he would have been happy to "drop the pills myself" in order to end the life of Glenn O'Conner.
However, before McMillan's sentence could be carried out, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty, as it was being implemented in 1976, was "cruel and unusual punishment." Capital punishment was banned again.
O'Conner's sentence was automatically switched to life in prison, with parole possible after seven years.
The self-described killing machine has been denied parole 11 times, most recently in January 2008. He is now 52-years-old.
Rolland Nesmith died at The Village Retirement Center in Hemet of congestive heart failure and emphysema on March 29, 1994. He was 83.
"I thought I've got to get up and put up some kind of a fight if I want to live or he'll just keep shooting." Rolland Nesmith, testifying in the murder case of Glenn O'Conner, Nov. 12, 1975.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/nesmith-conner-one-2096748-gun-thought#
The perfect story to display the validity of self-defense with a firearm.
Oh, what I would pay to see the fear in the eyes of Glenn Ellis O'Conner running down the street in fear of his life--of an old man he just shot chasing him down with his trusty rifle.
That sad part is that O'Conner just may taste freedom one day...
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Shot in the head, point blank, an older man wrestles with his would-be killer
Rolland Nesmith should have died. When he didn't, the slight, aging man went after his attacker.
By LARRY WELBORN
Second of two parts
To read Part 1...
Rolland Nesmith was alive.
One of his eyes was permanently blinded, and his vocal chords were severely damaged, causing his whispery delivery.
He was a slightly-built, short and tired 65-year-old retiree. And he had just been shot at near point-blank range in the temple.
But he was still breathing.
One of his many problems at that moment was that his deadly assailant was still there – an 18-year-old, self-proclaimed killing machine with training in martial arts who was getting ready to shoot again.
I have thought about this often since I first heard Nesmith's amazing testimony in 1975.
What were his chances for survival?
The answer is he had no chance. He was as good as dead
•••
"Well," the transcript picks up again.
"I really didn't – didn't do a lot of fast thinking," Nesmith testifies.
"What I physically did was simply lie there, I guess for a split second, wondering – am I a dead man or am I alive? And I recall thinking to myself, that I still had the capability of vision. I could see, and…"
The trial was of headline-making caliber, mainly because it was the first death penalty trial in Orange County since California voters reinstated capital punishment after it was banned by the U.S. Supreme Court as being unevenly applied.
It was also significant because the defendant was 18-year-old Glenn O'Conner, one of the youngest persons in the country ever to face the severest penalty allowed by law, and without a doubt the youngest in Orange County history.
O'Conner pleaded not guilty, even though he led Anaheim detectives on a videotaped re-enactment of his crimes, and also not guilty by reason of insanity.
O'Conner's first victim, Margaret Baker Lissy, a 56-year-old housewife, was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head during a bold daytime robbery at her Anaheim Hills home on Jan. 7, 1975.
But his second victim, Rolland E. Nesmith, somehow survived a similar gunshot wound to the head a few miles away and just two weeks later.
And now he is on the witness stand to tell his story of how he escaped becoming a murder victim. It is one incredible, authentic story. Today, more than three decades later, I still have trouble believing it.
The transcript of his one-hour testimony on Nov. 12, 1975 before the Honorable Judge Byron K. McMillan reveals the miracle.
After the first shot, Nesmith recalled:
"Well, I just simply looked ahead and I realized I could see and that I could hear. My ears were ringing … I was bleeding profusely, kind of strangling in my throat at the time.
"But anyway, I wondered if I was per chance paralyzed. And I sort of tensed my shoulder muscles and I felt I had strength left in my body yet. So that's some of the things I did.
"This must have been just like a split second nearly."
During Nesmith's quick assessment of his condition, however, O'Conner was also doing some things.
"I was certain that I heard a second shot," Nesmith testified.
I'm sitting there in this mostly vacant 7th floor courtroom listening to this testimony, and I'm thinking I must be listening to a dead man.
Nesmith continues.
"I thought I've got to get up and put up some kind of a fight if I want to live or he'll just keep shooting."
Yes. Yes, I nudge the only other observer in the courtroom gallery, reporter Thom Barley of the Orange Coast Daily Pilot. Yes, I think to myself, you have to put up some sort of a fight. Mr. Nesmith. But what can you possibly do?
Nesmith: "
"And so I sprang off the bed and I thought I'll try to get my gun in the hall closet … If I can just get to that gun, maybe I'll have a chance."
Sure, sure I'm thinking. There is no way this plan can work. This 18-year-old killing machine is taking a bead on your head, and you think you're going to just bounce off that bed, make your way to a closet, find an antique gun you haven't used for years, and defend yourself?
"And so, I did spring up off the bed," Nesmith testified.
So, what happened? What happened? How did he avoid getting shot again?
Q. "What did you do when you jumped off the bed?"
A. "I can't testify to what I did. My mind – my mind is a complete blank from the time I did jump up. I came to with the faculty of being able to remember with my gun in my hand."
•••
And somehow, some way O'Conner, the black-belt bully with a revolver in his hand, is nowhere to be seen.
Wait, wait, wait! What do you mean, you can't remember? How can that be? What just happened here?
The crime scene reveals that the bullets from O'Conner's were splayed all over the place. When Nesmith sprang off the bed, he must have grappled with the gunman, causing the revolver – which broke down from the front – to pop open, spilling the bullets,
Meanwhile O'Conner, who told detectives later that believed he had shot his elderly victim "dead in the temple," was completely shocked when Nesmith sprang at him like an Olympic athlete.
The coward raced from the bedroom out through the same back door he had entered a few minutes earlier when he was pointing a gun at Nesmith's back.
Q."When you realized that you had your hands on your gun, what did you do?"
A."I determined to get out of the house and stop him as fast as I could.
What? Cut your losses, man. Get some help for yourself!
Nesmith: "At that point I could hear running again, and I could hear him getting out the back way, the way we had come into the house."
Q."When you went out the front door, did you do something with your gun?
A."Yes. I went out, proceeded out to the yard to the point where I had their truck in full view with the intent of somehow stopping them from getting away.
"So I went about midway into the yard and fired one shot point blank at the side of their truck, right into the side of the door,
No, no, no! That won't do it, I scream silently to myself. A shot in the door won't disable a truck!
Didn't matter. O'Conner was running unarmed down the street on foot, scared out of his wits that the old man he thought he just killed was coming at him with a gun.
The immediate danger for Rolland Nesmith was over.
"At that point, I was getting pretty woozy," he testified, according to the amazing transcript.
So he, as calmly as he could under those extreme circumstances, walked out to his mailbox and tried to wave down a passerby.
Only no one would stop for this bleeding old man who was holding a gun.
Newsmith: "I waved at a couple of cars and they drove by … and I thought, gosh, no one was going to stop and help me. Perhaps if I lie down…"
Eventually, someone did stop.
Nesmith was rushed by ambulance to Mission Community Hospital. Despite massive head injuries, he survived.
Meanwhile, Anaheim police – on alert in the neighborhood anyway because of the bizarre, seemingly unexplainable murder of Margaret Baker Lissy two weeks earlier -- swarmed to the scene.
They brought in a scent dog to follow the trail of the assailant as he left the Nesmith home on Santa Ana Canyon Road. The dog took detectives right to a restroom at nearby Featherly Regional Park.
Inside the restroom was Glenn Ellis O'Conner, who a short time earlier thought he had killed victim number two with a gunshot to the temple.
Before he left the witness stand, Nesmith was asked one more series of questions, aimed at discrediting O'Conner's claim of insanity.
Q."During that period of time was there anything about the defendant's behavior, in terms of the way he walked, the way he looked…the contents of his conversation … that suggested in anyway that there was anything wrong with him?"
A."No, not at all. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing…He spoke and acted normal, I thought."
Case closed.
•••
Postscript: Glenn Ellis O'Conner was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Margaret Baker Lissy and the attempted murder of Rolland Nesmith. His jury also found that he was sane at the time of both attacks.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Byron McMillan sentenced O'Conner to be executed within the walls of San Quentin Prison. McMillan later said he would have been happy to "drop the pills myself" in order to end the life of Glenn O'Conner.
However, before McMillan's sentence could be carried out, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty, as it was being implemented in 1976, was "cruel and unusual punishment." Capital punishment was banned again.
O'Conner's sentence was automatically switched to life in prison, with parole possible after seven years.
The self-described killing machine has been denied parole 11 times, most recently in January 2008. He is now 52-years-old.
Rolland Nesmith died at The Village Retirement Center in Hemet of congestive heart failure and emphysema on March 29, 1994. He was 83.
"I thought I've got to get up and put up some kind of a fight if I want to live or he'll just keep shooting." Rolland Nesmith, testifying in the murder case of Glenn O'Conner, Nov. 12, 1975.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/nesmith-conner-one-2096748-gun-thought#
