In the summer of 1949, seventeen-year-old Shirley Jean Gretzinger was a kind and responsible young woman living in Ogden, Utah. On the evening of July 20th, she wasn't planning on leaving her mother's house, but a call came for a babysitter. A friend of Shirley's was sick and had passed the job to her. Trusting and willing to help, Shirley accepted the offer, unaware that the man on the other end of the line was setting a deadly trap.
Her mother was worried, not knowing who her daughter would be working for that night, a premonition that would prove tragically accurate.
The caller was Ray Dempsey Gardner, a man with a long and violent criminal history unknown to the Gretzinger family. When he arrived to pick Shirley up, he did not take her to a family's home as promised. Instead, he drove her to a remote area. There, he attacked and murdered her. It was a calculated act of brutality, preying on the trusting nature of a young woman who was simply trying to do a favor for a friend.
The man responsible for this senseless act was a serial killer. Ray Dempsey Gardner, born in Columbus, Ohio, had a troubled past; his father was killed in a shootout with police and his mother was imprisoned, leaving him to be raised in an orphanage. His criminal record spanned over 500 crimes and included time in various state prisons. Years before he killed Shirley, in 1941, Gardner had strangled his cellmate, Frank Shelley, in a North Dakota jail, a death that was mistakenly ruled as due to natural causes. After killing Shirley, he went on to murder another woman, Sue Horne, in Montana.
Gardner’s spree came to an end not through the murder investigations, but by chance. In August 1949, he was involved in a car crash after running a stop sign. Police investigating the accident found stolen items in his car, leading to his arrest. It was during questioning for these lesser crimes that a polygraph test indicated he had knowledge of Sue Horne's disappearance. He eventually confessed to killing Horne and led police to her shallow grave. He also confessed to the murders of Shirley Gretzinger and Frank Shelley, even giving investigators a tour of the crime scene where he had left Shirley's body.
Despite confessing to three murders, authorities in Utah decided to try him solely for the first-degree murder of Shirley Gretzinger, likely because they had the strongest case against him in that jurisdiction. During the trial, Gardner retracted his confession and attempted to blame an unknown friend, but the evidence was overwhelming. On December 13, 1949, a jury deliberated for just 58 minutes before finding him guilty. They did not recommend mercy, which under Utah law at the time, made a death sentence mandatory.
While on death row at Utah State Prison, Gardner exhausted his appeals. In a final, bizarre plea to the Board of Pardons, he did not ask for freedom but requested that his life be spared so he could be used as a "guinea pig for science." The board, with prosecutors describing Gardner as a "dangerous sadist," denied the request. He was given the choice between hanging and a firing squad for his execution, and he chose the latter.
On September 29, 1951, Ray Dempsey Gardner faced a five-man firing squad. His last words were, "I'm ready to go. No one will miss me. My life has been worthless." Following his execution, prison officials contacted his closest living relative, his grandmother. Her response was a testament to the lonely and destructive life he had led. She stated she had not known his whereabouts for eight years until she read about his crimes and that she was unable to take his body, directing the state to "use the body as the law directs for medical science." In a strange twist of fate, Gardner’s final request was ultimately granted.
