The defense attorney, John Dice, was diagnosed with mental illness and subsequently committed suicide.
Cone admitted he had killed the elderly couple, but claimed he was insane because of a drug addiction and stress from service in Vietnam.
Gary Cone was interviewed by Shirley Dicks for her book From Vietnam to Hell: Interviews with Victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (McFarland & Company, 1990). Cone’s description of his wartime experience is similar to that of many Vietnam veterans, who are disproportionately represented in US prisons, and on death row in particular:
“I was nineteen years old and the Vietnam war was the high point in my life. I didn’t come home in a body bag or a wheel chair. Even though I had come home a complete person, it’s evident that I didn’t.”
In From Vietnam to Hell, Cone recounts his memory of the brutal 1982 murder: “I broke into a house, entering from the back door. When I left, two people inside were dead. I don’t remember killing them, but I know I must have. All I can remember is the police chasing me. I thought I was in the jungle, and the CONG chasing me, trying to kill me before I could kill them.”
]“I was nineteen years old and the Vietnam war was the high point in my life. I didn’t come home in a body bag or a wheel chair. Even though I had come home a complete person, it’s evident that I didn’t.”
Killer's Case Before Supreme Court For A Third
