Cristina Gutierrez's 1999 Maine Murder Case & Adnan's Library Alibi

Previously, I've written about how Cristina Gutierrez was involved in 6 first-degree murder cases in 4 different jurisdictions back in 1999/2000. Well, it turns out that she was actually involved in a seventh murder case in a fifth jurisdiction back in 1999. This one took place in Maine, and it possibly answers one of the biggest questions I have about this case.

In September 1997, 24 year-old Howard University student Joseph Glasco was indicted "in the Aug. 15 slaying of Paul Landre, 18, in the employees’ dormitory at the Colony Hotel" in Maine.

Glasco, who worked as a dishwasher at the hotel, allegedly killed Landre during a late-night argument over loud music. Glasco’s lawyer has suggested that his client acted in self-defense.

That attorney was Peter DeTroy, with Cristina Gutierrez later being added to Glasco's legal team. After Gutierrez was added to the team,

Glasco originally pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to murdering Landre. The aspiring drummer was shot eight times after he and Glasco argued in their dormitory at The Colony Hotel, where both held summer jobs.

Glasco’s family and lawyers contend[ed] that Glasco, because of his paranoid delusions and because he was the only black man at the mostly white hotel, became frightened for his safety when Landre banged on his door.

Eventually, however, Glasco pleaded guilty to manslaughter pursuant to a plea deal in which the prosecutor agreed to recommend a sentence of no more than twenty years incarceration. 

Glasco's sentencing hearing was held on August 20, 1999. At the hearing,

Gutierrez...asked Justice Paul A. Fritzsche not to imprison Glasco but to send him to a hospital in Maryland where he could receive full-time treatment for his mental illness and be cared for by his family.

Fritzsche opted to do both.

The judge ordered Glasco to serve a 15-year sentence at the Maine State Prison, with all but 6 1/2 years suspended. The jail time is to be followed by six years of probation in Maryland, during which Glasco is to receive intensive psychiatric treatment.

The timing of this hearing is interesting. As noted, it was held on August 20, 1999. Based on prison visit records, Gutierrez visited Adnan in prison on July 10, 1999 and then didn't visit him again until September. In between those two visits, there were only two visits by members of Gutierrez's legal team. The first occurred on July 13-14, 1999. This was the visit by Gutierrez's "substitute" clerk that led to the notes about Adnan's class schedule and library alibi on January 13, 1999.

The second occurred on August 21, 1999. This was the visit by the clerk who more frequently visited Adnan in prison. This was the visit that again led to notes about Adnan's class schedule on January 13, 1999 as well as notes about Adnan's role in planning Hae's memorial service.

Previously, I had wondered why the clerk who visited Adnan on August 20th covered largely the same territory as the clerk who visited Adnan on July 13-14. I figured that there must have been some failure to communicate between the clerks, leading to largely duplicative efforts.

This information about Gutierrez, however, adds context. It seems like, at the time that the "substitute" clerk visited Adnan or soon thereafter, Gutierrez began working on the Maine murder case in earnest and turned her attention away from Adnan's case. It would make sense that Gutierrez had to devote a lot of attention to the Maine case; the sentencing hearing was "unusual for its length," and

Glasco's defense lawyers called two experts -- Dr. James Maier, a Maine psychiatrist, and Dr. John L. Lyon, a Baltimore psychiatrist who specializes in violence -- to testify that the best thing for Glasco would be to send him to a hospital, not jail.

That Maine case ended on August 20, 1999.

At this point, Gutierrez should have (already) followed up on the information from the "substitute" clerk's July 13-14 visit, such as the library alibi; instead, upon returning to Maryland, she seemingly was unaware of this information and instead, the next day, sent the main clerk to get information that the "substitute" clerk had already gathered. In the process, investigation of the library alibi quite possibly fell through the cracks.

-CM