Shared Name, Shared Destiny: A Doctor's Unlikely Journey and Fight for Justice
June 17, 2022
- Author
- Mary Elizabeth DeAngelis
By playing an active role, man enters into a spiritual relationship with this world that is quite different: he does not see his existence in isolation. On the contrary, he is united with the lives that surround him; he experiences the destinies of others as his own.
It檚 Thanksgiving in maximum-security.
A young doctor, his wife and their two little kids take their shoes off and a prison guard pats them down. The loud 渃link of the locking door startles them.
They檙e here to visit Vince Gilmer, once a beloved family physician at a rural North Carolina clinic. The younger doctor, Benjamin Gilmer 92, works at the very same clinic. Despite the last name, they檙e not related.
It檚 the first time Benjamin檚 family is meeting Vince. It檚 also his daughter檚 fourth birthday and she檚 confused about why they檙e spending it here. There檚 no Thanksgiving turkey or stuffing, no birthday cake or balloons攋ust rough gray cinder block walls and thick glass doors.
The older 淒r. Vince is in what the birthday girl calls a 渢ime out. He檚 serving a life sentence for murder.
Vince gives them each a big hug and tells them how happy he is to see them. They spend the afternoon playing Uno and feasting on prison vending machine Snickers bars, pork rinds and Mountain Dew. The five of them pose for a 渇amily picture.
Not your typical holiday tableau. But then, Benjamin Gilmer doesn檛 really do typical.
Benjamin Gilmer 92
Seize the Day
淓ventually all things fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moments and know everything happens for a reason. 擜lbert Schweitzer, M.D.
Benjamin Gilmer always wanted to be a doctor, but never to the exclusion of adventure. His loved ones describe a big-hearted, open-minded visionary with a penchant for magical thinking.
And persistence.
He coasted through an undemanding high school in western Tennessee and arrived at 91茄子 as an underdog among elite prep school kids. He struggled academically and landed in the 渞eject French class. He later taught French.
The first college English paper he turned in oozed with a professor檚 red ink. He got a C-minus in the class; he檚 now an acclaimed author.
Numerous medical schools rejected him. He檚 now a respected doctor who also teaches medicine and holds tight to the 渞everence for life philosophy of the late Albert Schweitzer, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning physician, musician and humanitarian.
Schweitzer started medical school when he was 31; Benjamin Gilmer also took a circuitous route to the practice of medicine.
He had a lot of fun along the way.
In college, he led trips for 91茄子 Outdoors. He thrived on meeting and bringing people with different backgrounds and personalities together. He loved parties and music. He檚 someone who檇 lobby friends to drive to a Thursday night concert in another city攕ay Indianapolis. If any mentioned the need to be in class or at work on Friday morning, he檇 have an answer like: 淒on檛 worry, we檒l be back in time.
And he always appreciated a good laugh, like when he gathered hallmates for a fake s茅ance攚ith chants and incense攁s a group of prospective students and their parents toured the Belk dormitory.
淚 imagine 91茄子 lost some potential students when they walked into what looked like a big hippie fest, his brother Nate Gilmer 96 says wryly. 淭hen again, maybe they gained a few.
Remember the 1980s movie Ferris Bueller檚 Day Off? Ferris is the fun-seeking, you-only-live-once teenager who defies rules set by hapless adults.
淏enjamin channels his inner Ferris, Nate Gilmer, now a Nashville attorney, says. 淗e檚 this carpe diem guy not completely bound by expectations or what檚 practical. He wants to go to med school but doesn檛 let that stop him from having a great time in college攚hen maybe he should be studying a bit more. Doesn檛 stop him from moving to France after graduation. I was Cameron, always following the rules. I was always annoyed and a little impressed about what he got away with.
Benjamin was the little kid who thought he could fly攄own a steep flight of steps攁nd miraculously landed unharmed at the bottom. (He later took up paragliding.)
淗e was always such a love, says his mom, Day Kennon. 淗e was always bright and happy and ready for a new adventure. He met people and made friends so easily; he檚 probably the most positive person I檝e ever known.
淲herever Benjamin goes there are these interesting connections, this serendipitous stuff happens along the way, she says. 淚t檚 like Benjamin has this little golden cloud over his head.
Vince Gilmer檚 mother, Gloria Hitt, sees a halo.
淚f you檙e talking to Dr. Ben, she says. 淵ou檙e talking to one of God檚 angels.
Wide-eyed World View
淭he true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colors and textures that come alive in others. 擜lbert Schweitzer, M.D
College friends describe Benjamin Gilmer and his propensity for landing in unexpected situations in almost mythical terms.
As a 91茄子 senior, he and another student vied for a post-graduate fellowship in France. The professor figured a coin toss offered a fair solution and flipped a quarter that rolled down a Chambers hallway and landed on heads. Benjamin won.
Years later as he and a group of medical residents ate at the 12 Bones barbecue restaurant in Asheville, then-aspiring presidential candidate Barack Obama stopped in. A photo of Gilmer and Obama talking appeared the next day in the local newspaper.
When he started looking into the mystery of how Vince Gilmer, a beloved doctor, could commit a brutal murder, a well-known National Public Radio show reporter working on a story about coincidences contacted him. In 2013, millions heard the story of 淒r. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde on NPR檚 This American Life.
In March, Benjamin Gilmer檚 memoir, The Other Doctor Gilmer, came out to rave reviews from critics and bestselling authors such as Atul Gawande (Being Mortal), and Wiley Cash (When Ghosts Come Home). Gilmer檚 book topped the bestseller charts in the mental health and medical mystery categories. And Jennifer Fox, director of HBO檚 The Tale, is adapting a film based on the book.
淚 was always in awe of the things that happened to him, says Jim Weaver 91, a fellow Asheville doctor and close friend. 淗e檚 got this wide-eyed, open-armed way of viewing life and people, and good things come from that. As one of our colleagues says, 榯he guy doesn檛 have a mean bone in his body.櫇
Weaver, who transferred to 91茄子 as a sophomore, remembers feeling like an outsider before meeting Gilmer.
淗is friendship, and his believing the best of you is a powerful thing when you檙e an awkward college kid, and as an adult, Weaver says. 淕ood things happen to him because he檚 a really good person. He檚 always going to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Connecting Coincidences
淓very start on an untrodden path is a venture which only in unusual circumstances looks sensible and likely to succeed. 擜lbert Schweitzer, M.D.
Few gave the other Dr. Gilmer that benefit after learning of his crime.
On June 28, 2004, Vince Gilmer picked up his ailing, 60-year-old father from Broughton Hospital, a psychiatric facility in western North Carolina. They took off for a long drive through the Virginia mountains. At some point Vince Gilmer stopped his truck, strangled Dalton Gilmer with a rope, cut his fingers off with pruning shears and dumped the body.
He went to work the next day.
Detectives quickly pegged him as his father檚 killer and arrested him days later as he hid out in a patch of woods. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder after a bizarre trial where he represented himself and declared himself an expert witness.
Investigators and the presiding judge saw Vince Gilmer as ruthless, deceptive and dangerous. And completely lacking remorse.
淢r. Gilmer, the jury found you to be a cold-blooded killer, the judge said as he imposed a life sentence. 淚 think the evidence supports that finding.
After his arrest, the clinic he founded closed for a few years, then re-opened as a Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) facility.
Benjamin Gilmer finished medical school in 2005 with a load of debt and began a family medicine residency with MAHEC in Asheville. In 2009, he learned of an opening at a small rural clinic nearby, got the job offer within an hour of the final interviews, 渁nd started my career as a doctor following in the footsteps of a murderer with my name.
Vince Gilmer and his ex-wife had started the Cane Creek Family Health Center to provide medical care in an underserved area. He lived the life of a benevolent country doctor; patients described him as a big, gentle guy who listened, empathized and cared. People called him Bear, as in teddy bear.
He didn檛 turn people away when they had no insurance or money. At least one patient paid his bills in vegetables. When mice got into the clinic, he set non-lethal traps then freed them outside.
淗e couldn檛 stand it when he saw a butterfly hit by a car, Vince檚 mom says. 淗e tried to save everything and everybody.
Jason Boyer was in his early 20s when he talked to Vince Gilmer about experiencing depression.
淗e helped me overcome that stigma that so many people have, that you檙e weak if you talk about it, Boyer says. 淭oo many doctors don檛 understand mental health issues. Bear did. He was a wonderful doctor.
Vince Gilmer saw first-hand how untreated mental illness could ravage a family.
His father, Dalton, a U.S. Army Vietnam War veteran diagnosed with schizophrenia, would snap from calmness to violent, alcohol-fueled rages. Dalton Gilmer tortured his wife, and once after being hospitalized, she ended up in a women檚 shelter. After their divorce, he exhibited delusional behavior, abused drugs, and sometimes ended up on the streets.
Benjamin Gilmer knew about Vince檚 murder conviction before he took the job as his replacement. The doctors who interviewed him warned that the Gilmer name could cause confusion. Indeed, some patients scheduling appointments thought 淒r. Gilmer was Vince.
As they got to know Benjamin, they opened up about Vince. Like Benjamin, Vince Gilmer had found joy in music, socializing and healing people. Patients talked so fondly about him that Benjamin became fixated. The more he learned, the more he drew connections to Vince.
淚t got to the point, Benjamin says, 淲here I felt like I was a continuation of him.
More coincidences: Benjamin檚 first medical school rotation was at Broughton Hospital when Dalton Gilmer was a patient. Benjamin was 39 when he started his job at the Cane Creek clinic; Vince was 39 when he killed his father. A few weeks after the murder, Benjamin檚 father, an Episcopal priest, presided over his wedding to Deirdre Smith on a mountaintop just a short drive from where Dalton Gilmer檚 body was found.
Benjamin Gilmer grew terrified that Vince would get out of prison and blame him for taking his job攁fter a patient told him just that. He lost sleep, compulsively checked locked windows and doors and considered buying a gun. Some friends and family members warned him that he was taking a big risk.
淕et out of there, Benjamin Gilmer recalls his brother Barrett Gilmer 00 urging him. 淢ove to Charlotte or Nashvillehink about your future. Think about your family. You need to put some serious distance between yourself and him攏ow.
Instead, Benjamin Gilmer檚 fears evolved into what檚 become a decade-long journey to help Vince.
Sarah Koenig, then a reporter/producer with This American Life, heard about the two Dr. Gilmers from Benjamin檚 cousin. In 2012, she and Benjamin Gilmer joined forces in what turned into an investigation of why Vince killed his father.
They visited him in prison, which started ongoing conversations. Benjamin came to believe that Vince, who appeared battered, confused and in desperate need of treatment, belonged in a hospital, not prison.
淗e檚 always had an altruistic approach to life. He follows his impulses, says Benjamin檚 father, Lyonel Gilmer. 淪omething will gnaw and gnaw at him until he does what he feels like he needs to do. It would have been simple for him to visit Vince and end it there. But he doesn檛 have it in him to walk away from something like that.
That doggedness got results.
淚t was his curiosity and persistence and compassion that led to a diagnosis for Vince, says Koenig, now a producer of the popular 淪erial podcast. 淎fter a certain point I was more or less ready to kind of shrug and say, 業 guess we檒l never know. Benjamin攈e does not take 業 guess we檒l never know for an answer.櫇
Benjamin details his research in The Other Dr. Gilmer, where he reveals how trauma from years of abuse combined with the effects of an undiagnosed, rare disease, could have led to Vince檚 actions. Huntington檚, an inherited neurodegenerative disease, causes the progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain攖here is no cure.
After eight years of pursuing multiple clemency appeals, in January, then-departing Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, who originally denied Benjamin and a legal team檚 pleas to pardon Vince Gilmer, changed his mind. Perhaps it was after reading an early copy of The Other Dr. Gilmer?
Benjamin Gilmer now serves as Vince Gilmer檚 legal guardian and is seeking a mental health facility that can treat him. Despite the governor檚 pardon, Vince remains in prison.
Benjamin Gilmer hopes that his book will help people see that all humans share a mutual 渃ognitive fallibility. He says understanding that is essential for reframing crime and punishment. He believes society should look upstream and 渉eal crime.
Taking the Roundabout Route
淭he result of the voyage does not depend on the speed of the ship, but on whether or not it keeps a true course. 擜lbert Schweitzer, M.D.
Benjamin Gilmer didn檛 follow the traditional straight and focused path to becoming a doctor, nor to being the kind of doctor he is today.
His parents divorced when he was four. Lyonel Gilmer later served as the chaplain at what檚 now Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. Benjamin worked high school summers there, first in the cafeteria, then as an emergency department assistant. During and after college, he worked as a neurotoxicology research assistant.
Fresh out of 91茄子, he spent a year on a French government fellowship teaching high school in Paris. He didn檛 want to leave when that ended and convinced program leaders攊n fluent French攖o let him teach another year.
He toured Europe on a motorcycle, made friends from around the world, and took medical school classes at the Sorbonne. He returned to the United States and taught high school French and neurobiology in Charlotte.
Fun aside, an underlying seriousness existed.
He had a fascination with the human brain and conducted Alzheimer檚 disease research at 91茄子 with Julio Ramirez, R. Stuart Dickson Professor of Psychology. He later earned a master檚 degree in neurotoxicology from UNC Charlotte and worked in research with former North Carolina Governor Jim Martin 57. (Martin, who also once taught chemistry at 91茄子, later worked for the hospital system.)
Gilmer majored in neurobiology, with concentrations in French and religion. Science classes and research gave him a strong foundation for a medical career. He says 91茄子檚 emphasis on a broad liberal arts experience opened the world to him: 淚t was a moral education that has informed me deeply.
He had a strong curiosity about different cultures, traditions and beliefs.
淗e was a joy to teach, says Bill Mahony, Charles A. Dana Professor of Religion. 淗e had a great sense of humor, this sort of bemusement. And always this sense of wonderment攖hat 榗an we talk a little more about this, can we go deeper?
淗e檚 fascinated with people and their ideas攈e listens with real gentleness, never harshness. He was always very empathetic, and very compassionate. I could see that in him as a student and now as a doctor, I see that even more deeply.
Getting into medical school came after multiple rejections, and two rounds of MCATS and essays. He started East Carolina檚 Brody School of Medicine at 32.
In his third year of medical school, he was awarded an International Albert Schweitzer Fellowship in Gabon, Africa. He treated some of the world檚 most poverty-stricken people for conditions ranging from HIV to cancer; malaria to malnutrition; and machete wounds to crocodile bites. After seeing countless children die from conditions of poverty and malaria, he felt helpless攁nd angry.
淭he child died at the age of four because he was born a Gabonais; he had absolutely no choice in the outcome, he wrote about one case. 淗ow long until we realize that healthcare is not a privilege but a basic human right?
He left Gabon determined to become a primary care doctor in an underserved community.
Channeling Schweitzer
淪earch and see if there is not some place where you can invest your humanity. 擜lbert Schweitzer, M.D.
Now a seasoned doctor, Benjamin Gilmer visits 91茄子 each spring to recruit students to join him in rural Honduras for a mission called Shoulder to Shoulder, which he has been part of since 2005.
91茄子 students work alongside medical students and family medicine doctors, who hope to inspire them to pursue primary care.
He had just talked with 91茄子 students in March of 2020 when they learned the college was sending them home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moments later, Gilmer got a call letting him know that publishing giant Penguin Random House wanted his book.
淚 went out and laid in the grass in front of Chambers with joyous tears, he says. 淣ot being able to curtail my excitement, I ran into Chambers to share the news with Bill Mahony. It was a magical moment.
Main St. Books in 91茄子 hosts a book talk with Gilmer at Summit Coffee following the March release of his memoir, The Other Doctor Gilmer.
He returned to campus this spring, coupling the recruiting visit with an author event on campus and at Main Street Books in 91茄子.
As a doctor, he wants to be where he檚 most needed. As an author, he檚 striving to expose and fix what he sees as the unconscionable warehousing of the mentally ill in America檚 prisons.
淗is whole career has been devoted to treating people in underserved communities, Deirdre Smith Gilmer says. 淲e檙e never going to be wealthy from his medical career攕ervice is a really big component for us.
The couple met when both taught in the summers at the N.C. Governor檚 School in Winston-Salem. She was a professional modern dancer in New York and toying with the idea of moving to France.
淚 had my first full conversation in French with Benjamin, she says, 渁nd was immediately smitten.
Their friendship turned to dating and a marriage that檚 survived medical school, residency, children and a busy doctor檚 heavy workload. Not to mention the countless hours he檚 spent pursuing justice for Vince, and the book he wrote to do that.
淭hat was definitely a hard time for our family, Deirdre says. 淓ven though I love Vince and would never have asked Benjamin to give up, there have been moments of conflict. But this is who Benjamin is. As a doctor, he檚 so approachable and humble with his patients, he creates relationships. He sees the whole person rather than just the problem they may be having.
Jason Boyer, once Vince Gilmer檚 patient, is now Benjamin檚.
淗e檚 wonderful, the 41-year-old machinist says. 淏oth doctors are above and beyond excellent, they care so much. Both listen so well, you walk out of there feeling so much better, and like everything is going to be okay. That檚 something you can檛 say about a lot of doctors, and it檚 such a comfort.
Deirdre Smith Gilmer sees how hard Benjamin works攁s an advocate for his patients攁nd for Vince. Through setbacks, stressful times and disappointments, he picks himself back up, she says.
淗e檚 always super positive and optimistic, that檚 how he檚 survived, she says. 淗e rolls with things, and he gets over them.
The two are active in the Asheville community. Deirdre is a yoga instructor whose practice focuses on healing. Their son Kai is now 14; and daughter, Luya, 12. The kids call Vince Gilmer 淯ncle Vince.
Schweitzer檚 ghost hovers.
Schweitzer held concerts to raise money for medical equipment and care in rural, impoverished Africa. Every year the Gilmers throw a music festival in their back yard, raising money for Shoulder to Shoulder. Benjamin Gilmer檚 family joins him, his MAHEC colleagues and students on the annual service trip to Honduras.
Hundreds of people attend the Gilmers festival. Musicians have included folk singer Sarah Lee Guthrie (Woody檚 granddaughter and Arlo檚 daughter) and The Chatham County Line.
淚 can檛 imagine with everything else he檚 been involved in pulling something like that off, says friend Mollie Harrington Weaver 90, a pediatrician. 淏ut Benjamin has this way of thinking.
淚t檚 like, 榚verything will be fine, we檒l get some food trucks and beer and call Bob Dylan to see if he檚 free. Benjamin檚 the dreamer, his mind doesn檛 go to barriers, it檚 always 榳hy not? Do it, don檛 worry about what might get in the way and just figure out how to make it happen.櫇
And Vince檚 mom is grateful for that.
淭his whole thing has been like living in a nightmare, Hitt says. 淒r. Ben has been a miracle to us, he has worked so hard to help Vince. He檚 become part of our family.
淰ince is so glad he檚 at the clinic; Vince loved his patients, and Ben is the same way, she says. 淭hey檙e both very caring, and they both want the world to be a better place.
This article was originally published in the Spring/Summer 2022 print issue of the 91茄子 Journal Magazine; for more, please see the 91茄子 Journal section of our website.
