When I started this book I thought I’d be reading a mystery. While this is a mystery, it is not the usual kind. Rather, this is a mystery whose stars are two doctors-both named Gilmer. The mystery focuses on mental illness, the criminal (in)justice system and Huntington’s disease. Dr. Benjamin Gilmer tells the story with passion, empathy and wisdom of how the other Dr. Gilmer became ended up in prison because no one tried to see beyond the moment he committed a heinous crime to WHY this respected, loved doctor ‘flipped out’ one night and what was causing his sometimes bizarre behaviors. It is a remarkable book!

This is one of those books that I'm worried is going to fly under the radar because it's not getting much buzz - but it's absolutely terrific! It's true crime with a mix of medical mystery that makes for a wild ride (not to mention a heart-wrenching one).

Dr. Benjamin Gilmer is a family practice doctor who takes over at a rural North Carolina clinic after his predecessor (strangely enough also named Dr. Gilmer) went to prison for murdering his father. He learns that the other doctor was widely respected and adored in the community, and many people exclaimed that they couldn't believe the doctor was capable of such a crime (even though he had confessed to it). Dr. Gilmer becomes obsessed with learning the truth about the crime and about the man behind the story and goes along for a crazy journey that has him come face to face with difficult truths, including the sad state of our nation's prisons.

I want everyone to know that this book was gripping, surprising, and above all, intensely moving and is definitely worth a read. Pick up a copy now!

Really fascinating. I liked the tie-in to prison reform. Was definitely not what I was expecting! A very unique true crime read. I think die hard true crime readers will enjoy something a little different than usual. Definitely has me thinking about the ethics of imprisonment. I was happy to google and read that Vince was granted clemency earlier in 2022. I hope that makes it in the final publish!

While not what I was expecting when I started the book, this was an interesting read. The beginning felt more like a story. But as you get further into it, you are taken on a journey of discovery and a fight for justice. A developing relationship between the two Dr. Gilmers … one a practicing physician and the other a murder has you anxiously waiting to see where the story will go. The author does a wonderful job of describing Huntington’s Disease and the effects it has on an individual. Because I know someone whose daughter suffered from Huntington’s Disease, it was interesting to see the parallels in their behavior and changes to their physical abilities. It is very difficult to read at times … from Vince Gilmer’s experiences growing up, the way he was treated in prison, and seeing him deteriorate because of the lack of appropriate care. This book will have you rethinking your view of mental illness and how the prison population is not provided the type of care needed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

Real Rating: 4.5* of five, rounded up because the issues it raises too important to ignore

The carceral economy that makes corporations wealthy is evil.

That's my bias, right there; I make no apologies for it, and if your opinion is otherwise, this review will make you angry and upset, and feel (correctly) that you are being shamed and blamed for your absence of empathy and decency. Doubled if you claim to follow a religion.

The rest of my screed is here: https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-other-dr-gilmer-unnerving-murder.html

This book blew me away! I was unable to but it down. Perfect, dazzlingly, very well written. The details the author described throughout the book was so amazing. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.

Many thanks to Ballantine Books, as well as to @NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review an early copy of <i>The Other Dr. Gilmer.</i>

This is nonfiction about a rural physician who discovers that a previous doctor at the clinic where he works shares his name and also committed a gruesome crime. This is not an unsolved cold case thriller, though. What follows is a somber and sometimes gut-wrenching exploration of how the health system and the legal system can (and do) work in tandem to fail in spectacular ways with tragic consequences. The emotional impact this book had on me left me reeling. I talked about this book to anyone who would listen for days after I finished it. If it sounds familiar, yes, it's because you heard the story on This American Life, but the book is better! I did not anticipate how much this book would touch my heart. If you liked <i>Just Mercy</i> by Bryan Stevenson, this is a good adjacent read.

<i>The Other Dr. Gilmer</i> is the sort of book that compels you to keep turning pages, even though you're not totally sure where we are going. The story builds tension and drama, taking the characters on an emotional rollercoaster through the legal system, the mental health system, and their collective brokenness. There is small town drama, and domestic tension in Dr. Gilmer's household, but at the end of the day we are left thinking about how humans prop each other up and hold onto each other. I think the part that got to me, though, was not learning about the brokenness (I'm familiar with that), but the ways that our complacency with these broken systems plays out in daily life. One example -- the younger Dr. Gilmer takes his wife and their young children to visit the older Dr. Gilmer in prison for Thanksgiving; this experience contrasts with lifelong close friends of the older Dr. Gilmer who have not visited him once in more than a decade in prison. I spent a lot of time thinking about who shows up for us in our darkest days and what that kind of showing up can look like. It is too easy for us to accept that people are locked up, throw away the key, without questioning the conditions that led them there or the conditions they're living there once we seeing them.

Benjamin Gilmer was excited to begin his career at Cane Creek in rural North Carolina, but was surprised to learn that the doctor who had started the clinic years earlier was also named Gilmer. Benjamin was even more startled when the story of the other Dr. Gilmer came to light; Vince Gilmer had been convicted of murdering his father, an act that the citizens near Cane Creek had trouble reconciling to the caring, concerned man they knew Vince Gilmer to be. Benjamin Gilmer is determined to understand how this could have happened, and to that end visits Vince Gilmer in prison. The medical mystery that unfolds is fascinating, as is Benjamin Gilmer’s legal fight to have Vince released from prison and placed in a hospital where he can receive the medical care he so desperately needs.

I found The Other Dr. Gilmer to be an interesting read. Benjamin Gilmer’s interest in Vince Gilmer’s case evolves slowly, at first he tries to remain uninvolved, but soon the stories about Vince’s generous spirit made him curious how a kind and gentle man could kill his father and then return to work the next day. Benjamin brings in several attorneys, working pro bono, and medical experts, in addition to the countless hours he personally spends visiting Vince in prison, seemingly to no avail. This book describes the unfortunate lack of psychiatric care that’s available to inmates, and how vitally important this kind of medical intervention is.

Special thanks to Random House Publishing; Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

What a fascinating book. This book came out the beginning of this month and its really heartwrenching. I'm not going to give the whole book away but I will share some details to gain your interest because I have a relative not by blood but through marriage in my family that resonates here with this book.

The story in quick summary, is that there was a beloved doctor named Vince Gilmer. Loved by the community and his patients in rural North Carolina. One day, he left his practice, killed his father by strangulation, chopped off his fingers, and left him in a place where he was found rather quickly, and afterwards went back to his practice treating patients until he was caught and imprisoned.

Weirdly enough, Benjamin Gilmer, no relation and a doctor himself, set up practice where Dr. Vince Gilmer had his, and finding out a decade later about Dr. Vince Gilmer and what he was in prison for. Dr. Benjamin could not ignore the similarities. What are the chances?.So, Dr. Benjamin became obsessed with Dr. Vince and also.scared because he hears that Dr. Vince is fuming that someone took over his practice and is threatening to get out of prison, leading Dr. Benjamin terrified. Dr. Benjamin cannot resist also being intrigued and wants to find out what led Dr. Vince, an otherwise loved and respected man to do such a thing., so Dr. Benjamin Gilmer visits Dr. Vince Gilmer in prison. Upon visiting, he finds what's left of a once great doctor and man and is shocked by. Dr. Vince Gilmer, He is twitching, his eyes roll, and he spurts out crazy ranting and raving. Dr. Benjamin knows this man is mentally sick and fights for him to get out of prison and into a psychiatric hospital, but his efforts fall on deaf ears of government officials, and the powers that be. This man needs help, not isolation!

To this day, Dr. Vince Gilmer is still in prison, though being diagnosed and on medication. The prison system is terribly wrong sending addicts, mentally ill people to prison, instead of getting the help they need.

Why this hits home for me is my sister in law, has a brother who is a drug addict and is not mentally well. He reached out for help on Christmas Eve 2018, calling the hospital saying he felt he was going to hurt himself or someone else. The response? He was hung up on. He tried again....same result with a 911 operator. He then made his way to his mother's apartment and strangled her to death and then threw himself head first out of a 3 story high window. He survived but his whole face was scraped off. He had no nose. He looked very scary. After being handcuffed to a hospital bed with broken bones and no face, he was sent to River's Island and not medicated at all in a 23 hour lockdown in isolation! Yes, its a tragedy he killed his own mother, but he reached out for help 2, maybe 3 times. People with mental illness that do terrible things and drug addiction which is a disease should not be thrown in jail. Today, because of his sister's advocation and diligence, and forgiveness, he is now in a psychiatric hospital. Everyone is not so luck.

Fascinating.5 stars!

The Other Dr. Gilmer is part medical mystery part social justice story. At first, I was not sure where Benjamin Gilmer was going with the story. He is paranoid about Vince Gilmer for sure, but then, with the help of Sarah Koenig, he begins to dive into what happened to the other Dr. Gilmer. The story takes a very grizzly murder and turns it into a story of the mental health needs of prisoners.

Gilmer does a great job of explaining Huntingtons to the reader and also correlating the various symptoms to events in Vince Gilmer's life. By the end of the story, you will be ready to write a letter to the governor advocating changes in the way the justice system treats people with not only mental illness, but with medical conditions that affect the brain.

Fantastic true crime story. I liked the style and the story very much. I had never heard of this case before. I do enjoy true crime books, this was no exception. Would recommend to fellow true crime lovers.

I will admit that I was drawn to this book due it being about a true crime case in which a country doctor, Vince Gilmer, from the Asheville area of North Carolina, killed his father, dumped his body in Virginia, and wound up serving life in prison for the crime in my home state of Virginia. It is also about the other doctor Gilmer, Benjamin Gilmer (no relation), who moved to North Carolina to become a doctor in the SAME rural practice as the infamous doctor with whom he shares a last name. But this book goes beyond these two men. It is the story of Benjamin Gilmer's journey to understand what really happened the night Dalton Gilmer was killed...and why. What led the universally beloved Dr. Vince Gilmer to commit such an act? Could all of his patient's been so completely fooled by a psychopath...or was there something more at the root of the drastic changes in his life that eventually led to the murder of his father?

In his pursuit of answers, Dr. Benjamin learns that at the time of the murder, Dr. Vince was suffering from a neurological disease, Huntington's disease, that is described as a combination of Lou Gehrig's disease, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. Once he knows the truth of what lay behind the personality and mental changes that resulted in the murder, Dr. Benjamin began a nearly decade long pursuit of justice, not just for Dr. Vince, but also for the thousands of prisoners suffering from mental illness in prisons across the United States.

This was a fascinating read that moved quickly, and was informative without becoming bogged down or lost in the weeds of medical or legal terminology. I would put this right up there with Just Mercy as two of the best books I have read in the last five years. Both deal with prison reform, but from different perspectives. This is a must read.

Thank you to #netgalley and Random House/Ballentine Books for the opportunity to review this outstanding book. The opinions expressed are my own. #theotherdrgilmer

I was really moved by this book, and that's a rare thing for me. It's impossible not to get drawn into this story. My heart broke for Vince over and over again as more and more attempts for justice failed, as Vince continued to decline further from his disease. Dr Gilmer has dedicated his life not only to being a good physician for his rural community, but for being an advocate for Vince.And all because of a wacky coincidence, that he ended up working at a practice that was previous staffed by a doctor with the same name. As a physician myself, it's hard to think of this going on. Yes Vince is a murderer - but we as a society have to accept that prison is not right for all criminals. Letting a mentally ill person stand trial and go to prison is unjust.
I had heard the story briefly on This American Life years ago, but I had no idea how far this went. I recommend everyone read this book.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and netgalley for giving me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Other Dr. Gilmer was a complete surprise to me. I had not heard the story before even though it was featured on This American Life. I think that made it more enjoyable as I learned with Dr. Gilmer who wrote the book about the other Dr. Gilmer.

Benjamin Gilmer is a doctor who lives in Asheville, NC, and practices in a small town close enough to commute but far enough to be a very different world, conservative, rural, and poor. Right from the start, he hears about the doctor who helped found the clinic where he worked, a man also named Gilmer who inexplicably murdered his father and mutilated his corpse. The patients all spoke kindly of the former Dr. Gilmer who sounded like the man who would give you the proverbial shirt off his back.

That didn’t square with the crime he committed and as Dr. Benjamin Gilmer became more and more obsessed with the other Dr. Gilmer, even afraid of him, he decided to go see him in prison. He was surprised and quickly realized that things did not add up. The rest of the memoir is about his advocacy for the man who shares his name.



We live in a punitive society, one that locks up a greater share of its population than any other. We Prisons are grim and violent places where there is little focus on more than mass human storage. Once convicted, a person has few rights and fewer options to redress any injustices. It was heartening to read someone who was willing to make that connection with a convicted murderer and advocate on his behalf.

Benjamin Gilmer is a good story teller, keeping the narrative focused and fast-moving. The memoir is personable, as though he’s just talking to you. While he does write about t he many difficulties facing someone who committed the crime, so does not qualify for help from the various legal organizations like the Innocence Project, he does it in through conversation and investigation, so the book never becomes didactic. The Other Dr. Gilmer is an excellent book made even better by late developments just as it went to press.

I received an e-galley of The Other Dr. Gilmer from the publisher through NetGalley.

The Other Dr. Gilmer at Penguin Random House
Benjamin Gilmer at This American Life

I loved this story and its approach that we're all one change away from being different than we are now. No one wants to think they have the capacity to shake their baby or murder a loved one but we all do because we're all human. Benjamin Gilmer took a wonderful approach to sharing the harrowing story of taking over the life of a man incarcerated for murder while finding out more about him and his new town. It takes a special person to try to help a man you know did something so terrible and terrifying because you believe in his human right to be cared for medically no matter his actions. This is an incredible feat given our society's penchant to throw away criminals in destitute institutions and I'm so glad he not only did it, but shared it with us.

This book will break your heart. It will anger you and frustrate you and then break your heart all over again. This is a book that needs to be read with Bryan Stevenson's "Just Mercy" and Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow". This is a book that needs to be read with an open mind and an open heart and will evoke emotions you may never recover from. You may THINK you know this story and what it is about and how it will end, but I am pretty sure you [like me] will be wrong. I am still grappling with all I just read and I will be grappling with it for a long time. There is so much that needs to be done in the area of mental health and incarceration - we as a nation need to really reevaluate WHY and HOW we lock people up and this book is a prime example of why.

Such a great read, one that will never leave me. I highly recommend that you go and get this book immediately.

Thank you to NetGalley, Dr. Benjamin Gilmer, and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine/Ballantine Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Ballantine Books, and @NetGalley for the review copy of The Other Dr. Gilmer.

This was a surprise. I wasn't really sure what to expect from the description. This was a real page turner for me, but also had a lot more depth than your typical true crime/thriller.

Highly recommend!

This book is about a doctor who murdered his father and cut the fingers off the corpse……. But there is a whole lot more to the story. Seems the doctor has been a real great guy throughout his life and just began behaving oddly a while before the murder.
No, this is not about a drug user or a gambler or a thief…..although he was convicted for being manipulative and a malingerer. Turns out he had an actual mental disorder. A provable one which no one bothered looking for even though he kept telling everyone involved with his trial that he needed help because something was wrong.
It is a remarkable story about the other Dr Gilmer, who just happened to inherit the very clinic that the first doctor owned. This doctor spent years, along with countless others trying to get Doctor Vince out of prison and into a psych faculty where he belonged.
Very sad to see that people can be convicted on biases, worse that they can languish in years because the wheels of justice move so damned slow..

This story is fascinating and heartbreaking, showcasing the failures of our justice system when it comes to the treatment of those with mental illness. It's a story that starts with an impossible coincidence, with Dr. Benjamin Gilmer taking his first job out of residency at a rural clinic that was previously ran by the titular other Dr. Gilmer, an unrelated man who murdered his own father. There are so many layers and complications to this story, just as truth and consequence have layers and ripples. Excellently done.

What a heartbreaking and angering view of the justice system in the US. I actually had to put the book down at one point due to frustration. The fact that this is a true story makes it all the more infuriating.

This is the story of the Other Dr. Gilmer, a man who kills his father and removes his fingers, then returns to work the next day like nothing happened. The current Dr. Gilmer, and author of this book, steps in at the clinic the prior Dr. Gilmer had established and hears stories from patients about what a kind, charming and philanthropic man this supposed murder was.

It further goes on to detail the horrendous "trial" this man got. This wasn't back in the day, this was in 2005. SOMEONE tasked with putting this man behind bars should have noticed something was totally off, and it comes to light that people did but kept it to themselves.

Honestly I was so frustrated with the ending if this had not been on my kindle I would have thrown it across the room. A man's life hangs in the balance and he is going to die a horrid and cruel death because he is suffering from a documented life-altering illness in a cold cell because people kept their original suspicions to themselves. UGH