THE “INSANITY” ESCAPE HATCH
No sane person can look at the facts of this case and conclude Josh Danehower should ever walk free
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This is what “justice” looks like in Northern Virginia…
THE “INSANITY” ESCAPE HATCH
In Fairfax County, you can admit you did it, everyone can agree you did it, and the court can still declare you “not guilty.”
Nearly four years ago, Gret and Heather Glyer put their two children to bed and went to sleep. Hours later, Heather and the kids woke up in a living nightmare.
Gret was executed in their bed.
He was shot ten times, including four times in the head and twice in the neck. The killer had fled into the night.
Days later, police made an arrest: Josh Danehower.
Danehower was no stranger. About a decade earlier, he had pursued Heather romantically, according to police documents. Later, Danehower and the Glyers attended the same church.
Danehower admitted to murdering Gret after his arrest. And investigators say they found a written checklist he titled, “The Plan,” outlining supplies and a sequence of actions stretching from preparation to what he believed would help him evade capture. He had a gun and a lockpicking kit. He planned to wipe his devices and change clothes before fleeing on the highway.
It didn’t seem like the manifesto of someone who was confused or spiraling. But when Danehower was evaluated by two psychologists — one from the defense team and one from the prosecution — they determined he was suffering from severe mental illness. They cited his obsession with Heather and delusions that Gret was a member of the Illuminati and had forced Heather to marry him.
Danehower was indicted by a grand jury for murder in January 2023. But as the case trudged along, Gret’s family eventually realized that they would never truly see justice.
Gret’s sister Gizan revealed in January this year that prosecutors were planning to reject the family’s wishes for a trial. Instead, they were pushing for a not guilty plea by reason of insanity.
“We were promised a trial all this time, and we only found out recently that they are deciding to not go through with the trial,” Gizan said. “At first, we were shocked, but it didn’t take long for that shock to switch to understanding. We realize now that there was actually never going to be a trial despite their promises.”
More than three and a half years after Gret’s murder, a judge approved Danehower’s insanity plea. Instead of facing a jury — and a prison sentence that would match the brutality of what he did — Danehower was ordered into treatment at a mental health facility. For the next five years, Danehower will be reviewed annually for increased freedom. After that, the reviews shift to every two years.
For the next five years, Gret’s family will have a date on the calendar where they have to relive his traumatic death — and brace for the possibility of Heather’s murderous stalker being released into the community.
“Justice is not served today,” Gret’s mother Silvia said outside the courthouse. “An evil man took his life in the middle of the night. A coward. Somebody who planned step-by-step a murder and who is backed up by the justice system in Virginia.”
Some people will argue about whether Danehower was truly insane at the moment he pulled the trigger. But that debate becomes a convenient escape from the only question that matters now: what does Fairfax County owe the public, and what does it owe this family?
Justice isn’t what’s best for the killer. Justice is what protects the community and what honors the victim. And no sane person can look at the facts of this case and conclude Josh Danehower should ever walk free.
For years, the system has been consumed with parsing the inner workings of Danehower’s mind. But where is the consideration for Gret — and for the family he left behind?
Heather described Gret as her “best friend”: “goofy,” “inventive,” “creative.” He adored his wife and children. He was deeply committed to his faith — and he lived it. Gret founded DonorSee, a nonprofit that raised money for charitable work overseas. Friends say he wasn’t chasing status or applause. He had a vision: to end extreme poverty.
A source close to the case told me Gret and Heather were a lovely, normal couple — in the best way possible. Since her husband’s murder, Heather has had to keep going as a widow, raising two young children without their father.
“Heather is a lovely and remarkably strong woman who has continued to be a mom to two kids and has waded through a really difficult circumstance with immeasurable grace,” the source told me.
And instead of knowing her husband’s killer - her stalker - is locked away for good, Heather is left with the question hanging over her for years to come: could Danehower become a threat again?
Try sleeping after that. Try closing your eyes when the last time you went to bed beside your husband, you woke up to gunshots and found him dead next to you. Try dating, rebuilding, trusting again, with the memory of what happened to the last man you committed your life to. Try watching your kids grow older and one day having to explain why Daddy isn’t there — and why the system keeps reopening the question of whether they’ll ever truly be safe.
This is the part of modern “compassion” no one wants to talk about: a system so fixated on the perpetrator’s circumstances that it turns the victim’s family into recurring participants in their own trauma.
And in Fairfax County, this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano has built a national profile as a reform prosecutor. His version of reform is repeatedly letting repeat offenders off the hook where, too often, they go on to attack, rape and murder new victims.
As my source put it, “The evil that was perpetrated was so clear and so obvious and it makes the miscarriage of justice that much more pronounced. Whether Danehower is or not, the true insanity is the outcome of this case.”
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