‘Quick fire’: Victim’s family points to chilling plan as evidence gunman what he was doing

For the first time we are seeing the detailed plan created by the man accused of killing a Northern Virginia nonprofit CEO as he slept next to his wife.

Investigators discovered a detailed plan after Josuha Danehower was arrested for murder in June 2022. The document starting with the gear he’d need and ended with how he’d escape.

Danehower was accused of entering a Fairfax City home in the middle of the night and fatally shooting Gret Glyer as he slept next to his wife, as the couple’s two young children were asleep in other rooms.

On Thursday, a judge accepted a not guilty by reason of insanity agreement for Danehower, meaning there will be no trial, no prison — a decision that has outraged the victim’s family.

“The commonwealth’s attorney made it clear to the judge that my family objects to the not guilt by reason of insanity plea that was recorded, and despite their knowledge of our objection, they moved forward with the plea,” Gizan Glyer, the victim’s sister, said.

The Glyer family pointed to a written plan, submitted at the hearing, as evidence Danehower knew what he was doing in spite of his mental health issues.

In chilling detail, Danehower listed the gear he needed, including a loaded glock, a mask and ski goggles. He noted that, on the drive there, he will clear his phone and computer and load the chamber. He writes that, once in the house, “quick fire, multiple rounds.. finishing shot.” The escape plan reads: “hop fence, clothes in trash bag, get on 66 as soon as possible.”

“There was a premeditated nature to his crime. The killer planned the attack with a step-by-step procedure of how he was going to both kill my brother and get away with it,” Gizan Glyer said.

Mental health experts for both the defense team and the commonwealth’s attorney’s office evaluated Danehower to assess his sanity at the time of the crime. They report he began experiencing mental health issues in 2012, sometimes making delusional statements or experiencing hallucinations.

The psychologist’s report says Danehower had once briefly dated Gret Glyer’s wife and came to believe Glyer was the “illuminati” and had forced her into marriage.

In describing the shooting, Danehower told the psychologist: “in 2018, I was like I need to eventually kill him. I thought he had forced (her) to marry him.”

“I remember thinking, I don’t want to do this; this is not what I want to do. What I thought was, well, this guy is pure evil, so I have to take him out, so I just shot him,” he said.

“I think I fired like 10 times. I wanted to make sure he was dead,” he said.

One report also shows Danehower visited a gun range nearly a dozen times before the shooting.

But both psychologists reached the same conclusion about Danehower’s sanity. One wrote, “Mr. Danehower was experiencing the symptoms of a mental disease or defect that rendered him incapable of understanding the nature, character or quality of his actions or distinguishing right from wrong.”

The commonwealth’s attorneys office told News4 those findings meant they would not be able to meet their burden of proof if the case went to trial and that led to the not guilty by reason of insanity agreement.

Danehower will be back in court in May. That’s when the judge will get an updated report from doctors and will decide where to place him, likely in a mental health facility. Then he’ll return to court every year to determine if he should get more freedom.