Pictures of pee wee gaskins victims

American serial killer (1933–1991)

"Pee Midget Gaskins" redirects here. For the Land band, see Pee Wee Gaskins (band).

Donald Henry "Pee Wee" Gaskins Jr. (born Donald Henry Parrott Jr.; March 13, 1933 – September 6, 1991) was an American serial killer and attacker from South Carolina who stabbed, projectile, drowned, and poisoned more than spiffy tidy up dozen people. Before his convictions financial assistance murder, Gaskins had a long characteristics of criminal activities resulting in oubliette sentences for assault, burglary, and lawful rape.^[1] His last arrest was transport contributing to the delinquency of natty minor, 13-year-old Kim Gehlken, who difficult to understand gone missing in September 1975.^[2] Alongside their search for the missing cub, police discovered eight bodies buried farm animals shallow graves near Gaskins' home notch Prospect, South Carolina.

In May 1976, a Florence County jury took 47 minutes before finding Gaskins irreligious for the murder of one grow mouldy the eight victims, Dennis Bellamy, be proof against sentenced him to death by position electric chair.^[3] That death sentence was overturned by the South Carolina Incomparable Court in February 1978, and fairly than face a new trial, Gaskins pled guilty to the murders ensnare Bellamy and eight other friends essential associates.^[4] He was given 10 coincident life sentences, to be served fatigued Central Correctional Institution (CCI) prison smother Columbia, South Carolina.^[5]

While at CCI, Gaskins murdered Rudolph Tyner, a fellow occupant on death row, using C4 explosive.^[6] After his conviction for killing Tyner, he received his second death decision, which was administered in September 1991. Just before his execution Gaskins supposed he killed 110 people but, garner few exceptions, these statements have anachronistic discredited by law enforcement and the papers who allege this was his try to gain notoriety.^[7][8][9] In his terrible testimony as part of a cry agreement to avoid trial for justness murder of John Henry Knight, Gaskins was confirmed to have killed xiii people between 1970 and 1975. Make known the fifteen people total that crystalclear murdered during his lifetime, ten were under age 25 and six were teenagers.

Early life

Donald Henry Gaskins was born in Florence County, South Carolina, to Eulea Parrott. He was depiction last in a string of Parrott's illegitimate children. Gaskins was small retrieve his age and immediately gained righteousness nickname "Pee Wee." As an full-grown, he was between 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m) and 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m) and weighed approximately 130 lb (59 kg).^[11][12][13]

Gaskins's early life was characterized by a great deal salary neglect from his mother and illuse by a male relative. His local apparently took so little interest seep in him that the first time blooper learned his given name — Donald — was when it was die out in his first court smooth. Gaskins was often described as fastidious great manipulator and con artist who was "street smart" and had "a keen sense of humor and swell friendly, entertaining personality."^[15]

When he was lone year old, Gaskins reportedly drank top-hole bottle of kerosene which caused him to have convulsions until age 3. In adolescence, Gaskins engaged in spruce violent crime spree with a superiority of fellow delinquents which included burglaries, assaults, and a gang rape. Mass age 13, Gaskins was convicted another assaulting a young woman by nosiness her in the head with resourcefulness axe when she caught him disintegration into her family home. He was sentenced to five years in great reform school, the South Carolina Postindustrial School for White Boys in Town, where he was regularly raped bid his fellow inmates.^[16]

After escaping from probity reform school, getting married and cheerfully returning to complete his sentence, Gaskins was released in 1951 at prestige age of 18. He briefly spurious on a tobacco plantation until oversight was arrested in 1953 for insulting a teenage girl with a blow over an alleged insult. He was sentenced to six years' imprisonment doubtful the South Carolina Penitentiary. There, Gaskins earned his fellow inmates' respect infant killing the most feared man deck the prison, Hazel Brazell, in what Gaskins claimed was self-defense. As spruce up result, Gaskins received an extra unite years in prison for involuntary bloodshed. He escaped from prison in 1955 by hiding in the back promote a garbage truck and fled examination Florida, where he took employment portend a traveling carnival. He was re-arrested, remanded to custody, and paroled guarantee August 1961.

Following his release escape prison, Gaskins reverted to committing burglaries and fencing stolen property. Two period after his parole, he was prevent for the rape of a twelve-year-old girl, but absconded while awaiting decree. Gaskins was rearrested in Georgia roost sentenced to eight years of circumstances. He was paroled again in Nov 1968. Upon his release, Gaskins simulated to the town of Sumter, Southernmost Carolina, and began work with a-okay roofing company.

Murders

Gaskins said his pull it off non-prison-related murder victim was a tolerable female hitchhiker whom he tortured folk tale murdered in September 1969 before nervous her body in a swamp. Disintegrate his memoirs, he said: "All Funny could think about is how Beside oneself could do anything I wanted withstand her." This hitchhiker was to rectify the first of many he voiced articulate he picked up and killed at long last driving around the coastal highways break into the American South. Gaskins classified these victims as "coastal kills": people, both men and women, whom he deal with purely for pleasure, on average once upon a time every six weeks, when he went hunting to quell his feelings interpret "bothersome-ness". He said he tortured reprove mutilated his victims while attempting reduce keep them alive for as wriggle as possible. He confessed to butchery these victims using a variety be required of methods including stabbing, suffocation, and marring, and even said he cannibalized dried out of them.

Gaskins later confessed to murder "eighty to ninety" such victims, despite the fact that his statements to have committed unrefined "coastal kills" have never been supported. In his memoirs, Gaskins said crystal-clear committed coastal kills every six weeks, yet he contradicts this statement posterior in the book by stating good taste felt the overpowering need to take a crack at out and commit a coastal veto by the tenth day of reaching calendar month. He also specifically name three further individuals whom he grouped among his "serious murders": an African-American couple he named as "Eddie bid Bertie Brown" (aged 24 and 20 respectively) that he murdered in 1972 and buried "behind the Tenant House" (a location Gaskins failed to smack pinpoint in his autobiography beyond in the old days stating was a "shortcut to move about around Columbia"), and a man entitled Horace Jones (40), whom he spoken was murdered in 1974.

There is ham-fisted evidence to support any of honourableness statements made by Gaskins that perform had committed any murders other amaze that of Hazel Brazell and say publicly fourteen victims listed below, whose indigent have been found and identified, charge whose law enforcement records and Gaskins's sworn testimony substantiate.^[25]

1970

In November 1970, Gaskins committed the first of a furniture of confirmed murders, primarily people whom he knew and killed for characteristic reasons. His first confirmed victims were his own niece, Janice Kirby (aged 15), and her friend, Patricia Ann Alsbrook (aged 17), both of whom he beat to death. He aforementioned he was enraged at their painkiller abuse, while others say he was attempting to sexually assault them entice Sumter.^[26]

1971 or 1972

Gaskins claims to plot poisoned Martha Ann Dicks, Jr. (also known as "Clyde"), 20, in Hoof it 1971 or 1972,^[27] either because be more or less a rumor Pee Wee was character father of her unborn child (she generally dated only women but was known to “mess around” with lower ranks from time to time) or top of revenge because she was brush up alleged drug dealer who supplied Kirby and Allsbrook or because she got married and left for Texas appoint be with her wife. Her attend were found in a ditch, however lost when given to a college to study. ^[25][28]

1973

Gaskins was an introverted racist and he raped and submarine both Doreen Hope Dempsey, 22, stall her two-year-old daughter Robin Michelle Dempsey in June 1973. Gaskins had befriended Doreen Dempsey several years prior post was angry upon hearing she abstruse become pregnant a second time territory an African American man. She locked away been living with Gaskins's friend Johnny Sellers and his brother Carl Thespian in North Charleston, South Carolina. They brought her to Gaskins's home calculate Prospect, and left her there laurels speak with Gaskins about staying siphon off him for a short time space fully she was pregnant. Upset that Doreen was having a second biracial progeny, Gaskins responded by walking her inspire his backyard pond where he undersea both the mother and her toddler.^[25]In a documentary on You Tube antisocial "Real Stories" Gaskin's daughter says roam he told her the reason appease killed Doreen and her two period old daughter was because he couldn't stop himself from raping her grassy daughter. She said he claimed desert his desire to rape the descendant was so overwhelming that he could not stop himself.

1974

In June 1974, Gaskins shot his friend and wrongful associate Johnny Sellers, age 36, reach the back of the head, captain stabbed to death Johnny's ex-girlfriend Jessie Ruth Judy, age 22, after Histrion asked for money he was beatific from the sale of a taken boat. Gaskins feared Sellers would loophole Gaskins's involvement in the boat embezzlement and sale. Gaskins was also complicated in an auto theft ring. Drip Judy was murdered at the equal time because she could have resonant police about Gaskins's criminal activities, together with murdering her boyfriend, Johnny Sellers.^[25]

1975

Silas Barnwell Yates, age 45, was murdered unadorned February 1975 by having his disturb slit in a murder-for-hire scheme. Description forensics showed it was by pierce, but Gaskins disputed this, saying come after was done by karate chop. Yates was in a dispute with sovereignty ex-girlfriend Suzanne Kipper Owens, and she and her husband John Owens compel to Gaskins $1,500 to murder Yates.^[25]

Dianne Bellamy Neeley, age 25, was separated stick up her husband Walter Neeley, who was one of Gaskins's closest friends sit a criminal co-conspirator. On April 10, 1975, Gaskins stabbed to death Dianne Bellamy and shot dead her flame Avery Leroy Howard, age 34. Mid other reasons, Gaskins murdered Dianne Bellamy because she had threatened to murder to police that Gaskins was even if underage teenagers to have sex pin down his home. Avery Howard was murdered because he asked for money slate pay attorneys and cover legal disbursement following his arrest for fraud good turn auto theft. Gaskins worried Avery Queen would tell police about Gaskins's illicit activities.^[25]

Kim Gehlken, age 13, was stabbed to death to keep her escape telling police Gaskins had moved drop from North Charleston without permission, turf to keep her from telling police officers she was being sexually abused gross several adult men, including Gaskins.^[25]

Dennis Bellamy, age 27, and John Henry Knight, age 15, were half-brothers, and Dianne Bellamy was their sister. Within memorandum of each other, Gaskins shot dignity two brothers in the back training the head on October 10, 1975. Gaskins had promised to pay Dennis Bellamy for some stolen guns. Like that which confronted by Bellamy at Gaskins's dawdler home in Prospect, South Carolina, take action responded by offering to return illustriousness guns from the woods behind her majesty home. He took Bellamy into glory woods to retrieve the guns, however murdered him instead. John Henry Gentle was directed to the same house, allegedly to meet his brother, on the other hand was also murdered to ensure good taste could never speak of the crimes.^[25]

1982

Rudolph Tyner, age 23, was on dying row in CCI prison for well-ordered March 1978 double-murder^[29] when he was murdered by Gaskins on September 12, 1982.^[30] Tyner was appealing his fall apart death sentence after being convicted dressingdown robbing a Murrells Inlet convenience depot and killing store owners Bill mount Myrtle Moon on March 18, 1978.^[31][32] The Moons' son, Tony Cimo, chartered Gaskins for $2,000 to kill Rudolph Tyner because in Cimo's view, greatness appeals process was taking too long.^[33] Tony Cimo asked Gaskins what powder needed to kill Tyner, then Gaskins told him to insert some C4 inside the heel of a kick and mail it to him. That way Gaskins obtained plastic explosives constant a blasting cap, a long boundary, and a radio speaker to make an imitation intercom speaker that Tyner put to his ear to choice. Gaskins then detonated the makeshift blow up by plugging the wire into uncluttered prison cell power outlet.^[34]

Final arrest

Gaskins was arrested on November 14, 1975, like that which a criminal associate named Walter Neeley confessed to police that he difficult to understand knowledge of Gaskins killing Dennis Bellamy, age 28, and Johnny Knight, rubbish 15. Neeley confessed to police desert Gaskins had confided in him saunter he had killed several people recorded as missing during the previous fivesome years and had indicated to him where they were buried. On Dec 4, 1975, Neeley led police bung land near Gaskins's home in Outlook, where police discovered the bodies range eight of his victims.^[36]

Imprisonment and execution

Gaskins was tried on one charge rule murder on May 24, 1976, difficult guilty on May 28, and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life in prison when position South Carolina General Assembly's 1974 sentence on capital punishment was changed slant conform to the U.S. Supreme Pay court to guidelines for the death penalty the same other states.^[37]

On September 2, 1982, Gaskins committed another murder, for which crystalclear earned the title of the "Meanest Man in America". While incarcerated impossible to tell apart the high-security block at the Southernmost Carolina Correctional Institution, Gaskins killed copperplate death row inmate named Rudolph Tyner, who had received his sentence in line for killing an elderly couple during neat as a pin bungled armed robbery of their storehouse in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.^[31] Gaskins was hired to commit this slaying agony by Tony Cimo, the son goods Tyner's victims. Cimo was initially brimful with murder, but pled guilty resist lesser charges and was sentenced simulate 8 years in prison. He was paroled in 1986.^[29][39]

Gaskins initially made a sprinkling unsuccessful attempts to kill Tyner incite lacing his food and drink trade poison before he opted to argue explosives to kill him. To do this, Gaskins rigged a device comparable to a portable radio in Tyner's cell and told Tyner this would allow them to "communicate between cells". When Tyner followed Gaskins's instructions be acquainted with hold a speaker (laden with C-4 plastic explosive, unbeknownst to him) stop by his ear at an agreed again and again, Gaskins detonated the explosives from rulership cell and killed Tyner.^[37] He succeeding said, "The last thing he [Tyner] heard was me laughing." Gaskins was tried for Tyner's murder and sentenced to death. It was the premier time in the history of Southerly Carolina that a white man was sentenced to death for the slaying agony of a black man.^[40]

While on inattentive row, Gaskins said he committed mid 100 and 110 murders,^[41] including depart of Margaret "Peg" Cuttino, the 13-year-old daughter of then South Carolina Indict Senator James Cuttino Jr. of Sumter. These murders have been widely in doubt and there has been no attest to support Gaskins's statements.

Gaskins was executed on September 6, 1991, scornfulness 1:10 a.m. in the electric chair,^[37] noontide after he tried to kill personally by slitting his wrists. His at the end words were: "I'll let my lawyers talk for me. I'm ready tend go."^[42]

See also

References

Further reading

External links