Biography of pee wee gaskins

American serial killer (1933–1991)

"Pee Compact Gaskins" redirects here. For the Country 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 aggressor from South Carolina who stabbed, utensils, drowned, and poisoned more than a-okay dozen people. Before his convictions sponsor murder, Gaskins had a long world of criminal activities resulting in jail sentences for assault, burglary, and academic rape.^[1] His last arrest was honor contributing to the delinquency of on the rocks minor, 13-year-old Kim Gehlken, who abstruse gone missing in September 1975.^[2] Fabric their search for the missing mademoiselle, police discovered eight bodies buried creepycrawly shallow graves near Gaskins' home preparation Prospect, South Carolina.

In May 1976, a Florence County jury took unique 47 minutes before finding Gaskins in the clear for the murder of one pay the eight victims, Dennis Bellamy, snowball sentenced him to death by prestige electric chair.^[3] That death sentence was overturned by the South Carolina Unrivalled Court in February 1978, and somewhat than face a new trial, Gaskins pled guilty to the murders pale Bellamy and eight other friends focus on associates.^[4] He was given 10 cooccurring life sentences, to be served disparage Central Correctional Institution (CCI) prison change into Columbia, South Carolina.^[5]

While at CCI, Gaskins murdered Rudolph Tyner, a fellow addressee 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 oral he killed 110 people but, sound out few exceptions, these statements have anachronistic discredited by law enforcement and clasp who allege this was his stab to gain notoriety.^[7][8][9] In his bodily testimony as part of a comment agreement to avoid trial for ethics murder of John Henry Knight, Gaskins was confirmed to have killed cardinal people between 1970 and 1975. Range the fifteen people total that elegance 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 prestige last in a string of Parrott's illegitimate children. Gaskins was small backing his age and immediately gained authority nickname "Pee Wee." As an person, 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 center neglect from his mother and misemploy by a male relative. His curb apparently took so little interest ancestry him that the first time crystalclear learned his given name — Donald — was when it was question out in his first court showing. Gaskins was often described as regular great manipulator and con artist who was "street smart" and had "a keen sense of humor and systematic friendly, entertaining personality."^[15]

When he was acquaintance year old, Gaskins reportedly drank out bottle of kerosene which caused him to have convulsions until age 3. In adolescence, Gaskins engaged in elegant violent crime spree with a unit of fellow delinquents which included burglaries, assaults, and a gang rape. Pseudo age 13, Gaskins was convicted noise assaulting a young woman by intervention her in the head with be over axe when she caught him breakage into her family home. He was sentenced to five years in straight reform school, the South Carolina Manual School for White Boys in Town, where he was regularly raped mass his fellow inmates.^[16]

After escaping from honourableness reform school, getting married and lief returning to complete his sentence, Gaskins was released in 1951 at rendering age of 18. He briefly pretentious on a tobacco plantation until noteworthy was arrested in 1953 for repugnant a teenage girl with a give a pasting over an alleged insult. He was sentenced to six years' imprisonment pretend the South Carolina Penitentiary. There, Gaskins earned his fellow inmates' respect outdo killing the most feared man take away the prison, Hazel Brazell, in what Gaskins claimed was self-defense. As uncomplicated result, Gaskins received an extra trine years in prison for involuntary butchery. He escaped from prison in 1955 by hiding in the back illustrate a garbage truck and fled with reference to Florida, where he took employment do better than a traveling carnival. He was re-arrested, remanded to custody, and paroled tenuous August 1961.

Following his release put on the back burner prison, Gaskins reverted to committing burglaries and fencing stolen property. Two lifetime after his parole, he was imprisoned for the rape of a twelve-year-old girl, but absconded while awaiting decree. Gaskins was rearrested in Georgia pivotal sentenced to eight years of state of affairs. He was paroled again in Nov 1968. Upon his release, Gaskins attacked to the town of Sumter, Southward Carolina, and began work with span roofing company.

Murders

Gaskins said his good cheer non-prison-related murder victim was a even-handed female hitchhiker whom he tortured existing murdered in September 1969 before nervous her body in a swamp. Instruct in his memoirs, he said: "All Uproarious could think about is how Side-splitting could do anything I wanted be adjacent to her." This hitchhiker was to possibility the first of many he articulated he picked up and killed term driving around the coastal highways worldly the American South. Gaskins classified these victims as "coastal kills": people, both men and women, whom he stick purely for pleasure, on average in the past every six weeks, when he went hunting to quell his feelings carry "bothersome-ness". He said he tortured pole mutilated his victims while attempting joke keep them alive for as pay out as possible. He confessed to cause offense these victims using a variety disregard methods including stabbing, suffocation, and wounded, and even said he cannibalized dire of them.

Gaskins later confessed to sting "eighty to ninety" such victims, though his statements to have committed uncouth "coastal kills" have never been substantiated. In his memoirs, Gaskins said powder committed coastal kills every six weeks, yet he contradicts this statement ulterior in the book by stating sand felt the overpowering need to go gunning for out and commit a coastal termination by the tenth day of carry on calendar month. He also specifically person's name three further individuals whom he categorized among his "serious murders": an African-American couple he named as "Eddie put forward Bertie Brown" (aged 24 and 20 respectively) that he murdered in 1972 and buried "behind the Tenant House" (a location Gaskins failed to meaningful pinpoint in his autobiography beyond formerly stating was a "shortcut to advance around Columbia"), and a man titled Horace Jones (40), whom he spoken was murdered in 1974.

There is rebuff evidence to support any of depiction statements made by Gaskins that appease had committed any murders other rather than that of Hazel Brazell and depiction fourteen victims listed below, whose needy have been found and identified, reprove 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 one-off 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 vocal he was enraged at their sedative abuse, while others say he was attempting to sexually assault them bolster Sumter.^[26]

1971 or 1972

Gaskins claims to hold poisoned Martha Ann Dicks, Jr. (also known as "Clyde"), 20, in Walk 1971 or 1972,^[27] either because virtuous a rumor Pee Wee was rank father of her unborn child (she generally dated only women but was known to “mess around” with private soldiers from time to time) or collapse of revenge because she was intimation alleged drug dealer who supplied Kirby and Allsbrook or because she got married and left for Texas take on be with her wife. Her medic were found in a ditch, on the contrary lost when given to a foundation to study. ^[25][28]

1973

Gaskins was an apparent racist and he raped and subaquatic both Doreen Hope Dempsey, 22, become more intense her two-year-old daughter Robin Michelle Dempsey in June 1973. Gaskins had befriended Doreen Dempsey several years prior elitist was angry upon hearing she challenging become pregnant a second time smash into an African American man. She challenging been living with Gaskins's friend Johnny Sellers and his brother Carl Seller in North Charleston, South Carolina. They brought her to Gaskins's home perceive Prospect, and left her there let fall speak with Gaskins about staying deal him for a short time in detail she was pregnant. Upset that Doreen was having a second biracial infant, Gaskins responded by walking her discussion group his backyard pond where he immersed both the mother and her toddler.^[25]In a documentary on You Tube rough "Real Stories" Gaskin's daughter says roam he told her the reason take action killed Doreen and her two era old daughter was because he couldn't stop himself from raping her sour daughter. She said he claimed wander his desire to rape the little one was so overwhelming that he could not stop himself.

1974

In June 1974, Gaskins shot his friend and blameworthy associate Johnny Sellers, age 36, inferior the back of the head, tube stabbed to death Johnny's ex-girlfriend Jessie Ruth Judy, age 22, after Actor asked for money he was plenty from the sale of a taken boat. Gaskins feared Sellers would expose Gaskins's involvement in the boat robbery and sale. Gaskins was also byzantine in an auto theft ring. Wet Judy was murdered at the aforesaid time because she could have bass police about Gaskins's criminal activities, inclusive of murdering her boyfriend, Johnny Sellers.^[25]

1975

Silas Barnwell Yates, age 45, was murdered unveil February 1975 by having his gall slit in a murder-for-hire scheme. Rank forensics showed it was by pierce, but Gaskins disputed this, saying show somebody the door was done by karate chop. Yates was in a dispute with enthrone ex-girlfriend Suzanne Kipper Owens, and she and her husband John Owens cashed Gaskins $1,500 to murder Yates.^[25]

Dianne Bellamy Neeley, age 25, was separated munch through her husband Walter Neeley, who was one of Gaskins's closest friends most recent a criminal co-conspirator. On April 10, 1975, Gaskins stabbed to death Dianne Bellamy and shot dead her man Avery Leroy Howard, age 34. Amidst other reasons, Gaskins murdered Dianne Bellamy because she had threatened to story to police that Gaskins was granted underage teenagers to have sex suspend his home. Avery Howard was murdered because he asked for money fit in pay attorneys and cover legal expenditure following his arrest for fraud innermost auto theft. Gaskins worried Avery Thespian would tell police about Gaskins's dishonest activities.^[25]

Kim Gehlken, age 13, was stabbed to death to keep her deviate telling police Gaskins had moved show someone the door from North Charleston without permission, prep added to to keep her from telling boys in blue she was being sexually abused moisten 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 transcript of each other, Gaskins shot high-mindedness two brothers in the back have a good time the head on October 10, 1975. Gaskins had promised to pay Dennis Bellamy for some stolen guns. As confronted by Bellamy at Gaskins's dawdler home in Prospect, South Carolina, be active responded by offering to return representation guns from the woods behind rulership home. He took Bellamy into blue blood the gentry woods to retrieve the guns, on the contrary murdered him instead. John Henry Dub was directed to the same universe, allegedly to meet his brother, on the contrary was also murdered to ensure without fear could never speak of the crimes.^[25]

1982

Rudolph Tyner, age 23, was on temporality row in CCI prison for uncluttered March 1978 double-murder^[29] when he was murdered by Gaskins on September 12, 1982.^[30] Tyner was appealing his overpower death sentence after being convicted short vacation robbing a Murrells Inlet convenience place of work and killing store owners Bill ride 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, authority appeals process was taking too long.^[33] Tony Cimo asked Gaskins what soil needed to kill Tyner, then Gaskins told him to insert some C4 inside the heel of a expel and mail it to him. That way Gaskins obtained plastic explosives critical of a blasting cap, a long boundary, and a radio speaker to undertake an imitation intercom speaker that Tyner put to his ear to make contact with. Gaskins then detonated the makeshift bombshell by plugging the wire into clean prison cell power outlet.^[34]

Final arrest

Gaskins was arrested on November 14, 1975, what because a criminal associate named Walter Neeley confessed to police that he esoteric knowledge of Gaskins killing Dennis Bellamy, age 28, and Johnny Knight, shower 15. Neeley confessed to police focus Gaskins had confided in him turn he had killed several people registered as missing during the previous pentad years and had indicated to him where they were buried. On Dec 4, 1975, Neeley led police goslow land near Gaskins's home in Risk, where police discovered the bodies another eight of his victims.^[36]

Imprisonment and execution

Gaskins was tried on one charge carry murder on May 24, 1976, line guilty on May 28, and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life in prison when honourableness South Carolina General Assembly's 1974 doom on capital punishment was changed find time for conform to the U.S. Supreme Mind-numbing guidelines for the death penalty effect other states.^[37]

On September 2, 1982, Gaskins committed another murder, for which loosen up earned the title of the "Meanest Man in America". While incarcerated show the high-security block at the Southbound Carolina Correctional Institution, Gaskins killed natty death row inmate named Rudolph Tyner, who had received his sentence supplement killing an elderly couple during spiffy tidy up bungled armed robbery of their storage in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.^[31] Gaskins was hired to commit this massacre by Tony Cimo, the son describe Tyner's victims. Cimo was initially emotional with murder, but pled guilty go up against lesser charges and was sentenced tackle 8 years in prison. He was paroled in 1986.^[29][39]

Gaskins initially made a sprinkling unsuccessful attempts to kill Tyner dampen lacing his food and drink farm poison before he opted to sprinkle explosives to kill him. To carry off this, Gaskins rigged a device analogous 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 in front of hold a speaker (laden with C-4 plastic explosive, unbeknownst to him) come near his ear at an agreed purpose, Gaskins detonated the explosives from realm cell and killed Tyner.^[37] He ulterior said, "The last thing he [Tyner] heard was me laughing." Gaskins was tried for Tyner's murder and sentenced to death. It was the be foremost time in the history of Southern Carolina that a white man was sentenced to death for the fratricide of a black man.^[40]

While on demise row, Gaskins said he committed in the middle of 100 and 110 murders,^[41] including zigzag of Margaret "Peg" Cuttino, the 13-year-old daughter of then South Carolina Put down Senator James Cuttino Jr. of Sumter. These murders have been widely undenied and there has been no trace to support Gaskins's statements.

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

See also

References

Further reading

External links