How Donald 'Pee Wee' Gaskins Terrorized 1970s South Carolina
Donald Henry Gaskins was the most prolific serial killer in South Carolina history. Once his brutality was unleashed, he knew no boundaries, torturing, killing, cannibalizing victims, both male and female. In his taped memoirs for the book, Final Truth by author Wilton Earl, Gaskins said, 'I have walked the same path as God, by taking lives and making others afraid, I became God's equal. Through killing others, I became my own master. Through my own power I come to my own redemption.. He was given several nicknames some such as Pee Wee and the Meanest Man In America.
He was given the name pee wee because kids at school would call him that and also got picked on a lot. He had a pretty messed up childhood, his stepfather beat him and his four half-siblings regularly.
Donald Henry "Pee Wee" Gaskins Jr. (born Donald Henry Parrott Jr.; March 13, 1933 – September 6, 1991) was an American serial killer and rapist from South Carolina who stabbed, shot, drowned, and poisoned more than a dozen people. Before his convictions for murder, Gaskins had a long history of criminal activities resulting in prison sentences for assault, burglary, and statutory rape. His last arrest was for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 13-year-old Kim Gehlken, who had gone missing in September 1975. During their search for the missing girl, police discovered eight bodies buried in shallow graves near Gaskins's home in Prospect, South Carolina.
In May 1976, a Florence County jury took only 47 minutes before finding Gaskins guilty for the murder of one of the eight victims, Dennis Bellamy, and sentenced him to death by the electric chair. That death sentence was overturned by the South Carolina Supreme Court in February 1978, and rather than face a new trial, Gaskins pled guilty to the murders of Bellamy and eight other friends and associates. He was given 10 concurrent life sentences, to be served at Central Correctional Institution (CCI) prison in Columbia, South Carolina.
While at CCI, Gaskins brutally murdered Rudolph Tyner, a fellow inmate on death row, using C4 explosive. After his conviction for killing Tyner, he received his second death sentence, which was administered in September 1991. Just before his execution Gaskins said he killed 110 people but, with few exceptions, these statements have been discredited by law enforcement and journalists who allege this was his attempt to gain notoriety. In his sworn testimony as part of a plea agreement to avoid trial for the murder of John Henry Knight, Gaskins was confirmed to have killed thirteen people between 1970 and 1975. Of the fifteen people total that he murdered during his lifetime, ten were under age 25 and six were teenagers.
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