Gary Michael Heidnik was born on November 22nd 1943. He grew up to become a killer who kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered five women who were imprisoned in his basement in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
His story begins in Ohio where he lived with his mother, father and younger brother, Terry. In 1946, Heidnik's parents divorced and was placed in the custody of his father and new wife, four years after being taken care of by his mother. Heidnik claimed that his father was an abusive man and would force him to hang up his bed sheets outside of the window whenever he wet the bed. In school, Heidnik was a loner, refused to make eye-contact with anyone and was bullied for his odd appearance. He was seen as a strange child and when a teacher asked him a simple question, Heidnik screamed at her and told her that she was not worthy enough to talk to him.
Despite this behaviour in school, Heidnik was a smart young man and joined the United States Army when he was 17-years-old. His drill sergeant graded him as "excellent", however, in August 1962, Heidnik began to complain of severe headaches, dizziness, blurred vision and nausea. As a result, he was analysed by a neurologists who discovered that Heidnik was suffering from gastroenteritis (infectious diarrhoea) and also found that he displayed symptoms of mental illness. In October, that same year, Heidnik was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder and was later discharged from military service.
During adulthood, Heidnik and his brother, Terry were in and out of psychiatric hospitals after trying to commit suicide multiple times. It was even found that Heidnik had tried to take his life 13 times.
In 1970, his mother had committed suicide by drinking mercuric chloride as she was suffering from bone cancer and alcoholism.
In 1978, Heidnik was imprisoned for signing his girlfriend's sister, Alberta Davidson, out of the mental institution that she was currently staying in. He had kept her prisoner in a storage room in his basement where she was later found by police and taken back to the hospital. Davidson was examined and doctors found that she had been raped and contracted gonorrhoea. Heidnik was incarcerated inside of a mental institution for three years and during his time there, he had given a note to one of the guards that stated that Satan had stuffed a cookie down his throat, preventing him from speaking. Heidnik remained silent for 2 years and 3 months.
Heidnik's home
When Heidnik was eventually released, he abducted his first victim, Josefina Rivera, in 1986. Josefina was chained to the floor and would even be forced to stand in a small pit that Heidnik had dug for punishment as she regularly tried to escape. His next victim was Sandra Lindsay who again received the same treatment as Rivera. The two women would sit in the cold, dark basement, naked and starving and would be repeatably raped and tortured. He continued to kidnap women and soon had five women imprisoned in his basement. He would do as he pleased to these women and would rape and torture them over and over again. He would humiliate them by forcing them to have sex with each other and eat dog food.
On February 7th, 1987, Heidnik was angry with Lindsay for unknown reasons and punished her by hanging her by her wrist for two days. Lindsay later died due to a combination of starvation, continuous torture and an untreated fever. Heidnik disposed of the body by dismembering it, boiling her head in a pot, grinding up the remaining flesh in his food processor and then later feeding the sludge to his dogs and the surviving victims. However, Heidnik had had some trouble disposing of the arms and legs, so he stored them in his freezer and marked them as "dog food".
He would also torture the women by electrocuting them. If they misbehaved, he would bound them in chains and then continuously electrocute them before they were dumped in the pit.
Rivera told him that the other women were planning on rebelling against him and so, Heidnik punished the other women by driving screwdrivers into their eardrums, deafening them. Rivera would receive "privileges" such as no longer being electrocuted, being aloud upstairs to accompany him during a movie and being raped in a more comfortable environment.
On March 19th, 1987, Heidnik had finally snapped due to one of his victims, Deborah Dudley, constant attitude as she always defended herself against him. He threw her into the pit that he had filled with water and continuously electrocuted her until she was dead. Later that night, Rivera and Heidnik disposed of the body and abducted another victim, Agnes Adams, to replace Dudley.
Heidnik's victims (top left is Rivera)
On March 24th, Rivera asked Heidnik for his permission to see her family. Truly believing that she would not tell the authorities, Heidnik allowed her request.
When Rivera was finally inside of her house, safe and sound, she told her boyfriend about Heidnik and the other women in the basement. Without hesitation, the police were called and Heidnik was finally arrested.
He appeared in court in June 1988. He claimed that the women were already in the house when he moved in, however, this clearly was an unlikely fact. He then defended himself by stating that he had no idea what he was doing as he was clearly insane. Despite the continuous excuses, Heidnik was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, five kidnappings, six counts of rape, four counts of aggravated assault and finally, one involuntary deviant of sexual intercourse. Heidnik was then sentenced to death by lethal injection.
During his time in jail, on December 31st, Heidnik tried to commit suicide by overdosing on Thorazine (an anitpsychotic), however he only fell into a brief coma.
On July 6th, 1999, Gary Heidnik was executed by lethal injection at State Correctional Institute - Rockview, Pennsylvania.
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