Gary Heidnik was a bishop. He was 28 years old when he started a church in 1971, the United Church of the Ministers of God. Gary began to hold church services in his basement. Within a couple of years those regularly attending services had multiplied. Gary’s disciples donated more than five hundred thousand dollars that would be more than 3.6 million dollars today. Churches have been always exempted from paying taxes. He amassed his wealth. Gary Heidnik sometimes didn’t attend services, because he travelled or had other obligations.
In 1984 Gary Heidnik bought the house at 3520 North Marshall Street. He drove a flashy Cadillac. He had girlfriends who stayed over at his house. He had dogs whom he walked regularly.
He was divorced and had three children with three different women.
At the same time, he had a dungeon which once discovered would be called ‘’the house of horror’’ and he was the inspiration for the movie ‘’Silence of the Lambs’’.
On the evening of November 25th, 1986 Gary offered Josefina Rivera, who was a prostitute, twenty dollars to come back to his place for sex. Josefina Rivera was a 25 – year – old mother of three who had a rough upbringing to make ends meet and she ended up as a prostitute. She said that he had looked like a well-presented guy; clean and tidy and was driving good car. After having sex, Heidnik came up behind her and choked her. She fainted. She regained consciousness and had a handcuff on her arm. He took her into the basement. In the center of the basement was a pit dug into the concrete. The room was cold, like standing on a block of ice. There was the dampen musty smell which permeated every part of the room. There was one tiny window but it was boarded over. The only light came from a naked overhead bulb which was dim and flickered incessantly. On one side of the room was a chest style freezer which Josefina thought looked like a coffin. On the other side of the room was an old battered pool table with barely any green left on top.
As soon as Josefina entered the room, Gary chained both of her hands and her legs to a bar which ran across the ceiling. For chains around her ankles, he used glue to hold nuts on and he dried it with a hairdryer. He kept trying to fit her in that hole and he kept taking his board and he kept slamming it on her head. When she was in there, she was cramped up. She was like still hollering because she has asthma. Josefina Rivera: ‘’He came back downstairs and he liked to pull me out of the hole by my hair and he had a stick and he was just beating me with this stick and then he put me back in there.’’
At first the hole was quite small, but every day Heidnik came down into the basement and dug the hole bigger and bigger as he shoveled. Gary Heidnik told Josefina how all he wanted was a family of his own, but all his children had been taken away from him. He said that he wanted hundreds of offspring and that he was going to collect 10 women to impregnate, so they could give him the family that he desired.
On December 3rd, 1986 Gary brought a second captive down to the dungeon. Sandra Lindsay was a 24 – year – old mentally disabled woman. The two women spent most of the time in the hole. Every day he forced each of the women to have both oral and vaginal sex with him. Gary Heidnik ensured that a radio was blaring music all the time from the basement so the women’s screams couldn’t be heard and when they did scream Heidnik beat them until they passed out. When that didn’t work he threw them into the growing pit and lay sheets of wood over the top. They could be left there for hours or days, without water and food. After a couple weeks, he hung a large hook from the ceiling. When he didn’t like something they did, they were forced into a half-standing, half-hanging position with one hand above their head and they were unable to move.
Sandra’s family had actually come to Gary Heidnik’s house multiple times to find her. Heidnik forced her to write letters telling them not to come looking for her as she ran away. Still, parents notified the police that they thought she was being held captive at Gary Heidnik’s home. Sandra was missing for a week. The officer misspelled Gary Heidnik’s last name and decided that the situation didn’t request any further investigation.
On December 23rd, 1986 he kidnapped Lisa Thomas, a 19 – year – old mother of one. On January 2nd, 1987 Gary Heidnik came home with 23 – year – old Deborah Dudley.
By that time, he had started to force the women to beat each other, when he didn’t torture them himself. He was also using the ceiling hook more frequently and he used the handle of his pit digging shovel to hit the women. But what hadn’t changed was the daily routine of the oral to vaginal sex. He then forced them to have relations with each other, often violently.
On January 18th, 1987 Heidnik abducted Jacqueline Askins, who was just 18 years old.
Gary realized the women could hear him leave the house each day and they would scream and somebody could hear them. He also worried that when he was gone, they would make a plan to escape. To solve this problem Gary took screwdrivers and shoved them deep into the women’s ears so they couldn’t hear anything. He kept pushing the screwdrivers in, until liquid spilled from their ears. He installed another hook on the ceiling and strung the women up by their wrists for days, while they were hanging, he refused to feed them or even give them water.
Gary thought she might be pregnant. He, allegedly, tried to give her food. Sandra refused to eat. After a few days of being strung from the ceiling she complained of a fever and she started vomiting. Sandra was left in such position for five days. When he unlocked the chains, Sandra Lindsay fell dead. That’s how Gary Heidnik murdered his first victim.
Her family was searching for her. He did not want her to be identified, because it led to him. He dismembered her body. The bones that had some meat attached to them were fed to his dogs, while the flesh from other areas was ground up into mincemeat. He later mixed this into the dog food which he fed the women he got. Sandra’s head was cooking in a pot upstairs and he put her ribs in the oven. Her arms were in the freezer. The putrid flesh permeated the whole neighborhood. Neighbors called police. When the officer arrived, he banged on the door for half an hour before taking a look around the back of the property, he noticed how all the blinds were duct taped, shut and, of course, he couldn’t miss the smell, but when Gary answered and told him the smell was from dinner which he had burned the officer could see the pot on the stove and trusted.
After Sandra’s death and the visit from the police Gary began to grow more paranoid he was more convinced than ever that the captured women conspired against him in order to escape. Josefina Rivera gained his trust. Not only that Josefina wasn’t beaten, but she tortured other women. She was privileged. She even told Heidnik that the captives conspired against him. On March 18th, 1987 Josefina filled the pit with water and put the lid on the pit, while Heidnik forced them into the pit. The pit now had a few small holes drilled into it so he could see them through it. Josefina fed the wire through one of the holes, the women all screamed in pain. Deborah Dudley died.
Josefina became something like a girlfriend from Heidnik’s point of view. She was a captive, but he developed an attachment to her. He took her outside. They went into fast food restaurants, they went shopping. She slept in his bed of course.
Heidnik even told her that he was going to dispose of Deborah’s body in New Jersey. He needed a replacement for Deborah.
On March 23rd, 1987 they went out together and spotted a woman named Agnes Adams who Josefina knew from her days of stripping. Allegedly, Josefina picked her. Gary offered Agnes money for sex and she agreed when she saw the familiar face in the car.
The next day, Josefina convinced Heidnik that she just needed a few minutes to reassure her family she was okay and that in return, she was going to help him abduct another girl. Gary was, allegedly, sure because Josefina signed a confession implicating herself for Deborah’s murder. That night he dropped Josefina off near her parents’ house. They agreed to meet at a gas station parking lot at midnight, but instead of going to her family Josefina went to the house of the man who was her boyfriend before she was abducted. When he opened the door she told him everything and at first he was skeptical, but when he saw the scars, he called 911.
Police struggled to believe more than the man she dated, but they sent a pair of officers to talk to Josefina. They believed her after seeing the scars. She told them that he would be at midnight at a gas station. They went there and approached him. He asked: ‘’What’s this all about officer, didn’t I make my child support?’’
3520 North Marshall Street – they waited for a warrant to be secured. Four and a half hours later officers entered the house. Despite Josefina described what had happened to herself and the other victims nothing could have prepared them for what they found in that home.
They found two tortured, naked women on the floor, other were inside a pit covered in wood. They found human forearm in a freezer, human flesh in the oven and parts of the head inside a pot.
Gary was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, six counts of kidnapping, five counts of rape, four counts of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of involuntary deviant sexual intercourse.
Gary Heidnik’s defense claimed he was not guilty by reason of insanity. They claimed that the women were already living in the house when he bought the house. Then they claimed that Josefina is a mastermind and that he was feebleminded. He even tried to look insane. He wasn’t clean, his facial hair was not neatly trimmed as always.
Surviving women gave evidence against Gary, including Josefina who admitted to take part in Deborah’s murder. She said she had tried to survive and wanted to rescue them all.
Rescue women, however, dismissed Josefina’s claims. They accused her of participating willingly in their torture and they asked the prosecutors to charge her as an accomplice, but Josefina was not accused of anything.
Gary Heidnik was found guilty of all charges brought against him for his crimes. He was sentenced to death.
In response to the verdict Gary stated something along the lines:
‘’I say real or phony, they can execute me because I’m innocent. And I can prove it that is the end of capital punishment in this state when you execute an innocent man, knowingly execute an innocent man. You know there will be no more capital punishment in this state and possibly anywhere else in this country and you know I didn’t kill them. Go ahead and execute me. Yes, I want you to execute an innocent man, so there will be no more capital punishment…’’
His daughter, Maxine, repeatedly appealed for leniency in a stay of his execution. She claimed that while Gary carried out the crimes for which he was convicted, he was a deeply unwell and psychotic man and therefore he was incompetent to be executed.
Gary spent the next 11 years incarcerated before facing execution in 1999.
During that time, he claimed he was guilty of all the charges except murder and therefore he should be exonerated. He asserted that the women were solely to blame for the deaths of their fellow prisoners.
On July 6th, 1999 Gary Michael Heidnik was executed by lethal injection in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania abolished death penalty as many other the US states. He had nothing to do with it.
Gary Michael M. Heidnik was born on November 22nd, 1943 in Cleveland Ohio. He had a younger brother. When Gary was three years old his parents divorced, reportedly due to his mother’s drinking. Gary and his brother stayed living with her while their father moved out. Their mother remarried three more times. Eventually the boys were sent to live with their father who by then had remarried as well. He allegedly did not like his stepmother. His father protected his wife always. When it came to disagreements, Gary claimed that his father humiliated him. Gary was prone to bedwetting even into his high school years and his father hung his urine stained sheets from his bedroom window, where everybody could see. At other times he hung Gary upside down by his ankles out of a window, while shouting at him, repeating what he did. His father punished him by food deprivation as well.
Gary was highly intelligent and performed well academically. But even from a young age his social skills were lacking and he was unable to make friends Gary was also bullied for his misshapen head which had been damaged when he fell from a tree. Even as a child he was always angry and refused to make eye contact with others. This may suggest autism or some developmental disorder. Head injury and abused qualified him, along with genetics, for a serial murderer. Gary, repeatedly, yelled at females or said ‘you’re not worthy enough to talk to me’
When Gary was 18 years old he dropped out of high school, in order to enlist in the United States Army. Given his high IQ Gary had hoped to be appointed to an important position, but after several applications were rejected, he began training to become an army medic. During his training his superiors labeled him as excellent. He was deployed to West Germany, but just three months after arriving, Gary began to experience physical symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, blurred vision and nausea. Initially he was diagnosed with and treated for gastroenteritis, a type of stomach condition, but over the coming weeks the physician who was treating him noticed that Gary had other strange symptoms that didn’t align with his gastro diagnosis. He prescribed Gary a strong anti-hallucinogenic medication and recommended a psychiatric evaluation. Gary was returned to the United States and transferred to a military hospital where he was diagnosed with a schizoid personality disorder. With that Gary was honorably discharged from the military after 13 months of service. Given his medical background, Gary began training as a licensed nurse, but he dropped out after one semester due to mental issues. He was working at a veteran hospital and he was fired for yelling at patients and regularly not showing up.
At that point, Gary Heidnik started a church in 1971, the United Church of the Ministers of God. His absence was due to his mental health, not travelling and obligations. Gary attempted suicide at least 13 times between the 1962 and 1987. He was repeatedly admitted to various psychiatric institutions. In between his psychiatric admissions and holding church services, Gary still had time to meet women and date. He had a relationship with a woman, Gail, who had issues with her mental capacity and therefore when the couple had a son, he was immediately placed into foster care. He had met Anjanette and her sister Alberta at one of the institutions where he had previously worked. He started dating Anjanette. But Anjanette was a patient, her sister as well. Anjanette was mentally disabled. In 1977 Anjanette became pregnant. When their daughter Maxine was born the following year, she was immediately placed into foster care as it was decided that Anjanette was mentally unfit to care for her. It would be called abused of mentally disabled people who need care and protection and they could not make decisions.
Just weeks after Maxine’s birth Gary signed in Anjannette’s sister Alberta out of the institution where she lived, what was supposed to be a day pass. For 10 days he chained her in his basement where he raped and sodomized her. Police showed up at Gary’s house to find her. Gary was arrested. He was charged and found guilty of kidnapping, rape, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse and interfering with the custody of a committed person. For this heinous crime he was sentenced to three years in a psychiatric institution. He would then have to spend three years under Community Mental Health supervision.
Three months after his release he bought a house at 3520 North Marshall Street.
While he was institutionalized for kidnapping Alberta, Gary gave an advertisement, so he met a 22 – year – old woman named Betty. She was living in the Philippines and, soon after buying the house, Gary flew Betty to the United States. They were married a month later. He demanded ever more violent, painful and perverse sexual experiences. Gary wanted Betty to be completely submissive to him. She regularly found Gary having sex with multiple women and he would force her to take part in that. On top of that, he routinely raped her and beat her. She was in a foreign country and she didn’t have anyone to call for help. She was alone. Betty found out that she was pregnant. Betty made contact with local members of the Filipino community and with their help she managed to escape. Betty later filed a police report against Gary, based on her experiences. Once again Gary was arrested. This time he was charged with assault, indecent assault, spousal rape and involuntary deviant sexual acts. There’s no record of any incarceration for these crimes though. Betty gave birth to his third child a boy named Jesse John.
Gary Heidnik, actually, had met his first victim, Sandra Lindsay, when he had been committed at the same institution as her. Sandra’s parents knew of Gary through the institution where they had met in the past. He had signed Sandra out on day leave and taken her to McDonald’s and then back to his house. Her family didn’t know it, but during these visits Gary would force Sandra to have sex with him. At one point she got pregnant. She didn’t want to have a child so with the support of her social worker, Sandra was able to organize a termination of the pregnancy. When she told Gary he flew into a rage and stopped taking her out of the institution, until the day that he abducted her. That is why parents came to his house and reported him.
I think that he deliberately murdered Sandra Lindsay, because she aborted his child. He was an army medic. During his training his superiors labeled him as excellent. He was considered highly intelligent throughout his life and performed well academically, but his mental condition prevented him from keeping a job. He knew Sandra was going to die. He knew she was dead while she hung. In order to be sure he could trust Josefina Rivera, she needed to murder Deborah Dudley. His personality disorders and diagnoses in conjunction with learned behavior from childhood abuse made him think he could control them and could teach them to listen to him in the way he did. And he wanted control and dominance over women. He was choosing women with intellectual disability, because they were already submissive and under his control. He could display any behavior and nobody would know. Actually, that was the reason for marrying a woman from Philippines. She was under his control because she had just come to the US. It is mostly because of helplessness and abused during childhood. Eventually all captive women would end up dead due to his mental condition. At that time, it was used the term deviancy, but later psychiatrists introduced better term ”paraphilia”. He was a sexual sadist without doubt, according to his biography. Head injury significantly contributed to his state of mind and behavior. It was most likely the cause, if certain centers in frontal lobe were damaged. He was even bullied for his misshapen head which had been damaged when he fell from a tree.
