Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Meanest Man in America” Pt. 2: Donald Henry Gaskins

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

In the late 1960s, Donald Henry Gaskins found himself consumed by a ravenous rage. He began stalking the highways of South Carolina, searching for victims. Eventually, he became so violent that even a maximum security prison couldn't stop him from killing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Donald Gaskins gritted his teeth as he sped down the South Carolina coastal highway. His breath was ragged. His arms were trembling with rage. He inhaled slowly and gripped the wheel tighter to make the shaking stop. He felt like he swallowed a ball of hot lead. There was only one thing now that could make him feel better. taking out his frustrations on someone else. Finally, after Miles, he saw a young girl standing with her thumb out on the side of the road.

Gaskins pulled over, waved to her, and the hitchhiker climbed in the back seat. Before the girl even told him where she was headed, Gaskins started driving. He smiled as he turned onto a nearby dirt road. Soon it would all be over, and he would feel better. The girl started to protest as Gaskins stopped the car, but she fell silent when he pointed a long knife at her throat. Gaskins could tell she was about to cry. He liked that.

Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is serial killers, a podcast original. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today we're exploring the gruesome crimes of Donald Henry Gaskins. also known as the meanest man in America. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Parcast originals for free on Spotify,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. To stream serial killers for free on Spotify, just open the app and type serial killers in the search bar. At Parcast, we're grateful for you, our listeners. You allow us to do what we love. Let us know how we're doing. Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parkast Network. Last episode, we discussed how Donald Pee-Wee Gaskins went from Home Invader to bloodthirsty murderer.

Today, we'll explore the height of Gaskins' rampage and talk about the grisly prison murder that landed him on death row. In 1968, 35-year-old Donald Henry Gaskins was released from prison after serving four years. for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. Soon after, he moved to a small South Carolina town in search of a new life. But instead of enjoying his freedom, Gaskins became restless. His anger started getting worse, and even the slightest irritation flared his temper.

So, to cool his head, he took to picking up female hitchhikers along the state highway, extorting them for sex in exchange for a ride. But soon, his appetite for vicarious. violence grew more ravenous. Gaskins started having sadistic fantasies about the women who rejected him, twisted scenes that would play in his head day and night. And by the beginning of 1969, he knew he was on the verge of exploding in violent rage if he didn't find an outlet for his anger. Though Gaskins was terrified at the prospect of returning to jail, he seemed unable

to handle his temper or to stop picking up hitchhikers. So it was hardly a surprise when, in September of that year, the two urges finally collided. On a Sunday morning, 36-year-old Gaskins went out for another long drive to cool his head. He cruised up and down the highway for hours, trying to shake off what he described as a hot leaden feeling in the pit of his stomach. Around mid-afternoon, he spotted a tall young woman by the side of the road, who we guessed was in her late teens. Gaskins pulled over and she hopped in his car. As he pulled back onto the highway, Gaskins asked her where she was headed. When she said Charlestown, Gaskins snorted.

He delicately implied that the only reason he'd drive that far would be in return for sex. At that, the woman laughed nervously and asked to be let out of the car. According to Gaskins, when previous hitchhikers shot down his advances, he always let them leave safely. But this time he hesitated. He couldn't stand to imagine dropping her off only to have her shudder in disgust. The girl's nervous laughter had no effect on him. Gaskins had already decided he couldn't let her go. He was going to make her suffer.

Gaskins seemed particularly prone to outbursts when he felt humiliated. Repressed feelings of shame is a common trigger for many serial killers. Vanessa's going to take over on the side. psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa's not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. According to Dr. Robert Hale, serial killers often report treating their victims as stand-ins for people who've personally humiliated them in the past. Hale writes, In the mind of the serial killer, the victim serves to bring back memories of someone who

embarrassed them earlier in life. The killer transfers feelings of hate, hatred, rage, and fear onto the victim in an attempt to remove the memory of humiliation. That day in 1969, the brutal rage Gaskins had suppressed for over 35 years, came flooding out all at once. He pulled over to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. Then he slowly turned and smiled at his passenger. The woman returned his glance uneasily, then reached for her bag in the back seat. But once Once she took her eyes off of Gaskins, he punched her hard on the side of the head, then slammed her face into the dashboard.

He hit her twice more until she finally slumped into the passenger seat, unconscious. Gaskins bound the woman using his belt and drove down to an old logging road. When she came to, he began torturing her. He raped the woman at knife point and mutilated her chest. Then he threw her in the trunk of his car. Next, he stopped by a gas station to buy some clothesline with the young woman still in his trunk. Then he drove to the edge of a deep marsh.

There Gaskins pulled her out of the trunk and made her plead for her life. But when she did, he just laughed in her face. Only after she was completely overcome by despair did he brutally kill her. Then he sunk her body in the swamp. Afterwards, Gaskins claimed he felt better than he had in months. The tension in his gut had seemed to dissolve, but it wasn't gone for long. The next morning, he woke with a start. He was overcome by panic and had even wet the bed during the night.

Gaskins chastised himself not for killing the woman, but for doing it so impulsively. He resolved never to be so careless again. After the next few weeks, Gaskins intricately planned his next murders. He bought cables and handcuffs and various tools to torture his victims, including a blow torch and a pump used to spray water at high pressure. Then he trolled around the backwoods near the state highway, searching for deserted roads and out-of-the-way places to stash bodies. After a few weeks, he knew every nook and cranny of the wetlands in the region.

He was ready to go hunting. About six weeks after Gaskins killed his first hitchhiker, he went back out to search for another victim. Soon he found another young woman tortured and killed her. And just six weeks after that, he went out again. Gaskins later wrote that he tortured the girls and women in a variety of ways. But generally, his preference skewed to whatever was most painful. The more his victim suffered, the more sadistic pleasure he took him. their deaths.

He never bothered to learn their names, and after a while he forgot most of their faces. Because of this, it's difficult to verify how many people he murdered this way, and it's important to note that many of his purported kills during this time are unconfirmed. Because these murders aren't confirmed, it's possible that Gaskins embellished this part of his life. He loved for people to be afraid of him, and he may have thought that exaggerating these stories would make him sound more ruthless and prolific than he actually was. In fact, it's possible he never killed any hitchhikers at all.

But according to Gaskins, after his first three murders that year, he continued his killing spree for the next year and a half, averaging about one victim every six weeks. By his count, he'd claimed the lives of 10 women between September of 1969 and October of 1970, alone. Including the man he murdered in prison years before, by 1970, Gaskins had killed almost a dozen people. But despite all these murders, it was his 12th victim that would mark a turning point for him. In November of 1970, 37-year-old Gaskins got a macabre opportunity he couldn't resist. While driving

through the town of Sumter, a carload of young girls, including his 15-year-old niece, Janice, flagged him down. Gaskins was on good terms with Janice. Though they weren't close, they often saw each other at a drive-in restaurant on the weekends, where Gaskins regularly ate and Janice hung out with her friends. But that night, he could tell that Janice wasn't herself. When Gaskins pulled up to the group of teenage girls, they told him that Janice had gotten drunk and needed to sober up before she could go home. They asked Gaskins to take care of her, while the rest of them rushed back to make their curfew. Gaskins agreed, and Janice, along with her sober friend,

17-year-old Patricia Ann, climbed in his car. He then took the girls to a small house outside of town. Once inside, he suggested that Janice take a shower to sober up. But when Patricia Ann started helping Janice clean up, Gaskins attacked. He attempted to sexually assault them both, But they fought back. Patricia Ann ran from Gaskins and found a two-by-four on the ground.

She grabbed it and swung it around wildly, clipping Gaskins on the back of the head. He hit the ground hard and passed out, but a couple of minutes later, he came too. Bewildered, he stood up and looked around the room. The girls were gone. Gaskins jumped up and ran outside. He hopped in his car and raced down the high. knowing the girls couldn't have gotten far. He eventually found them staggering back toward town in the dark.

Gaskins jumped out of the car and held the girls at gunpoint. He threw them in the trunk and then took them back to his house where he again attempted to rape them. But when they nearly got away a second time, Gaskins realized he couldn't wrangle both of them at once. Instead, he decided he'd just have to kill them. First, he knocked both girls out with the butt of his pistol. Then he gathered up their belongings, dragged Patricia Ann into his trunk,

and drove down the road a bit to an abandoned home he knew well. Once he arrived, he managed to move her unconscious body to the back of the house, to the septic tank. Gaskins opened the top of the putrid tank and dropped Patricia Ann inside while she was still breathing. He watched her sink, waiting until the bubbles stopped. stopped coming up, then replaced the lid. She was his 12th victim. But he wasn't done yet.

Gaskins then drove back down to his house to deal with Janice. But when he arrived, he found that she had already died. The blow to her head from the butt of his pistol hadn't just knocked her out. It had killed her. So with the deed already done, Gaskins buried his niece behind his barn. And Patricia Ann and Janice were reported missing the very next day. Gaskins got nervous. Their friends saw the girls get into his car.

He knew it was just a matter of time before the cops were knocking at his door. Even so, Gaskins didn't put too much effort into coming up with an alibi. He hoped instead that he'd done a good enough job getting rid of the evidence that police wouldn't be suspicious. So when detective showed up at his home, Gaskins played dumb. He claimed he'd taken the girls to the drive-in restaurant to sober up, and that during that time, they confided that they hated their small town and wanted to run away. Uncle Gaskins valiantly tried to talk them out of it, but he said he was interrupted when

a car driven by some boys Janice and Patricia Ann knew pulled up. They left with the boys, and that was the last he saw of them. The story apparently satisfied the police. They were more than happy to classify the girls as runaway. and closed the case. But Gaskins' family wasn't convinced. They continued to question him about Janus for years. But nothing ever came of their doubts.

Gaskins once again had gotten lucky. And unsurprisingly, his brush with the law hadn't scared him one bit. In fact, it only made him bolder. Up next, Gaskins kills. And kills. And kills. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity,

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Watch only on Prime. Now back to the story. In November of 1970, after killing nearly a dozen victims, 37-year-old Donald Henry Gaskins' murderous streak reached a turning point. For the first time in his killing career, he took the life of someone he knew personally, his 15-year-old niece, Janice, and her friend, Patricia Ann. Though local police investigated the disappearances, they never arrested Gaskins for the crime. And as soon as they moved on to another case, just one month later, Gaskins struck again.

In December of 1970, Gaskins was fixing the roof at a local school when he spotted 13-year-old Peggy Coutino running past. Gaskins claimed he knew who Peggy was because she was the daughter of a state senator. So as she rushed by, he said, hello Peggy. According to Gaskins, he then overheard one of Peggy's friends asking her who he wants. Peggy allegedly told her friend that Gaskins was just white trash. Gaskins was furious. He hated when he thought others were looking down on him. Whether it was because of his height or his class, nothing upset him more. So while he restrained himself

in the moment, the rage simmered inside him for days until he couldn't stand it any longer. Gaskins lied to his boss to set up an alibi, telling him that he was visiting Charleston for the weekend. Then he drove to the Catino's home and waited. After some time, Peggy walked out of the house by herself, and Gaskin seized the opportunity. He grabbed the girl, held a knife to her throat, and threw her in the trunk of his car. He then drove back to his house, where he claimed he tortured her using a bottle of corrosive acid. Afterward, he dumped the body in the middle of town where it was sure to be discovered. When police found the body, they pursued a full-scale investigation. And because of his criminal

record, Gaskins was an immediate suspect. But this time, he was prepared. He'd painstakingly constructed an alibi for the occasion, accounting for every second of his imaginary visit to Charleston. And it worked. Months later, another Another man was convicted of the crime, and Gaskins walked free. When he claimed credit for Peggy's murder years afterward, investigators refused to believe him. As we mentioned earlier, Gaskins wasn't always a reliable narrator, and there's reason to suspect that Gaskins' confession to Peggy's murder years later was false. For one, the story about Peggy insulting him was remarkably similar to one of his first assaults.

In that account, he hit a young woman with a hammer for taunting him and calling him scum. For another, Gaskins didn't usually dump his victims into obvious locations. He later claimed he made a special exception for Peggy because her father was an important man. But this explanation seems suspect at best. Up until this point, Gaskins had also been relatively careful about who he killed. He was terrified of returning to jail, and so it seems unlikely that he would have considered murdering of politicians' daughter. To this day, investigators are confident that they put the right man away for Peggy's

death, despite Gaskins' confession. They believe that Gaskins most likely lied to take the credit for a higher-profile murder. However, it's worth noting that although this may be possible, Gaskins already had plenty of publicity for other murders when he claimed he killed Peggy. There wasn't a strong reason for him to lie about it, other than wanting to take credit for for as many murders as he could. Whether or not Gaskins really murdered Peggy Cotino, he certainly didn't stop after her death.

As 1971 rolled around, 38-year-old Gaskins was still getting an intense craving for violence every six weeks or so. And just like before, he was unable to hold himself back. Gaskins claimed he murdered 11 more hitchhikers that year. However, he never provided many details about these kills, And as usual, he remained uninterested in his victim's names. It's possible that Gaskins really did murder another dozen people in 1971.

But once again, there's reason to doubt his story. That year, he would have been quite busy. For one, around that time, he married his fifth wife. The woman's name isn't known, but she was three months pregnant when they married. And six months later, she gave birth to Gaskin's only son, who they named Donald Lee Gaskins. It would have been a tall order for Gaskins to disappear so often with a wife and new baby at home.

But there are other inconsistencies from his stories that cast doubt on his account. For example, in 1972, Gaskins also said he shot Eddie Brown, a man who sold stolen guns for him, along with Eddie's wife, Bertie. According to Gaskins, he killed Eddie to prevent him from snitching to police about the gun running. But there's no evidence that Eddie or Bertie ever even existed. There's a high likelihood that Gaskins later confessed to these murders, and perhaps other kills as well, simply to inflate his victim count, just as he may have done with the murder of Peggy Cotino.

Dr. Catherine Ramsland notes that there are several reasons why a serial killer might want to exaggerate their number of kills, including a twisted lust for fame. She writes, Some serial killers gave outrageously high victim counts to enhance their degree of infamy. This explanation rings true in the case of Gaskins. After all, his first murder wasn't committed out of bloodlust, but to create a violent reputation that would protect him from other inmates in prison.

He hated to be humiliated, and he found early on that fear and intimidation were his best weapons. If he could make people believe he was some kind of insatiable monster, no one would ever think of underestimating him. And so he set out to make himself the most brutal killer he could imagine, even if that meant maybe embellishing here and there. But though Gaskin certainly exaggerated and flat out lied to authorities about all kinds of things, he undeniably terrorized and killed many people. As time went on, his appetite for torture intensified,

and he began to subject his victims to more and more elaborate suffering. Sometimes as he browsed hardware stores for fun, looking over the tools hanging in the aisles, he'd dream up new sadistic fantasies. But Gaskins perpetrated one of his most disturbing acts against a 14-year-old girl named Jackie Freeman. It's possible that Jackie was a made-up victim like many of his others, but she was one of the few hitchhikers whose name he bothered to learn, making her an unusual case. Gaskins claimed to have picked up Jackie on the high-way. in the latter half of 1973. She was a young runaway who confessed to the 40-year-old Gaskins

that she'd been abused by her stepfather. Gaskins told Jackie that he'd had a similar upbringing and knew her pain. What he didn't tell her is that he planned to make her suffer even more. Instead of bringing Jackie to Myrtle Beach as promised, Gaskins drove to an abandoned house outside of Sumter, South Carolina. There, he sexually abused. the girl and claimed that he spent multiple days torturing her. He even alleged he cooked and ate small parts of her body, his only disturbing foray into cannibalism. But it didn't last long. According to Gaskins, he finally killed Jackie after eating part of her leg because she screamed

too much while he cut her. By then, Gaskins had fully embraced the devil inside himself. There was no line he wouldn't cross. And the more victims he claimed, the better he slept at night. And soon after murdering Jackie Freeman, he decided to let the world know, in bold fashion, what he was capable of. He came across a shady acquaintance who was selling a used hearse for cheap. For obvious reasons, Gaskins' friend had trouble getting anyone to buy it.

But Gaskins had no such reservations. He purchased the hearse on the spot and started driving it around town. He even made a custom sign to hang on the back, which said, we haul anything, living or dead. The vehicle made him somewhat of a local eccentric in his town. Whenever someone asked why he drove a hearse, Gaskins said, Because I kill so many people, I need a hearse to haul them to my private cemetery. The locals took it as a joke, at first. But no one could deny that people close to Gaskins seemed to disappear.

People like Doreen Dempsey and her two-year-old daughter, Robin. Gaskins had known 23-year-old Doreen for years, and in December of 1973, she came to visit Gaskins and his new wife to ask a favor. Doreen was seven months pregnant and needed a place to stay until she gave birth. His wife wanted to help, but Gaskins claimed there wasn't enough room in the house for them. Afterward, he took Doreen and her daughter for a walk in the house. the woods, away from his wife's prying eyes. He told Doreen he owned a trailer where she was welcome to stay. All she had to do was promise not to tell his wife about the arrangement,

because instead of rent, he planned to collect sexual favors from Doreen. Doreen agreed, and she and her daughter got into Gaskin's hearse, and the three of them drove out into the middle of the woods to see the trailer. What followed is too graphic to describe, but the encounter ended in the deaths of Doreen, her unborn child, and her two-year-old daughter. After he buried them in a shallow grave, Gaskins returned home with a smile on his face and climbed into bed with his wife, the stench of death still clinging to him. Gaskins later claimed that murdering Doreen and her daughter marked yet another turning point for him. At first, he killed hitchhikers to relieve the dark nods.

in the depths of his stomach. But after Doreen, that changed. He didn't just murder to quell his anxiety anymore. Now he was also doing it for sexual gratification, the sick pleasure of it all. This only made Gaskin's violent routine even easier to repeat. He no longer felt the need to justify his murders in any way. If there was any opportunity to inflict suffering on another person, he took it with relish, no matter what kind of mood he was in.

Gaskins was unabashed, pure evil. He wasn't running from his demons any longer. He'd become his own devil. When we return, Gaskins is finally arrested, but not even a maximum security prison cell can't stop him from killing. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari.

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At Gaskins reached a turning point. After allegedly claiming almost 30 victims, he finally admitted to himself that he liked the way killing felt. And when he and his wife moved back to Charleston, South Carolina, at the beginning of 1974, he was overjoyed at the prospect of terrorizing an entirely new community. It didn't take Gaskins long to find his first victims in his new town. After a local car thief refused to pay Gaskins the money he owed, Gaskins took the man into the woods and murdered him, along with his girlfriend. After the pair went missing, it was obvious to many people in the local criminal underbelly that Gaskins was the killer.

But his violent reputation was so notorious by this point that no one dared go to the police. Gaskins knew his fellow criminals were unlikely to report him, and so after years of taking great care to hide his... murders. He started getting sloppy. A few months after killing the car thief, Gaskins murdered a conman named Horace after he came on to his wife. According to Gaskins, had Horace offered him something in exchange for his wife, he would have had no qualms about making an arrangement. But because Horace had gone behind Gaskins back, he had to die. This reasoning perhaps explains why Gaskins' wife separated from him soon after Horace's death.

Though she didn't suspect Gaskins of murdering Horace, she certainly didn't enjoy her husband's habit of disappearing for days. And so, one morning while he was gone, Gaskin's wife moved out and took their son, Donald Jr., with her. Gaskins dealt with the stress of the breakup the way he always did by murdering any hitchhikers unlucky enough to flag him down on the highway. But in between these anonymous slings, that year he made plenty of time to torture

and kill people close to him as well. Gaskins described 1975 as, my busiest year and my killingest year. But this time, the 42-year-old wasn't just killing for pleasure. He was doing it for cash. At some point in 1975, an acquaintance offered him a job as a hitman. Gaskins had never considered murder for hire before,

but he was open to anything that could make him a quick buck, and the pay was good. A woman named Suzanne Kipper offered to pay Gaskins $1,000, nearly $5,000 today, to kill her former lover, an older rich man named Silas Yates. Yates had bankrolled Suzanne's

extravagant lifestyle for months. But one day, possibly because his wife discovered the affair, he kicked Suzanne out of the home he was paying for and repossessed her car. Gaskins claimed to find the story heartbreaking. So for the chance to get revenge for Suzanne, the malicious satisfaction of killing a rich man and a pile of money, he was more than willing to get rid of Yates.

After all, he was a practiced killer. He knew how to murder, how to bury a body. The only trouble would be luring Yates out of his house. To help him out with that, Gaskins recruited the ex-wife of one of his friends. He had the woman dress provocatively a knock on Yates' door, feigning car trouble. Once Yates stepped out into the driveway, Gaskins pressed a gun into his face and had him climb at the trunk of his car. Gaskins gave his friend's wife a couple hundred dollars to keep quiet.

Then he drove Yates out to an empty grave he dug out in the woods. There he slit Yates throat, then drove back to town to collect his payment. But Gaskins decided that the money alone wasn't enough. As soon as he saw Suzanne in person, he decided to accept him. restored her for sexual favors as well. For months, he sexually abused Suzanne, calling her up whenever he wanted and threatening to kill her if she didn't do what he asked. But even after Gaskins finally left Suzanne alone, the consequences of his first murder-for-hire job lingered. Though Gaskins paid his friend's ex-wife not to ask any questions, when she saw Yates' picture in the paper, she put two and two together.

And soon she let everything slip to her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was furious that his girlfriend was tricked into being an accessory to murder, not because of the crime, but because Gaskins had underpaid her. So, the boyfriend tried to blackmail him for $5,000, and if Gaskins refused, he threatened to go to the cops. It's not clear why the man or his girlfriend thought extorting a hitman was a good idea. Perhaps they believed their personal relationship with Gaskins would stop him from hurting them. They were dead wrong.

Gaskins arranged a meeting to settle the payment. The couple picked Gaskins up in their car, and he directed them down a long dirt road, where he claimed to have stashed his cash. Then, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, the couple willingly followed him to a nearby swamp. Of course, there was no money for them at the end of the road. Only an open grave dug deep enough for two. Gaskins shot them both in the back

before they had time to scream and buried them. Now that he tied up all the loose ends for his first hitman job, Gaskins was ready to get back to killing for fun. In the summer of 1975, he turned his sights toward 13-year-old Kim Galkins, his neighbor's daughter. Over the course of a few weeks, Gaskins gained Kim's trust. He invited Kim and other neighbor kids over to play at his house. He cooked them hot dogs, took them to the beach. He even had the kids call him uncle. But the entire time,

he was targeting Kim. Eventually, he found himself alone with the girl and started to sexually assault her. But when she began to cry, he backed off and pretended the predation was all just a game. Gaskins was using a technique commonly used by child predators. According to research psychologist Dr. Ian Elliott, pedophiles often begin the grooming process by attempting to build a rapport between themselves and their victim, just as Gaskins did. Then, once they've established an intimate bond with a child, predators begin their sexual abuse. Dr. Elliott writes that some offenders introduce sexual content by framing it as a sort of, This allows them to test how a victim will respond before slowly escalating the abuse.

Gaskins eventually convinced Kim that he didn't mean any harm and made her promise not to tell anyone. A couple of weeks later, the child forgave Gaskins. She even trusted her uncle enough to go with him on a secret overnight trip. She snuck out of the house without her parents knowing. When Kim showed up at his house with an overnight bag, Gaskins pinned her down. pinned her down and spent the night torturing her. The next morning, he strangled the girl and buried her near the body of his niece, Janice. When her parents discovered Kim was missing, they immediately suspected Gaskins. He told them that he hadn't seen Kim in days,

but Gaskins could tell they weren't buying a story. He figured the best thing to do was to get out of town for a while, so he drove to Florida and laid low for almost a month. Gaskins hoped the suspicions would have died down by the time he was back, but he was sorely disappointed. When he returned, Kim's father still suspected him of somehow being involved in his daughter's disappearance. And to make matters worse, Gaskins discovered that in his absence, his business partners had stolen the tools he used to strip cars. To Gaskins, it seemed as if his work would never be done.

There would always be someone who he felt needed to die. So he tracked the two thieves down with the help of his friend, Walter Neely. First, Gaskins plied the two men with beer. Then he led them out into the woods along with Walter. Though he had no idea what Gaskins was planning, Walter was used to doing whatever he asked. So the three men followed Gaskins into the dark, but only Walter came back alive.

When the deed was done, Walter was horrified. Gaskins made him help bury the bodies. and even confessed to him that these weren't the first two people he'd ever killed. Normally, Gaskins would have murdered Walter, too, but he'd known the man for years. If he could trust anyone, he could trust Walter. In October of 1975, Kim Galkin's father convinced a deputy to search Gaskins' house.

He knew Gaskins had something to do with his daughter's disappearance, and soon his worst suspicions were confirmed. The officer found some of the young girl's clothes, stuffed in Gaskins' closet. Gaskins was arrested on an unrelated charge while detectives built their case. Over the next few days, authorities began questioning his friends and associates,

and soon Walter Neely began to crack. After helping Gaskins bury the two men, Walter stayed silent. Either out of loyalty or fear, he kept what he knew from the police. But the guilt of watching Gaskins' murder two men ate him up inside. And soon, he had to talk about it with someone.

He had to confess. Desperate for an outlet, Walter turned to his minister and told the man everything he knew about Donald Henry Gaskins. And he knew a lot. After recovering from the shock of the disturbing story, the minister convinced Walter to turn himself into police to save his soul. In December of 1975, Walter led authorities to the bodies of the two thieves he'd watched Gaskins murder.

Then, because Gaskins hinted to Walter that he'd buried more bodies nearby, police did a sweep of the area. In that spot alone, they uncovered the corpses of four more victims. Before, police had struggled to pin Kim Gellkin's disappearance on Gaskins. Now they had evidence linking him to six murders.

Ultimately, they decided to try Gaskins for each crime, one at a time. They began with a trial for one of the thieves he killed while Walter Neely watched. Using strong ballistic evidence, the prosecution linked a pistol Gaskins owned to the killing shot. It was all the jury needed. On May 28, 1976, 43-year-old Gaskins was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Walter Neely, meanwhile, didn't fare any better, since he hadn't made a deal with police before leading them to the bodies, he was also sentenced to life for being an accessory to murder.

By the end of the following year, Gaskins was tried for the deaths of eight more victims and given a life sentence for each one. When he returned to prison, he was one of the most notorious killers in South Carolina's history. With infamy like that, Gaskins had the respect of every inmate in the state penitentiary. He could get away with almost anything in prison, short of escape. But what he really wanted to do was to keep killing. In 1980, 47-year-old Gaskins finally got his chance. An inmate approached him with a job.

Someone wanted a man on death row named Rudolph Tiner killed. Tiner had killed an elderly couple in a botched robbery, and their son, a man named Tony Simo, wanted him to pay for what he'd done. But due to the high level of security on death row, the hit was nearly impossible. Gaskins, however, was up for the challenge. Over the next few months, Gaskins befriended Tyner by smuggling drugs into a cell. Then, once they'd built a rapport, he tried poisoning him.

Gaskins claimed he attempted this five different times, lacing Tynar's food and drugs with whatever Tony Simo sent him. But nothing worked. Finally, Gaskins was sick of the delays. With a series of bribes, he was able to get C4, a plastic explosive, smuggled into prison. He rigged it to a walkie-talkie and sent it up to Tyner as a gift, claiming it would make it easy for Tiner to ask him for more drugs whenever he liked. Tiner believed him, and when he pressed the button to send a message to Gaskins,

he detonated the C-4. The explosion rocked the entire cell block. It took weeks for investigators to feel. figure out what had happened, but when they finally realized who was responsible, they were blown away. Donald Henry Gaskins had killed someone on death row with military-grade weaponry. But though the story was good for Gaskins' increasingly violent reputation in prison, it also gained him a formidable enemy, the prison warden. The explosion was an embarrassment and had exposed the facility's flawed security. Now,

authorities were determined not just to seek justice, but revenge. They pressed to get Gaskins the death penalty and got it. Ten years and several failed appeals later, 58-year-old Donald Henry Gaskins was executed by Electric Chair on September 6, 1991. At the time, Gaskins accepted his fate, but his impending death did nothing to humble him. Before his execution, He wrote, I have walked the same path as God. By taking lives and making others afraid of me, I become God's equal.

Through killing others, I become my own master. Gaskins believed that doing the devil's work somehow made him a God, something transcendent that extended beyond his mortality. But really, if Gaskins proved anything, it's that demons come in all shapes and sizes. Thanks again for tuning

in to serial killers. We'll be back next week with another episode. You can find more episodes of serial killers than all of the podcast originals for free on Spotify. Not only to Spotify already have all your favorite music, but now Spotify's making it easy for you to enjoy all of your

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We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler and is a Parcast Studios original. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Brian Gallup, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, and Freddie Beckley. This episode of serial killers was written by Terrell Wells with writing assistance by Abigail Cannon and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson.

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