Murder, Mystery & Makeup - The Awful Gary Heidnik - Church Cult & Cellar Girls

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

Hi Friends! Hope you are having a wonderful day so far. Today I wanted to talk about Gary Michael Heidnik who was a real piece of crap, thats the nice way of putting it. The outcome of this story is surprising and makes me cry, every time. Please be safe out there, I love and appreciate you guys so much!  xo Bailey Sarian 

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I'm out of breath. That's my theme song for today. If you are new here, every Monday I sit down, I talk about a true crime story or true crime case. I don't know why I say story, because it's not a story, it's a case. It's like a real thing that's been heavy on my noggin. And I do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime and you like

makeup, I would definitely suggest you hit that subscribe button. Warning, the following presentation is intended for mature audiences. It contains graphic descriptions of crime scenes, adult dialogue, and strong language. Viewer discretion is advised. A lot of the times you guys ask me, Bailey, Bailey, Bailey, Bailey, Bailey, are there any cases that really bother you? This story, but this one is just, ah. Today I am going to talk about Gary Heidnik.

Are you familiar with this piece of crap? Anyways, I will shut up and just let's get into it, okay? So Gary Heidnik, he was born in November of 1943. He was the oldest of two children raised by Michael and Ellen Heidnik, his parents. But the kids weren't raised in the home with both of their parents. Michael and Ellen divorced

by the time Gary was only three years old. Gary and his younger brother were raised by his mother Ellen was only three years old. Gary and his younger brother were raised by his mother, Ellen, for about four years, and then their father, Michael, for about seven years. And then Gary was sent to a military academy for about two years. It was just a hard upbringing. I mean, kind of going back and forth between homes.

Gary claimed that he suffered a lot of emotional abuse by his father, specifically due to his bedwetting. Whatever reason, Gary continued to wet the bed for years and years after moving in with his father. And according to Gary, it would send his father into just, he was beyond livid. He was so enraged, so pissed at Gary for wetting his sheets that he would force Gary to take his sheets that he wet

and he would hang them outside for all of the neighbors to see. So it was like a form of punishment, but also supposed to be like embarrassing to Gary. So I guess he would stop wetting the bed. According to Gary's father, he's no longer alive, but when he was alive, Gary's father heavily denied any type of abuse going on.

So then Gary was sent to military school, which was probably somewhat nice compared to his home life because of how like toxic it was. And in military school, they tested Gary's IQ, which was between 130 and 148. So he was pretty smart little cookie. And then in the army, Gary's drill sergeant rated him as excellent.

And he was very successful at his training. He was then trained successfully as a medic in Texas and was transferred to Germany where he served at the 46th Army Surgical Hospital. Everything seemed to be going really well for Gary, like doing really well since going to military school and in the army. And then things just started to go downhill for Gary.

He began to feel really unwell. Gary would call in sick to work, complaining of nausea, headaches, blurred vision, and dizziness. Not much is known about Gary's mental state at this time, but by the time he saw a doctor, he was thought to have a full blown mental illness and was prescribed antipsychotic drugs.

It's a little unclear as to like how it went from feeling nauseous and dizzy to a serious mental illness, but there's really not much I could find about it. It was just kind of like, oh yeah, he's dizzy, nauseous. And then it was like mental illness. I don't know. I was confused on that part, but it is what it is. So once Gary was prescribed

these antipsychotic prescriptions, I should say, he was then discharged from the military with a full disability pension. And then shortly after his honorable discharge, Gary went on to become a licensed practical nurse. And he even worked at a VA psych hospital for a time before being fired and he got fired because he had rude behavior towards his patients. He was snapping and he just he wasn't doing a good

job. So from 1962 to around 1987 Gary spent majority of his time in and out of psychiatric hospitals but this time he wasn't working, he was actually a patient himself. He was prone to extreme bouts of depression with multiple suicide attempts. And it seemed like depression had run in the Heidnik family. His mother, his brother, I think his father all had struggled with depression

and all tried to commit suicide at some point, which is just awful. In 1970, Gary's mother, she ended up committing suicide by drinking mercuric chloride. I'm laughing because once again, I can't pronounce words. We know this, right? We know this by now. I have a speech impediment, okay?

And my mouth doesn't move in certain ways. It's very frustrating. But yes, she made this poison mixture. She went down into like the basement. She drank it and then she died. Things that I read said that Ellen, the mother, she was in an abusive relationship and she wanted out. And she felt like the only way she could get out was if she killed herself, sadly.

So she drank this poison and ended it. Unclear if Gary was really close with her at this point, but at the end of the day, it's still your family. So I'm sure it still is hard. So then later on, Gary went on to marry and have children with several women. However, the relationships were far from normal. The first marriage was to a woman named Betty. Some reports say she was a mail order bride.

She came from the Philippines. How they met, not really sure, but they were like writing letters back and forth. She really knew nothing about him. She came to the US from the Philippines. They got married. Sadly, she entered into this very abusive relationship from Gary.

He would force Betty to watch as he had sex with other women and he repeatedly would rape and assault her numerous times until she was able to escape and she fleed back home to her country. At that time when she fleed back home, she was pregnant with this child and this really upset him. So then Gary had another child with a woman named Anjanette

and she was mentally disabled. She had an IQ of only 48. So she was mentally disabled and he took advantage of her. He got her pregnant and the child was immediately taken away. They found that she was too unfit to take care of the child. So Anjanette was more than just like a sexual conquest for Gary. She was his official transition into the crimes that would be coming. He liked the idea of how he could control her because she couldn't think for herself, poor thing. So Anjanette, Gary's girlfriend at the time, had a sister. And she was staying in a mental

hospital or institution. And in 1978, he signed his girlfriend's sister out of the mental institution where she was living. She was brought back to the home where Gary and Anjanette were living. Now,

Gary decided to just keep her here, the sister, for 10 days, and he repeatedly raped, sodomized, and tortured her. Now, Anjanette didn't do anything because, again, she was mentally ill. She wasn't fully aware what was happening or even how to approach the situation, and her sister was the same way.

Police went looking for the sister because she was signed out of this mental institution. It was like a day pass. So you could take her for a couple of hours, you know, normal ass people would go out for lunch or something. And he had her for 10 days. So the police were called, police went looking for her. Gary was the one that signed her out.

So of course they went to his house and when police finally found her, she was covered in blood and she was just completely terrified and she was hiding in the basement. Gary was charged with kidnapping, rape, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse

and interfering with the custody of a committed person. Now, when I read that, I was like, oh shit, yeah, he would be locked up forever, right? Cause that's a long list of like some F-ed up shiznits. Nay nay, of course not. Gary's original sentence was overturned on appeal and Gary spent only three years of his incarceration in mental institutions.

So there's that. So then in 1971 gary was out right and he moved he moved to philadelphia and while in philadelphia gary was like you know what i gotta like do something right he really liked controlling people he was like i'm kind of good at it i should like stick with that so in 1971 1971, Gary started the United Church of the Ministers of God. I have to add a side note because I guess, cause I was kind of like looking up United Church of the Ministers of God, which is quite a name,

but I guess it's like an actual, it's an actual church, right? This is a legit church where people do great things for one another. It has great community, whatever. Now, Gary took this name and kind of created his own church. So if you see a church and it's called United Church of the Ministers of God, it has nothing to do with Gary.

He considered it to be a church. And at first he had about five followers and a $1,500 investment. Who he got the investment from? No idea. I have no idea. But he got it. Things grew pretty quickly for Gary. Gary ended up raising about almost $500,000 for his church slash cult.

I'm going to call it what it is. I'm not saying churches are cults. But what Gary was doing was essentially a cult. So he raised up about $500,000 from people donating their money. And at this time, he seemed to really master and learn how to manipulate people. So according to Gary's neighbors,

the members of this cult slash church, they showed up every sunday for service inside of gary's home and this is a quote from the action the the neighbor in an interview they went on to say that everybody who attended this church they were usually mentally ill really sad okay so gary did keep this church slash cult thing going for until he gets arrested, but he still like wasn't fully satisfied. He wanted those sexual partners, but non-consenting partners.

He wanted that again. He wanted new sex victims, but this time he wanted, you know, to not get caught. So Gary went out and in the the area where he lived there were a lot of sex workers and he comes across this woman named josefina rivera and she was 25 at the time she was heavily addicted to drugs she was working as a sex worker for quite some time she had children as well but they were taken into foster care, I believe, because of her drug abuse, sadly.

These are things that she says. He lures her into his car by the promise of money in exchange for sex. So while Josefina was getting redressed after doing whatever they did, sex, I'm assuming, Gary came up and choked her until she passed out. He then takes her back to his home, dragged her down to his basement,

shackled her limbs together with chains. He sealed the bolts with super glue so she couldn't escape. Now at this time, you know, of course, naturally, like any of us would, Josefina was like screaming, just being very, very loud, hoping somebody hears her. But this obviously pisses Gary off. So then he just like beats her with a stick until she stops screaming for help.

Now, Gary had built this thing in his basement or like dug it up. It was called like a pit, a big hole in the ground. And his thought process was he was gonna put people in these things and then like board them up in these pits. So he had built this pit already and he put Josefina into the pit or a pit cause he had multiple, boarded it up

and sealed her in there. So Josefina was locked up there for about three days. And then Gary shows up with another woman named Sandra and she was 24. It was obvious to Josefina that she, Sandra, was mentally disabled. Josefina asked Sandra, like, how did you get here? How did he get you?

Sandra said that she was on a walk to the local store. Like she wasn't even that far from her home when Gary had offered her a ride. And then he knocked her out and took her back to his home. So same thing, Gary took Sandra and he chained her in the same fashion as Josefina. And then disgustingly, he would force the other women to watch as he raped each other.

How awful. How awful. This is a lot of our fears. Like on New Year's Day in 1987, Debra was brought into the basement. Now later it would be said that Deborah was more feisty, like she was confrontational, wasn't afraid to stand up to Gary and like spit in his face and stuff like he deserved. And she would yell at Gary. She needed tampons. She needed a shower. But she wasn't afraid of Gary and she was very confrontational. This forced Gary to make some changes.

So he ended up purchasing a portable toilet for the women because they didn't have one. He also finally gave the women tampons because they didn't have any. Since being in there, none of the girls had taken a bath. So he allowed them now to bathe. Josefina, she would later say that Gary was very unpredictable and you never

knew what to expect when he came down the stairs. One day after Gary realized that the girls could hear him coming and going out the front door he didn't like that because he knew like as soon as if they knew that he left they would be really loud and they would try to escape so gary decided to this part is horrifying but he well all of it is shut up bailey he shoved screwdrivers into their ears and punctured their eardrums so they couldn't hear him anymore so to the girls disobeying gary was very dangerous um and they quickly learned that. If you spoke back, he would beat them, he would rape them. He was just awful, he was disgusting.

And they knew like to follow the rules or you're gonna pay the price. Gary would put them on punishment if they decided to disobey him, which meant that they would be starved, beaten and tortured. So January 18th, 1987, there was one more victim that was now added to the mix that Gary somehow got. Her name was Jacqueline and she was 18 years old.

And it seemed like at this point, Gary was a little content with the amount of girls he had in the basement, but then Sandra somehow disobeyed him I'm not sure what she did but she disobeyed him as punishment he then put Sandra into the pit which was like this hole in the ground right and he boarded her up while Gary was like upstairs doing whatever she tried to crawl out of the pit that Gary had dug. So since Sandra was disobeying him, he then took Sandra and he got her by her wrist

and hung her from like a beam that was across the wall with handcuffs. And he then starved her for days as part of her punishment. Sandra was bound by her wrist like hanging from this beam but she was standing if that makes sense like her feet were still barely on the ground when she was hanging and she was left like this for a week. All the other ladies in that basement were also bound and like chained and stuff so they couldn't help her or like help her get down at all. Finally, Gary went downstairs to take her off punishment, I guess, he then was going to give her food

and finally unchain her. So he takes her down from this beam and sadly she just like fell to the floor. She was dead. Once Gary realized that Sandra was dead, he knew he couldn't just dump a body, like he would get caught. So he brought Sandra's body upstairs

and he decided that he needed to dismember her body. I'm not clear as far as which girls it was from downstairs, but he brought them upstairs to help him dismember Sandra's body. And he convinced the girls that if the police came, saw that Sandra was dead, that the girls would be in trouble too, because they were an accomplice to Gary's crime.

They followed what Gary had said and they helped dismember Sandra's body. Gary used like a power saw, dismembered her like awful. He then took Sandra, her dismembered body now, and he cooked her ribs in the oven, and then he boiled her head on the stove. Now at this point, neighbors had complained that there was a funky smell coming from his place.

They ended up calling police. Police go by to Gary's house. Now I'm not sure if they smelled anything or what, because police just go by the house. They ask Gary like, hey, what's going on? Your neighbors are complaining that there's a funky smell. And Gary says, oh, I just, I accidentally burnt a roast. And the police are just like, okay, well, you know,

just keep down the smell. And then they leave. So I'm not sure like, okay, well, you know, just keep down the smell and then they leave. So I'm not sure like, how did they not smell it? I mean, according to every single documentary, watcher, true crime, whatever, they always say the smell of a dead body is like so distinct and so strong. I don't know.

I guess I'm just expecting too much, but it's just frustrating because they were so close. So once he convinces the police that he's just burning a roast, Gary then goes back to his cooking. He then grounds Sandra's body, all the meat up, and he fed pieces of Sandra to his dog. He then mixes some of Sandra's body up with dog food.

He mixes it together, and then he fed it to all of his captives that are down in the cellar. So one of the other captives, Debra, she was punished, and I guess he would do this with the other girls as well, and he would electrocute them, and he would create in the pit that he dug up he would put water in the pit and then he would have the girls like sit in the water and he would electrocute them so he would put like some kind of wire in the water

and it would electrocute them so deborah't following the rules. He puts her into the pit of water and then he electrocutes her. Sadly, Deborah died. So when Deborah died, instead of dismembering her like he did previously, he ended up just taking her body and dumping it somewhere in, somewhere not that far away, but he, yeah. This compelled Gary to abduct another victim

and her name was Agnes. And Gary was familiar with Agnes already because she was a sex worker that he had hired before. So he picked up this new victim and same thing, he brought her down there, chained her. Now, remember how I said Gary had ran that church? I guess the church thing was still going on, right? And it was going on up in Gary's home.

They were down pretty far in his basement. When these people would come over for their Sunday service, they didn't hear anything. And it's unclear if any of the people who were attending the Sunday service, if any of them were in on it as well, they're not sure about that. But a lot of them were mentally ill themselves, so it's hard to say. Gary had expressed to his victims that he wanted kids and that his goal was to get 10 girls down into his cellar, but he also wanted to get them all pregnant,

and he wanted to have what he called a baby farm in his cellar. But at this point, one of Gary's victims started to figure him out. Like Gary, she was clever, she was a quick judge of character, and she was just motivated by her goal to get the F out of there and based on Gary's behavior patterns, Josefina began to realize that Gary had a desire for true connection and he was just like he was just lonely. He seemed to like really want children and he just kind of wanted like a sense of family, this is what josefina the victim is noticing so josefina had like a new goal okay she's stuck down here she figured he's obviously not just gonna like let us go like she's she's realized that no matter how

much she cries screams there he's not just gonna let anybody go. So she needed a new plan. And Josefina set out to befriend Gary and she needed to convince him that she was on his side. So she just did as he wished. She professed her understanding whenever she had a chance. Eventually, Gary allowed her to go upstairs and cook for him and watch movies together and she was on his side, like that was her goal. So then Gary made Josephina, Fina the boss of the other women, and it was Gary's way of telling Josephina

that she was gonna be the boss of the other women. And then she was like, I'm gonna be the boss of the other women. And then she was like, I'm gonna be the boss of the other women. And then she was like, I'm gonna be the boss of the other women. And then she was like,

I'm gonna be the boss of the other women. And then she was like, I'm gonna be the boss of the other women. So then Gary made Josefina, Fina the boss of the other women and it was Gary's way of pitting the women against one another. If Josefina did what he said, he would bring her hot chocolate, hot dogs, and he would let her sleep outside of the hole, the dug up area.

Gary then decided to use Josefina to lure in new victims. It's unclear if she was successful at doing that or not, but he and Josefina did say that that's what she was doing. Like she was helping him essentially. So could have Josefina escaped during those times when Gary had allowed her up the stairs? Probably, maybe yes, but that's not what she did because her goal wasn't to save herself,

it was to save all of the women that were trapped in that house. And Josefina knew that if she escaped and Gary was there, he would immediately kill the other women because most likely she was gonna go tell somebody and they were gonna come in the house and he needed to get rid of all these ladies and she just felt like she Couldn't take that risk. So that's why she just kind of went along with it So after some time Josephina convinced Gary to take her to her family's house To say goodbye because she was now gonna be staying with Gary forever, have their baby farm, whatever, right?

This is what she convinced Gary of. Gary agrees to take Josefina back into the city to let her say goodbye to her family. And Gary then decides to park at a gas station that was several blocks from her home. She told him not to pull up in front of the home in case family members identified the car and like called the cops.

That's what she told him. So she's like, park here, and then I'll just walk quickly over there, say goodbye, and then I'll come back. Gary told Josefina that she had 15 minutes or he was gonna do something. So Josefina gets out of the car and she walked calmly. She's just like, I'll be right back, playing it calm.

And then she walks like around this corner. And as soon as she was out of Gary's sight, she ran to the nearest phone booth and called 911. Luckily a squad car was nearby and she was able to convince the officers that if they allowed Gary to go home, the other girls would most likely die. On March 24th, 1987, Gary was arrested in his vehicle

at the gas station where he sat waiting for Josefina. Some say he went home and then he was arrested, and then some reports say he was at the gas station and was arrested. So not fully clear on that, but he was arrested. Police then went into Gary's home and a lot of them were just sick because the smell, the house was disgusting,

but they went down to the basement and they were able to save Lisa, who was 19, Jacqueline, who was 18, Agnes, who was 24, and at that point, they had been in four months of imprisonment and torture. These women were finally free. Thank God Josefina, oh, thank God for her. So Gary was arrested, and he was attempting to get off on an insanity defense, but he was convicted in July of 1988 and he was sentenced to death. He tried to kill himself the following January

and his family tried to get him off of death row in 1997, but that, it just didn't work out for him. And then on July 6th, 1999, Gary was executed by lethal injection. As for Gary's cult slash church, it's hard to say how much they knew or if they knew anything at all. I couldn't imagine that they didn't know.

As far as the victims go, Josefina has been the most vocal and open about her experience throughout the trial and for years afterwards, Josefina was painted by the press as Gary's actual accomplice, which was infuriating. A lot of people and the media believed that Josefina was indeed like helping Gary,

was his partner, that she should be in prison. When I read that, I was like, what? And the way the media had played it, they made it seem like she was indeed helping him out. But Josefina stood by the fact that, no, I did what I had to do so I could get out of there. I hate people. This poor woman had just been held captive

and raped and tortured. She finally is free and people are like, oh no, you're actually the bad guy. Could you imagine? So a lot of people were just against her and did not believe that she was an actual victim. Oh my God. She ended up having to give up her two youngest children

for adoption when she came out of the cellar because she wasn't capable of caring for them. Afterwards, when she was free, sadly she picked up her drug habit again for a number of years to cope with the ongoing trauma. And then finally in 2010, she says that she found the right therapy. She was sober, she was clean,

she was reunited with her children. The latest article I found was in 2013, and she was a grandmother of six. She said she had found peace. She married her long-term partner. Josefina did write a book about her ordeal. She says she has been clean for a number of years. She does say that she struggles with nightmares and it's a constant struggle to deal with. Again this was back in 2013. She said she was living by the the beach with her partner and she said since living by the sea she felt at peace, she felt safe, and she felt free. This story makes me tear up. Don't cry, don't cry. Josephine is just so strong. Well, all of them. It's sad when these victims are set free. There's no like, there's nothing to set them up

with like therapy and like help. They just set them free. Okay, you're good to go. And then they're supposed to just go into normal life. Like nothing happened. Like, can we get some help for these victims? Sadly, two of the women, their lives were lost by this awful man. And, oh, it's the women, their lives were lost by this awful man.

And just like, I would love to know your guys' thoughts down below. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with me today. And please, please, please be safe out there. I hope that you guys have a really good day today. Please make good choices. Please be safe out there. I love and appreciate you all so, so, so much.

And I will be seeing you guys later. Bye.