Neighbors began to complain, not only about the mess on the lawn but also about the women in the house. Heidnik became furious and there were shouting matches with the neighbors. He also screamed to friends about a coming racial war that whites would win, although he himself dated only black women. His religious and sexual rants continued to fire up the neighbors. Finally, Heidnik withdrew to the basement and locked himself in there, with his arsenal, and daring one of them to come down to the basement and "tell him to his face." One neighbor decided to do this, and Gary shot him in the face. Somehow, charges were dropped, but Heidnik fled the house.
In 1977, he decided to invest the rest of his money in stocks, and his $35,000 of saved money soon grew to $500,000. Heidnik was rich enough to find a woman, and he did. She was illiterate and retarded, and they soon had a child, a boy, who was taken from them and placed into foster care. One day they decided to drive to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to pick up his girlfriend's retarded sister, who at 34 years of age had the IQ of a child three years old. They didn't return her to the hospital. After a week, however, authorities came to Heidnick's basement and found the girl chained up there. Heidnik was charged with rape, kidnapping, and unlawful restraint. He paid for this crime. During the four years he was in prison, he was hospitalized three times because of suicide attempts, each by a different method. In his third attempt, he ate a light bulb.
When he was released, in 1984, he moved to the house on North Marshall Avenue. He settled down and soon started his church once again. He hired a young, retarded black man, Cyril Brown, as his handy man. He also took a new young wife, who left the following year. On Thanksgiving Day of that year, a part-time prostitute, Josephine Rivera, left her boyfriend's home after a birthday party and somehow met up with Heidnik. She accepted his offer of $20 for an hour of fantasy...
But once he had her in his house, he choked her until she was unconscious and chained her to the bed. He kept there for days, raping her again and again. He fed her only bread and water and, sometimes, a dog biscuit.
In December, Cyril Brown brought home a young retarded friend. Heidnik soon raped her and chained her as well, feeding her only garbage and rotted leftovers. Two more retarded ladies arrived, Jacqueline Atkins and Lisa Thomas. Heidnik now had a harem, and he wanted to have as many children as possible. He also played his ladies off on one another. They were his sex slaves. If one woman did something behind his back, another woman would tell on her. Punishment was a beating or electric shock. If misbehavior was more serious, the punishment was a screwdriver drill in the ear.
Sandra Lindsley starved to death that winter, after days of hanging from the wall and chained to rafters. Heidnik and Rivera carried the body upstairs and dismembered it with a power saw. He then cooked her parts and fed them to the other victims. Sandra was immediately replaced by Debra Dudley, who was not submissive and was killed. Heidnik put her in a pit, and filled it with water; then he put a live electrical wire into the water and electrocuted her. Heidnik and Rivera then carried her body to the Pine Barrens in rural New Jersey. Two days later, Rivera escaped the dungeon and made the 911 call.
Although Heidnik was clearly mentally disturbed, he was found guilty of murder and received a death sentence. In prison, he attempted a plea of insanity. His lawyers tried to claim that he was a part of the LSD experiments of the '60s, but the jurors didn't buy it. Gary Heidnik was finally executed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 6, 1999.
Bibliography www.angelfire.com/ny/hermajestyszine/heidnik, html. April 14, 2010.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/torture-chamber-uncovered-in-philadelphia. April 14, 2010,
