“All I could think about is how I could do anything I wanted to her.” - Donald 'Pee Wee' Gaskins
Pee Wee Gaskins was a rapist, cannibal, and serial killer from SC. He was convicted of 8 counts of first-degree murder on May 28th, 1976 and was sentenced to death by electric chair.
His victims ranged from hitchhikers to people who considered him 'friends' and even his own sister, who wasn't immune to his sexual proclivities.
In the case of Doreen Dempsy, an 8 month pregnant woman with a 2 year old daughter, he killed her, ate her leg, and killed Robin, her 2 year old daughter. Doreen considered Gaskins a friend and had asked him for a ride only to meet her end after that brutal attack.
Donald 'Pee Wee' Gaskins mugshot .Photo byWikiMedia Commons
Gaskins called his hitchiker murders "coastal kills". He would travel South Carolina's coastal highways, pick up hitchikers, rape and kill the women, and castrate and kill the men. He would strangle, shoot, suffocate, and stab his victims, and according to Gaskins, he killed 80 or 90 people this way.
As with many of the serial killers we look at, Gaskins had a violent and terrible childhood with his mother selling him to her male friends for sexual pleasure.
According to Wiki: "Donald Henry Gaskins was born in Florence County, South Carolina, to Eulea Parrott, the last in a string of illegitimate children. Gaskins was small for his age and immediately gained the nickname "Pee Wee." As an adult, he was between 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m) and 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m) and weighed approximately 130 lb. Gaskins's early life was characterized by a great deal of neglect from his mother and abuse by a male relative. His mother apparently took so little interest in him that the first time he learned his given name—Donald—was when it was read out in his first court appearance. Gaskins was often described as a great manipulator and con artist who was "street smart", and with "a keen sense of humor and a friendly, entertaining personality." When he was one year old, Gaskins reportedly drank a bottle of kerosenewhich caused him to have convulsions until he was aged 3."
Gaskins was eventually put to death by electric chair in 1991, but only after attempting to take his own life. He swallowed a razor to smuggle into his cell, and he attempted to take his own life by slitting his wrists. He was unsuccessful, and at 1AM guards at the Broad River Correctional Facility strapped him to the electric chair.
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