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PEE WEE GASKINS THE SERIAL KILLER · Inside The Criminal Mind

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Inside the Criminal Mind podcast, where we analyze
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  Speaker 1: some of the most notorious criminal cases with psychology and
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  Speaker 1: criminology combined. Here's your host, doctor Carlos.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome back, folks. Today we talked about Donald pee Wee Gaskins, Junior,
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  Speaker 2: was an American serial killer and rapist from South Carolina
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  Speaker 2: who stabbed, shot, drowned, and poison more than a dozen people.
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  Speaker 2: So let's take a look a little bit of his
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  Speaker 2: background and see what we can find out. Remember, there's
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  Speaker 2: three things we're usually looking for neurological impairments, so such
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  Speaker 2: as head trauma, exposure to environmental toxins like remember Richard
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  Speaker 2: Emirez's mom was exposed to chemicals in a boot factory
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  Speaker 2: and those chemicals were known to cause neurodevelopmental issues for
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  Speaker 2: pregnant women, and the babies are the pregnant women. She
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  Speaker 2: was pregnant at the time she was working there. Neurodevelopmental
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  Speaker 2: issues could impact that prefrontal cortex, that front part of
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  Speaker 2: the brain which controls impulse, regulates emotion, controls aggression, anticipates consequences.
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  Speaker 2: The other two things we're looking for psychological abuse, and
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  Speaker 2: the final one would be psychosis of some kind. So
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  Speaker 2: let's see his early life here. Donald Gaskins was born
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  Speaker 2: in Florence County, South Carolina, the last stringing of illegitimate children.
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  Speaker 2: Though Gaskins was small for his age and immediately gained
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  Speaker 2: the nickname Pee Wee. As an adult, he was about
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  Speaker 2: five four five five and weighed about one hundred and
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  Speaker 2: thirty pounds. Gaskins's early life was characterized by a great
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  Speaker 2: deal of neglect from his mother an abuse by a
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  Speaker 2: male relative. Now I don't know what exactly the abuse was,
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  Speaker 2: but we already have something of one of our three
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  Speaker 2: criterias for serial killers. There's other criteria the factors that
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  Speaker 2: play a role here. Most of the time the serial
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  Speaker 2: killers who have been sexually or physically abused. See when
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  Speaker 2: the child is sexually a physically abused, it has different
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  Speaker 2: consequences and how they're developed and how they develop Compared
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  Speaker 2: to neglect and emotional abuse. The emotional and neglect type
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  Speaker 2: of abuse tend to create more internalizing behaviors, not all
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  Speaker 2: the time, but most of the time. Internalizing behaviors are
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  Speaker 2: depression and anxiety. The physical and sexual abuse tend to
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  Speaker 2: have more external behaviors, and it's well as internal but
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  Speaker 2: externalizing behaviors, typically things like aggression, anger, impulsivity. So let's
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  Speaker 2: continue on. His mother apparently took little interest in him
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  Speaker 2: that the first time he learned his given name, Donald
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  Speaker 2: was read out in his first court appearance. Gaskins was
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  Speaker 2: often described as a great manipulator and a con artist
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  Speaker 2: who was street smart, with a keen sense of humor
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  Speaker 2: and a friendly, entertaining personality. So this would already kind
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  Speaker 2: of give us an indication of a possible psychopath, right member,
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  Speaker 2: an anti social personality disorder is clinically defined. Is it
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  Speaker 2: really charming? They're not manipulated, They do have some sleight
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  Speaker 2: of empathy. Some might even call them a social path,
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  Speaker 2: depending on how you want to play with those words,
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  Speaker 2: because there's always debated. But a psychopath tends to have
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  Speaker 2: four qualities, and two of the qualities to make them
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  Speaker 2: separate from that clinical diagnosis of antisocial personality disorders that
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  Speaker 2: psychopaths tend to be charming, manipulative, cunning. They also tend
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  Speaker 2: to be callous and unemotional. So here we got the
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  Speaker 2: charming possibilities and manipulative possibilities of Gaskins leading and so
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  Speaker 2: are ready to possible psychopathy. When he was one year old,
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  Speaker 2: Gaskins reportedly drank a bottle of kerosene, which caused him
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  Speaker 2: to have convulsions until he was age three. In adolescens,
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  Speaker 2: Gaskins engage in a violent crime spree with a group
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  Speaker 2: of fellow delinquents, which included burglaries, assaults, and even a
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  Speaker 2: gang rape. So we can see here, conduct disorders are
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  Speaker 2: ready prevalent. Remember to get psychopathy or an antisocial personality disorder,
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  Speaker 2: you didn't need to have oppositional defiant. We don't need
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  Speaker 2: to have, but it usually starts off with app additional defiant.
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  Speaker 2: Then you'll need to have conduct disorder, and those are
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  Speaker 2: age ranged restricted. In other words, conduct disorder tends to
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  Speaker 2: happen after twelve or thirteen till about seventeen. You can't
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  Speaker 2: diagnose it after eighteen. It's it's an adolescent diagnosis eighteen
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  Speaker 2: and olders. When you get the antisocial or psychopathy in
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  Speaker 2: a non clinical sense under twelve, you're going to get
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  Speaker 2: oppositional defiant disorder anyway, as we go on, At age thirteen,
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  Speaker 2: Gastons was convicted for assaulting a young woman by hitting
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  Speaker 2: her in the head with an axe once she caught
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  Speaker 2: him breaking into her family home, so you can see
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  Speaker 2: the violence already really high at this age. He was
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  Speaker 2: sentenced to five years in a reform school where he
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  Speaker 2: was regularly raped by his fellow inmates. So now we
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  Speaker 2: have the abuse component. We don't have yet any neurological
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  Speaker 2: impairment that I've seen. The kerosene wouldn't do that. Even
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  Speaker 2: though at age three he is neurodevelopmentally still growing, his
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  Speaker 2: brain's still maturing, we still don't know how that's going
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  Speaker 2: to impact that. After escaping from the reform school, getting married,
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  Speaker 2: and voluntarily returning to complete a sentence, Gaskins was released
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  Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty one at the age of eighteen. He
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  Speaker 2: briefly worked on a tobacco plantation, so he was arrested
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  Speaker 2: in fifty three for attacking a teenage girl with a
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  Speaker 2: hammer over in an insult. He was sentenced to six
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  Speaker 2: years in prison in South Carolina. There, Gaskins earned his
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  Speaker 2: fellow inmates respect by killing the most feared man in
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  Speaker 2: the prison, Hazel Brazl, not making it up and when
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  Speaker 2: Gaston's claim was self defense. As a result, Gascons received
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  Speaker 2: an extra three years, but from that point on he
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  Speaker 2: became the aggressor instead of the victim. Obviously he developed
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  Speaker 2: a reputation. He escaped from prison in nineteen fifty five,
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  Speaker 2: so just about a year and a half into it,
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  Speaker 2: by hiding in the back of our garbage truck and
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  Speaker 2: fled to Florida. This is where I think we definitely
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  Speaker 2: have the psychopathy, very intelligent guy here where he took
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  Speaker 2: employment with a traveling carnival. He was rearrested, remanded to custody,
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  Speaker 2: and paroled in August of nineteen sixty one. Following his release,
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  Speaker 2: gascons reverted back to committing burglaries and fencing stolen property.
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  Speaker 2: Now I have done the broadcasts under my Forensic psych
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  Speaker 2: podcast show which we talk more about criminological theories, a
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  Speaker 2: whole host of different types of crimes and criminals. But
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  Speaker 2: here what we have is a life course persistent offender.
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  Speaker 2: According to Moffatt's theory, so you have two different types.
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  Speaker 2: She says, you have a life course persistent which is
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  Speaker 2: somebody who commits crime throughout their life. This is an
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  Speaker 2: individual more than likely has been abused severely as a child,
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  Speaker 2: has got psychopathy more than likely, or some other type
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  Speaker 2: of disorder that really causes a lot of issues for
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  Speaker 2: this individual. Compared to another one that's called adolescent limited,
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  Speaker 2: and the majority are adolescent limited, meaning by the time
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  Speaker 2: they get into their twenties early twenties, they either got
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  Speaker 2: a job, they get into a relationship, something happens where
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  Speaker 2: they age out of crime. So right now we're seeing
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  Speaker 2: Gaskin's already I mean, he's already what is this. He's
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  Speaker 2: about twenty eight at this point, and he's getting worse
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  Speaker 2: following his release, as prisoners told you, two years after
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  Speaker 2: his parole, he was arrested for the rape of a
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  Speaker 2: twelve year old girl on the While awaiting sentence, Gaskins
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  Speaker 2: was re arrested in Georgia and sentenced to eight years
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  Speaker 2: of imprisonment. Upon as Willie as Gaskin moves to the
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  Speaker 2: town of Sumter, Carolina. Now at this time, let's see
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  Speaker 2: he was what was he's eighteen, nineteen fifty one, so
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  Speaker 2: he was about thirty five. Gaskins would claim his first
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  Speaker 2: non prison related murder victim who was a blonde female
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  Speaker 2: hitchhiker he tortured and murdered in September eighteenth and nineteen
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  Speaker 2: sixty nine before sinking her body in a swamp. So
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  Speaker 2: we can see here's an organized killer. He targets somebody
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  Speaker 2: who's a hitchhiking, so who knows if the family's missing
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  Speaker 2: her and doesn't even know where she's at. And secondly
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  Speaker 2: he tries to hide the body and his memoirs believe
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  Speaker 2: it or not, all he claimed all I could think
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  Speaker 2: about is how I could do anything I wanted to
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  Speaker 2: her end quote. This hitchhiker was to be the first
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  Speaker 2: of many he claimed to have picked up and killed
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  Speaker 2: while driving around the coastal highways of the American South.
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  Speaker 2: By the way, if you're listening to this on my
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  Speaker 2: forensic psych podcast, you can go to Inside I had
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  Speaker 2: the Criminal Mind podcast where I do these hopefully weekly
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  Speaker 2: shows on serial killers. I've been a little busy the
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  Speaker 2: last few months, but we're gonna get back on once
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  Speaker 2: a week here. Now. Gaston's classified these victims as coastal kills,
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  Speaker 2: people both men and women, who he killed purely for
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  Speaker 2: pleasure an average approximately once every six weeks. That might
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  Speaker 2: have some significance when he went hunting to quell his
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  Speaker 2: feelings of bothersomeness, So he's really got what we call
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  Speaker 2: low frustration tolerance. He's obviously very sensitive to insults, so
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  Speaker 2: he probably had a very critical type of upbringing very
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  Speaker 2: harsh criticism. Onside from the abuse, he would claim to
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  Speaker 2: have tortured and mutilated his victims while attempting to keep
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  Speaker 2: them alive for as long as possible so he was
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  Speaker 2: sadistic he enjoyed watching them suffer. He confessed to killing
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  Speaker 2: these victims using a variety of methods including stabbing, suffocation, mutilation,
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  Speaker 2: and even claimed to have cannibalized them and that could
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  Speaker 2: be just to scare people for more hyperbole. Gaskins later
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  Speaker 2: fasted killing eighty to ninety victims, although his claims to
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  Speaker 2: have committed any coastal kills have never been corroborated. A
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  Speaker 2: lot of times these serial killers will lie about how
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  Speaker 2: many people they killed. Gaskon's claims have committed coastal kills
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  Speaker 2: every six weeks. He had contradicts his claim later in
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  Speaker 2: the book by stating he felt the overpower and need
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  Speaker 2: to seek out and commit a coastal killed by the
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  Speaker 2: tenth date of each calendar month. He also specifically named
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  Speaker 2: three further individuals whom he classified as serial murderers or
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  Speaker 2: serious murders. I'm sorry, a couple by him of Eddie
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  Speaker 2: and Birdie Brown twenty four and twenty years of age.
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  Speaker 2: He claimed to have murder in seventy two and buried
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  Speaker 2: behind the tenant house, the location Gaskins failed to precisely
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  Speaker 2: pinpoint in his autobiography a man named Horace Jones, who
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  Speaker 2: he claimed to have murdered in nineteen seventy four. There's
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  Speaker 2: no evidence to support any of the claims made by
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  Speaker 2: Gascons that he had committed any of the murders other
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  Speaker 2: than that of Hazel Brazel and the fourteen victims listed,
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  Speaker 2: So let's look at some of these victims. In nineteen
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  Speaker 2: seventy Gaston's committed the first of a series of confirmed murders,
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  Speaker 2: primarily people who mean you and kill for personal reasons.
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  Speaker 2: His first confirmed victims were his own niece, age fifteen,
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  Speaker 2: and her friend aged seventeen, both of whom he beat
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  Speaker 2: to death. He claimed he was enraged at their drug abuse,
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  Speaker 2: while others say he was a tempting to sexually assault them.
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  Speaker 2: Considering his pattern of sexual assault rape, I wouldn't be
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  Speaker 2: surprised he could have been still enrage with the drug abuse,
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  Speaker 2: but also try to sexually assault him to punish them.
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  Speaker 2: He poisoned Martha Ann Dick's age twenty either because she
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  Speaker 2: claimed Peebe was the father of runboard child because she
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  Speaker 2: was an alleged drug dealer. So he has some issue
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  Speaker 2: with drugs, more than likely as associated somewhere in his upbringing.
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  Speaker 2: At this point, he was already almost I was he
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  Speaker 2: at this point nineteen seventy one, so he was twenty.
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  Speaker 2: He was thirty eight at this point, and he's targeting
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  Speaker 2: very young women. He also drowned Doreen Dempsey, aged twenty two,
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  Speaker 2: and her two year old daughter in June of nineteen
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  Speaker 2: seventy three. Gaskins had befriended Doreen several years prior was
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  Speaker 2: angry upon hearing she had become pregnant. She had been
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  Speaker 2: living with Gaskins, his friend Johnny Sellers, and his brother Carl.
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  Speaker 2: They brought her to Gascon's home in Prospect and left
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  Speaker 2: her there to speak with Gaskins about staying with him
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  Speaker 2: for a short while while she was pregnant. In nineteen
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  Speaker 2: seventy four, Gaskins shot his friend, the criminal associate, Johnny Seller's,
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  Speaker 2: aged thirty six, So now we have a different m
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  Speaker 2: O now, all of a sudden and the back of
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  Speaker 2: the head and stabbed at death. Gaskins the girlfriend, Jesse,
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  Speaker 2: who was twenty two. After Selah's astro money he was
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  Speaker 2: owed from the sale of a stilem boat, Gaskins feared
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  Speaker 2: sellers would reveal Gaskins was also involved in an auto
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  Speaker 2: theft ring Jesse. Judy, the girlfriend, was murdered at the
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  Speaker 2: same time because she could have told police about Gaskins.
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  Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy five, Silas Yates, h forty five, was
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  Speaker 2: murdered in February by either a karate chop to his
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  Speaker 2: neck or a slit throat and a murder for higher scheme.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. The forensics sellegeed was by a knife, but
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  Speaker 2: Gaskins disputes this. Yates was at a dispute with his
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  Speaker 2: girlfriends Suzanne Owens. She and her husband John paid Gaskins
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  Speaker 2: fifteen hundred murder Yates. Thanne Neely twenty five, was separated
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  Speaker 2: from her husband, who was one of Gaskins's closest friends
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  Speaker 2: and criminal conspirator. On April tenth, nineteen seventy five, Gascons
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  Speaker 2: stabbed to death Dianne Bellamine, shot her dead boyfriend, shot
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  Speaker 2: dead her boyfriend, Avery Howard, aged thirty four. Again, Gaskins
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  Speaker 2: murdered them because he was afraid they were going to
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  Speaker 2: report him to the police. Kim Gallakin's, age thirteen, was
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  Speaker 2: stabbed to death to keep her from telling police. Gaskins
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  Speaker 2: had moved her from North Care, North Charleston without permission
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  Speaker 2: and to keep her from telling police. She was sexually
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  Speaker 2: abused by several men, including Gaskins. So you can see
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  Speaker 2: he killed almost everybody he was involved with. He didn't
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  Speaker 2: necessarily target people. His last confirmed kill was Rudolph Tyner
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  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two. This is about what he was.
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  Speaker 2: Almost fifty. Was on death row in prison for a
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  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight double murder when he was murdered by
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  Speaker 2: Gaskins on September twelve, nineteen eighty two. Tyner was appealing
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  Speaker 2: his own death penalty Gaskins the Moon's Sun Actually hold
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  Speaker 2: on for a second, I'm sorry. Tyner was appealing his
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  Speaker 2: own death sent in, such as being convicted for rob
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  Speaker 2: being a convenience store in killing stowners Bill and Myrtle
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  Speaker 2: Moon the Moon Sun. Tony Simo hired Gascons for two
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  Speaker 2: thousand to kill Tyner because, in Simo's view, the appeals
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  Speaker 2: process was taking too long. Gascons obtained plastic plastic explosives
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  Speaker 2: with a blasting clap and a long wire and oreos
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  Speaker 2: created imitation intercom speaker that Tyner put his ear to
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  Speaker 2: the test. Gaskins then detonated the makeshift bomb by plugging
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  Speaker 2: the wire into a prison cell outlet. Gaskins was arrested
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  Speaker 2: in November nineteen, nineteen seventy five, when a criminal associate
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  Speaker 2: named Walter and Neely confessed to police that he had
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  Speaker 2: acknowledge of Gaskins killing Dennis Bellamy and Johnny Knight. Neely
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  Speaker 2: confessed to police and Gaskins had confided in him to
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  Speaker 2: having killed several people who had been as missing people
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  Speaker 2: during the five years. Neely led police land to land
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  Speaker 2: near Gascon's home in prospect for police discovered the bodies
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  Speaker 2: of eight of his victims. Gaskins tried on one charge
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  Speaker 2: murder of May twenty four, nineteen sixty seventy six, found
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  Speaker 2: guilty on May twenty eight, and sentenced to death, which
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  Speaker 2: was later commuted to life in prison. As we mentioned,
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  Speaker 2: he may committed a murder in nineteen eighty two. Gaskins
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  Speaker 2: initially made several unsuccessful attempts to kill Tyner by lacing
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  Speaker 2: his food and drink with poison, but he ended up
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  Speaker 2: using the explosions the explosive I'm sorry. While on death row,
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  Speaker 2: Gasons claimed to have committed one hundred murders, including that
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  Speaker 2: of Peg Katino, the thirteen year old daughter of the
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  Speaker 2: Senator State Senator of South Carolina, but most of these
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  Speaker 2: murders have been widely disputed. Gaskins was finally electrocuted on
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  Speaker 2: the electric chair September sixth, nineteen ninety one, hours after
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  Speaker 2: he tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists. His
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  Speaker 2: last words were, I'll let my lawyers talk to me.
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  Speaker 2: I'm ready to go. Actually, I'll let my lawyers talk
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  Speaker 2: for me. Sorry, I'm ready to go. End quote. So
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  Speaker 2: you can see pee wee. Gaskins here had a lot
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  Speaker 2: of the same recipes that we've seen for other serial killers. Abuse.
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  Speaker 2: We don't get a whole lot in regards to the
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  Speaker 2: type of abuse that he's suffered, but we do know
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  Speaker 2: he did suffer that. We also have some issues with obviously, psychopathy.
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  Speaker 2: I don't see anything with psychosis. It didn't seem like that.
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  Speaker 2: He had definitely paranoid, so he had paranoia, which could
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  Speaker 2: have been Again, it doesn't seem like it's schizophrenia or anything.
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  Speaker 2: We don't see any of that coming out of there,
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  Speaker 2: but we definitely have the paranoid and justifiably so. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: most criminals are paranoid, especially if you're involved like he is.
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  Speaker 2: He's got a lot of stuff going on. He was
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  Speaker 2: supposedly sexually assaulted quite a bit when he was younger. Now,
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  Speaker 2: there are some other stories about his youth that he
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  Speaker 2: spent his time either accepting protection from other older children
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  Speaker 2: exchange for sex, or attempting to escape. Eventually he escaped
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  Speaker 2: that reform school that we talked, and when he got married.
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  Speaker 2: I forgot to mention he was married a thirteen year old,
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  Speaker 2: so he's stuck in that adolescence to stage. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know if you can consider him a Heba phile. He
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  Speaker 2: might be only attracted to adolescence, but I don't know
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  Speaker 2: about that. His stepfather did beat him, we know that,
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  Speaker 2: so physical abuse was there, so he has a lot
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  Speaker 2: of the makings. Unfortunately, that's the story of Pee Wee Gaskins.