Killer Profile - Gary "The Basement Killer" Heidnik

Killer Profile - Gary Heidnik "The Basement Killer" - 720p

Beginning in November 1986, Heidnik abducted six women and held them in the basement of his house in Philadelphia that he shared with his longtime friend David Stec.

The captives were sexually abused, beaten, and tortured in front of each other. One of the women died of a combination of starvation, excess torture, and an untreated fever. Heidnik dismembered her body, ground it in a food processor and mixed it with dog food, which he then fed to the surviving victims.

He had a problem dealing with the arms and legs, so he put them in a freezer and marked them "dog food". He cooked her ribs in an oven and boiled her head in a pot on the stove.

He used electric shock as a form of torture; one victim was electrocuted when she was bound in chains, thrown into a hole that had been dug in the floor (usually reserved as a form of isolation punishment).

Heidnik ordered Josefina Rivera "Nicole" to start filling the hole with water and then forced her to apply the electrical current from the house to the other woman's chains. Heidnik would torture and sexually abuse the women individually or in groups.

He dug a four-foot-deep pit that he would throw the women in at night. The pit would then be covered with plywood and heavy weights. The victims were also encouraged to inform on each other in return for better conditions.

Arrest and trial

Josefina Rivera escaped on March 24, 1987. She had convinced Heidnik to let her go out, promising to bring back another captive for him, but instead she went straight to the authorities who secured a search warrant. Heidnik was arrested. At his arraignment, Heidnik claimed that the women were already in the house when he moved in.

Intelligently, he took his Army disability check and invested the money very carefully. In an account he set up with $1500 dollars in the name of “United Church of the Ministers of God,” to avoid taxes.

At the time of his final arrest he had over $550,000 dollars in his bank and brokerage accounts, a point that would be used at his trial to disprove that he was insane. Testimony from his Merrill Lynch financial advisor, Robert Kirkpatrick, was used to prove competence. Robert Kirkpatrick: "an astute investor who knew exactly what he was doing."

During his trial, Heidnik repeatedly denied all allegations of mistreatment of his captives, and claimed that Sandra Lindsay was killed by the other captives for being a lesbian. Before his execution, Heidnik reportedly claimed that he wanted to be executed because the execution of an innocent man would stop the death penalty in America.

Convicted of two counts of murder in 1988, Heidnik was sentenced to death and incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh. In January 1999, he attempted suicide with an overdose of prescribed thorazine. Heidnik was executed by lethal injection on July 6, 1999.

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