Gary Michael Heidnik: biography of this serial killer.

A summary of the life of a killer known for kidnapping, torturing and killing women.

Gary Michael Heidnik, known as "the baby planter", was an American murderer and rapist, known for his terrible ways of abusing and killing women. was an American murderer and rapist, known for his terrible forms of mistreatment and sexual abuse of the women he abducted in the 1980s.

The following is a biography of Gary Michael Heidler a biography of Gary Michael Heidnikand how he carried out his abominable crimes.

Gary Michael Heidnik biography

The life of this sex criminal is that of a psychopath, who rather than taking pleasure in murder, preferred to revel in the suffering of his victims, feeding on their fear and anxiety. Let's take a look at his personal life, how his childhood was raw and probably influenced him to do what he did as an adult.

Childhood

Gary Michael Heidnik was born on November 22, 1943 in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Michael and Ellen Heidnik, who later had another son, Terry.the son of Michael and Ellen Heidnik, who later had another son, Terry. Gary Heidnik did not have an easy childhood. His parents divorced in 1946, when he was just three years old. Gary and his brother were in their mother's care for four years, but then moved on to their father's home, who had remarried.

It was in the parental home that Heidnik, as he later claimed, was physically and emotionally abused by his father, he was physically and emotionally abused by his father.. The cause of this was that little Gary wet the bed and his father, in order to correct the problem while taking pleasure in psychologically destroying his offspring, humiliated him by forcing him to hang the wet sheets in his bedroom window so that the neighbors would know what had happened.

School was not a good place for Heidnik either. Although she had good grades, she was not good at interacting with others, and she avoided making eye contact with her classmates, as she was teased by them. avoided making eye contact with his classmates, as he was the object of their teasing.. As a child he had suffered an accident that had deformed his head, and the children, in their cruelty, constantly reminded him of this through comparisons.

But despite his cranial deformity, his brain was intact, at least as far as cognitive abilities were concerned. His intelligence was not below average, quite the contrary. His IQ was 148, i.e., technically he was gifted..

Military life

On his father's recommendation, at the age of 14 Gary Heidnik enlisted in the Staunton enlisted in the Staunton Military Academy in the state of Virginia, where he stayed for two years and left before graduating.He left before graduating from the academy. He would later return to public education, reenlisting in a military institution, in this case the U.S. Army at the age of 17, serving his country for 13 months.

He showed good training skills, and his sergeant rated him as an excellent military student. After this military training, Heidnik would apply for different specialized positions, but was rejected from them. He then he managed to get transferred to San Antonio, Texas, where he would receive military medical training..

However, he did not stay long in the Texan state, being transferred overseas to West Germany at the 46th U.S. Army Mobile Surgical Hospital in the town of Landstuhl.

In August 1962 Heidnik began to experience serious discomfort: nausea, dizziness, blurred vision and headaches. The hospital neurologist diagnosed Gary Heidnik with gastroenteritis, but also detected symptoms of a mental disorder and prescribed trifluoperazine (antipsychotic). (antipsychotic).

In October of the same year, he would be transferred to the military hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he would receive a diagnosis: schizoid personality disorder. As a result, he was discharged from the U.S. Army with honors.

Return to the United States

After being diagnosed with suspected schizoid personality disorder and discharged from the U.S. Army, Heidnik would study at the University of Pennsylvania, although he only lasted one semester. He worked as a psychiatric nurse in the veterans' administration of a hospital in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, but was eventually but was eventually fired due to his bad behavior with patients..

From August 1962 until his arrest in March 1987, Heidnik went from psychiatric ward to psychiatric ward, because he attempted suicide as many as 13 times.. Suicidal tendencies ran in his family, since his mother Ellen, who had been diagnosed with bone Cancer and was an alcoholic, ended her life by drinking bichloride of mercury, a very toxic compound. His brother Gary also attempted suicide on several occasions.

In October 1971 Gary Heidnik joined the United Church of GodIn 1975 he opened an account for the church, where he deposited $1,500. Over time, investing in the stock market, Heidnik managed to amass a total of $500,000 for the church, and by the mid-1980s, the United Church of God would be prosperous and wealthy.

Early abuse of women

Gary Michael Heidnik met his wife through a marriage bureau, with whom he would get in touch.He would contact his future spouse through postal correspondence. Her name was Betty Disto, a Filipina citizen who had arrived in the United States in September 1985 and on October 3 of that year married Heidnik in Maryland.

But the marriage did not last long, as Betty had the traumatic experience of finding her husband with three women in bed. Throughout the brief marriage, Heidnik forced his wife to watch him sleep with other women. He took great satisfaction in hurting his wife's feelings and sexually abusing her..

Fortunately for Betty Disto, the Filipino community in Philadelphia succeeded in getting her out of such a catastrophic, draining and abusive marriage, succeeding in January 1986. But despite the bad relationship, Betty became pregnant by Heidnik, giving birth to a son, named Jesse John Disto. Heidnik discovered he was a father when his ex-wife sued him for child support.

But this would not be Gary's only child, obtained through sexual abuse. He would later have another with Gail Lincow, whom he would name Gary Jr. The child was taken to a foster home shortly after birth. He would later have a third child with another woman, in this case Anjeanette Davidson, an illiterate and intellectually disabled woman. The daughter of this relationship would be Maxine Davidson, born on March 16, 1978, and also taken into foster care.

Shortly after Maxine's birth, Heidnik was arrested for kidnapping and raping Anjeanette's sister, Alberta, who had been living in a foster home.Alberta, who had been living in an institution for the intellectually disabled in Penn Township.

First crimes

But if Gary Michael Heidnik, better known as "the baby planter," is known for anything, it is for his long life of crime, dating back to the 1970s. In 1976 Heidnik committed one of his first crimes, nothing serious compared to what would follow. He assaulted the tenant of a house he had offered to rent, shooting him in the face with a gun he did not know about.with a gun for which he did not have a license.

But it would be two years later that he would be taken to jail for the first time, though not the last. In 1978 Heidnik took the sister of his then girlfriend Anjeanette Davidson out of an institution for the intellectually disabled. Gary Michael Heidnik was not doing this as a nice gesture to his beloved. Heidnik had a predilection for women with intellectual disabilities and dark skin, preferably African American.

The sister, Alberta, was smuggled into a storage room in Heidnik's basement, and locked up there. Once the police learned of the incident, Alberta was removed and taken to the mental institution, where she was to be given a physical examination to see if she had been abused, and indeed she had been. Heidnik had raped and sodomized her, in addition to giving her gonorrhea.

It was for this reason that Heidnik was arrested and charged with kidnapping, rape, deprivation of liberty and taking advantage of a disabled person, and spent three years in mental institutions.He spent three years in state-supervised mental institutions.

He began his career as a serial rapist

In 1986, after being abandoned by his ex-wife Betty Disto, Heidnik would be arrested again and charged with assault, as well as date rape and deviant sexual behavior. But this would only be the beginning of his career as a serial killer. Between 1986 and 1987 he would commit his string of back-to-back murders and rapes..

On November 25, 1986, Heidnik kidnapped a woman named Josefina Rivera, and by January of the following year, four women had had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Gary Michael Heidnik. He kept them in a pit in his basement in North Philadelphia. All the abducted women were black, and they were raped, beaten and tortured..

It is not known if he did it because he wanted to enjoy the experience of taking someone's life or because of simple carelessness, like someone who forgets to water the plants, or if it was really a mistake, but one of the women, Sandra Lindsay, died as a result of starvation, torture, and not having received treatment for the severe fevers she suffered during her detention.

Heidnik opted to dismember the corpse, but had problems with the arms and legs, so he put them in the freezer, storing them under the label "dog food". He baked the ribs, and boiled Sandra Lindsay's head in a pot like boiling potatoes. like boiling potatoes. Neighbors complained of the foul odor, and called the police, having no suspicion of the atrocities being committed in the house.

However, on going to Heidnik's home, far from exploring the house and trying to find out where the smell was coming from, the policemen settled for Heidnik's explanation, "I was making a roast, I fell asleep and it burned."

It is believed that Heidnik took the meat out of Lindsay and mixed it with dog food, then gave it to the other girls. However, Heidnik's defense attorney, Chuck Peruto, during the trials that would be held some time later, said that no evidence was found for these claims.

Heidnik had a predilection for electroshocks. At one point during the abduction, he forced three of his prey to stand together in a pit, chained and with wires around their bodies. Heidnik ordered Josefina Rivera and another woman to fill the hole with water, forcing Rivera to apply electricity to the chains of the woman who was in it..

The girl, who had been abducted a week after Lisa Thomas on January 2, 1987, would eventually pass away, and Gary Michael Heidnik placed Dudley's body in the Pine Barrens in the state of New Jersey.

Neglect and Arrest

On January 18, 1987, Heidnik abducted Jacqueline Askins to replace the recently deceased Deborah, the youngest of his total of six victims, at just 18 years old. When Askins was interviewed in 2018, marking the 30th anniversary of her abduction, she indicated that Heidnik would gag his victims with duct tape and penetrate their ears with a screwdriver.

On March 23, 1987, Heidnik and his forced accomplice, Rivera, kidnapped Agnes Adams. The next day, Rivera managed to convince her kidnapper to let her go temporarily to see her family. Surprisingly, Heidnik believed her and "released" her, but Rivera was no fool. In fact, she had long been playing tricks on her kidnapper in order to manipulate him into releasing both herself and her family. herself and her other cellmates to free herself and her fellow prisoners..

Heidnik took her to a gas station and waited for her there. She walked away and managed to call 911. The police, hearing that the woman had to be chained up because of the metallic ringing through the phone, went to the gas station and arrested Heidnik. They then went to his house, discovering the tremendous scene: three women in the basement, one released on the street and two corpses, one in the refrigerator and one buried.

Heidnik's best friend, Cyril "Tony" Brown was also arrested.Brown was released after posting $50,000 bail and testifying against Heidnik. Brown confessed to witnessing Sandra Lindsay's death and how Heidnik dismembered her. Shortly after his arrest, Gary Michael Heidnik tried to end his life by hanging himself in his cell, unsuccessfully.

The Trials

Gary Michael Heidnik tried to make the jury believe that the women in his basement were already there when he moved into that house. when he moved into that house. During the trial, Heidnik was defended by Charles Peruto, who tried to prove that his client was legally insane, not aware of what he was doing.

This defense thesis was demolished by the prosecution, led by Charles F. Gallagher III. Among the evidence for this was the fact that, while in the United Church of God, he amassed a total of $550,000 in the bank through gambling, something that an insane person would hardly achieve.

Also used as a witness was his tax advisor, Robert Kirkpatrick, who had previously advised him on financial matters. Kirkpatrick claimed that his former client was astute, aware of his financial decisions..

As a result of all this, Gary Michael Heidnik was sentenced to two first-degree murder convictions on July 1, 1988, and sentenced to death.He was incarcerated at the Pittsburgh State Correctional Facility. In January of the following year he attempted suicide with an overdose of thorazine (chlorpromazine), without success.

Gary Michael Heidnik was executed on July 6, 1999 at the Rockview Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania. His body was cremated. Heidnik was the last person to be executed in the state of Pennsylvania..

Psychological profile of this criminal

Although he was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder in his youth, as time went on the possibility that Gary Michael Heidnik had faked his symptoms in order to be compensated for them, and thus earn money without working, began to be considered.and thus earn money without working.

However, and given the twisted nature of his crimes, it is difficult to think that he did not have a mental disorder that made him behave in such an inhumane way with his victims. Despite having had depressions, several suicide attempts, tics and manias, the psychologists and psychiatrists who interviewed him during his trial could not relate these symptoms to his twisted mind and ability to inflict harm on others.