pee Wee Gaskins

Good evening and welcome to forgotten killers, sorry I'm a bit late this week I had a run in with a dog and my hand got in the way lol.

so this evenings post is about a man named Pee Wee Gaskins

Pee Wee Gaskins at the time of his arrest 

So lets start at the beginning, Born Donald Henry Parrot Jr on march 13th 1933 in Florence county,south Carolina he was the last born in a string of illegitimate children. He was small for his age which earned him the nickname pee wee and he had a hard upbringing, a neglected child who at age 1 drank a bottle of kerosene which caused him seizures up until the age of three his mother barely spoke to him let alone looked after him, in fact his mother took so little interest that pee wee didn't learn his birth name of Donald until his first court appearance aged 17. Very little is known about his childhood other than the neglect and that he left school aged 11 to work on cars at a local garage. when he was a teenager he started to become a frequent visitor at the local police station for minor misdemeanours, his first court appearance was with friends who he met at the garage, a gang of boys just like him, they called themselves the terrible trio and together they committed robbery, assault and gang rape, he was sent to reform school after this arrest.

As a small teenager Gaskins was regularly raped by the other inmates, he eventually escaped and joined a travelling carnival where he met a 13 year old girl and they got married. Gaskins then turned himself over to police to finish his sentence at reform school (why? I don't know)

After his release Gaskins went to work on a tobacco plantation, he had just turned 18 and seemed to be going straight but this did not last long Gaskins was arrested again in 1953 after attacking the plantation owners daughter when she found gaskin burning down the barns although she did not know Gaskins was doing this with her fathers consent for insurance fraud, Gaskins cracked her head open with an axe, the girl survived and he was sentenced to 6 years in prison. It is unknown what happened in his first marriage but she divorced him in 1955 and Gaskins would marry again but this only lasted two weeks, it is known that Gaskins had a child but with whom is unknown.

Back inside pee wee earned the respect of the other inmates by killing the most feared man in the prison Hazel Brazell, he was given an extra 3 years but now Gaskins had turned from the victim into the aggressor. Donald escaped prison again in 1955 hiding in a garbage truck and again joined a travelling carnival, this didn't last long as Gaskin was rearrested later that year.

Now we come to the years when nothing was heard of Donald Gaskins, for the next 14 years Gaskins seemingly got on with his life until 1975 in Prospect Connecticut when a criminal associate of Gaskins went to the police claiming he witnessed him killing a young man aged 28 and a teenage boy aged 15, he had also confided in the man that he had killed many more people who had been listed as missing over the past five years. The associate of Gaskins led police to where he claimed Gaskins had buried the bodies

Gaskins owned land in Prospect and he drove a hearse with a bumper sticker saying 'I haul dead people'

it is reported that Gaskins bragged that he needed the hearse to move the bodies of people he had killed to his own private graveyard but not much notice was taken of him.

The hearse Gaskins drove

After his arrest Gaskins led police to his land in Prospect where they found the bodies of 8 of his victims (it is claimed there are many more) most of his victims were women who he would rape and murder in woodland near to him, it is also said that he ate some of his victims flesh but this is not confirmed.

Gaskins leading police to the bodies on his property

Police digging up Gaskins land to recover the bodies of 8 victims

Donald 'pee wee' Gaskins was found guilty on 8 counts of murder and sentenced to death, this was later committed to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a change in the law which angered Gaskins. In 1982 Gaskins killed again in prison, he murdered a death row inmate after he was hired by the son of the mans victims, Gaskins tried many ways to kill him including poisoning his food and drink but none of them worked until he rigged a portable radio with explosives (how he got all of this I do not know!) he told the man they could talk to each other between their cells with the radio and agreed an exact time to talk that evening, at the arranged time Gaskin detonated the explosives killing the inmate, he later said that the last thing the death row inmate heard was him laughing. Gaskins was tried again for murder and again sentenced to death, this was an historic case as it was the first time a white man had been convicted and sentenced to death for killing a black man. While he waited on death row Gaskins claimed to have killed around 110 people including the 13 year old daughter of the then state of senate senator.

Gaskins was finally executed in September 1991 by electric chair his last words were 'I'll let my lawyers talk for me, I'm ready to go'

It is not known exactly how many victims Gaskins killed but he is known as one of the worst serial killers in south Carolina history, his victims were mostly young women who came to a grisly end at the hands of Gaskins and even prison couldn't stop his murderous tendencies.

Well I hope you enjoyed this weeks instalment of Forgotten Killers, if you did please follow my blog ready for next weeks instalment.

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see you next week and keep safe.