Donald 'Pee Wee' Gaskins Jr.
Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins (aka Donald Henry Parrott Jr.) was an American serial killer born in Florence County, SC, in 1933. He was one of several c children born to an unwed mother, and as a child he was regularly beaten by a male relative. By the time he became a teenager he had already racked up a long history of violence and crime (including at least one gang rape), and at age 13 he was sentenced to five years in reform school for assaulting a girl with an ax when she caught him burglarizing her home. Because of his diminutive size, he was regularly raped by fellow inmates.
He escaped from the reform school and remained free for a short time, even managing to get married, but eventually returned to finish his sentence. He was released in 1951 and managed to stay out of trouble for two years, but in 1953 he was arrested for assaulting a young girl with a hammer after she allegedly insulted him. Now an adult, he was sentenced to six years in the state penitentiary. There he incurred the wrath of the prison's most feared inmate, a thug and killer named Hazel Brazell. In what Gaskins claimed was an act of self-defense, he killed Brazell, earning himself an extra three-year sentence for manslaughter. He escaped the prison in 1955 and fled to Florida, but was eventually caught and sent back to prison in South Carolina. He was paroled in 1961.
In 1963 he was arrested for and convicted of the rape of a 12-year-old girl but fled the state before he was sentenced. He was arrested in Georgia and served eight years for the conviction, being paroled in 1968. He then moved to Sumter, SC, where he "settled down" and got a job with a roofing company.
He began committing murders in late 1969, his first victim being a young blonde female hitchhiker, who he killed after extensively torturing her and sinking her body in a swamp. He claimed to have traveled around the South picking up hitchhikers and murdering them every six weeks or so, for a total of "between 80 and 90", most of whom he tortured and mutilated before killing them. He also claimed to have cannibalized some of them. However, most of the murders he claimed to have committed during this time have, for a variety of reasons, never been confirmed.
In 1970, he switched his methodology and, instead of strangers, began killing people he actually knew, one of them being his own 15-year-old niece, along with her 17-year-old girlfriend (though he later denied it, authorities suspected he killed them by beating them to death while attempting to rape them). The next year he poisoned a 20-year-old girl he claimed was a drug dealer who supplied drugs to his now-dead niece and her friend. In 1973 he discovered that a female friend of his had become pregnant by a black man; infuriated, he took the woman and her two-year-old daughter to a pond in the back of his house and drowned both of them. He later shot to death a friend of his and his girlfriend because he feared they would tell police about a stolen-car ring Gaskins was involved in.
In 1975 he committed his first murder for hire, being paid by a couple to kill a man with whom they had a business dispute. Later that year he killed a friend of his and his wife because the wife had threatened to report him to the police for letting underage teenagers use his house to have sex. He killed the husband because the man asked to borrow money for attorneys regarding a fraud case he had been arrested for, and Gaskins was afraid the man would tell police what he knew about Gaskin's criminal activities in order to cut a deal. He later stabbed to death a 13-year-old girl he had brought from North Carolina to use as a sex slave for him and several friends. He later killed a pair of half-brothers who demanded to be paid for several guns they had stolen for him.
His murder sprees ended in late 1975 when a criminal associate of his, in order to cut a deal for his own crimes, told police about Gaskins' activities. He brought authorities to a plot of land near Gaskins' house,, where he said Gaskins had burned some of his victims. The police dug up the land and found the remains of eight bodies.
Gaskins was arrested, charged with several murders, and incarcerated in state prison while awaiting trial. While there, he managed to commit another murder: an inmate named Rudolph Tyner, who was on Death Row after being convicted of murdering a store owner and his wife during a robbery. Gaskins was hired by the couple's son, who thought the state was taking too long to execute Tyner. Gaskins managed to build a phony intercom speaker packed with explosives and got it into the man's cell; when he pressed a button to "test" it, it blew up and killed him. Gaskins was later tried for that murder and sentenced to death (it was the first time in South Carolina history that a white man was sentenced to death for killing a black man).
Gaskins was executed in the electric chair on 9/6/91 at 1:10 a.m.
He escaped from the reform school and remained free for a short time, even managing to get married, but eventually returned to finish his sentence. He was released in 1951 and managed to stay out of trouble for two years, but in 1953 he was arrested for assaulting a young girl with a hammer after she allegedly insulted him. Now an adult, he was sentenced to six years in the state penitentiary. There he incurred the wrath of the prison's most feared inmate, a thug and killer named Hazel Brazell. In what Gaskins claimed was an act of self-defense, he killed Brazell, earning himself an extra three-year sentence for manslaughter. He escaped the prison in 1955 and fled to Florida, but was eventually caught and sent back to prison in South Carolina. He was paroled in 1961.
In 1963 he was arrested for and convicted of the rape of a 12-year-old girl but fled the state before he was sentenced. He was arrested in Georgia and served eight years for the conviction, being paroled in 1968. He then moved to Sumter, SC, where he "settled down" and got a job with a roofing company.
He began committing murders in late 1969, his first victim being a young blonde female hitchhiker, who he killed after extensively torturing her and sinking her body in a swamp. He claimed to have traveled around the South picking up hitchhikers and murdering them every six weeks or so, for a total of "between 80 and 90", most of whom he tortured and mutilated before killing them. He also claimed to have cannibalized some of them. However, most of the murders he claimed to have committed during this time have, for a variety of reasons, never been confirmed.
In 1970, he switched his methodology and, instead of strangers, began killing people he actually knew, one of them being his own 15-year-old niece, along with her 17-year-old girlfriend (though he later denied it, authorities suspected he killed them by beating them to death while attempting to rape them). The next year he poisoned a 20-year-old girl he claimed was a drug dealer who supplied drugs to his now-dead niece and her friend. In 1973 he discovered that a female friend of his had become pregnant by a black man; infuriated, he took the woman and her two-year-old daughter to a pond in the back of his house and drowned both of them. He later shot to death a friend of his and his girlfriend because he feared they would tell police about a stolen-car ring Gaskins was involved in.
In 1975 he committed his first murder for hire, being paid by a couple to kill a man with whom they had a business dispute. Later that year he killed a friend of his and his wife because the wife had threatened to report him to the police for letting underage teenagers use his house to have sex. He killed the husband because the man asked to borrow money for attorneys regarding a fraud case he had been arrested for, and Gaskins was afraid the man would tell police what he knew about Gaskin's criminal activities in order to cut a deal. He later stabbed to death a 13-year-old girl he had brought from North Carolina to use as a sex slave for him and several friends. He later killed a pair of half-brothers who demanded to be paid for several guns they had stolen for him.
His murder sprees ended in late 1975 when a criminal associate of his, in order to cut a deal for his own crimes, told police about Gaskins' activities. He brought authorities to a plot of land near Gaskins' house,, where he said Gaskins had burned some of his victims. The police dug up the land and found the remains of eight bodies.
Gaskins was arrested, charged with several murders, and incarcerated in state prison while awaiting trial. While there, he managed to commit another murder: an inmate named Rudolph Tyner, who was on Death Row after being convicted of murdering a store owner and his wife during a robbery. Gaskins was hired by the couple's son, who thought the state was taking too long to execute Tyner. Gaskins managed to build a phony intercom speaker packed with explosives and got it into the man's cell; when he pressed a button to "test" it, it blew up and killed him. Gaskins was later tried for that murder and sentenced to death (it was the first time in South Carolina history that a white man was sentenced to death for killing a black man).
Gaskins was executed in the electric chair on 9/6/91 at 1:10 a.m.