Gary M. Heidnik

In 1976, Heidnik was charged with aggravated assault and carrying an unlicensed pistol after shooting at the tenant of a house he offered for rent, grazing the man's face.

In 1978, Heidnik signed out Alberta Davidson, the sister of his then-girlfriend Anjeanette Davidson, from the Harrisburg State Hospital on day leave and proceeded to imprison her in a locked storage room in his basement. After she was found and returned to the hospital, examination revealed that she had been raped and sodomized, and that she had contracted gonorrhea. Heidnik was arrested, charged and convicted of kidnapping, rape, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, and interfering with the custody of a committed person. The original sentence was overturned on appeal and Heidnik spent three years of his incarceration in mental institutions prior to being released in April 1983, under the supervision of a state-sanctioned mental health program.

After his wife left him in 1986, Heidnik was arrested again and charged with assault, indecent assault, spousal rape, and involuntary deviant sexual intercourse.

On November 25, 1986, Heidnik abducted a 25-year-old woman named Josefina Rivera. By January 1987, he had kidnapped another four women, whom he held captive in a pit in the basement of his house at 3520 North Marshall Street in North Philadelphia. The captives were raped, beaten, and tortured.[5][14]

One of the women, 24-year-old Sandra Lindsay, died of a combination of starvation, torture, and an untreated fever. Heidnik dismembered her body but had problems dealing with the arms and legs, so he put them in a freezer and labeled them "dog food." He cooked her ribs in an oven and boiled her head in a pot on the stove. Police officers came to his house after his neighbors complained that a nauseating odor was emanating from his residence, but they left the premises after Heidnik explained: "I'm cooking a roast. I fell asleep and it burnt."[6][15]

Several sources state that Heidnik ground up the flesh of Lindsay, mixed it with dog food, and fed it to his other victims.[10][16] His defense attorney, Chuck Peruto, said that upon examination of a Cuisinart and other tools in his kitchen, they found no evidence of this. Peruto said that Heidnik made up the story to support the insanity defense.[6] Peruto said that Heidnik started the rumor of cannibalism in public, and that there was no evidence of anyone eating human flesh.[6]

Heidnik used electric shock as a form of torture. At one point, he forced three of his captives, bound in chains, into a pit. Heidnik ordered Rivera and another woman to fill the hole with water, and then forced Rivera to help him apply electric current from a stripped extension cord to the women's chains. 23-year-old Deborah Dudley was electrocuted to death, and Heidnik disposed of her body in the Pine Barrens in New Jersey.[5][15]

On January 18, 1987, Heidnik abducted Jacqueline Askins. The youngest of the six victims, Askins was only 18-years-old at the time of her abduction. On May 5, 2018, a special report titled "Gary Heidnik's House of Horrors, 30 years later" was aired,[17] and featured an interview in which Askins recounted that Heidnik wrapped duct tape around the mouths of the victims, and stabbed them in their ears with a screwdriver.

On March 23, 1987, Heidnik and Rivera abducted 24-year-old Agnes Adams. The next day, Rivera convinced Heidnik to let her go, temporarily, so she could visit her family. He drove her to a gas station and said that he would wait for her there. She walked to her boyfriend's house; she initially wanted to confront Heidnik, but then decided to call the police instead. The responding officers, noting chafing from chains on her leg, went to the gas station and detained Heidnik. His purported best friend, Cyril Brown, was also arrested. Brown was released on $50,000 bail and an agreement that he would testify against Heidnik. In part, Brown admitted that he had witnessed Lindsay's death in the basement and he also admitted that he had witnessed Heidnik's dismemberment of her body.[18] Shortly after his arrest in April 1987, Heidnik attempted to hang himself in his jail cell.[19]

At Heidnik's arraignment, he claimed that the women were already in the house when he moved in.[20] At trial, Heidnik was defended by Charles Peruto, Jr., who attempted to prove that Heidnik was legally insane.[6] Heidnik's insanity claim was successfully rebutted by the prosecution led by Charles Gallagher, III. The fact that he successfully amassed approximately $550,000 through his brokerage account was used to prove that he was an astute investor, and therefore not insane. Testimony which was given by his Merrill Lynch financial advisor, Robert Kirkpatrick, was also used to prove Heidnik's mental competence. Kirkpatrick called Heidnik "an astute investor who knew exactly what he was doing."[21][22] On July 1, 1988, Heidnik was convicted of two counts of first degree murder, six counts of kidnapping, five counts of rape, four counts of aggravated assault and two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.[23] He was sentenced to death and incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh.[24] In January 1989, he attempted suicide with an overdose of prescribed thorazine.[25]

In 1997, Heidnik's daughter, Maxine Davidson White, and his ex-wife, Betty Disto, filed a suit in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in which they requested a stay of execution on the basis that Heidnik was not competent enough to be executed. After two years of legal proceedings in various courts, on July 3, 1999, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued its final ruling, clearing the way for Heidnik's execution.[26]

Heidnik's last meal was two slices of cheese pizza and black coffee.[27] He was executed by lethal injection on July 6, 1999, at the State Correctional Institution – Rockview, in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania and his body was cremated.[28] He was the last person to have been executed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.[29] He remains the third of only three people who have been executed in Pennsylvania since the resumption of the death penalty.[30] The other two were Keith Zettlemoyer in May 1995 and Leon Moser in August 1995.[31]