Donald ‘Pee Wee’ Gaskins

‘I’m not asking nobody’s forgiveness. I got no apologies to make for my life. I always had my reasons for everything I ever done.’ (Donald Gaskins)

Gaskin kills around once every six weeks. He does it for pleasure and to calm his ‘aggravated and bothersome’ feelings. His first predatory kill occurs after a female hitchhiker laughs at him when he suggests sex. He beats her unconscious, rapes, sodomises and mutilates her, before drowning her in a swamp.

Hunting along the coastal highways, he terms the murders that follow this pattern his ‘Coastal Kills’. He tries to keep his victims alive for as long as is inhumanely possible. He tortures and mutilates before stabbing and suffocating and cannibalising his victims. He sometimes even forces them to have a last supper of their own flesh.

He claims to kill around 90 people this way. But this figure has never been corroborated.

When his murders aren’t random he terms them ‘Serious Murders’. His first is in November 1970. His niece, Janice Kirby, is 15. He tries to sexually assault her, and her friend. He then beats them both to death. Other victims are dispatched because he’s paid to kill; they owe him money, or simply because he felt they’d insulted him. Unlike his ‘Coastal Kills’, these murders are usually quick executions.

But sometimes there’s no distinction. Doreen Demsey is an old friend of Gaskins. She’s 22, unwed, pregnant, and already a mother of a two year old girl. She decides to start afresh somewhere new and accepts a lift from Gaskins. He asks for sex in exchange for the lift to which she agrees. He then asks for the same off her two year old. When the mother refuses, he rapes and kills her. And then does the same to her two year old daughter. He later says “It was the best sex of my life.” (Donald Gaskins)

On 14 November 1975, Gaskins, now aged 42, is arrested after a criminal colleague, Walter Neely, tells police he’s seen Gaskins kill two men.

Gaskins downfall was involving other people. The first is Walter Neely. He needs Neely’s help in disposing of a van in which Gaskins has killed three people.

Gaskins then decides to make some money out of his serial killing, and becomes a killer for hire. A woman hires him to kill her former lover. Diane Neely lures the target out so that Gaskins can kidnap him. Two others are involved in the murder and burial of the body.

Diane Neely and her boyfriend try to blackmail Gaskins over the murder, little realising that he’s a psychopathic serial killer. He says he’ll meet them to give them the money. Instead, he murders them. Two locals also have little sense of the true nature of their victim when they steal from Gaskins. They’re also killed. He enlists Walter Neely to help bury the pair. Meanwhile, another of Gaskins former kills leads police to search his apartment. The victim’s clothes are found. And Neely is also brought in for questioning. He soon confesses everything.

Gaskins says he’s involved in the murders of many of those reported missing and indicates where he’s buried them.

On 4 December, 1975, Gaskins takes police to some land he owns. The police find eight of his victims.

Gaskins is tried for eight murders on 24 May 1976 and four days later, he’s found guilty and sentenced to death.

One small improvement to Gaskins lot is that he’s no longer subject to sexual or physical assault. His fearsome reputation means no one will take on ‘Pee Wee’. Inside, Gaskins kills again. On 2 September 1982, he finally succeeds in fulfilling his contract to Tony Cimo. Tony was the son of Myrtle Moon and Myrtle and Bill Moon had been killed by Rudolph Tyner during his bungled armed robbery of their store. As Rudolph Tyner is in the same prison as Gaskins, Tony hires Gaskins to exact vengeance.

Gaskins tries poison but then he rigs a radio with explosives telling Tyner that it will allow them to communicate between cells. When Tyner tunes in, Gaskins detonates. Gaskins is again sentenced to death.

On death row, Gaskins spends 15 months confessing his life of serial killing to a journalist. These memoirs form his autobiography, ‘Final Truth’ in which he explains he has a ‘special mind’ that gives him ‘permission to kill’. Gaskins claims to have killed over a 100 people including the 12 year old daughter of a state senator. Many of his claims cannot, however, be verified.

He never once expresses remorse for his actions.

Regarding his own end he says ‘I truly don’t mind dying. I’ve lived a damn full and good life.’

A few hours before his execution, Gaskins tries to delay his execution by slashing his wrists. With stitched wounds, he’s placed in the electric chair. At 1.05 a.m. on 6 September 1991, Donald ‘Pee Wee’ Gaskins dies.

‘When they put me to death, I’ll die remembering the freedom and pleasure of my life. I’ll die knowing that there are others coming along to take my place, and that most of them will never get caught.’ (Donald Gaskins)