Gary M. Heidnik: The Real-Life Buffalo Bill

The casual criminal's podcast is brought to you by progressive insurance, physically responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds. Because progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home, and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it, so your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations. Matt wrote today's episode, "I read it. I got a small brain, you see. I got that people write my stuff for me because I can't possibly. I could never do this. I just read good." We've spoken before about movies. Am I clear love for them? Whenever a new movie is coming out, whether a big name IP or an original film, I always give it a first shot, especially if it looks good or interesting. Band goes, "Duddle if the movie is either a horror, a thriller, or a good combination of both." Oh my god. I started. Yesterday I was watching it with my wife. We settled down and we were like, "Oh, let's watch a sci-fi movie. For some reason, my wife likes sci-fi, which I like." Because generally I found we didn't like sci-fi that much, but my wife does, and I'm a huge sci-fi fan, so that's fucking great. We're like, "Let's watch this sci-fi movie. It's called The Ritual." And I'm like, "Ooh, sounds exciting. How weird." And so we settled into watch it, and I'm like, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute." I'm like, "Is this a sci-fi movie or a horror movie?" And she's like, "Ah, no, this is the horror movie." And I'm like, "Well, that's why it's king-derifying, and there's no sci-fi elements." And we really enjoyed it, but it was so scary that we got through halfway of the movie, and it got to bedtime, and I was like, "Do you want to watch five minutes of severance?" It's like a deep impression. As he was like, "Yes, and we're going to finish the movie tonight. I'm a little bit scared." Some of my favourite films are ones that would make you scream or keep you on the edge of your seat with your heart pounding out of your chest, and some of the best in both categories are based on either real-life events or previous works, such as books. Yeah, when a movie's based on a book, I'm always like, "This is going to be a good storyline." I like it when they're based on books. What I'm about to reference, and the entire case we're about to follow, is conjunctive of all I've just mentioned, and tell me, Simon, what book and movie does this line come from? Well, Clarice. Have the lambs stopped screaming? Silence of the lambs, yes! A movie I've seen! I mean, it was a long time ago. If you and the listeners screamed the silence of the lambs, congratulations. Oh, I think I just see how to silence of the lambs. Is it the silence of the lambs? Congratulations. You've seen in my mind one of the greatest horror crime thrillers of all time. It's really, I really liked it, but I always want to say Robert Harris, but that's a different author. Thomas Harris, I'm sure Matt's going to tell me to say, based on the 1988 novel by Thomas Harris, there we go. So he's a fucking Robert Harris. I feel like there's another author called Robert Harris. It's going to be one of those awkward times where it's like, Robert Harris, Simon, is an extremely famous porn star. The 1991 masterpiece introduced the world to FBI agent Clarence Staling, and of course, Dr Hannibal Lecter, who is both a psychiatrist, and a cannibalistic serial killer, Clarence is tasked by her mentor with going to Hannibal Lecter for advice on how to locate other evil and deranged serial killers. It takes evil to catch evil and all of that, jazz. What's that TV show? Who's that? What's it called? But with the famous black guy, and the not famous white dude, and the woman from fringe, I'm not conflating two shows, am I? They have an amazing introduction where they're recording onto a tape and that they push the microphone forward and they talk to serial killers. Mine's Hunter, yes! Oh my god, stick to what you know, Simon, or stick to what Matt knows. It's considered one of the greatest and most influential movies of all time, and anyone who has seen it most definitely should, and the book is good as well. Extremely well written and just as suspenseful as the movie, without said, have out another quote, one that is even more relevancy to the subject of the script at hand. It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again. I have no idea about this one. These are the terrifying words of the character Jane Gumm, aka Buffalo Bill. Wait, oh fuck, of course Buffalo Bill's from Silence of the Labs. Then who the fuck am I thinking of? Isn't there like some, I swear, like there's some outlaw or something called Buffalo Bill, no? He is the main antagonist in the Silence of the Labs. Look, give me a break, people will be like, Simon's on Steam Silence of the Labs, he said, I saw Silence of the Labs a long time ago as an old movie. It's 1991. I was four. I didn't see it when I was four. I probably saw it when I was like 16. I could do, that's okay, seeing that 16 is okay. It was really scary. And he's a second-demented serial killer who kidnaps overweight women and keeps them locked away with the most insane of motivations. Without spoiling or giving away too much, just keep in mind that one of the main sources of the inspiration for his character in both novel and the film comes from Ed Gingene, so that should help fill in the blanks. Oh my god, we did Ed Ging previously. He didn't actually kill very many people, but he was a disgusting little fuck. However, good old Ed wasn't the only inspiration for the nastiness that is Buffalo Bill. Oh no, no, no, not at all. And today we're going to discuss the second one. Now, as we descend into the god, here we go, as we descend into the abyss, it's time to confront the person that even today is still described as being the real life Buffalo Bill. Most of his life was not a misery, filled with mental problems and personal trend. I have to look up who fucking Buffalo Bill is. If there's like an old west character, Buffalo Bill, Buff. Follow. Bill. Oh, they're also an American football team. There you go. I told you, an American soldier, bison hunter, and shaman, while the most famous and well-known figures of the old west, boom! But that doesn't excuse evil deeds now, does it? And this man, like many we've covered on this show, was the very definition of evil. For four months, this beast tormented and tortured several women, all of the African American persuasion, with some thankfully managing to walk away from it, or some unfortunately didn't. Vicious and emotionless, he took all he could from these women. One's had plucked right off the street to satiate his twisted needs. That was me turning the page podcast listeners. Normally I make it slick, but it wasn't very slick today. And have his own personal horror and expanded sick idea of a family. Oh my lord, dude, when you capture people, that's not a family, my dude. That's you being a sick little fuck. And when they disobeyed or refused to do as he wanted, that's when the punishment started. We'll get into the details soon enough, but let's get into the story proper, the story of a man that many call the monster preacher and Philadelphia's Ted Bundy. This is the story of Gary M. Hydnick. You don't know what pain is. That included a nice picture, so I know what he looks like. It is unusual, and normally I don't get that. Gary Michael Hydnick was born on November 22nd, 1943, in Eastlake, Ohio, to parents Michael and Ellen Hydnick. Almost from the very beginning, things were already in the muck, as by the time Gary was three, his parents got separated, and Gary and his younger brother Terry went to live with their mother. This didn't last long, because as it turns out, dear mother Ellen just happened to be a raging alcoholic and made her boys' lives a living hell, beating and verbally abusing them relentlessly every day. Alcohol is crazy. I love alcohol, really enjoyable, great stuff, but it's also like you can go down that path of like, it just being crazy, bro. It got to the point where Gary and Terry were finally taken away from their mother and placed with their father Michael. Rather that made any sort of difference, their father had already married a second wife by this point and the boys hated her. The feeling was mutual, and whenever it came to arguments or punishments, Michael always sided with his new blushing bride, blatantly ignoring his sons and their thoughts or feelings on the matter. As it turns out, Michael Hydnick was also an abusive piece of shit, and couldn't give less than a damn about either of his boys. This is a phrase, you know, people get this wrong all the time, Matt writes, and could give less of a damn. Like, I could, how's it go? I couldn't care. People say I could care less, and I've always said I couldn't care less. If you could care less, then it's like, well, then you can care less, can't you? Whereas if you say I couldn't care less, that means that you have no more cares to give. There are no cares. The field is barren. He beat them and broke them down mentally and emotionally all while doting on his wife. An example, well it just happened that Gary Hydnick had a chronic bedwetting problem. It was so bad, and was left unattended for so long that it was a continuous issue for him for the rest of his life even into adulthood. And what did dear old daddy Michael do about it to help his sad and embarrassed son? Why had more to buy an even more? What else? He would strip the salt sheets off his bed, hand them to his crying son, and demand that little Gary hang them over the window of his bedroom. Not only did this fill Gary's room with the pungent sterile odor of piss, but they hang there for all the neighbours to see. Humiliation isn't even close to a strong enough word. Later on, Michael refused to acknowledge these claims, stating that any claims of abuse were false. Given it also reportedly dangled a young and screaming Gary out of the second floor window of their home as punishments, I'm not so sure that I believe him. No, he does sound like a piece of shit. This does seem in line with the behaviour of the piece of shit. Life outside of the Heinek house wasn't much better. One day, Gary was playing with his brother, and the two were climbing trees as young boys were prone to do. However, Gary was a clumsy, clodney and lost his balance, plummeting down from the hanging branches of the tree and landing directly on his head. Uh oh, is this where he becomes a psycho? I don't like these ones. There's that kid he got on the head with a swing, and he became a fucking psycho. Was that the chessboard killer guy? He killed like 80 fucking people or something. The impact smashed his skull. This would unfortunately lead to the kids at his school bullying him relentlessly, going so far as to nickname him, football head. And no, I'm not talking about hey Arnold, oh my god, I have not thought about hey Arnold for a long time. That was the kid with the football head. This horrific head injury also seemed to change his behaviour going forward, which seems a par for the course in situations such as this. He became erratic, irritable, and aggressive, and gained a sense of sudden superiority over those he deemed below him. This extended to his classmates, even the ones who attempted to be nice to him. He refused to interact with them, refused to make eye contact with them, believed them all to be beneath him, and with an IQ of 148, he perhaps felt entitled to that opinion. That is really smart. I've got friends with an IQ around there. And he's like, he's very smart. Like, you really notice, you're like, wow, this guy really thinks about shit. It's been documented one day, a female student walked up to her and asked, did you get your homework done, Gary? And Gary's response to her was, you're not worth enough to talk to me. Oh my lord, Gary, you pretentious douchebag. You might be smart, but you, something hit you on the head. Oh yes, yes, a tree branch. Separated and abusive parents, check, waiting the bed, check, terrible head injuries, check, sense of superiority in entitlement, check, serial killer, checklist, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, let's just get in torturing some cats. Come on, I mean, I don't like that. Let's not do that. Even with all that way against him, Gary was headed to a decent ride, and he was able to glide through school despite his attitude. This was like, as a kid, there was nothing better than getting like an A3. Like, or an A-1 or whatever it was. I think it was A3, where it's like, you're really good at the subject, but you make no effort. Because then it's like, excellent. Great A with no effort. Yes please. However, his father still had a strong influence in his life. He had a set of ideas about who his son would be and what he would become. And when Gary was 14, his father enrolled him at the Staunton Military Academy in Staunton, Virginia, where he stayed for two years until he was 16 before re-enrolling in public school. That doesn't sound like the best place for a kid with an IQ of 148. I mean, I get that he's troubled, but he- hmm. Then with his father's encouragement, Gary dropped out of high school at 18. How come? Why, to join the military proper. Of course, his service only lasted around 13 months, but it certainly was eventful, and his superiors would describe his performance as excellent. He was initially stationed in San Antonio, Texas, and was trained as a military medic. Also, he didn't go to like, he went to military academy. He's obviously very, very intelligent. He didn't go to like, um, what the fuck is it, a west point? He didn't want to be a medic, and a plan on becoming an army police officer, but they rejected him outright because of his awful attitude and disposition, so that he assigned him to medic training. He was eventually like, "You'll be perfect as a surgeon." He was eventually transferred overseas in the summer of 1962 and ended up working at the 46th army surgical hospital in Langeville, West Germany, where he earned his GED within a matter of weeks. Had things continued down this path, maybe Gary could have been a productive member of society, despite his horrible attitude? Yeah, I mean, with a hundred IQ of 148. You can really apply yourself to some sh- and yeah, you might be a douchebag, but you're probably gonna. You're a really smart douchebag. However, it was in Germany that Gary got very sick, and things simply went downhill from there. In August 1962, he began complaining of a variety of symptoms, including severe headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, and nausea. When is this 1960? They didn't have MRI machines back then, did they? Because that sounds like you need a scam. To see what's going on inside your head, because it sounds like something's going wrong in there, like a tumor or some sh-. During a visit to a neurologist, the doctor quickly noticed that Gary was suffering from some form of mental illness, which was soon after diagnosed with a skit-side personality disorder, which checks out when taking his attitude into accounts. I once went to a neurologist. I had this bizarre thing. It was maybe five years ago now, where I just had a constant headache. I had a headache for like a week, and it just never went away. I waited and I was taking like, ibuprofen, paracetamol, like, constantly, and it was just always there. I'd wake up in the morning, I'd be like, "Ah, again? Still?" And so I was like, "Fuck it." So I finally went and the cure for a neurologist was huge, so I went private, went to expensive consult with a neurologist, and they didn't scan my brain. It took maybe 10 minutes. They were like, "Do this, and do this, and do all these tests." So they were like, "Can you touch here? Can you touch there? Let me look in your eyes and all of this shit." And they were like, "Doesn't seem to be anything physically wrong with your brain?" It's probably just stress, and I'm like, "I've just been off work for like a while, just chilling out." Because it was all like, I was like, "Yeah, yes, maybe it's just stress." Another week went by and it just completely went away. I never came back. It was like, "Great, perfect. Thank you." For those who don't know, me included Skitsoid Personality Disorder, SPD as a mental health condition, characterized by persistent pattern of detachment from social relationships, and a restricted range of emotional expression. This includes social isolation, appearing unemotional or apathetic, in difference to the feelings of others, lack of empathy, discomfort, intimacy, and notable passive-aggressive behavior. I don't like, I'm sometimes a bit passive-aggressive. It wasn't a little bit passive-aggressive. And on top of that, he was also diagnosed with gastroenteritis, aka infectious diarrhea. Oh my god, I want to get to you first, no, but I ate something weird this weekend, I guess, because no one wants to know, Simon! No, it's stopped! Just stop! Let's just say I've been to the toilet more than once today. This man seemed to be cursed with infinite bathroom issues. He was transferred to a military hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, so that he could receive treatment, and he would eventually be honorably discharged receiving a full disability pension, as a result of his mental disability. Holy shit, the government taking care of someone isn't that nice. After being discharged, let's see what he does with that opportunity. After being discharged from the military, Gary tried to get his life in order, he'd been trained in the medical field, and he was quite good at it, despite the fact that it wasn't his preferred field of study. So he'd, yay, he's got an IQ of 148, he's going to be good at sh--. So he decided to get a job as a nurse, and eventually landed a job at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Coatsville, Philadelphia, where he ended up buying a three-story home in 1967. Ah, the past. Where ordinary people could afford nice homes. However, Gary had no real interest in being a nurse, and he often could be bothered to show up for said job. When he did, his disposition toward the patients and co-workers go maybe described as horse sh--. So said decent they had dropped in last long, and he was back on the unemployment line. And his three-story house, wow. After that, though, things quickly started to snowball and go down it or fast. First of all, Gary repeatedly had stays both short and extended in several mental health facilities, particularly the Elwyn Institute, a house for the developmentally disabled. According to Jack Apsha, a forensic psychologist who later examined Gary, quote, "There had been something like 22 hospitalizations, there was a clear history of him being a schizophrenic." And then, his mother killed herself. Oh my god, that was s--. Jesus Christ. That was not the next sentence I was expecting to read. Elwyn Heidnick was very sick and tormented women. She drank to dangerous levels and would always abuse her children. She'd also been mistreated by her husband, and even after the divorce, she was still struggling with her mental health. The final straw came when she was diagnosed with bone cancer, and since she was still suffering from the awful effects of her copious drinking, she simply decided she had had enough. So, in 1970, Elwyn gave herself the old goodbye goodnight by drinking mercuric chloride, a highly toxic mixture of mercury and chlorine, which unfortunately was not quick and painless and resulted in her dying a slow and horrifically painful death, I don't understand. Like, is the 1960s? Or 70s? 1970? Cars exist? Not to get too morbid. But if-- have you ever had, like, one of those psychological interviews, where they're like-- and I used to do these medical studies when I was a student, so one of the things they'd ask you was like, "Do you ever have a suicide ideation?" It's like, "No." And I just don't, I don't have this, like, in any serious way, but it's like, obviously, I'd carve a monoxide poison myself, like the dude in house of cards. Like, you just go to sleep in your car, right? Just doctor garage, turn on the car. My car's electric, so I'll be like, "Oh, fuck sake." But, you know, isn't that the way you're true choose to go rather than something horrifically painful and slow? It's like, "No, no, no, I could have gone out nicely, but I decided to try to support you." The death of their mother seemed to have an incredibly bad effect on both Gary and his brother. Terry's mental health spiraled, and he spent time in several different mental health institutes. He attempted to end his life on several occasions, but he was never successful. He's got nothing on Gary, though, as over the years, the man attempted to off himself no less than 13 times. Uh, this? I-- again, not, uh, you-- I don't have enough information, but he's smart, he knows how to kill himself if he really wanted to do it. Isn't he also a narcissist? Narcissists don't kill themselves, do they? It's why I don't think I have suicidal ideation, I'm fucking narcissistic for that. He tried to overdose on drugs and booze, but it failed. He ate rat poison, but it failed. He tried to crash his motor cycle into oncoming traffic, but it failed. Wow, he's a douchebag even in trying to kill himself. He even went to the doctor once, where it was discovered that he had a string tied so tight around his big toe that it was turning blue in the hopes of inducing gangrene in said toe and causing it to spread and kill him, but it failed. Bro, if you really want to kill yourself, there are a myriad of successful ways without failure. You don't want to kill yourself, you want's potential or whatever you're after. And each time he sadly failed to kill himself, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital to cool off. You'd think an educated and experienced nurse would know what to do to die, but he was pretty sh*t at that too. However, something happens that would eventually turn his life down an even darker path. Gary Hydnick supposedly found religion. Uh oh. Just before we continue with the episode today, let me say a big thank you to our fantastic sponsor day. That is, of course, Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform. This behind millions of businesses around the world. In fact, 10% of the entirety of e-commerce in the United States from household names like Mattel and Jim Shark. These do business, we show like 10% of all e-commerce goes through Shopify. It's not just the big boys though, like Mattel and Jim Shark, like I just said. But it's brands that are just getting started. No matter what size you're at, Shopify is for you. And that's what it has to be because you can start off. You can be like, "Oh, let's see if this works. I got an idea. Let's grow a little business." And then maybe a couple of years down mine, you're like, "Oh, my little business is no longer such a little business. I'm going to have to switch providers and go with one of the big boys." Well, no, you don't have to with Shopify because they're there from day one, from that first sale, all the way through to when you're the next Mattel or something like that. They're there every step of the way. They make it all easy. They've got their own design studio. We've ready to use templates. They're packed with AI tools. They help you create content, make all your headlines, even enhance your product photography, which is fantastic. Look, whatever you're doing, whatever you want to sell, whatever stage you're at, Shopify is absolutely the right way to do it. Turn your big idea into a business with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com/casual. That's Shopify.com/casual. Shopify.com/casual. And now back to today's episode. Bastard Bishop. According to John Cassidy, Gary's best friend from back in the day, quote, "He formed his own religion. I don't know if that's finding religion. I think that's just being a cult leader. I believe it was originally just a tax scam, but oh yeah. Is it because their charities like religious organizations in America don't pay tax? I'd be like the beginning of every episode. Welcome to the casual criminalist. And for tax purposes, we have to call this a sermon. Welcome to the sermon." I believe it was originally just a tax scam, but towards the end, he was believing that stuff. I asked him, "Don't you think if there's a God, he'll be upset with what you're doing to religion." He said, "No. God would be amused. God has a sense of humor." End quote. It was October 1971 when Gary decided to form his own church, namely the United Church of the Ministers of God, or is eventually known in the Church of Heidnick. Yes, he actually named the church after himself. I'd do the same thing. The narcissist that I am. And as the head of said church, he would need a station or a title of some sort. So he demanded his followers, his flock, to call him Brother Heidnick, or Bishop Heidnick. And he took to wearing the black and white Roman collar and everything. Wait, how did he get followers? I feel like we skipped a bit. I can be like, I'm starting a religion. You come giant. There's no- I'm trying to make up a religion on this side. I don't even know. But where did the followers come from? But before long one title wasn't enough, he needed to. The ego stroking is real with this man. And given what we know of him, it makes all the sense in the world. He had an inflated sense of worth. This self-made bloated image of himself, and he soon came to believe that he was bigger and better than those around him, safe to say, that having a group of people praise a door and pray to him is the last thing his enlarge head needed. Gary Heidnick, for all his rottenness, knew how to drive him manipulate people. His little church started with only five people. Where did they come from? However, over the next few years, his congregation grew in size, and so did the amount of money he had coming in. Not too shabby for a scam to swindle people out of their hard earned money. If anyone is shocked at that, need I remind you that Gary Heidnick was a heartless comeback? It made it all the easier since his flock consisted of the horribly gullible and well, let's just say the mentally and developmentally challenged. According to Doris Sibulka, Heidnick's next door neighbor in North Philly quote, "He held these church services on Sundays. A lot of people came, and they were usually mentally rich." That's right, Gary Heidnick made the point to befriend people with mental disabilities and making fast friends and inviting them to join his church. Yeah, he's just playing with people who just operate on a different level. He's incredibly smart, and they're the opposite. He liked it that way too, as that way, he'd have an obedient and loyal flock that would never question his enane ramblings and religious drivel, and they would simply give him more money in donations to help fund his lifestyle. Nice watches, fancy cars, or whatever he could want to be his. And that included the girls he fancied, especially if she wasn't mentally capable of saying no, that is, oh my god, that is. king cringe, bro. Can you say sleazeball? And it's more than cringy, so isn't. like if you don't have the capacity to consent, that's not consent. And sadly, the sleazeball was really good at getting people to give him money. In 1975, Gary opened an account with Merrill Lynch, an American investment bank and wealth management division of Bank of America. The account was in the church's name and had an initial investment of $1,500, over the checks he was getting from the army and social security, but by 1986, the church had grown to a prosperous endeavor, amassing over half a million dollars, equivalent to 1.4 million in today's money. Over 11 years, it's not bad, but it's not crazy. However, even then he wasn't satisfied, Gary Heidnig wanted something he believed had never truly had, a loving family. His own family had hurt him, failed him, and so he felt the world owed him a wife, children, and a chance to continue his genes to the next generation, and sadly, he'd go to irrational lengths in order to get it. To be fair, don't we all go to irrational lengths at points? Can we try hard, you know? But not, I imagine like this psycho, stop being related to the kind of stuff, stop Simon, what's wrong with you? His first attempt at starting his own family was during a relationship he had with a woman named Gail Linkow. Like all his future partners, Gail was mentally challenged at a low IQ, with his higher IQ, he felt superior to her, like he could dominate and control her much easier if she wasn't mentally able to keep up with, or question him in any way. Look, a regular person is going to struggle to keep up with someone with an IQ of 148. Someone on the other side of that is just not even going to start a chance. Like you can be an average intelligent person, a person with 148 IQ can make you feel pretty dim. Like I'm above average and I feel like I feel markedly less intelligent than my clever friend. They performed the horizontal tango and she ended up pregnant and would later give birth to a son named Gary Junior. Have her things fell apart shortly after Gary Junior's birth as social services determined that neither of them were mentally stable enough to raise a child. The baby was turned over to the foster system and Gail broke things off with Gary almost immediately afterward. Through his church, Gary then met an African-American woman by the name of Anginette Davidson, who was mentally challenged and deliterate, had had an IQ of 48, of full 100 points lower than Gary himself. Wow. So that is an average person's intelligence between them. Like the difference between them. That is, that's wild. At IQ of 48, you can't function in society, right? That's that's below functional, right? In 1976, Gary sold his house and purchased another three-story house and rented out two of the floors. He moved, Anginette and himself into one of the available floors of the home and on the outside things seemed normal. He was successful, he had a girlfriend, he was making money. On March 16, 1978, Anginette eventually gave birth to a daughter named Maxine Davidson, though she too was almost instantly put into foster care. Gary was failing miserably at building a family of his own, before long he decided that on her own, Anginette didn't feel that family-sized hole in his life, so he decided to add another wife to their merry little household. Is that even legal? The year was 1978 and Gary Heineck and Anginette made their way to the Harrisburg State Hospital in Penn Township to visit Albert at Davidson, Anginette's little sister, brah. Please no, please tell me that's not where this is going. Who also happened to be mentally challenged? They signed her out on a day pass, helped her to his car, and drove her back to their home. Seems pretty normal, right? I mean, yeah, but if you hadn't led with he's going to add another wife, and I really don't like where this is going. Now normally I'd say yes, but this is Gary Heineck and nothing about him is normal. He'd simply been using Anginette to get to a sister who was far worse off mentally than she. Whoa, like she's one IQ of 48. And the other that the other sister's worse off than that, oh my. And now he had what he wanted. When the time to have Alberta returns to hospital came and went, the doctors and orderlies began to get worried. They looked up Gary's address on file, got in contact with the police and together they went to get her back. Excellent. After making the way inside of the pass, Gary, they searched the house to make sure Alberta was safe and unharmed. She was neither. Not fighting her in the house properly decided to check the basement. Down below in the Duncan dark, they found Alberta, chained in a locked room, cold, injured, indistress and crying. She had been sexually assaulted, sodomized, and had contracted gonorrhea from the multiple assaults that she'd endured throughout the day. She was taken out of there, treated at hospital, and brought back to Harrisburg. Gary's got to go to prison forever. Now, that's got to be like 20-30 years, right? That's all of crime. As for Gary, the 35-year-old was immediately arrested and charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, unlawful restraint, false imprisonments, involuntary, deviant sexual intercourse, and interfering with the custody of a committed person. Unfortunately, since Alberta was incapable of testifying, the charges of assault were dropped. Ah, bro, no, no, no, no, no, surely it doesn't work like that. But he thankfully was convicted on everything else and was sentenced to three to seven years to be served in Greaterford Prison, now known as the State Correctional Institution of Greaterford. I don't understand! Three to seven years? However, the initial conviction was overturned on a peel after two years and he ended up spending an additional three years of his incarceration in mental institutions before being released in full in April of 1983, which meant he spent a total of five years in prison for all he did to Alberta. And let me just remind you, let me just remind you, um, sexually assaulted, sodomized, contracted gonorrhea, locked in a cold storage room, injured, distressed, crying, and just a reminder she's gone IQ somewhere south of 48. So, uh, f*ck this guy, and the justice system for not locking him up properly. Once he got out, though, Aginette had moved out and wanted nothing more to do with him after what he did to her sister, he never saw her again, you know, f*ckin sh*t. Now 40 years old, Gary was all alone, it once again been deprived of what he believed was his, and he was angry. Guys are an entitled douchebag, isn't he? He wanted nothing more than a subservient wife and obedient children, and he felt as if that had been ripped away from him not just once but twice. Gary, this was your own f*cking doing, you colossal douchebag. He wouldn't give up, though, and he was determined to have what he felt he was owed. He went back to being Bishop Heidnick, no fuss, no mass, even after five years in prison. I suppose faith really is strong even in the face of all his hideous deeds as his flock had eagerly been waiting for his return. He kept on preaching, and he kept on making money, enough that a year after his release in 1984, Gary was able to buy himself a third house in a rundown section of Philly, said house, and property were at 35-20 North Marshall Street, and it would be the site of many unspeakable horrors to come. And it wouldn't have been if they'd locked him up like the piece of sh*t he is, but for some reason, the sister wasn't mentally competent to stand trial, so apparently that's chill. What the f*ck America? Once he earned enough money, Gary got himself another wife. You see, may Lord of Brides really are a thing. I feel like I made a video about this once. And many of them come from countries in the Old Soviet Union and Asia. May Lord of Brides, especially from Asia, are thought to be especially trustworthy, very sweet, demure, and courteous, and that's exactly what he wanted, someone to love and look after him without him having to put in any of the work or effort doing it himself. And so he got in touch with a dating service in the hopes that they could find him a new wife. His only sighted request for his blushing bride to be, quote, an oriental virgin. Uh, dear, what the f*ck? Can so he already asked for? The dating service put him in touch with a lovely young bride from the Philippines. This was Betty did so, who Gary corresponded with and caught it for two years. They sent letters back and forth, don't ask kids, and they slowly became more familiar with one another. Well, this familiar is Gary allowed her to get as he didn't tell her all that much, beside that he was a church minister, and so, not after two years of this, Gary convinced Betty to marry him, and she moved to the US as a result. It's safe to say that being married to Bishop Heintnick was not as glamorous and as wonderful as Betty had imagined that it would be based on Gary's letters. When she first arrived at the airport in September 1985, she was greeted by Gary Snazzy Rolls-Royce, and she probably thought she was getting married to a well-to-do man of God, holy sh*t. I thought it was going to be like he forgot to show up at the airport. How does this guy b*f*ckin' Rolls-Royce? I mean, his church was doing alright, but not Rolls-Royce, alright? But then she entered Zedcar, and her dreams were torn apart, like toilet paper in a typhoon. She met Gary, as he actually was, scruffy, disheveled, bad-smelling, wearing his old cheap-tattered clothes, and then he brought her home to a piece of sh*t house in a piece of sh*t neighborhood, and she was no doubt regretting her decision to move to the US. You can always get back home? Right? I hope so. He's talking about locking in the basement. F*ck. But it sounds like she was trying to make it work, though, and since she came from an impoverished background, she was o' willing to stick it out and see what happened. She stuck with him for a while, and after the first week, things were looking up. Gary tried to keep her happy, and keep her docile. He promised her that they would be starting a family together, and that he would be a great provider for her father and husband. But of course, that would require Gary Hyding to be a good man, which he wasn't. One day, Betty got a fresh dose of reality, when she got to see just what kind of man she was soon to be married to. After spending her day doing some shopping, Betty came home to a quiet house. She's headed up to their bedroom, and there Betty walked in, or perhaps the one thing any wife fears most, witnessing her husband in bed with another woman. It's not like Gary cared at all, though, as he made it abundantly clear that this wasn't the first time this had happened, and it certainly would not be the last. In fact, Gary, being the reprehensible derbag that he was, said that even after they were married, he would continue to see other women regardless of how she felt about it. Naturally, Betty was a little bit perturbed about this, and demanded Gary send her back to the Philippines. And naturally, for Gary, at least he responded by roughing her up and demanding, she'd do as he says, or else. Fearing for her life and not really wanting to return to her poverty-stricken lifestyle back home, Betty went through with the wedding and became Betty Hydingick on October 3, 1985. Sad to say that Gary stuck to his word, he continued to have sex with other women beside Betty. Sometimes, as many as three at a time, and on many occasions, he forced Betty to sit on the sidelines and watch as he ate extra marital fun with another woman in their shared bed. "Brah, that is pretty f*cked up, dude." Not that staying and getting married had made her say from his depravity is, in the time after the wedding, Gary repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted his wife. It was after one of these deplorable sessions that Betty found out that she was pregnant, and she knew that if she didn't want to be stuck married to Gary for the rest of her life, she had to get out of there. Quickly. To once again quote their neighbor, Doris Sibulka, for a while there, him and his wife started fighting a lot. I talked to his wife outside sometimes, she was pregnant with little Gary, and she told me he's hitting me. I said, "Honey, you're pregnant. If you can't stop him from hitting you, leave." And she did, "Excellent. This is gonna turn out great, Betty's gonna leave." With the help of the rest of the Filipino community in Philadelphia, Betty managed to escape, by all due to divorce, and returned to the Philippines, where Gary would never be able to find her. She even called the cops on his ass after the fact and got him arrested again and charged with assault in decent assaults, spousal sexual assault, and involuntary deviant sexual intercourse. Nothing came of it, unfortunately. What the f*ck? But it was another blemish on his already terrible criminal record. On September 15, 1986, a year after she arrived in America, Betty, did so head neck, gave birth to a beautiful baby boy with the name Jesse John Disto. Funny thing is, Gary didn't even know he had a son until a year later when Betty started demanding child support for f*cking legend. Go for it, Betty! Again, Gary was all alone, and it was his fault. His paranoia shot through the roof and he felt like the whole world was against him when everything that had happened to him was all his own doing. After this third failed attempt to start family of his own, Gary decided that it had enough. If God wouldn't give him what he believed he deserved, what was rightfully his, he would simply take it by force. Down into the depths. And disclaimer, brace yourselves everyone, it's about to get messy. Oh my god, it wasn't already met. I mean, it's not the worst episode we've ever had so far, but it's f*cking miserable. It was November 25, 1986, and the 25-year-old Josephina Rivera, without walking in the streets in the dead of night. Josephina was African American, a part-time sex worker and a single mother, and that night she had left her house in a half after having a massive blow up with her boyfriend, who she shared the home with. She wanted to get some air and have some time to herself to cool her head. That night was wet and cold as most Philadelphia windows can be. I can attest to that, and so she likely would have either returned home soon enough or she would have looked for a place to shack up for the night, like a motel, for instance. However, she never got the chance because as she was walking alone in the dark, a silver and black Cadillac coupé de Ville. Coupé? Coup? Coup? Americans call it a "coup" right? Cadillac Coup de Ville. That sounds right, but I know it's coupé because I'm British. A coup, as Jeremy Clarkson says, is where chickens live. Slow down and pulled up just ahead of her. Now, normally, this would be a red flag, especially if you don't recognize the car at all, let alone the driver, which Josephine didn't. However, she was angry, she was tired, she was cold, so it seemed like an opportunity to at least make a little bit of cash and get out of the cold. Josephine walked up to the vehicle, and the window rolled down at her approach. In the driver's seat was a white man who looked to be in his late 30s, early 40s, with large circular glasses, a dark beard with curly dark hair, and a slightly boldness, misshapen head, perhaps a football head. The man asked if she was all right, and then he propositioned her for her services, which she agreed to, in exchange for a ride in $20. The deal was struck, and when Josephine entered his car, the man introduced himself as Gary. Along the way, they stopped at a McDonald's so that the two could grab a cup of coffee, and when they approached a brightly lit building, Josephine noticed something about her newest John. He was disheveled, and was dressed in an old, ratty, stained clothing. He clearly hadn't shaved, or rebuilt and take care of himself for a while. Everyone's wrist was a golden watch, clearly a very nice looking and expensive watch in pristine condition. I don't like the fact that I'm wearing a golden watch today. What the fuck? I no longer like this watch. One of these things is not like the other, but Josephine didn't pay too much mind. A Cadillac coup de Ville's also a pretty nice car, right? He drove a Rolls Royce previously, so he's got money. From there, Gary drove Josephine to his house. The neighborhood itself was pretty dodgy and rung down, and the house itself was a small three-story home, and yet outside the home was another car, a 1971 Rolls Royce. Again, the pieces aren't adding up. Gary seemed to own a couple of nice cars in a nice watch, or clearly well kept and very expensive to boot, even though he dressed like a bun and lived in a shuttle. I mean, some people just choose different things, like I know, or knew, or knew, more like new off. There's someone who like super nice car, just dressed great all the time, and just lived in a crappy neighborhood in a crappy house and had an average job, just liked specific things. After leading her to the front door, Gary took out what appeared to be only half a house key. Josephine asked him about this, and he was more than happy to explain that when the key broke, he had left the other half in the lock. That way, no one could break into the house, given that he had the only key, and no lock pick could get inside. Ingenious, or off his rocker, I'll let you be the judge. No, you'd just, this could definitely be picked. This has been lock picking lawyer. He said to the chat, the door opens up to the kitchen, and at this point, Josephine was probably rethinking her decision. As she walked through the house, she saw money, pennies, a dollar, and five dollar bills to be exact, glued to the walls and doors within the home. Again, not insane at all, right? Regardless, they headed upstairs to the bedroom, Gary paid her the money, and they did the deed on his water bed. So far so normal, right? Well, after they'd finished, Gary got up, dressed, and Josephine followed his lead. She perhaps thought that now that their business was concluded, it was time for him to take a home as promised. Sadly, that wasn't the case. Out of nowhere, Josephine felt two strong hands grab her from behind and wrap around her throat. The air was being choked out of her, and the grip was too strong, even as she kicked and fought to get out of it. She couldn't even scream. The grip was so tied around her windpipe. When she went limp in his grasp, Gary let go, and he watched on. As she crumpled to the floor, with a thud. Her head was swimming, and she was barely conscious, but Josephine could still feel something cold on her skin and was able to make out the clicking sound of a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. As she began to come back around, becoming more conscious and aware of what was happening, I can only imagine the horrors she must have felt as a captain, this monster, dragged her by the handcuffs down the stairs back toward the kitchen, and then opened the door, to the dank darkness of the basement. All the while, Josephine begged him to let a ghost say, "Alright, I'll do anything you say, but don't hurt me." What happened next explains a lot as to why this sack of shit was used as inspiration for Buffalo Bill. It had taken some time, but Gary had dug a large pit in the centre of the basement, and the excess dirt from said it had been stacked up in the corner of the room. Next to it was a large wooden board, large enough to cover the hole, an old beat-up mattress next to the radiative her to sleep on, and mounted on the walls were chains. At the end of each chain was a set of muffler clamps, usually used to attach mufflers to cars. After shackling her legs and using the muffler clamps on her ankles, Gary threw Josephine her into the pit and forced the board over the top of her, leaving her stuck, cramped, alone, and frightened in the dark. He kept her down there in the basement for days, barely feeding her, and every time she tried to scream for help, he'd yank her up by the hair and beat her savagely with a stick that he kept handy until she piped down. He wanted her broken and he wanted her obedient, but most importantly, he wanted her pregnant. He wanted children, ones he could raise, ones who would love him, ones who would listen to him, and now he had the opportunity to have them. And so, he sexually assaulted her, over and over again, throughout the time he held her captive down in his dark lonely basement. He'd have a child, even, if he had to force it out of her. And then he started collecting even more. You see, one woman, one, wife, wasn't enough, one family, wasn't enough, no, he wanted more, he needed more, he wanted as many sex lives as he could fit down in his basement, and as many children as they could pump out for him, he wanted a harron. And so he started hunting, this is extraordinarily fucked up. Sadly, he didn't have to go far to find women who were willing to follow him home. 24-year-old Sandra Sandy Lindsay was another young African-American with severe mental handicaps, and she was a member of Gary's congregation. He had known her for four years at this point, and when he started courting her, he treated her well, made her trust him, made her believe that he cared about her, and reassured her that he was her friend. Tracy Lomax was Sandy's sister, and she was told how Sandy felt when she was around Gary. Quote, "Sandy was a mentally challenged adult. All she wanted to do was be like you and me, normal, to fit in." And she did pretty much blend in. Sandy had told us before that this guy named Gary was a bishop of a church, and he was going to take Sandy and her friends to great adventure. He was always buying them dinner at McDonald's. Quote ends. Gary was clearly taking advantage of Sandy, and he was doing all he could to gain our trust so that he could get what he wanted, to get her to have his baby. Sandy had backed out of having sex with him several times, unsure of the whole situation, but eventually she relented, and she did, in fact, end up pregnant. She didn't want the baby, though, and her family agreed that it would be best for her not to have it, so the pregnancy was terminated, which enraged Gary. So when he started his collection, 24-year-old Sandy was at the top of the list, and so, on December 3, 1986, after Sandy left a house to buy medicine to ease a menstrual cramps, Gary snatched her right above the street and took her to his house. He took her down into his home dungeon. As they descended the stairs, Josephina listened to their approach, and she could hear Sandy crying, begging for him to stop. In response, Gary told the crying woman, "Be quiet. Shut up, Sandy. You know that I'm not going to hurt you." Now that he had two women to play with, Gary got to work. He beat them, reputedly sexually assaulted them, and forced them to remain down in the cold, dark of the basement, with barely any clothes on, except when temperatures got below freezing. It was filly in the dead of winter, and trust me it gets cold. He barely fed them, only giving them some water and a few crackers on occasion before leaving them down in the dark, with only their thoughts and their pain for company. But remember, Gary wasn't stupid. A sadistic and evil as he was, he was also intelligent. He knew that Sandy had a loving family, people who would miss her, people who knew her, people who knew him, and he knew that they'd be looking for her. And he was right. Sandy's mother and her sisters were doing all they could to try and find her, and they confronted Gary about having something to do with her disappearance. He simply denied that he knew where she was, even when his neighbors told Sandy's family that they had seen her around recently. So what did he do? He put on some gloves, and forced Sandy to write Christmas cards to her family, complete with $20 bills, explaining that she'd moved to New York. He'd then drove up to New York to mail them to her loved ones to help reassure them that she was okay, but her family remained suspicious since they knew that Sandy would never send letters. She would call so that they could hear our voice and know that she was all right. But given the fact that it was her handwriting and the letters were covered only in her fingerprints, it was enough for the acting detectives to assume that Sandy was okay, and the investigation ceased. In the words of former detective Julius Armstrong, in my mind, this person was missing voluntarily. 19-year-old Lisa Thomas was next. Gary picked her up as she was walking down the street one evening, and he invited her to have dinner with him, and offer what she accepted. Why she accepted the invitation meant twice a rage we don't know, I never understand. But it happened, and he took her to a restaurant called TGI Fridays. TGI Fridays is a chain, there's a TGI Fridays here in Prague, distinctly average, and treated her to a cheeseburger and fries while he had a martini. What a treat a cheeseburger and TGI Fridays. Then after they spent some time shopping at Sears, he took her back to his house. He gave her a beer and they sat a watch the movie, all while there were two helpless women chained up under their feet. From there, just like he had done with Josephine at the pair of the Wenzop stairs, had sex. Yes, the 40-year-old had sex with a 19-year-old, it's gross as hell. I mean, it is. But is, in the scale of gross that's happened in today's episode, that's even legal. I mean, and then before she could even get fully dressed, he strangled her. Lisa also repeatedly told him that he could do whatever he wanted, as long as he'd been calmer, and then Gary dragged it to the basement and chained her up with the others. According to Lisa, quote, "he had chains and clamps, the car clamps. He put them on my ankle, and he had to count the links." So, you know, the amount to open my legs wide to have sex. Gary's demands never wavered, he wanted sex almost every single day, every day turned into every other day, but he remained fairly consistent. His constant physical and sexual assault of them continued day in, day out, all while they barely managed to survive on a steady diet of dog and cat food. If they gave into his demands and were good for him, he might treat them to a pop tart in the morning, a perhaps plate of hot dogs and dry white rice at night for supper. He even decided to be nice for Christmas by allowing them to order anything they wanted from a paper menu at a local Chinese restaurant. Any other day, though, the man never spent more than five dollars on food for his captives. But before long, Gary decided that three captives went enough. He wanted more. On January 2, 1987, 23-year-old Deborah Debbie Dudley became captive in number four. Unfortunately, not much is known about her background, and all we do know is that she had a hard life, and by the time that her path crossed with Gary's, she had been living on the streets for years. So, he was extremely easy for Gary to spot her, lure her into his vehicle, and drive her to his home without anyone noticing or sounding the alarm. He dragged her down, into the basement, and Debbie was kicking and screaming the whole way down. Of those within his collection so far, she was most defiant. She kicked and punched him, screamed her lungs out all night, and tried her best to fight off his advances. But no matter how hard he fought, Gary still beat her into submission and trapped her in the pit. And just like the others, she would be shoved into a cramped space and crushed by the weight of the wooden board he placed on top of her. And now that he had four ladies under his control, he found a new way to humiliate them, while also getting his jollies off, by forcing them to have sex with each other, while he sat and watched with a sadistic grin on his face. Years later, Gary would be interviewed about what it had done, and when talking about why he treated his captives like he did, he was blunt and to the point, Heidnick. I was trying to find something that would make them behave, interviewer, but it was painful to them. Heidnick. I hope so. Yeah, that's what I was trying to achieve. You know, to make them behave. No, I don't know, Gary. This is super fucked up. 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Plan required, 15 months equivalent taxes of these extra initial plans are only 50 gigabytes plus may slow when network is busy. Capable device required, availability speed and coverage varies cementmobile.com. Filling the pits, emptying the dungeon. By early January of 1987, Gary already had four women trapped in his basement, four women who had already been tortured and sexually violated too many times to count, and Gary Hydenick was still not done collecting. Next came Donna, aka Jacqueline Askins, another sex worker. Jacqueline was only 18 years old and like Josephina, she was also walking the streets, looking for a hook-up when she ran into Gary. He told me he would give me money to go with him for half an hour. When we got to his house, we were playing this video game called Mr. Do, and like a half hour or 45 minutes later, he grabbed me in a headlock with his arm around my neck, choking me, he took me to the basement, and I met Josephina, Lisa, Debbie, Sandy. As soon as Jacqueline was safely chained up, Gary had an epiphany, or perhaps this was his plan all along, why beat these women in self when he could get them to beat each other and so he did. Under threat of even worse violence, Gary forced the four women to beat Jacqueline as if this was some sort of hazing or initiation ritual. And when it came to the abuse of the others, he got more and more creative. But before long his paranoia reached no time high and he was always worried that they were talking, plotting or scheming together against him. So much so that he eventually started bribing the girls to tell all the others if there was ever talk of escape. But when that didn't work, he made sure they'd never be able to scheme against him again. So one day, Gary at rounds it up Sandy, Lisa, Debbie and Jacqueline tied them up so that they couldn't resist and duct tape their mouths shut. Josephino was made to stand off to the side and was forced to watch as Gary pulled out a screwdriver and Jesus Christ and plunged it deep into the ears of the screaming women so they'd no longer listen to each other's scheming. However, even during this this, oh my god. However, even during this madness, something became perfectly clear to the other women. Gary Hydenick had a favorite and that was Josephina. Compared to the others, she was treated better, she was given more food at meal times and she was usually charged with beating the women upon his command, even allowed her to come out of the basement with the modification to relax upstairs and watch a movie with him, with the understanding that if she tried to escape, her life would be forfeit. This was meant to elicit mistrust and hatred toward her, amongst the other women, with hopes that it would draw Josephina closer to him. Even took her upstairs to a soldier in a more comfortable place, like his bed, how considerate. When you try to manipulate and force Stockholm syndrome, there's a good chance it will simply backfire that we're going to talk about that more later. So yeah, things were horrid, something straight out of the fifth circle of hell. But then, one night, if it could even be possible, things took a turn for the worst, he'd just fucking deffend them with a screwdriver. On February 4th, 1987, Gary Hydenick gave his prisoners some bread and water to eat. Always going well, but then he noticed that Sandy was eating slower than the rest, this angered Gary, and he demanded that she eat faster, but when Sandy was unable to, he forced Lisa to beat her to make her hurry up. Try as she might though, Sandy could not eat faster, as she had long standing issues with a mouth and jaw, which forced her to eat much slower than everyone else, but Gary was convinced that she was defying him, that she was misbehaving. And for that, she needed to be punished. And so, after dragging her across the rough basement floor, he hung Sandy up by one of her wrists by hooking her onto a roof beam, forcing her to remain standing, arms above her head around the clock for three days. So, what happens when someone is forced to have one or both arms lifted above their head indefinitely? Well, their shoulders will eventually be pulled out of their sockets, dislocating them, and the awkward position would cause the weight from their head and shoulders to move down to their chest, making it difficult to breathe, causing the sufferer to fixate. Unfortunately, this was the fate of Sandy Lindsay, who closed her eyes for the final time on February 7, 1987, never to open them again. Gary Hydenick had only meant to punish Sandy, and killing her was not his intent, but either way, he just committed his first murder, and now he had a body to dispose of. According to Josephina, quote, "Gary took a chain off, and he carried our body upstairs. I could see the Gary was upset. We were all upset because we didn't know what he was going to do. I was afraid he would panic and take it out on all of us." Later on, we could hear a sound like an electric saw, and we started to smell a terrible odor, for like three or four days. I think we can all see where this is going. Gary just remembered Sandy's body, and allegedly disposed of the meat the only way he could think of, by cooking it and feeding portions of it to his dogs. It's also believed by many that he cooked some of the meat, ground and mixed it with dog food, and served it to his imprisoned haram. Now none of the candlestick portions of that are proven. In fact, medical practitioners at the time believed it was all nonsense that he never ate or forced anyone to eat Sandy's flesh. It's thought that Gary simply made that crap up to better his defense, and that it buried the spare parts in different locations around the area, but not before using the cooked portions of Sandy's body to scare and intimidate his remaining prisoners below. When Gary's neighbors took notice of the foul smell emanating from Gary's house, they called the police. Excellent work, neighbors. However, Gary had an answer for just this sort of confrontation. I'm cooking a roast. I fell asleep, and it burned. And it worked. The police weren't able to place the terrible smell as cooked human flesh instead of a damn roast. I mean, yeah, you bit. How would they know what cooked human flesh smells like? They left him to his own devices, and his continuous torture of the three women remaining in his basement. However, the smell never dissipated, it just lingered, festive, both in and out of the house. To quote Josephina, "The smell was the worst thing I ever smelled. When he would come down to have sex with everybody, we could smell the odor all over him." The harm was now down to four, but soon it would be free. One of his favorite methods of torture was electric shock, and he would send a jolt of electricity through their chains by touching them with a hot electrical wire, reveling in their yelps of pain, and their pleadings for him to stop. On the evening of March 19, 1987, Gary returned home, and heard noise coming from the basement. Gary found that Debbie was kicking up a bus as usual, but this night, Gary had reached his limit with her. He filled the pit up with water from a hose connected to his kitchen sink and gave Debbie one last chance to shut up and behave. She didn't, so Gary then threw her back into the pit, which was now filled with water, and then simply dropped in a live wire, and stepped back to watch the show. "Does that even work? Sure, like, I switch on my studio lights, sometimes, and it's like, psh, you know, the power trips, because it's just drawing too much energy. Surely, if you put a live wire into water, it's immediately just going to be like, "No, thank you." What's that crazy TV show where those people have a bath, and they have the toast next to the bath? What is that? It's like a psycho TV show. Why is that? Is that that show with the guy who likes people who don't have limbs? What the hell am I thinking about? That was a creepy show. Debbie had still been tied up with chains, and she died within seconds, her body twitching and spasming from the electrical currents in the water. Honestly, that is probably one of the less horrific ways. Like, if I was in this situation, I'd take that over some of the fucking other options that this guy's got cooking around in his sick fucking head. Then, after forcing Josephina to write and sign a letter of confession to Debbie's murder alongside him, he took her out of the basement to help him dump the body, and then the two of them disposed of Debbie's body in the new Jersey pine barons. Gary now had two empty holes to fill, so on March 23rd, 1980, abducted 24-year-old Agnes Adams. Gary and Josephina had noticed her on the street while driving around that day, and Josephina had noticeably perked up since she actually knew the girl. Gary felt the need to grab her since he wanted to replace Debbie and replenish his sex-laid dungeon, and so he made Josephina a proposition. If she helped him kidnap Agnes, he'd promise her a favour, anything she wanted. It was an opportunity that was too good to pass up, and so Josephina helped convince Agnes to get in the car. After they took her back to the house, Gary would have sex with her, and then drag her down to the basement to be ginned up with the others. It wasn't long before all the trusted placed in Josephina would come back to bite him in the arse. Good. Yeah, Josephina'd be plotting, dude. She'd be like, "Okay, cool. Well, I'll get that favour," and then it'd be like, "I want to go for Starbucks." And then immediately flee to the police station. Please, please, let's do something like that. Manipulate the shit out of him, Josephina. Let's go. The final needle. I really hope the final needle is the needle that goes into his arm. While he's strapped to a gurney, I mean, he's not going to be getting some back-scene. He's going to be getting that dose of three drugs that make him go into the old forever sleep. Where he belongs? And if I believed in hell, that's where it'd be going. So about that favour, Josephina was promised. For all those months, Josephina had been forced to endure Gary's demented torments. She had endured the numerous raps, the countless beatings, and the constant degradation, and she came out on the other side. Gary had attempted to corrupt her to make her love him and to make it so that she'd wished to stay with him forever. I swear for someone so smart, he really wasn't more on, wasn't he? Josephina's hatred for Gary only grew and grew with every evil deed, and every day she simply played along and did as he asked, biting her time, waiting for an opportunity to slip away, and get free. Exactly. I mean, it's not about being dumb. He's just an insane person. Like, you can't explain his brain. He's obviously very smart, but smart people maybe even more manipulable, malleable, manipulatable than regular people because they have less social awareness, perhaps, wide, wiles, painting with broad brushes there, but maybe. And finally, the day came, and all because she simply asked for it. Yep, you read that right on March 24th, 1987. One day after Agnes was kidnapped and trapped in the basement, Josephina called in her favour. She approached Gary, and asked if she could go visit her family. She missed them dearly, and knew that they missed her, and she wanted to let them know that she was really okay. However, she assured him that it would only be temporary, and that she would return to him. Oh, Gary, you can let it go. Yes, Gary, yes. Again, someone as legitimately smart as Gary should have known better, should have seen through her sweet promises, but he didn't. I don't suppose love and desire really do blind you to all else since Gary Heidenig readily agreed to allow Josephine to leave the house, but just to promise that she wouldn't be long. After dropping her off at a gas station nearby, Gary told her that it'd meet her back there soon, and that they could go hunting together again that evening. Gary thinks that he's brought her around to his complete psycho ways. She'd be going straight to the FBI. She agreed, but needless to say, that did not happen. As soon as the car was out of sight, Josephine abolted. She'd done it. She'd survived. She was free. But that left the other women imprisoned in limbo, and she couldn't just leave them there. She huffed it to the house of her boyfriend, Vincent Nelson, who was both shocked and overjoyed to see her after she'd gone missing all those months ago. She immediately told him everything, and he was horrified. Initially, the two of them were set on going back to Gary's house to confront him outright. Bro, no, no, no. That's what a SWAT team is for. And to be fair, who could blame them? I can. I can. I mean, I know you want to go and rescue them, but you're just endangering them more. Because you're going to get in some weird hostage situation, or it's going to go down. You need to immediately tell the police. Thankfully, common sense prevailed, and instead, they called the police, yes. According to John Cannon, a former police officer that responded to Josephine's call, quote, "She said he's up in the corner at 6th and Gerard." I said, "Well, let's see if Mr. Gary's up there." And sure enough, there was a Cadillac, just like she described. We got out, approached, ordered him out of his car. The girl came down and said, "Yeah, that's him. That's him. He rupt me, and killed these two other girls. And he had me eating her bones. He cut up this girl, and put her in a pot and made us eat her." She said other girls were still in there, down in the cellar in a hole. I said, "Wow!" I imagine it was more like, "Whoa." Not long after, multiple police cars pulled up to Gary's house, hoping that they'd still find the abducted women alive and well, but as they took in their house with its metal doors and boarded up windows, they quickly realized that to prepare themself for the worst possible outcome. "Please, where's the SWAT people? I want the SWAT people. You know, the FBI opened up, and then they storm into the house, and they start breaking sh*t and murdering." I mean, not murdering, like justified killing or whatever. Let's get Gary Kills. Let's hope he puts up a fight and ends up dead. Actually, I'd rather him go through trial. I kind of prefer that, and then, you know, he has that, you know, time on death row to just kind of cook. John Cannon would later explain, but when the police entered the house, the television was up, playing real loud. We went to the cellar door, down to the cellar in the back, and sure enough, laying on the floor with these half-naked girls, and they were screaming, "Oh, we're saved. We're saved." And the women were saved. The house was searched. It was filthy, and the smell of a rot, opted up from the basement, and all the way through the rest of the structure, the mattresses in the basement were disgusting and moldy, the floors were damp and dirty. And there was the pit in the middle. The weighted plank beside it, and the bloody and rusted chains and clamps attached to the walls. Searching the rest of the house, they soon made it to the fridge, and that's where they discovered the remains of Sandy's body. Around the same time, Gary was making his way back to the gas station to pick up Josephina, smiling ear to ear, fully expecting to find his favorite plaything, waiting for him. But instead he was greeted by a mean-looking cop who brought handcrafts to the party. Am I crazy for thinking, "Why aren't there more guns? Why aren't there more policemen with really big guns, thriving on the ground?" Gary was then formally arrested, which brought an end to the self-indulgent chaos that had been reveling in for so long. As soon as the story got out to the public, the media were thrown into a frenzy. Everyone wanted to know how someone like this could possibly exist and how they could do something so vile and arrange to six women who had done nothing to deserve it. "Well, I'll tell you what, people who thought this. There are psychopaths. There are really bad people in this world who are just fucking bad because they're bad, or because they got knocked over the head as a kid, or they were abused, or their jeans got a weird shake. You know, that these people exist. That's just the reality. The police tried to get more information out of it, but he refused to say a word, or give a reason for his actions, let alone take responsibility for them. Honestly, smart move there. He's got that 148 IQ. He knows he needs a lawyer. In fact, he did his damnedest to try and shrug off any and all accountability by attempting to hang himself in his cell in April 1987, but he was unsuccessful. That makes me know why he does have a record. I wanted to say a train record, but that makes. That's not the right word. Track record. There we go. It's early, this is the first thing I'm doing today. A track record of failed suicide attempts. Doesn't need that. That makes 14 attempts on his own life. He was truly bad at this. Regardless, the charges laid against him were two counts, first to greener, the six counts of kidnapping, five counts of four counts of aggravated assault and two counts of involuntary, deviant sexual intercourse. The police kept him on ice until his trial, which didn't start until June of 1988. OK. Excellent. That's enough to get you the death penalty I should think. Where is this new jersey? They have federal death penalty still, right? This was the 80s. Let's get it done! Chuck Peruto Junior was Gary's defense representative for the trial, and when he described their first meeting, he held nothing back. Quote, "I got to see him, and the first thing he does is he salutes me." Then he starts telling me the story, but he's obviously skipping major parts. So I said, Gary, the police report in the newspaper, at least, it shows that when they executed a search warrant, there was a head of a woman boiling in a pot on the stove right then and there. Were you cooking the head?" He says, "Yeah." I said, "Well, what kind of seasoning do you use?" And he looked up at me and said, "You're crazy. I didn't get that ridiculous with him after that, because I realized that this guy was either very evil or very insane." I think he is both of those things. I think he is a truly evil person. I mean, I don't really know how to define evil per se, but this guy's there. This seems like evil deeds. And the insane route was what the defense tried to go for. They tried to prove that Gary was not in his right mind when he committed his crimes, and it's hard to argue with them. Not only did they have to explain the things he did, not only did they have his previous diagnosis of skitside personality disorder to fall back on, and not only did they either unintentionally or unintentionally start the rumor that Gary was a cannibal, but even his own arrangement hearing this man had the audacity to say that he didn't put the ladies there in the basement. They were already there when he moved in. I guess that's going to help his insanity defense, because that's crazy. Sure, Gary. And I'm Anthony Hopkins. How with the question is this? How mentally disabled was Gary really? And that's a good question. In fact, the head injury we spoke about earlier, there were no real records of such an injury to speak of, just the word of Gary and his brother, Terry. So I had Gary been faking his own mental disabilities for years. Was he nothing more than a fraud and a jerk? Uh, jerk is not what I'd used to describe this mad map. Was he nothing more than a fraud and an absolute king's psycho path. According to Philadelphia District Attorney Prosecutor Charlie Gallagher, that's exactly the case. Quote, "In the 60s, he went in the army and he wanted to get a certain kind of training, but they ended up training him as a medic, and they sent him to Germany, and I think he didn't like the assignment. He didn't like being in Germany, so he started thinking, how can I beat this? He just stopped obeying orders. He finally got them to give him his medical discharge. Eventually, he wound up with 100% disability because he was able to convince the doctors that he was crazy. He's been faking it all his life." End quote. Personally, I have any opinion that it didn't matter much either way, considering what he did. A monster is a monster, but I understand Gallagher making the case for him being insane the whole time. Yeah, I think it's pretty much the only defense you can go for, and that's the question, like, is a psychopath who murders lots of people insane because they're a psychopath, he murdered lots of people? And honestly, I don't fucking care. Regardless, they were going full force with the defense, especially as defense attorney Peruto instructed Gary to change his somewhat clean cut appearance in order to look the part. Way had a clean cut appearance, I thought he was always mega-scruffy, and Gary did as instructed, letting his hair grow out and leaving it unkempt, refusing to bathe for weeks on end and allowing his beard to grow to simon-like proportions. Oh, how do you know that? My beard's looking pretty tripped. I did watch a video of me the other day and I was like, "God damn dude, your beard got long!" Like, from six months ago, whatever. It's a quote, Peruto. "If you want to demonstrate that someone is insane, then they got a fucking look insane. During this, that's the lawyer's beard right there. Okay, it's nice of so good, man." During the trial, he looked like a total whacked job. Did I do that? Yes, but doesn't women organized against dress up their victims? Dude, I mean, the first half of that quote is like, "Alright, I mean, you're a defense lawyer, you gotta do what you gotta do." But doesn't women organized against dress up their victims? Dude, that is not okay. However, no matter how much they argue that he was insane, nothing could save Gary from his inevitable fate. Please, needle, in the arm, yes! The prosecutor wanted him locked away, and they wanted it done as in yesterday. Well, he is locked away. He's not on bail. I assume for this sort of shit. Are we talking about whether he's gonna go away for life in jail, life in the mental institution, or needle in the arm? I feel like those are our only three options here. This dude is not out on the street any time soon. To counter his claims of insanity, they brought up something that Gary himself was rather proud of, his financial success. His success in the stock market, his success with the church, amassing all that money over the years, investing successfully in order to make more money. It was his cherished wealth, much of which was scammed from his churchgoers that came back to haunt him. On July the 1st, 1988, Gary Hyde, and it was found guilty on all churches. Get the yeas already, yes! I'm a bloody sad to think he was given the only one that made sense. Death, yes! In the end, it seems Gary ended up getting exactly what it wanted for all those years to die a painful and horrible death. Is this the 80s? Oh, are we not doing needle or are we gonna be doing a gas chamber? Yes, please. He almost didn't give the state the satisfaction of doing the deed themselves, though as he attempted to off himself one more time on December the 1st, 1988, by overdosing on his anti-psychotic meds, but of course he didn't work and only briefly put him into a coma. After that, Gary didn't try to appear his sentence, not once much of the frustration of his defense team. Why do you care so much? I guess they impaid, right? But it seemed that Gary had had enough of fighting his fate. He had been miserable his whole life. He was being beaten and abused in prison. Goods. He was outraged that it had been caught in his depravity and he just wanted to get it over with. Would you believe that his ex-wife Betty and their daughter asked for a state of execution? Yes, even after all that happened, they came to his defense, saying that he was clearly mentally disturbed and should never have been cleared for a trial. But it didn't work, and his date with death was set for April the 15th, 1997. Oh my god, it's like, do we have to wait in eight years? However, the day before, a state of execution hearing was called, and even till the end, he refused to take any sort of responsibility, but his action, saying that, quote, "You people think I committed murders that I have not committed, and I have refused to appeal my case. I still refuse, even though I can prove my innocence, right? I still refuse to appeal my case. I resent this kind of being done to a disabled veteran. Don't say that. You're like that takes away from people you served as a medic, and then were stationed to a base in Germany. You didn't go out and get your legs shot off in King Iraq, did you? I don't know what stolen valor is, but I mean, I do. I don't know if that is stolen valor. It seems like it, though, doesn't it? Soon enough, the Gary Hydenick's date with death was a rescheduled to July the 6th, 1999. By then, Hydenick just wanted to get it done with, he simply didn't care any longer, and wanted his life to be over. After eating a final meal of two slices of cheese pizza and black coffee, he was led from his cell. And just like that on July 6th, 1999, at the state correctional institution in Rock View in Belafonte, Pennsylvania, Gary Hydenick H55 was executed by lethal injection, putting an end to his evil ones. And for all, yes, please, and the sister Tracy Lomax went into witness the death of the demon who killed her sister, and she wasn't satisfied that his final fate was so clean and simple. Yeah, they should have dug a big, they should have got him to dig a big hole, fill it with water, go for a little swim, and then drop an electrical wire in. Actually, that would be too clean. Let's just torture him. No, I'm not up for torturing people to death. It's like, I eat meat, no problem with that. This is going somewhere, promise. But I'm not into torturing animals to death. Like, I don't eat foie gras, I don't eat lobster, I don't eat crab, because I think the way that these things are prepared is just not that not ethical. And I don't think even as evil as someone is, I don't think we should be torturing people to death. Can we kill people? Yeah, I'm down. Can we torture them to death? No, I think we should be above that. And I know that's a lot for someone who's just now advocating for the death penalty. Saying that we should be above something, but I don't know. I don't even know. I all I know is fuck this guy. To quote Tracy, "I went into the execution, but it was too calm and serene for me. I'm thinking execution is something like turn around and let me shoot you. Instead, they stuck a needle in his arm. He never looked at us, never acknowledged us, never said he was sorry, he didn't say anything, he didn't even look in our direction. No, but I'd take a great amount of solace in the fact that he is now f*cking dead." Qincidentally, as the title of this chapter alludes to, this was also the final execution in the state of Philadelphia to date. Oh, it was a good one to end on, to be honest, guys. Wrap up. And there we have it, the end of our story. Disturbing is not a strong enough word, not even close. Gary Hydenig was a demented, twisted, and evil man, someone who thought he was above everyone else, someone who thought the world owed him something, specifically a family, and he did everything he could to get one. No matter who he had to hurt to get it, he tricked six women, stole six women right off the street, lured them to his home, and trapped them in the deep dark of his basement. He might as well have sent them right to hell. He sexually assaulted them, he brutalized them, he tortured them, he cemented their minds, and turned them against each other. And in regards to two of them, he snuffed out their lives with less than a single care in the world, and then, after that, he disposed of one of them in the most disgusting way imaginable, without even blinking an eye, and simply dumped the other as if her life was worth nothing more than trash. And he got caught, because he thought he had more control physically and emotionally over one of his victims than he did, and it resulted in him getting sent right to the proverbial gallows. And all the while, he denied any sort of guilt, felt that he'd done nothing wrong, and that he had only done what was right by him, that he'd only taken what he deserved. Was he actually mentally cracked doing all these things, because the voices in his head told him to? What was he just a narcissistic prick with a family fetish, faking crazy to get what he wanted? He said, "I don't care. I don't care. Same end result." He was a piece of shit, and he's dead. His actions are inexcusable either way. There we go. And in the end, he got exactly what he deserved, a needle in the arm, and the eternal darkness of death. The thing it's safe to say, the only somewhat positive thing, the sack of garbage contributed to society, is an inspiration for one of the greatest villains, in fiction and cinema. I think Prosecutor Charles Gallagher once again said it best. Quote, "From the eve of Thanksgiving 1986 through March 1987, this man conducted repeated sadistic and malicious acts upon six defenseless victims. He planned what he was doing. He went ahead and did it, and he did it on purpose." What kind of girls did he take? Girls that he knew he could force into submission. He got the young girl with mental motivation. He got her, and she was in chains. He forced her to sign a note, sent it to her mother in order to defuse the family from trying to find the girl and save her. Is that the mind of someone who's psychotic? Who didn't know what he was doing? No. It's the calculating actions of a cold-blooded killer, in my opinion. With that said, as we exit the abyss together, let's take a moment to remember the victims. None of them deserved even a fraction of what happened to them. Josephina Rivera, Lisa Thomas, Jacqueline Askins, Agnes Adams. I hope you managed to move on and live your best lives after this traumatic insanity. Sandra Lindsay and Deborah Dudley rest in peace, ladies, and know that you didn't deserve it or do anything wrong. And you can rest well knowing that the beast who selfishly ended your lives paid the ultimate price. And that is the end of today's episode. Thanks for being here. A quick word from our fantastic sponsor Mint Mobile. Now that the holidays are over, you might be feeling a big spending hang over the drinks, the holiday food, the gifts it all adds up, doesn't it? But luckily, Mint Mobile is here to help you cut back on over spending on wireless this January, with 50% off unlimited premium wireless. Look, Mint Mobile's end-of-year sale is still ongoing, but only until the end of the month. Cut out big wireless's bloated plans, and unnecessary monthly charges with 50% off 3, 6, or 12 months of unlimited. 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