Gary Heidnik was also called the “House of Horrors” killer. He was an American criminal known for kidnapping women and murdering two between November 1986 and March 1987. He was arrested and convicted of two counts of murder among other charges. Gary was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in July 1999. Before his execution, he attempted suicide with an overdose of prescribed Thorazine.
He has been described as one of the inspirations for the Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb character in The Silence of the Lambs.
Gary Heidnik was born and raised in Ohio
Gary Heidnik was born to Michael and Ellen Heidnik on November 22, 1943, in Eastlake, Ohio. His mother raised him and his brother after she divorced his father in 1946.
During his formative years, reports say he was emotionally abused by his father due to a lifelong problem of bed wetting. His father reportedly humiliated him by forcing him to hang his stained sheets from his bedroom window.
Although he did well academically, Gary never interacted or made eye contact with his fellow students. At the age of 14, Heidnik enrolled at the Staunton Military Academy for two years. He also attended a public high school which he would later drop out to join the United States Army.
He served in the Army for more than one year before he was sent to San Antonio to be trained as a medic.
Before he was discharged from military service, Gary Heidnik displayed symptoms of mental illness and was prescribed trifluoperazine. He was later diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder before he was honorably discharged from service.
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He became a licensed nurse after he was discharged from military service
Upon his discharge from military service, Heidnik became a licensed nurse after which he worked at a Veterans Administration hospital in Coatesville. However, he was fired due to poor attendance and rude behavior towards patients.
Between 1962 to 1987, he spent time in and out of psychiatric hospitals and reportedly attempted suicide more than thirteen times. Although he never succeeded, his mother, who was previously diagnosed with bone cancer suffered the effects of alcoholism and later committed suicide by drinking mercuric chloride. Reports say his brother also attempted suicide multiple times and spent time in a mental facility.
Gary Heidnik was married once and had 4 children
Gary courted Betty Disto for two years via mail before he proposed to her. Originally from the Philippines, Disto married the killer on October 3, 1985. However, the marriage was not all rosy especially after his wife caught him in bed with three women.
Later on, he forced his wife to be an onlooker while he performed intercourse with other women. His wife would later accuse him of repeatedly raping and assaulting her but with the help of the Filipino community in Philadelphia, she was able to leave Heidnik in 1986.
After they divorced, Disto gave birth to a son, Jesse John Disto. Gary also had another child with Gail Lincow but he was placed in foster care shortly after he was born. He had a third child, Maxine Davidson with a mentally disabled woman, Anjeanette Davidson.
Gary Heidnik’s criminal activities began in 1976
Heidnik was first imprisoned for raping and sodomizing the sister of his then-girlfriend Anjeannette Davidson, Alberta. The latter was initially in a mental institution before he went to sign her out and imprison her in a storage room in his basement.
His sentence was later overturned on appeal and he only spent three years in incarceration in a mental facility before his release in April 1983.
He was again arrested and charged with assault, indecent assault, spousal rape, and involuntary deviant sexual intercourse. The charges were later dropped after Betty Disto failed to appear for the preliminary hearing.
On November 25, 1986, Gary Heidnil abducted a woman named Josefina Rivera and held her captive in a pit in the basement of his house in North Philadelphia. The captives were allegedly beaten, raped, and tortured.
In addition to his first victim, the serial killer abducted five more women and held them in the basement. His captives were said to be sexually abused and tortured in front of each other. one of them later died as a result of starvation and excessive torture. He reportedly dismembered her body, ground it, and mix with dog food which he then fed to the other surviving ones.
Another victim was later electrocuted in a hole and the other was ordered to fill the hole with water and forced to apply an electrical current.
On March 24, 1987, Josefina Rivera escaped after convincing Heidnik to let her go out promising to bring another captive for him. Upon her release, she went to the authorities and he was arrested.
During his trial, Gary Heidnik denied all the allegations, insisting the victims that died were killed by the other captives. In 1988, he was convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to death.
While he was incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution in Pittsburgh, Gary attempted to commit suicide with an overdose of prescribed Thorazine.
Gary Heidnik was executed by lethal injection on 6 July 1999. His last meal before his execution was black coffee and two slices of cheese pizza. He was the last person to be executed in Pennsylvania when he died by lethal injection at the State Correctional Institution at Rockview in Bellefonte
Names of his victims
- Josefina Rivera
- Sandra Lindsay (murdered in February 1987)
- Lisa Thomas, 19, was kidnapped on Dec. 23, 1986
- Deborah Dudley (murdered on March 19, 1987)
- Jacqueline Askins
- Agnes Adams
