The man who claimed to have killed 110 people
In short: Donald Henry Gaskins was a notorious South Carolina killer whose true body count remains a subject of intense debate. While he claimed a staggering 110 murders, investigators and journalists have largely discredited his boasts, focusing instead on a confirmed list of victims that reveals a much more calculated pattern of violence.
Donald Henry Gaskins, known as "Pee Wee," was a prolific criminal whose life was marked by extreme violence and manipulation. While Gaskins claimed to have committed up to 110 murders, law enforcement and journalists have largely dismissed these high numbers as attempts to gain notoriety. However, through sworn testimony and investigative evidence, a confirmed count of 15 murders has been established, occurring primarily between 1970 and 1975. The deceased were particularly youthful: ten individuals were below 25, six were adolescents, and one child was just two years old.
Gaskins's crimes were characterized by a chilling variety of methods, including shooting, stabbing, drowning, and poisoning. He famously described a category of "coastal kills"—victims he targeted for pleasure along the highways of the American South. He claimed to hunt these individuals as often as every six weeks, though his specific timelines were often contradictory. His violence even extended into the prison system; while incarcerated at Central Correctional Institution, he used C4 explosives to murder fellow inmate Rudolph Tyner in a method described by lawyers as a "high tech lynching."
The legal history of Gaskins is as complex as his criminal record. Following a 1976 verdict regarding Dennis Bellamy's murder, the South Carolina Supreme Court vacated his death penalty in 1978. To avoid a new trial, he pleaded guilty to numerous other murders, receiving 10 concurrent life sentences. His September 6, 1991, electrocution represented a unique US legal event: no white perpetrator had been put to death for killing a Black person in 47 years.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Donald Henry Gaskins
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