For a working woman, every day is a risk, but you take it anyway. You go to the home of your latest client. Nothing seems out of sorts; you have sex, and while you wait for him to bring you money, you start to get dressed. What you don’t know, is this man wants more than just sex. This was a reality for Josefina Rivera (25), on November 25, 1986, the day she met Gary Heidnik.
Considered the first victim of Gary Heidnik, Josephina was lured into his home by the promise of money in exchange for sex. While she was getting her clothes back on, Heidnik came up from behind her and began choking her. He dragged her body down the stairs into the basement where he shackled her limbs together with chains, then sealed the bolts in with superglue.
“All I could remember was, like, a film projector of things that were going on in my life. It was, like – y’know, just flipping back.”
-Josefina Rivera
She screamed for help, but that only caused her more pain; Heidnik beat her with a stick until she quieted down. Then he smashed her into a pit, too small for her thin body. He smacked her over the head with a board until she fit then boarded it up, sealing her inside. She was trapped, the only light coming from the cracks in the wood overhead.
Josefina wasn’t to be his only victim, however. Heidnik had an insatiable appetite for sex and torture, and on December 3, 1986, he kidnapped Sandra Lindsay (24). Sandra was treated the same as Josefina, shackled and stuffed into a pit. Next was Lisa Thomas (19), kidnapped on December 23, 1986, Deborah Dudley (23), kidnapped on January 2, 1987, and Jacqueline Askins (18), on January 18, 1987.
The women were only pulled from the pit (by their hair) when Heidnik wanted to have sex, or had the need to torture. During a TV interview for the May 5, 2018 special, “Gary Heidnik’s House of Horrors, 30 years later,” Jacqueline explained that he would often wrap duct tape around their mouths before stabbing them in the ears with a screwdriver.
The women were often left hungry. Sandra Lindsay, for example, after disobeying Heidnik, was put on punishment and was starved for days. When Heidnik finally tried to give her food again, she didn’t move. He released her chains and she collapsed onto the ground. The other women began to panic and scream when they realized Sandra was dead. Heidnik told them to “cut out [their] bullshit” or they would die next.
You would think death would be the end of your torture, yet Heidnik wasn’t done with Sandra yet. He dismembered her body, but had difficulty with her arms and legs. He placed them in the freezer and labeled them “dog food.” Her ribs were cooked in the oven, and he boiled her head in a pot on the stove. When neighbors complained of a foul smell, police went to investigate. Heidnik explained, “I’m cooking a roast. I fell asleep and it burnt.” Officers believed his story and left with no further investigation.
While many will claim that Heidnik ground up the flesh of Lindsay and mixed it with dog food to feed to his other victims, there was never any evidence found to back it up.
Josefina began to suffer from Stockholm syndrome. Heidnik made her the boss of the other women. If she did what he said, he’d bring her hot chocolate and hot dogs. He’d even let her sleep outside of the hole. On the contrary, if she disobeyed him, she would lose all of her privileges.
“Anytime that you’re cut off from the world outside, whoever’s holding you captive … you’re going to grow to like him regardless, because he’s your only contact to things that are outside. He’s your only source of survival.”
-Josefina Rivera
One of the torture methods Heidnik was fond of, was electric shock. At one point, he forced 3 of his remaining 4 victims, bound with chains, into a pit. Josefina helped him fill the hole with water then made her help him apply an electric current from a stripped extension cord, to the women’s chains. As a result, Deborah Dudley was fatally executed on March 19, 1987.
“Yeah, she’s dead,” Heidnik said, after checking Deborah’s body. “Now I can get back to having a peaceful basement.”
Her body was dumped in the Pine Barrens, in New Jersey.
The loss of 2 women, meant there was an opening for more victims. Heidnik used Josefina as bait. On March 24, 1987, Heidnik and Josefina kidnapped 24 year old Agnes Adams. The next day, Josefina convinced Heidnik he needed to let Agnes go, only temporarily, to visit her family. He drove her to a gas station and said he would wait for her there. Agnes and Josefina agreed, and once out if sight, Josefina found the nearest phone and dialed 9-1-1.
Officers promptly arrested Gary Heidnik on March 24 at the gas station before raiding his house of horrors. The remaining women were finally free.
Gary Heidnik had not acted 100% alone. His best friend, Cyril “Tony” Brown was also arrested. Brown was released on $50,000 bail with the agreement that he would testify against Heidnik. He admitted to witnessing Lindsay’s death in the basement, and Heidnik dismembering her.
Heidnik grew up in a broken family, living first with his mother, then with his father and step-mother. He suffered emotional abuse for years, and developed a lifelong problem of bed wetting. His father would humiliate him by forcing him to hang his stained sheets from his bedroom window, in full view of their neighbors. (Michael Heidnik, Gary’s father, has denied all allegations of abuse.)
Heidnik was a loner in school, choosing not to interact with other students or even make eye contact. When one kind female student asked, “Did you get the homework done, Gary?”, he yelled at her and told her she was not “worthy enough” to talk to him.” He was a bright boy though, with an I.Q. of 148.
Heidnik joined the U.S. Army when he was just 17, and served for 13 months. His drill sergeant graded him as “excellent” in basic training, however when he applied for several specialist positions, he was rejected. He was sent to San Antonio, Texas to be trained as a medic. He was ultimately transferred to the 46th Army Surgical Hospital in Landstuhl, West Germany. In August 1962, he began to complain of severe headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, and nausea. A hospital neurologist diagnosed Heidnik with gastroenteritis, and noted that Heidnik also displayed symptoms of mental illness, for which he was prescribed trifluoperazine (Stelazine).
In October 1962, Heidnik was transferred to a military hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder and was honorably discharged from military service.
From August 1962 until his arrest in March 1987, Heidnik spent time in and out of psychiatric hospitals. He had attempted suicide at least 13 times, and in 1970, his mother Ellen, who had been diagnosed with bone cancer and suffered from alcoholism, committed suicide by drinking mercuric chloride.
In October 1971, Heidnik incorporated a church called the United Church of the Ministers of God, initially with only five followers. By 1986, the United Church of the Ministers of God was thriving and wealthy, having amassed over $500,000 (US$ 1,143,000 in 2010).
Heidnik had a child with Gail Lincow, a son named Gary Jr. The child was placed in foster care soon after his birth. Heidnik had another child with another woman, Anjeanette Davidson, who was illiterate and mentally disabled. Their daughter, Maxine Davidson, was born on March 16, 1978, and was also immediately placed in foster care.
Shortly after Maxine’s birth, Heidnik was arrested for the kidnapping and rape of Anjeanette’s sister Alberta, who had been living in an institution for the mentally disabled in Penn Township.The act had occurred while on day leave where Heidnik proceeded to imprison her in a locked storage room in his basement. After she was found and returned to the hospital, examination revealed that she had been raped and sodomized and that she had contracted gonorrhea. Heidnik was arrested and charged with kidnapping, rape, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and interfering with the custody of a committed person.
The original sentence was overturned on appeal, and Heidnik spent three years of his incarceration in mental institutions prior to being released in April 1983 under the supervision of a state-sanctioned mental health program.
Heidnik used a matrimonial service to meet his future wife, Betty Disto, from the Philippines. The two married in Maryland on October 3, 1985, but it wasn’t to be a happy marriage after she found him in bed with three other women. After that, Heidnik forced his wife to watch while he had sex with other women. Betty also accused him of repeatedly raping and assaulting her. With the help of the Filipino community in Philadelphia, she was able to leave him in January 1986. Shortly afterward, Heidnik was arrested and again charged with assault, indecent assault, spousal rape and involuntary deviant sexual intercourse.
Unknown to him until Betty requested child support payments in 1987, he had impregnated Betty during their short marriage. On September 15, 1986, she gave birth to a son, who she named Jesse John Disto.
Although Heidnik was clearly mentally disturbed, he was found guilty and convicted of murder on July 1, 1988. He received a death sentence, and was executed on July 6, 1999 by Lethal Injection.
So – Gary Heidnik collected people. Can you believe there was actually a Clitoris Collector?
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