This week, we are going to talk about one of the lesser known American serial killers:  Pee Wee Gaskins.

Donald Gaskins was born in Florence County, South Carolina, on March 13th, 1933.  During his young childhood, Donald’s mom would have men coming in and out of the house, and these men were not nice to Donald.   Frequent beatings and abandonment occurred, with his mother later getting married to his abusive step-father.

Donald was also a lot smaller than most of the kids at school –– he was called “Pee Wee”; a name that originally taunted Donald, but he eventually owned it and kept the nickname throughout his life.  At age 11, Donald decided that school just wasn’t for him and he started working at a local car garage (it is the 1940s after all).  Donald met two friends at this workplace eventually calling themselves the Trouble Trio; the 3 would break into homes, steal, frequent sex workers (at age 11/12!!!!!), and unfortunately (trigger warning) sexually assaulting other children in the town, including one of theTrio’s sister.  Once caught, the Trio was broke up, but Donald had already had his taste of crime.  He continued his own crime spree, which led to his first conviction of assault with a deadly weapon and was sent to a school for troubled boys. Here, Donald soon became the target of his fellow students.

After remaining in the school until age 18, Donald returned to the real world and quickly learned that normal jobs just weren’t for him, so he proceeded to engage in insurance fraud but, he was eventually convicted again for assault with a deadly weapon.  In order to gain power within the prison society, Donald murdered a new inmate to gain respect (his first murder)–– he was once again convicted.   Donald was released and rearrested in the early 1960s, but was eventually released in 1968.

Donald proceeds to start picking up hitchhikers to beat, rape, and murder them.  Driving coastal highways, picking up both male and female hitchhikers, assaulting and murdering various victims in various ways; Donald evaded police detection.  Most victims were also unknown to Donald, but he did occasionally murder people somewhat related to him.  Beginning by hiding the bodies along the South Carolina highways, bodies began piling up.  Donald recruited a friend (Walter)  to help dispose of victims, and even had his own personal grave yard.

Walter was caught by police as a suspect for murder, and he gave police EVERYTHING, sending police Donald’s way.  Finding the graveyard, both Walter and Donald were convicted on April 27th, 1976  with 8 counts of murder.  In May, 1974, Donald was given the death penalty for past murders.

Believe it or not, Donald committed one more murder in prison (of a fellow death row inmate –– it was a contract kill from a family member of a victim of the other inmate).  In order to avoid his imminent execution, Donald began giving more info to about his victims, claiming somewhere between 100-110 people (the actual account is unknown).  He was executed via the electric chair on September 6th, 1991.

I hope you guys enjoyed this week –– have any of you heard of Pee Wee Gaskins?  He wrote a memoir before his death, I couldn’t imagine the horrible mind contained in those pages.

Sources:  YouTube Bailey Sarian Video, Wikipedia, News articles