Carole Ann Boone. During the evenings while other inmates were showering, Bundy sawed a hole approximately one foot square in the corner ceiling of his cell, and after losing thirty-five pounds, was able to move through the crawl space during his practice tries.
On the night of December 30, while most of the jail staff was on Christmas break, and many of the short- term prisoners were released to spend the holidays with their families, Bundy stacked books on his bed under a blanket to make it look like he was sleeping, and slipped into the crawl space. He broke through the ceiling into the apartment of the chief guard who happened to be out for the evening with his wife, changed into street clothes from the guard's closet, and walked out the front door to freedom. The escape was not detected until the next day. By then Bundy had a seventeen-hour head start. He stole a car and drove out of Glenwood Springs; the car broke down and he hitched a ride into Vail, caught a bus to Denver, and a flight to Chicago. He was in Chicago by the time the guards noticed he was missing. From there he bussed to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and five days later stole a car and drove to Atlanta where he caught another bus to Tallahassee, Florida. He rented a room under the alias Chris Hagen at a boarding house near Florida State University.
On January 15, 1978, Bundy entered a sorority house on campus and killed Margaret Bowman, twenty-one, with a piece of firewood while she was asleep, and proceeded to garrote her with a nylon stocking. In the same room, he attacked Lisa Levy, twenty, beat her unconscious, sexually assaulted her with a bottle, literally tore off one of her nipples, and then strangled her. In the next bedroom, he attacked Kathy Kleiner, who suffered a broken jaw and deep shoulder lacerations, and Karen Chandler, who suffered a concussion, broken jaw, loss of teeth, and a crushed finger. Both Chandler and Kleiner survived however, only to suffer a lifetime of physical and emotional stress. The police were called immediately.
Arrest
On February 15, 1978, Officer David Lee was on car patrol when he noticed a yellow Volkswagen Bug idling in an alley behind a restaurant. It was late and the restaurant was closed so it was suspicious that someone was there in a car. Officer Lee went past but watched the car in his rearview mirror as the car pulled out of the alley and headed in the opposite direction. Officer Lee turned around to follow the car, and as he drove he radioed in the car’s license plate number. The plates came back as stolen, and Officer Lee started pursuit of the car, which sped up and began a series of elusive maneuvers. Finally, the car stopped, at which time Officer Lee drew his gun and approached the car with caution.
Bundy was ordered out of the car and advised that he was under arrest. Bundy kicked Officer Lee’s legs out from underneath him and took off at a run. Officer Lee gave chase and tackled Bundy to the ground. Both struggled over the gun but Officer Lee won, subdued Bundy, and placed him under arrest. As Officer Lee was transporting his prisoner to the lockup, he was not aware that he just arrested one of the F.B.I.’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, but he did hear Bundy say, “I wish you had killed me.”
Execution
Ted Bundy’s trial was televised and quickly became a media circus. Bundy did not want a lawyer and once again represented himself. He did a poor job, according to many lawyers, and in July of 1979 was found guilty and sentenced to death. On the evening before his execution, Bundy reviewed his confessed victim tally on a state-by- state basis with officials. He killed;
11 in Washington - 3 unidentified
8 in Utah - 3 unidentified
3 in Colorado
3 in Florida
2 in Oregon - both unidentified
2 in Idaho - 1 unidentified
1 in California - unidentified
Ted Bundy died in the Raiford electric chair at 7:16 am on January 24th, 1989. He managed to live 10 years in prison.
Donald Henry Gaskins
The Redneck Charles Manson
Victims (40 to 181)
Background
Donald Henry Gaskins was born on March 13, 1933, in Florence County, South Carolina. Gaskins spent a great deal of his childhood in reform schools, and because of his short stature, just 5’ 4”, was dubbed Pee Wee, a name which contributed to him being subjected to physical abuse, and later, in prison, sexual abuse. Gaskins did not do well in school and elected to be a petty criminal. He married in 1951 at the age of eighteen, and the following year had a daughter. His marriage did not last long as he attacked a teenage girl and hit her with a hammer. He was arrested and sentenced to six years at the Central Correctional Institution. During his imprisonment, his wife divorced him.
Murder, Arrest, Release
While he was in prison, Gaskin’s committed his first murder. He slashed the throat of another inmate, Hazel Brazell. His reasoning for killing Brazell was to earn a reputation so that the other prisoners would fear him. He only got an additional three years added on to his sentence however as he claimed it was in self-defense. Just two years later, in 1955, he escaped prison by hiding out in the back of a garbage truck and fled to Florida. He was arrested again but eventually paroled in 1961.
Subsequent Murders
After his release, Gaskins went back to his petty crimes, stealing and breaking into businesses. He was arrested again in 1963 for the rape of a twelve-year-old girl and sentenced to eight years in the pen. He was released in 1968 after serving only five of those years and swore that he would never go back to prison again. Gaskin then moved to the town of Sumter where he worked as a laborer with a construction company. In September of 1969, Gaskins began his killing spree.
In September 1969, The Redneck picked up a female hitchhiker and started flirting with her. When she laughed at him, he pounded her unconscious, raped, sodomized, and tortured her; he then threw her into a swamp, still alive. This was the first of his so-called ‘Coastal Kills.’ He later referred to the Coastal Kills as the random killing of people in which, prior to killing, he sometimes enjoyed torturing his victims for days. He would at times cannibalize their dismembered bodies while they watched and force them to eat their own flesh.
He was not what the FBI would refer to as an organized killer. He had no preference; he would kill children, women, and men, but in November of 1970, Gaskins commenced what he would call his ‘Serious Murders’ of people he knew, such as family and friends. His niece, Janice Kirby, fifteen, and her friend, Patricia Alsobrook, seventeen, were the first victims of his Serious Murders. He took the girls to an abandoned house where he beat and raped them before drowning them.
