DONALD HENRY GASKINS
BACKGROUND
v Born in Florence County, South Carolina
v Spent most of his youth in reform school
v Lived with his mother and her abusive boyfriends throughout the years
v Quit school at age 11 and started working in a garage
v As a youth committed a large amount of petty thefts
v During one burglary, he hit a woman on the head with a hatchet and left her for dead (she ended up surviving)
v Married in 1951 at age and had a daughter a year later
CRIMES
v Began committing insurance fraud when we was released from reform school
v He was arrested and charged with attempted murder after using a hammer to attack a teenage girl who he claimed had been insulting him. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment at the Central Correctional Institution
v First murder was in 1953 while he was serving his first prison sentence. He slashed the throat of an inmate named Hazel Brazell
v He was judged to have acted in self-defense and was sentenced to a further three years imprisonment
v Escaped from prison in 1955 and fled to Florida. He was re-arrested and was paroled in August 1961
v After parole, he was arrested for the rape of a 12 year old girl. Sentenced to 8 years in prison
v After he was released, he started picking up hitch hikers and torturing them and killing them. He confessed to killing “eighty to ninety” victims
v In November 1970, he killed his niece, Janice Kirby, aged 15, and her friend Patricia Ann Alsbrook, aged 17. He beat them to death after attempting to sexually assault them
EVIDENCE AND SENTENCING
v Gaskins was arrested on November 14, 1975, when a criminal associate, named Wa lter Neely, confessed to police that he had witnessed Gaskins killing two young men named Dennis Bellamy and Johnny Knight.
v Gaskins told Neely he had killed several people over the past 5 years who were listed as missing persons, and indicated to him where they were buried
v On December 4, 1975, Gaskins led police to the land he owned where police discovered the bodies of eight of his victims
v Gaskins was tried on 8 charges of murder on May 24, 1976. He was found guilty on May 28 and was sentenced to death which was later changed to life in prison
v On September 2, 1982, Gaskins committed another murder of a death row inmate, Rudolph Tyner, which made him earn the title of the “Meanest Man in America.” He was hired by Tony Cimo, son of the people that Rudolph Tyner killed.
v He was tried for the murder of Rudolph Tyner and was sentenced to death
v Gaskins said that he had “a special mind” that gave him “permission to kill”
Definitions
Petty theft: A criminal act in which property belonging to another is taken without that person’s consent
Reform school: An institution to which youthful offenders are sent as an alternative to prison
The Sociological Theory of Deviance that best explains my criminal’s deviant and criminal behavior would be the Differential-association theory. Donald Gaskins grew up being abused by his mother’s boyfriends, and he wasn’t forced to go to school or anything. His mother was not really a mother figure, so he wasn’t really taught what was right and what was wrong. He grew up in the 1930s and dropped out of school when he was 11. In the 1930s there was no technology or anything to show him the difference between right and wrong. And since he dropped out of school at such a young age, he wasn’t taught there either.
I also think that the Differential-Association Theory best describes my criminal because when he started working in a garage, him and two other friends started committing small crimes such as burglary. He was around these people most of the time and they probably had a strong influence on him. They probably made him think that stealing and doing other illegal things were okay and obviously these things led into bigger crimes. Also, he spent most of his youth at reform school and then later in jail, so the people at those places weren’t good influences either. He never really had a good example of the right morals and values in life. But once he was exposed to the correct ways, he still resorted back to his old life. He had the choice to have a normal life with a wife and a child, but he chose to continue to be a criminal.
I do not believe that my criminal should be rehabilitated into society. I believe this because he was in prison several times. Every single time he was released from prison or given another chance, he screwed it up and continued to committing crimes. He was obsessed with murdering people, and if he wasn’t put to death, letting him go back into society would be a really bad idea. A psychologist or a social worker would definitely not help this man.