July 30, 2019 • 22 mins
From the start, Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins Jr. lived a life of crime. Between prison and parole, Pee Wee learned that, if he didn’t want to be the victim, he’d have to kill his way to the top.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily
represent those of I Heart Media, Stuff Media, or its employees.
Listener discretion is advised from my Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV.
Monster Presents Insomniac. In a late evening of September five,
(00:30):
just hours before his scheduled execution, Donald Henry Gaskins Age,
better known as Peewee Gaskins, was found bleeding in his
holding cell. Gaskins it's snu gonna razor blade by swallowing
it and then coughed it up to cut his wrists.
(00:50):
It was either his last ditch effort to stall the
execution process or to altogether rob the South Carolina authorities
of their planned execution of the convicted killer. Either way,
it didn't work. They stitched him up, bandaged his still
leaking risks, and led him to the electric chair as scheduled.
(01:13):
It was now the early morning hours of September six,
just after midnight, and he had just minutes to live.
Pee Wee was aptly named, but despite his diminutive size,
he was something of a larger than life character, only
not in the way anyone would ever admire. In fact,
(01:38):
Peewee seemed to be rotten from the time he was
a young boy right up until the very minute he died.
In addition to his crimes on the outside and later
his crimes on the inside, one of which he would
pay for with his own life, pee Wee had somehow
managed to pull off what was likely the most audacious
(01:59):
death row killing of another inmate that the US and
maybe even the world, had ever seen. Once he learned
who Peewee was and how he lived his corrupt life,
you'll think that he would have had something profound or
even outrageous to say as he was strapped to the
electric chair in that September evening. But the last words
(02:20):
he ever said were simply, I'll let my lawyer speak
for me. I'm ready to go. And shortly after those
words were uttered, the man who earned the nickname the
Meanest Man in America was dead at one oh five
am on September six. I'm Scott Benjamin and everything I'm
(02:45):
about to tell you is real. This is insomniac. He
was eventually called the Meanest Man in America, but he
was also own as the hitchhikers Killer and the redneck
Charles Manson. Admittedly he had a funny nickname for a
(03:07):
grown man, pee Wee, But let me assure you there's
absolutely nothing funny about the life and the seemingly endless
crimes of this undersized criminal. When he was a fully
grown man, pee Wee stood just five ft two inches
tall and weighed about one and thirty pounds. He had
(03:28):
always been small for his age, and he clearly wasn't
ever going to intimidate anybody with his size. But pee
Wee didn't need size to strike fear into the lives
of those around him. He endured a lifetime of torment
and pain, and he would return that pain and suffering
to those unfortunate enough to cross his path. His criminal
(03:50):
records spanned decades, and he more than earned the reputation
as the meanest man in America. In the end, pee
Wee would claim he was responsible for more than one
hundred murders men, women, and even children among his victims,
Yet he was convicted of just nine, and we say
(04:10):
just because those crimes only begin to tell his story.
Was the South Carolina native as violent as he claimed
to be, or was he just trying to inflate his
image to be known as the most prolific serial killer
to date. Many of these killings were never proven, of course,
and maybe he was just bragging. But when he was alive,
(04:32):
Peewee claimed to be one of the deadliest serial killers
on record, and there was good reason to believe him.
To begin, we have to travel to Florence County, South Carolina,
on March the day when a tiny four pound baby
boy named Donald Henry Parrott Jr. Was born. Of the
(05:02):
long list of illegitimate children born to his mother, Juliah Parrott,
Donald Henry Parrott Jr. Was the last. Not only was
he the baby, but he was also the smallest of
all of her children. Right from the beginning, pee Wee
earned his nickname among his siblings and friends for his
small size growing up, He was always small for his age.
(05:26):
To say that Peewee had a difficult childhood would be
an understatement. The neglect was so severe he was even
rumored that Gaskins accidentally drank a bottle of kerosene as
a child, which led to convulsions. Peewee would later tell
others of the way he was neglected as a kid.
Being born on a farm, I know the difference between
(05:49):
raising something and it just growing. You raised tobacco and vegetables,
pigs and sheep, they got purpose you tend them, but
weeds grow on their own, tended or not. I grew.
I wasn't raised, That's for damn sure. He was always
(06:10):
a poor student, didn't get along with the other kids,
and he quit school at the age of eleven. He
took a job as a mechanic at the local garage,
and he had always seemed to be mechanically inclined. He
could fix almost anything. Toys, cars, appliances, electronics, you name it,
(06:31):
he could repair it. When Gaskins was just thirteen years old,
he and two other boys from town, Danny and Marsh,
formed a group called the Troubled Trio. The trio began
burglarizing homes, raping young boys, and picking up prostitutes in
nearby cities. As a part of this juvenile delinquent group,
(06:55):
Peewee's first arrest came early when he was just thirteen
years old. Having answer to Peewee his whole life, he
first earned his real name when it was read aloud
during this court appearance for a crime s Free Gascons
committed with the troubled trio att Peewee was still too
young for jail, he was confined in the South Carolina
(07:18):
Industrial School, a reform school for boys, until he turned
eighteen years old. As you can imagine, it was not
a good experience well. At the reform school, he was
tormented and even gang raped by as many as twenty
other young inmates. From that point forward, he spent all
(07:40):
of his time either accepting protection from the boss boy
in exchange for sex, or plotting his own escape. Peewee
had grown so accustomed to being a target that all
of this was nothing new to him. Due to his
small size, Peewee was regularly the focus of attention from
bullies and often found himself in a position of having
(08:02):
to endure violence in school, just as he was now
experiencing in the reform school. Pee Wee eventually did manage
to escape the school, and while he was out, he
got married to a thirteen year old girl and lived
on the run for a while. This was the first
of many marriages he would have six in total over
(08:23):
the years, but none of them knew about his other brides,
and he would only ever divorce one of the women.
Going on the advice of his current mother in law.
Pee Wee soon returned voluntarily to complete his sentence at
the reform school. After a sentence was completed in nineteen
(08:44):
at eighteen years old, Gaskins took a job at a
local tobacco plantation. It wasn't long before he found a
way to make additional money. He found a partner to
conduct insurance fraudwidth and they would work with tobacco farmers
to burn their barns for a fee, collecting the insurance payout.
(09:05):
By nineteen fifty three, he was known as a barnburner
and people were onto him. Gaskins employer's daughter and friend
confront of Gaskins about his reputation as the barn burner,
and he wasn't happy. In a rage, he hit her
in the head with a hammer and split her skull.
(09:26):
This led to a six year prison sentence at the
South Carolina Central Correction Institution for assault with a deadly
weapon and attempted murder. Upon arrival, similar to his time
in reform school, Gaskins was attacked by the other inmates.
He was raped and owned in prison by the older,
(09:47):
bigger inmates, but in order to become a more powerful player.
While he was behind bars, Peewee knew that he had
to make a change in order to survive. He knew
what he had to do. He had to kill somebody
in prison to become what was known as a power man.
(10:08):
Gaskins managed to manipulate himself into a relationship of trust
with Hazel Brazil, the fiercest power man in the prison
at the time. After gaining the man's trust, Gaskin's cut
his throat. It was the first time pee Wee had
ever killed, and it gave him a sensation unlike anything
he had ever felt before. Pee Wee was found guilty
(10:31):
of manslaughter and he spent the next six months in
solitary confinement, but he was now known as a power
man among other prisoners. Things would be different for Pee
Wee moving forward. For his crime, the killing of Brazil,
pee we would spend an extra three years in prison,
but he got his wish. He was no longer a victim.
(10:55):
He was now the top dog. E was the tale.
As part of my research for this episode, I took
the time to read Peewee gaskins memoirs, Final Truth, The
(11:17):
Autobiography of a Serial Killer by Donald Gaskins, and Wilton Earl.
It's his life story in his own words, and he
doesn't hold back, even reveals a few things he wouldn't
tell the authorities while he was alive, out of fear
for how he would have been treated in prison. Some
of the things Peewee says in his book are far
more graphic and harsh than just about anything I've ever
(11:40):
read in my entire life. And as you can imagine,
I've collected a lot of true crime books over the years.
Peewee's descriptions of not only as many murders and violent attacks,
but also the rape and torture of many women and men,
and even one infant are so descriptive that they've left
an impression on me the will take more than a
(12:00):
little while to forget. The only other true crime book
I've ever read that even comes close to this level
of brutality is a book that was written by another
serial killer, Gerard John Schaeffer, while he was in prison.
That book was called Killer Fiction. The reason these two
books stand out among others is simple they're written by
(12:21):
the killers themselves. When a man gets to a point
where he can say anything he wants without the fear
of prosecution or judgment by others, he can freely admit
to anything and everything evil that he's done throughout his
entire life. This can be read in one of two ways.
You could be thought of as his final confession, or
(12:43):
it could be a way for the killer to brag
or boast about his crimes one final time while people
are still paying attention to what he has to say.
Pee Wee saw his book as a way he confess
everything he'd ever done, and what he left behind is
his stomach churning, deeply disturbing piece of literature. If you
can call it that, there will no doubt haunt you
(13:04):
for a long time to come. Yes, there are detailed
descriptions of murderers and rapes and plenty of true crime books,
and many of them are quite vivid, but very few
can compare to the brutal descriptions found in Peewee's book.
(13:26):
You would think that Peewee would have almost enjoyed the
remainder of his time in prison, after all, he was
now looked upon with some respect after having killed Hazel Brazil. However,
in by hiding in the back of a garbage truck,
pee Wee was able to escape from prison, and he
quickly fled to Florida. He avoided arrest by working with
(13:50):
a traveling minister as his driver and general assistant. Eventually,
he was discovered and arrested soon after, but he was
once again paroled in August of nineteen sixty one. As
soon as pee Wee got out of prison, now aged
twenty eight, he immediately went back to his old way
(14:11):
as a burglary, stealing and fencing stolen property. There he
met another young woman. She was seventeen and married for
the fourth time. She found out he was on the run,
and she eventually turned him into the police, who convicted
Gascons of the twelve year old rape. He received six
(14:35):
years at the Columbia Penitentiary and was eventually paroled in
November nineteen sixty eight. Pee Wee was now thirty five
years old. Upon his release, Peewee moved to the town
of Sumpter, South Carolina, and took a job with a
roofing company. He was a convicted murderer, but at this
(14:57):
point he had only killed him prison. Throughout Gaskin's life,
he described feelings that forced him into criminal activity, which
he referred to as them aggravated and bothers some feelings.
In September of nineteen he found a way to get
relief from those feelings. He became a killer once again.
(15:22):
This was the first of what he would call his
coastal kills, murders that he committed simply for his own pleasure.
Gaskins picked up a female hitchhiker in North Carolina, and
he became angry when she laughed at his sexual propositions.
He beat her until she was unconscious. Gaskins then raped, sodomized,
(15:42):
and tortured her. He took her to a swamp, weighed
her body down, and sank her into the murky water.
Later he would recall that he enjoyed the feeling of
power he had over her. She was helpless, he said,
all like think about is how I could do anything
I wanted to her anything. This was just the first
(16:08):
of many many victims that pee We would leave in
his wake. He drove around the American South, hiding the
bodies as he went about his work. Gascons took both
women and men for his coastal kills, averaging to kill
about every six weeks. All were murdered for his own gratification. Later,
(16:29):
pee We would claim. His coastal kills were even more frequent,
killing a person before the tenth of each month. He
had finally discovered how to satisfy his urges, and from
that point on he was the driving force in his life.
He worked on mastering his skill of torture, often keeping
his mutilated victims alive for days. As time went on,
(16:54):
his depraved mind grew darker and he committed even more
horrific crimes. He even ventured into cannibalism, eating the severed
parts of his victims while forcing them to watch in horror.
On occasion, forcing them to participate by eating their own flesh.
(17:25):
At night, I've started to psych myself out about sleep,
laying awake in the darkness, trying to force myself to
rest when I know I'm supposed to. Sometimes I watched
the clock because I count down the hours until I
have to be up for work. If I get to
sleep now, I'll get four hours of rest. If I
get to sleep now, I'll have three hours of rest,
(17:47):
and you know how the rest goes. I always feel
like I'm in a mental fog, just sort of making
it through the day in a zombie like fashion. If
these sleepless or nearly sleepless nights last for more than
three or four evenings. The feeling I get is a
sort of delirium. No hallucinations for me, not yet, but
(18:08):
it's like my brain and the rest of my body
don't want to work at the same speed. I have
days when I have trouble speaking more than even a
few words at a time, struggling to get through meetings
and conversations with co workers, having to apologize the entire
day for my mistakes. All of this is embarrassing. I
(18:28):
can't take operating like this for too much longer. Nighttime
is supposed to be a time to replenish yourself, to
sort out the day's events and clear your mind of
any troubles, to recharge your batteries and get ready for
the next day. Instead, it only seems to be adding
to the problem, or maybe it is the problem, I
(18:50):
don't know. Throughout his life, Peewee Gaskins would operate his
own chop shop for automobiles, the garage where stolen cars
were brought to be either repainted and sold at auction
out of state, or completely stripped and sold for parts.
(19:11):
It's a lucrative business, completely illegal, of course, but profitable.
In the year, pee Wee had the opportunity to buy
an old hearse. It happened when one of Peewee's criminal
associates drove up one day in the old stolen car,
looking to get rid of it as soon as possible.
Peewee couldn't resist, and he bought the car for his
(19:33):
own personal transportation. And while driving a hearse might sound
like an unusual choice for anyone, a lot of people
simply have an interest in that type of vehicle. For one,
they're all custom built. They aren't mass produced, so each
example is a one of a kind in some way
or another. They're also typically beautiful in design inside and
(19:54):
out because they're created from top end luxury cars like Cadillac, Lincoln, Mercedes,
Benz or even Rolls Royce. Another point is that their unusual, interesting,
and well simply different, so they have some appeal to
certain car enthusiasts too, not just those in the funeral
industry or the occasional serial killer. Peewee, on the other hand,
(20:19):
viewed owning a hearse as an opportunity. He could use
it for its intended purpose and do it right under
the noses of the authorities. Peewee was flippant with his
friends and even the local police about what he was
up to. For instance, when asked about the Hearse while
sitting at his favorite bar, he would say he needed
the vehicle to haul all the people he killed to
(20:41):
his own private cemetery. Everyone would laugh it off as
if it was a good joke and then go back
to drinking or whatever they were up to. But the
reality was that Peewee was using the vehicle for exactly
that purpose, pulling the dead bodies of his victims to
his own private cemetery some out of the way property
(21:01):
he owned in Prospects, South Carolina. Peewee felt that if
the authorities would laugh and joke with him about the
hearse and its use, they weren't concerned about him as
a suspect, and he could hide in plain sight. Even
had a sign in the back window that said we
haul anything living, we're dead. Peewee's level of violence was escalating,
(21:34):
and he even created his own new category of murders,
one that he kept entirely separate from his random coastal kills.
There's a twist of the story too, A single murder
that will cost Peewee his own life in the end,
the same murder that was thought impossible by everyone, and
the reason he was known as the meanest man in America.
(21:57):
Next Time on Insomniac. Insomniac is a production of I
Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV, written and hosted by Scott
Benjamin and produced by Miranda Hawkins, Alex Williams, Matt Frederick,
and Josh Thaine. Music composed by Makeup and Vanity, set
(22:20):
and cover art by Trevor Eisler. Follow on Twitter and
Facebook at insomniac Pod, on Instagram at Insomniac Podcast, and
at our website insomniac podcast dot com. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily
represent those of I Heart Media, Stuff Media, or its employees.
Listener discretion is advised from my Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV.
Monster Presents Insomniac. In a late evening of September five,
(00:30):
just hours before his scheduled execution, Donald Henry Gaskins Age,
better known as Peewee Gaskins, was found bleeding in his
holding cell. Gaskins it's snu gonna razor blade by swallowing
it and then coughed it up to cut his wrists.
(00:50):
It was either his last ditch effort to stall the
execution process or to altogether rob the South Carolina authorities
of their planned execution of the convicted killer. Either way,
it didn't work. They stitched him up, bandaged his still
leaking risks, and led him to the electric chair as scheduled.
(01:13):
It was now the early morning hours of September six,
just after midnight, and he had just minutes to live.
Pee Wee was aptly named, but despite his diminutive size,
he was something of a larger than life character, only
not in the way anyone would ever admire. In fact,
(01:38):
Peewee seemed to be rotten from the time he was
a young boy right up until the very minute he died.
In addition to his crimes on the outside and later
his crimes on the inside, one of which he would
pay for with his own life, pee Wee had somehow
managed to pull off what was likely the most audacious
(01:59):
death row killing of another inmate that the US and
maybe even the world, had ever seen. Once he learned
who Peewee was and how he lived his corrupt life,
you'll think that he would have had something profound or
even outrageous to say as he was strapped to the
electric chair in that September evening. But the last words
(02:20):
he ever said were simply, I'll let my lawyer speak
for me. I'm ready to go. And shortly after those
words were uttered, the man who earned the nickname the
Meanest Man in America was dead at one oh five
am on September six. I'm Scott Benjamin and everything I'm
(02:45):
about to tell you is real. This is insomniac. He
was eventually called the Meanest Man in America, but he
was also own as the hitchhikers Killer and the redneck
Charles Manson. Admittedly he had a funny nickname for a
(03:07):
grown man, pee Wee, But let me assure you there's
absolutely nothing funny about the life and the seemingly endless
crimes of this undersized criminal. When he was a fully
grown man, pee Wee stood just five ft two inches
tall and weighed about one and thirty pounds. He had
(03:28):
always been small for his age, and he clearly wasn't
ever going to intimidate anybody with his size. But pee
Wee didn't need size to strike fear into the lives
of those around him. He endured a lifetime of torment
and pain, and he would return that pain and suffering
to those unfortunate enough to cross his path. His criminal
(03:50):
records spanned decades, and he more than earned the reputation
as the meanest man in America. In the end, pee
Wee would claim he was responsible for more than one
hundred murders men, women, and even children among his victims,
Yet he was convicted of just nine, and we say
(04:10):
just because those crimes only begin to tell his story.
Was the South Carolina native as violent as he claimed
to be, or was he just trying to inflate his
image to be known as the most prolific serial killer
to date. Many of these killings were never proven, of course,
and maybe he was just bragging. But when he was alive,
(04:32):
Peewee claimed to be one of the deadliest serial killers
on record, and there was good reason to believe him.
To begin, we have to travel to Florence County, South Carolina,
on March the day when a tiny four pound baby
boy named Donald Henry Parrott Jr. Was born. Of the
(05:02):
long list of illegitimate children born to his mother, Juliah Parrott,
Donald Henry Parrott Jr. Was the last. Not only was
he the baby, but he was also the smallest of
all of her children. Right from the beginning, pee Wee
earned his nickname among his siblings and friends for his
small size growing up, He was always small for his age.
(05:26):
To say that Peewee had a difficult childhood would be
an understatement. The neglect was so severe he was even
rumored that Gaskins accidentally drank a bottle of kerosene as
a child, which led to convulsions. Peewee would later tell
others of the way he was neglected as a kid.
Being born on a farm, I know the difference between
(05:49):
raising something and it just growing. You raised tobacco and vegetables,
pigs and sheep, they got purpose you tend them, but
weeds grow on their own, tended or not. I grew.
I wasn't raised, That's for damn sure. He was always
(06:10):
a poor student, didn't get along with the other kids,
and he quit school at the age of eleven. He
took a job as a mechanic at the local garage,
and he had always seemed to be mechanically inclined. He
could fix almost anything. Toys, cars, appliances, electronics, you name it,
(06:31):
he could repair it. When Gaskins was just thirteen years old,
he and two other boys from town, Danny and Marsh,
formed a group called the Troubled Trio. The trio began
burglarizing homes, raping young boys, and picking up prostitutes in
nearby cities. As a part of this juvenile delinquent group,
(06:55):
Peewee's first arrest came early when he was just thirteen
years old. Having answer to Peewee his whole life, he
first earned his real name when it was read aloud
during this court appearance for a crime s Free Gascons
committed with the troubled trio att Peewee was still too
young for jail, he was confined in the South Carolina
(07:18):
Industrial School, a reform school for boys, until he turned
eighteen years old. As you can imagine, it was not
a good experience well. At the reform school, he was
tormented and even gang raped by as many as twenty
other young inmates. From that point forward, he spent all
(07:40):
of his time either accepting protection from the boss boy
in exchange for sex, or plotting his own escape. Peewee
had grown so accustomed to being a target that all
of this was nothing new to him. Due to his
small size, Peewee was regularly the focus of attention from
bullies and often found himself in a position of having
(08:02):
to endure violence in school, just as he was now
experiencing in the reform school. Pee Wee eventually did manage
to escape the school, and while he was out, he
got married to a thirteen year old girl and lived
on the run for a while. This was the first
of many marriages he would have six in total over
(08:23):
the years, but none of them knew about his other brides,
and he would only ever divorce one of the women.
Going on the advice of his current mother in law.
Pee Wee soon returned voluntarily to complete his sentence at
the reform school. After a sentence was completed in nineteen
(08:44):
at eighteen years old, Gaskins took a job at a
local tobacco plantation. It wasn't long before he found a
way to make additional money. He found a partner to
conduct insurance fraudwidth and they would work with tobacco farmers
to burn their barns for a fee, collecting the insurance payout.
(09:05):
By nineteen fifty three, he was known as a barnburner
and people were onto him. Gaskins employer's daughter and friend
confront of Gaskins about his reputation as the barn burner,
and he wasn't happy. In a rage, he hit her
in the head with a hammer and split her skull.
(09:26):
This led to a six year prison sentence at the
South Carolina Central Correction Institution for assault with a deadly
weapon and attempted murder. Upon arrival, similar to his time
in reform school, Gaskins was attacked by the other inmates.
He was raped and owned in prison by the older,
(09:47):
bigger inmates, but in order to become a more powerful player.
While he was behind bars, Peewee knew that he had
to make a change in order to survive. He knew
what he had to do. He had to kill somebody
in prison to become what was known as a power man.
(10:08):
Gaskins managed to manipulate himself into a relationship of trust
with Hazel Brazil, the fiercest power man in the prison
at the time. After gaining the man's trust, Gaskin's cut
his throat. It was the first time pee Wee had
ever killed, and it gave him a sensation unlike anything
he had ever felt before. Pee Wee was found guilty
(10:31):
of manslaughter and he spent the next six months in
solitary confinement, but he was now known as a power
man among other prisoners. Things would be different for Pee
Wee moving forward. For his crime, the killing of Brazil,
pee we would spend an extra three years in prison,
but he got his wish. He was no longer a victim.
(10:55):
He was now the top dog. E was the tale.
As part of my research for this episode, I took
the time to read Peewee gaskins memoirs, Final Truth, The
(11:17):
Autobiography of a Serial Killer by Donald Gaskins, and Wilton Earl.
It's his life story in his own words, and he
doesn't hold back, even reveals a few things he wouldn't
tell the authorities while he was alive, out of fear
for how he would have been treated in prison. Some
of the things Peewee says in his book are far
more graphic and harsh than just about anything I've ever
(11:40):
read in my entire life. And as you can imagine,
I've collected a lot of true crime books over the years.
Peewee's descriptions of not only as many murders and violent attacks,
but also the rape and torture of many women and men,
and even one infant are so descriptive that they've left
an impression on me the will take more than a
(12:00):
little while to forget. The only other true crime book
I've ever read that even comes close to this level
of brutality is a book that was written by another
serial killer, Gerard John Schaeffer, while he was in prison.
That book was called Killer Fiction. The reason these two
books stand out among others is simple they're written by
(12:21):
the killers themselves. When a man gets to a point
where he can say anything he wants without the fear
of prosecution or judgment by others, he can freely admit
to anything and everything evil that he's done throughout his
entire life. This can be read in one of two ways.
You could be thought of as his final confession, or
(12:43):
it could be a way for the killer to brag
or boast about his crimes one final time while people
are still paying attention to what he has to say.
Pee Wee saw his book as a way he confess
everything he'd ever done, and what he left behind is
his stomach churning, deeply disturbing piece of literature. If you
can call it that, there will no doubt haunt you
(13:04):
for a long time to come. Yes, there are detailed
descriptions of murderers and rapes and plenty of true crime books,
and many of them are quite vivid, but very few
can compare to the brutal descriptions found in Peewee's book.
(13:26):
You would think that Peewee would have almost enjoyed the
remainder of his time in prison, after all, he was
now looked upon with some respect after having killed Hazel Brazil. However,
in by hiding in the back of a garbage truck,
pee Wee was able to escape from prison, and he
quickly fled to Florida. He avoided arrest by working with
(13:50):
a traveling minister as his driver and general assistant. Eventually,
he was discovered and arrested soon after, but he was
once again paroled in August of nineteen sixty one. As
soon as pee Wee got out of prison, now aged
twenty eight, he immediately went back to his old way
(14:11):
as a burglary, stealing and fencing stolen property. There he
met another young woman. She was seventeen and married for
the fourth time. She found out he was on the run,
and she eventually turned him into the police, who convicted
Gascons of the twelve year old rape. He received six
(14:35):
years at the Columbia Penitentiary and was eventually paroled in
November nineteen sixty eight. Pee Wee was now thirty five
years old. Upon his release, Peewee moved to the town
of Sumpter, South Carolina, and took a job with a
roofing company. He was a convicted murderer, but at this
(14:57):
point he had only killed him prison. Throughout Gaskin's life,
he described feelings that forced him into criminal activity, which
he referred to as them aggravated and bothers some feelings.
In September of nineteen he found a way to get
relief from those feelings. He became a killer once again.
(15:22):
This was the first of what he would call his
coastal kills, murders that he committed simply for his own pleasure.
Gaskins picked up a female hitchhiker in North Carolina, and
he became angry when she laughed at his sexual propositions.
He beat her until she was unconscious. Gaskins then raped, sodomized,
(15:42):
and tortured her. He took her to a swamp, weighed
her body down, and sank her into the murky water.
Later he would recall that he enjoyed the feeling of
power he had over her. She was helpless, he said,
all like think about is how I could do anything
I wanted to her anything. This was just the first
(16:08):
of many many victims that pee We would leave in
his wake. He drove around the American South, hiding the
bodies as he went about his work. Gascons took both
women and men for his coastal kills, averaging to kill
about every six weeks. All were murdered for his own gratification. Later,
(16:29):
pee We would claim. His coastal kills were even more frequent,
killing a person before the tenth of each month. He
had finally discovered how to satisfy his urges, and from
that point on he was the driving force in his life.
He worked on mastering his skill of torture, often keeping
his mutilated victims alive for days. As time went on,
(16:54):
his depraved mind grew darker and he committed even more
horrific crimes. He even ventured into cannibalism, eating the severed
parts of his victims while forcing them to watch in horror.
On occasion, forcing them to participate by eating their own flesh.
(17:25):
At night, I've started to psych myself out about sleep,
laying awake in the darkness, trying to force myself to
rest when I know I'm supposed to. Sometimes I watched
the clock because I count down the hours until I
have to be up for work. If I get to
sleep now, I'll get four hours of rest. If I
get to sleep now, I'll have three hours of rest,
(17:47):
and you know how the rest goes. I always feel
like I'm in a mental fog, just sort of making
it through the day in a zombie like fashion. If
these sleepless or nearly sleepless nights last for more than
three or four evenings. The feeling I get is a
sort of delirium. No hallucinations for me, not yet, but
(18:08):
it's like my brain and the rest of my body
don't want to work at the same speed. I have
days when I have trouble speaking more than even a
few words at a time, struggling to get through meetings
and conversations with co workers, having to apologize the entire
day for my mistakes. All of this is embarrassing. I
(18:28):
can't take operating like this for too much longer. Nighttime
is supposed to be a time to replenish yourself, to
sort out the day's events and clear your mind of
any troubles, to recharge your batteries and get ready for
the next day. Instead, it only seems to be adding
to the problem, or maybe it is the problem, I
(18:50):
don't know. Throughout his life, Peewee Gaskins would operate his
own chop shop for automobiles, the garage where stolen cars
were brought to be either repainted and sold at auction
out of state, or completely stripped and sold for parts.
(19:11):
It's a lucrative business, completely illegal, of course, but profitable.
In the year, pee Wee had the opportunity to buy
an old hearse. It happened when one of Peewee's criminal
associates drove up one day in the old stolen car,
looking to get rid of it as soon as possible.
Peewee couldn't resist, and he bought the car for his
(19:33):
own personal transportation. And while driving a hearse might sound
like an unusual choice for anyone, a lot of people
simply have an interest in that type of vehicle. For one,
they're all custom built. They aren't mass produced, so each
example is a one of a kind in some way
or another. They're also typically beautiful in design inside and
(19:54):
out because they're created from top end luxury cars like Cadillac, Lincoln, Mercedes,
Benz or even Rolls Royce. Another point is that their unusual, interesting,
and well simply different, so they have some appeal to
certain car enthusiasts too, not just those in the funeral
industry or the occasional serial killer. Peewee, on the other hand,
(20:19):
viewed owning a hearse as an opportunity. He could use
it for its intended purpose and do it right under
the noses of the authorities. Peewee was flippant with his
friends and even the local police about what he was
up to. For instance, when asked about the Hearse while
sitting at his favorite bar, he would say he needed
the vehicle to haul all the people he killed to
(20:41):
his own private cemetery. Everyone would laugh it off as
if it was a good joke and then go back
to drinking or whatever they were up to. But the
reality was that Peewee was using the vehicle for exactly
that purpose, pulling the dead bodies of his victims to
his own private cemetery some out of the way property
(21:01):
he owned in Prospects, South Carolina. Peewee felt that if
the authorities would laugh and joke with him about the
hearse and its use, they weren't concerned about him as
a suspect, and he could hide in plain sight. Even
had a sign in the back window that said we
haul anything living, we're dead. Peewee's level of violence was escalating,
(21:34):
and he even created his own new category of murders,
one that he kept entirely separate from his random coastal kills.
There's a twist of the story too, A single murder
that will cost Peewee his own life in the end,
the same murder that was thought impossible by everyone, and
the reason he was known as the meanest man in America.
(21:57):
Next Time on Insomniac. Insomniac is a production of I
Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV, written and hosted by Scott
Benjamin and produced by Miranda Hawkins, Alex Williams, Matt Frederick,
and Josh Thaine. Music composed by Makeup and Vanity, set
(22:20):
and cover art by Trevor Eisler. Follow on Twitter and
Facebook at insomniac Pod, on Instagram at Insomniac Podcast, and
at our website insomniac podcast dot com. For more podcasts
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