Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins
Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins was a notorious serial killer who terrorized the southeastern United States for more than two decades. Born in Florence County, South Carolina, in 1933, Gaskins grew up poor and abused. He dropped out of school at the age of 11 and began a life of crime that would eventually lead to his downfall. Gaskins was small in stature, standing at only five feet four inches tall, and earned his nickname “Pee Wee” because of his size.
Gaskins’ reign of terror began in the early 1950s when he started picking up hitchhikers along the highways of South Carolina. He would lure his victims to remote locations where he would torture and mutilate them in unimaginable ways. Gaskins claimed to have murdered over 100 people during his criminal career, but he was only convicted of nine murders. In 1975, Gaskins was finally caught and arrested by police, and in 1991 he was sentenced to death by electric chair.