Eat Thy Neighbour

by Daniel Diehl

  By the beginning of 1964 Heidnik felt well enough to enrol for training as a practical nurse. A year later he had graduated and taken an internship at Philadelphia General Hospital. In his spare time, Gary enrolled as a part-time student at the University of Pennsylvania and eventually took a nursing job at the university hospital. As had happened so often before, things started out well, but his job performance declined and he was fired. He then enrolled at the local Veterans’ Administration Hospital for training as a psychiatric nurse but was expelled because of attitude problems. Finally, Gary took a job at the Elwyn Institute, a training facility for mentally and physically handicapped people.

  For a while, Gary seemed to do well at Elwyn. He got along well with staff and students, though some might have said he got on a little too well with the African-American and Hispanic women who attended classes there. But he worked hard, saved his money and by combining his pay with his government and Social Security pensions bought a large house in a ghetto neighbourhood where he rented out two apartments and lived in the third.

  Still, Gary was forced to take occasional leaves of absence from work for trips to psychiatric hospitals. When he got word in 1970 that his mother had committed suicide, he had another breakdown and was institutionalised yet again. While under care he attempted suicide and retreated into a near catatonic state, only communicating with the staff by writing notes or through a series of signals he devised, including rolling up one trouser leg when he did not want to be disturbed. His personal habits also began to deteriorate and he had to be forcibly bathed by the staff. On his release, Gary decided that what he needed was a complete change, so he went to California.

  California is the kind of place where strange things can happen to even the most normal people, and for Gary Heidnik its impact was profound. At some point in 1971, he decided to establish his own church, calling it the ‘United Churches of the Ministries of God’. On his return to Philadelphia he duly registered the church, installed himself as ‘Bishop’ and gathered a flock of five followers including his brother Terry – who had also developed a pattern of mental and emotional problems – and at least one of the students from Elwyn, a black girl with whom he had developed a relationship. Eventually, the church picked up three additional members, again, entirely from Elwyn. Many bogus preachers use their position to milk cash out of their trusting followers, but Gary’s congregation had no money. For him it was not cash, but power over his flock that was the attraction. Money, however, was one of the few things that had always interested Gary, and under US tax law churches pay no income tax. The opportunity was too good to pass up. Gary may have been crazy, but he was neither stupid nor lacking in cunning.

  In 1975 he opened an account with investment brokers Merrill Lynch in the name of his church. Over the next dozen years his initial investment would grow from $1,500 to well over half a million. With his new-found riches Gary indulged himself by purchasing a fleet of luxury cars. There was a Rolls-Royce, a peacock blue van, a Lincoln Continental and a silver-white Cadillac Coupe DeVille with gold trim, custom wheels and a GMH monogram on the front doors. The ‘Caddy’ was Gary’s pride and joy, the symbol of his success.

  Despite the apparent stability in Heidnik’s life, there were more disturbing undercurrents. His relationships with the female members of his little congregation, and other mentally handicapped students at Elwyn, should have sounded alarm bells somewhere. His liaisons all followed the same pattern: the women were all African-American, they were all underprivileged and they were all mentally handicapped to some extent. In short, they were easy victims for the manipulative Heidnik.

  One of these was a young woman named Dorothy who was more seriously retarded than most of the others, and Heidnik took merciless advantage of her. Neighbours often complained to the police when his usual bad treatment of Dorothy turned into outright beatings. The complainants said they had reason to believe he often kept the girl locked up. The police cautioned Heidnik, but there was little more they could do unless Dorothy herself brought formal charges. A year and a half after the affair with Dorothy began, Heidnik persuaded her they should sign her sister, 34-year-old Anjeanette, also severely retarded, out of the institutional home in nearby Harrisburg, where she lived. Together, they got her out on a twelve-hour pass and drove back to Philadelphia. With no intention of returning her to the home, Heidnik proceeded to lock Anjeanette in an empty basement room where he systematically abused her both sexually and physically. When the hospital notified police of what had happened, they went to Heidnik’s house and removed her by force. The medical examination showed that Anjeanette had been raped, sodomised, beaten and infected with gonorrhoea vaginally, anally and orally. On 6 June 1978, Gary Heidnik was arrested and charged with kidnap, rape, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse and interfering with the custody of a committed person.

  When Heidnik’s case came to trial in November, a court-appointed psychiatrist stated that he found the accused ‘manipulative and psycho-sexually immature’. Found guilty, Heidnik was sentenced to three to seven years in prison, but on appeal the sentence was overturned and he was transferred to a series of mental institutions where he spent the next three years trying to kill himself. The closest he came was the occasion when he ate a light bulb. Within four years of his arrest Gary Heidnik was back on the streets on condition that he remain under psychiatric care. Obviously, he didn’t.

  During his incarceration, Dorothy had disappeared without trace, and although police tried to link Heidnik with her disappearance, there was no evidence with which to work, so Gary blithely went back to his old habits. Not surprisingly, relations with his neighbours rapidly deteriorated; in late 1983 Heidnik sold his house, and in April of the next year bought a new one at 3520 North Marshall Street in the ghettoised Philadelphia suburb of Franklinville. To decorate the interior of the dilapidated house, Heidnik chose to display his wealth in an even more obvious way than with expensive cars. On the kitchen walls he glued coins and the upstairs hallway was papered with $1, $5 and $10 bills. But still life was incomplete; Gary was without a woman that he could control.

  For his next foray into the world of human relations Heidnik went through a matchmaking service specialising in introducing oriental women to western men. After a two-year correspondence – throughout which he claimed to be a minister – Heidnik invited 22-year-old Philippine beauty Betty Disto to come to Philadelphia. Over the strenuous objections of her parents she agreed. On 3 October 1985 – four days after Betty’s arrival in the USA – the two drove across the Pennsylvania border to Maryland where they were married. No more than two weeks later Betty returned home from a shopping trip to find Gary in bed with three black women. Understandably, Betty demanded Gary send her home, but he refused, saying it was his house, he was boss and having multiple sex partners was part of his life. If Betty would not join them, she could just watch while they had sex. When she complained he beat her. On one occasion he kicked her senseless and raped her anally while the other girls watched. Finally, after more than a year of abuse and frustration, Betty left, charging her husband with spousal rape, indecent assault and involuntary deviant sexual intercourse.

  Two weeks later Gary Heidnik was arrested for wife abuse and only by a stroke of sheer luck the parole from his last imprisonment for abusing a woman had run out the day before. He only escaped being returned to prison because Betty failed to show up for his arraignment.

  It was late at night on the eve of Thanksgiving, 1986, when Gary took his Cadillac on to the streets of ‘Philly’ to see what he could pick up. Pulling up to the kerb next to a group of girls who were obviously pulling in ‘johns’, he called out to a pretty girl of mixed black and Hispanic parentage. When she approached the big, white Cadillac, she could see the driver was a powerfully built man with a neatly trimmed beard, intense blue eyes and lots of expensive jewellery. She could also tell that he hadn’t bathed in days. He smelled and his clothes were a filthy
mess. Josefina Rivera always prided herself on being choosy, but the man’s car and rings indicated she could get a good fee out of this one, so she agreed to go with him.

  The neighbourhood in Franklinville, and the house he drove up to, were as dirty and rundown as Gary, but the fleet of expensive cars in the fenced-in rear yard immediately caught Josefina’s attention. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. She was wrong.

  After taking her upstairs for sex, Gary pinioned her arms and dragged her through the house to the basement where he manacled her to a length of chain fastened to a pipe running across the ceiling. Weirdly, after tearing off all her clothes, he laid his head in her lap and went to sleep. When he woke up, he went to a corner of the dingy cellar, picked up a shovel and pick and walked to a large piece of plywood lying on the floor. Pushing the wood aside, he revealed a pit hacked through in the concrete. Jumping into the hole, he started shovelling out dirt, digging deeper and deeper. While he worked, Gary explained that all he had ever wanted was a big family and that he had decided the best way to achieve it was to gather a harem of ten women, keep them in the basement and get them all pregnant. When the babies arrived, they would all live together down here in the dark. To demonstrate his sincerity, he took a break from his work and raped Josefina.

  Obviously terrified, his prisoner tried to keep the madman talking while she surveyed her surroundings. With the exception of an old washing machine, a pool table and a chest freezer, the room was empty. The only light seeped in through a boarded-up window. There was nothing here to help her escape and her captor was too big to fight off, especially while she was chained up.

  As he worked away at his hole, Heidnik explained that he was digging a ‘punishment pit’ and that any time Josefina was bad, she would have to spend time in it. Finally satisfied with the pit, Heidnik left his captive alone in the dark. After nearly a week of being raped repeatedly and fed sporadically, Josefina managed to work one of the ankle chains loose enough for her to reach the window. Pulling the boards loose, she worked her slim body far enough through the opening to get her head and shoulders outside. Then she began screaming for help. Unfortunately, the only person who heard her, or at least the only one who responded, was Heidnik. He pulled her violently from the window, beat her with a board, shoved her into the pit and threw the thick plywood on top of her, weighting it down with bags of dirt. To muffle her screams, he brought down a radio and turned it up full blast. Then he left to collect his next harem slave.

  Twenty-five-year-old Sandra Lindsay was only mildly retarded but her speech impairment and a pronounced limp made life especially hard for her. Still, she was determined that with the help of her training classes at the Elwyn Institute she would find a job that paid enough for her not to be a burden on her mother and siblings. That November evening she was on her way to the drugstore near her home when one of the staff from Elwyn pulled up and asked her if she wanted a lift. Happy to see a friendly face, she got into Gary’s car and disappeared.

  When they returned to the house on Marshall Street, he dragged her to the basement, stripped her of everything except a blouse and chained her to the pipe on the ceiling. He then went over to the pit, removed the board and let Josefina out, chained her up next to Sandy, introduced them, and left. It took Josefina a few minutes to realise why her fellow prisoner seemed so ‘out of it’. Then she understood: the girl was retarded. Slowly, Sandy explained that Gary was a friend from the Elwyn Institute and that they had often had sex in the past. Once, she said, he had got her pregnant but she had had an abortion and Gary was furious. Since then he had been demanding that she have his baby. She guessed that was why he had brought her here. Although she remained composed while she told her story, when she finished she broke down and wept. She just wanted to go home.

  Over the next few days, Heidnik raped both women repeatedly and, not having planned far enough in advance for so many mouths to feed, began doling out bowls of the canned dog food he normally fed to his two dogs, which often wandered into the basement to visit his prisoners. While the girls had disappeared, they had not been forgotten. Sandy’s mother had alerted the police who, in turn, had instituted a search of her neighbourhood. When news of the missing retarded girl began appearing on local television and in the newspapers, Heidnik forced Sandy to write a note to her mother, telling her that she had gone away for a while but would ring her soon.

  Heidnik may have thought it was a clever move, but, desperate to find her daughter, Sandy’s mother told police that her daughter had often mentioned a man from the Elwyn Institute named Gary Heidnik who lived somewhere on Marshall Street. The police followed up the lead and repeatedly visited Heidnik’s house, but no one ever answered the door. Finally, lacking any firm grounds to order a search warrant, they abandoned that particular line of inquiry. Maybe Sandy would turn up somewhere else.

  On 22 December yet another young black girl disappeared. Nineteen-year-old Lisa Thomas was a high-school dropout living on social security, but she enjoyed living, and dressing well. Attracted by her flashy clothes, the man in the white Cadillac pulled up to the kerb and asked if she was ‘hooking’. She became indignant and started to storm away, but the big car crept along after her, the driver apologising and offering her a ride to make up for his rude behaviour. Attracted by the car and the expensive watch and rings on the man’s hands, she finally agreed. Amazingly, Heidnik took his time with Lisa. They went out for dinner and during conversation, he offered to take her to Atlantic City the next weekend. Lisa was thrilled but said she didn’t have any clothes to wear, so Heidnik offered to take her shopping. Again she agreed. After a spree at the local Sears Roebuck store, she also agreed to go back to Heidnik’s house. That was a big mistake.

  At first everything seemed fine. Heidnik even opened a bottle of wine, but it was ‘spiked’ and Lisa quickly passed out. When she awoke, Gary was taking her clothes off, but she wasn’t too disturbed and was more than willing to have sex with him. It was only when he dragged her to the basement and chained her up with Josefina and Sandra that Lisa realised just how awful her situation really was.

  Now faced with three ‘wives’, Heidnik had to make a few adaptations. Cleanliness was not a problem – they could just stay as dirty as he was, but thoughtfully, he bought a portable camper toilet for the girls to use. He also added another feature to their lives. In addition to the continual rapes, beatings and occasional trip to the pit, he added electric shocks. When the girls refused to behave, he would clamp the exposed end of an old extension lead to their chains and plug it in to an outlet. Any tiny deviation from Gary’s rules could warrant such treatment. If they resisted his advances . . . zap. If he wanted to watch while they had sex with each other and they refused . . . zap. If one of them was ‘bad’ and the others failed to inform on her, they both got a good jolt. If they cried too loudly during their torture . . . they were zapped again. When he got tired of the shock treatment and the beatings, he suspended his victim of the moment from a ceiling beam by one arm, and left her dangling for hours, nearly pulling her arm from its socket. All the girls could do was huddle together and pray that somehow one of them would escape and rescue the others.

  Ten days after he added Lisa to his growing collection, Heidnik introduced yet another victim. Deborah Dudley was captured on New Year’s Day. At twenty-three Debbie was a pretty girl who had a mind of her own and a fiery temper. This one was going to be a challenge, but Heidnik liked that. As she struggled frantically against being hauled into the strange house and locked in chains, Heidnik beat her almost senseless.

  While news of yet another lost girl sent shivers down the backs of Philadelphia residents, Gary Heidnik was busy devising new and better ways to control his slaves. He encouraged them to inform on each other for even the slightest infraction of ‘the rules’. As a reward, the informer was ordered to administer a beating to the guilty party. If the punishment was not severe enough, they would both suffer. Soon, Josefina began to play up to Heidnik, info
rming on the others and telling Gary she was ‘on his side’.

  On 18 January, still another victim appeared at 3520 North Marshall Street. Eighteen-year-old Jacquelyn Askins was a tiny, fragile, retarded girl whom he had picked up while she was ‘hooking’ on one of Philly’s main streets. When he got her to his basement, he stripped her, raped her, beat her savagely and told her it was just to show her who was boss. ‘You’ll do as you’re told, or you’ll get more of the same.’

  If Jacquelyn thought she was alone in her nightmare, it only took minutes for her to realise there were four other women chained up beside her. Now, finally, there might be enough of them to overpower their jailer. Sadly, Josefina informed Heidnik of the plan. Furious, he meted out the usual round of punishments. He also decided that if they couldn’t hear him coming and going, they would never know when it was safe to try to escape. To solve the problem, he jammed a screwdriver in each of the girls’ ears in an attempt to shatter their eardrums. Only Josefina, who had revealed the plot, escaped the horrible punishment.

  A few days after the escape plan failed, Sandy Lindsay committed some small infraction that displeased Heidnik. He placed her in the punishment pit, but she struggled to push aside the board and the heavy weights holding it in place. Infuriated, Heidnik hung her from a beam with a single handcuff. Her feet did not quite reach the floor and the weight of her body pulling against one wrist and shoulder socket quickly became excruciating. Heidnik simply walked away.