Gary Heidnik: The House Of Horrors

Gary Heidnik also known as the “House of Horrors,” was an American criminal who kidnapped women and kept them prisoner in his Pennsylvania basement. Heidnik dropped out of school in the ninth grade to go into the military. Heidnik served as a paramedic in the Army for 14 months before he was honorably discharged with a medical disability he received a diagnosis of schizoid personality disorder. His mother committed suicide soon after his discharge. She was a drunk who beat Heidnik as a young child. “In 1962 Gary entered the Army. By then he was starting to show severe psychological issues” (B, 2006, para. 1). Gary was in and out of mental hospitals 21 times; he had made over a dozen suicide attempts as well. He attempted to overdose, hang
After a short mail-request marriage to a Filipino lady who dumped him in 1986 for beating and assaulting her, he at long last went full Gary Heidnik. Snatching Josefina Rivera and imprisoning her in the cellar of his house. After being tourted an sexually assaulted and beaten he snatched five more women over various periods. Each at one time was shackled to pipes and were subjects to his vicious and sexual preferences. One lady, Sandra Lindsay died of maltreatment leading to his closest catch with the law; the stench of burning bits of her eviscerated cadaver in his stove pulled in suspicion of neighbors. Heidnik coolly shooed away the reacting cops with a story about burning his weekly roast. All the women were “subjected to beatings, torture and were raped on a daily basis.” (B, 2006, para 8). This became a normal routine for Heidnik. To the remaining and continuing incoming women he would use shock therapy on the women and would shove screwdrivers into their ears. Rivera said “Heidnik told her, came from watching the cult movie, “Eating Raoul.”” (B, 2006, para. 3). Debbie Dudley, who was 23, had also been found and had died in the chamber of