Episode Details

In 1987, Josefina Rivera escaped from Gary Heidnik and led Philadelphia police to his home, where they discovered three women chained and imprisoned in his basement and human remains in the freezer. Heidnik had spent years preying on vulnerable and intellectually disabled women, including a previous victim he kidnapped from a state hospital in 1978. Between November 1986 and March 1987, he abducted seven women and subjected them to horrific abuse, captivity, starvation, and torture. Two victims, Sandra Lindsay and Deborah Dudley, were murdered. 

Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Gary Heidnik. Rivera ultimately escaped and called the police, bringing Heidnik’s reign of terror to an end. At trial, his defense argued insanity, citing his history of mental illness, while prosecutors maintained that he knew right from wrong. Heidnik was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder along with numerous kidnapping, rape, and assault charges and sentenced to death. After years of appeals and a last-minute stay, Gary Heidnik was executed by lethal injection on July 6, 1999—the last execution carried out in Pennsylvania. His Philadelphia home, known as the “House of Horrors,” still stands today.

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