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It was cold and dreary as Josephina Rivera made her way down 6th Street in North Philadelphia on the night of Wednesday November 26th 1986. It had been a difficult year for the 25-year-old who had lost the custody of her three young children due to her ongoing struggles with drug addiction. With the new year just around the corner Josephina was determined to make some positive changes. Her social worker had promised that if she could find a job and a stable home she’d have a chance at getting her kids back.
Needing money to secure an apartment Josephina had turned to sex work. She was in the process of getting off drugs and making her new home just right so her social worker could see just how serious she was about regaining custody of her children. The following day was Thanksgiving. Josephina intended to make a nice dinner so she headed out with the hopes of doing a quick job or two so that she’d have some extra cash.
She typically found it easy to find willing customers but being a holiday the streets were quiet. Josephina couldn’t help but notice that one particular vehicle had driven by her a couple of times. It was a brand new Cadillac Coupe de Ville. The expensive car standing out in the rough and under-resourced neighborhood. Eventually the Cadillac pulled over. The driver, a white middle-aged male, rolled down his window and asked Josephina if she was working. She responded that she was. The two negotiated a price and Josephina got into the passenger seat.
The man introduced himself as Gary and said he just had to make a quick stop first. The two drove along the quiet street giving Josephina the chance to clock a proper look at Gary. There was nothing particularly remarkable about him. He was of slim build, about 6ft tall, relatively clean cut but with scruffy dark hair and a full beard. He wore jeans and a shabby CPO jacket with fringing down the arms both of which had visible stains on them. In direct contrast to his somewhat unkempt appearance Josephina noticed a genuine gold chain around his neck and an expensive Rolex watch on his wrist.
Gary stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant and grabbed a cup of coffee. Back in the car he told Josephina he wanted them to go to his house. This was something Josephina didn’t typically do. She serviced most of her clients in their own cars or the nearby motels, getting in and out as quickly as she could. But it was a slow night and Gary had offered a decent price. There was also nothing about him that raised any red flags. Just this once Josephina decided to make an exception.
Gary drove a few blocks further north into the 25th district, a predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood notorious for drug-related gang violence. He eventually turned down North Marshall Street, a residential block characterized by deteriorating row houses, most of them two or three stories high and sharing at least one wall with its neighboring building.
Gary pulled up at 3520 North Marshall Street. It was just like all the others save for a couple of distinct differences. Only one side of Gary’s house shared a wall with his neighbor. On the other side was an empty block littered with rubbish. Unlike the surrounding homes whose front door opened directly onto the cracked sidewalks Gary’s house was set several feet back, separated from the street by a short chain link fence.
Gary and Josephina got out of the Cadillac and made their way inside. As Gary unlocked the door Josephina noticed that the key he used was unlike any she’d ever seen before. She asked about it and Gary explained that he’d made it himself by sawing the regular key in half so the front part stayed permanently inside the lock. This way no other key would work except his.
Although Josephina thought this was odd she didn’t give it much more thought. The inside of Gary’s house was otherwise ordinary albeit sparsely furnished and relatively untidy. The only unusual detail was that Gary had meticulously glued coins into the walls of his kitchen. In the living room the window was protected by metal bars which was typical of the area. The room housed a grubby orange couch, a couple of arcade games, a television with a video cassette recorder and a large stack of video cassette tapes. Josephina caught a quicker glance of the handwritten titles and could see that many of them were pornographic films.
She followed Gary upstairs noticing that the walls in the hallway were plastered with $1 bills. Every now and then there was a $20 bill among them. They went into the bedroom and had consensual sex as agreed. Afterwards as Josephina got up to get dressed Gary made some strange small talk. On the drive over Josephina had told Gary that she had three children who were home with a babysitter and she couldn’t be out long. She’d made up the lie about the babysitter so that Gary wouldn’t try to make her stay but instead it seemed to have sparked his interest.
Gary seemed particularly curious about Josephina’s fertility asking if she was still able to have children and probing about whether or not she’d had a hysterectomy. Then out of nowhere Gary came up behind Josephina and secured his hands firmly around her neck. Having been lucky enough not to have experienced violence on the job before Josephina was completely caught off guard. It took her a moment to realize what was happening. Images of her life flashed before her in a way that she described as being like a broken film projector. Before the reality dawned on her that she was being choked.
Gary loosened his grip just as Josephina began to fade into unconsciousness. Coming to she started struggling against him only to realize that he’d managed to slip a handcuff over her right wrist. Josephina begged Gary not to hurt her promising to comply with whatever he wanted. Gary remained completely calm and collected. He said he wouldn’t hurt her as long as she stood still. He then proceeded to cuff Josephina’s hands behind her back and led her back down the stairs.
Once they got to the kitchen Gary opened another door. He led Josephina down a narrow set of steps into a dank damp basement. It was cold and the smell of mold filled the air. There was only one small window more like an air vent which was covered by a metal flap that blocked any view of the outside world. A single overhead light bulb illuminated the bleak surroundings which included a white freezer chest, a washing machine and a bucket. Various bits of debris littered the concrete floor while sandbags and insulation had been stacked against the walls as sound proofing.
Scanning the room Josephina noticed something in the middle of the floor. A section of concrete had been demolished and a hole roughly the size of a small bathtub had been dug out underneath. Wondering what purpose this hole could possibly serve Josephina was struck with the terrifying thought: was she looking at her own grave?
As Josephina stood there naked Gary proceeded to secure a metal chain around her ankle using a homemade shackle device he’d fashioned from a muffler clamp, a small metal bar and super glue. Methodically he used a hair dryer to dry the glue before attaching the other end of the chain to a sewer pipe that ran along the ceiling affixing it with a padlock. This enabled Josephina to move around but only by shuffling her feet and as far as the 12ft long chain would allow.
Gary then shoved Josephina into the hole in the basement floor and covered it up with a piece of plywood. It wasn’t until she was in there that she realized just how restrictive it was. Josephina was only 5’6 with the petite frame but she had to fold her legs against her chest just to fit her whole body inside and even then she stuck out too much for the plywood to sit completely flat. To hold it down Gary secured it by placing a couple of bags of dirt on top.
Josephina could barely breathe. Panic gripped her body as she tried to comprehend what was happening. How long did Gary intend to keep her in the hole? Would he even let her out at all? Certain she’d run out of air Josephina sobbed and begged for mercy as her arms started going numb. She screamed for what felt like hours even though she knew there was no point. Gary had set his radio to a local rock station and was blasting it as loud as it would go. Josephina knew right away this wasn’t to keep her entertained. It was to drown out the sound of her screams.
Hour after hour ticked by as Josephina endured the extreme pain and the discomfort of being stuck in the hole while also battling hunger, exhaustion and emotional distress. Her voice cracked and ached from her constant screaming. It was pitch black but she was able to keep track of time thanks to the radio announcements. 20 hours passed by before Josephina heard footsteps.
Suddenly her vision was flooded with light as the plywood lid was ripped off the hole. Gary was back in the basement. In his hand was a large stick. He lent into the hole and began beating Josephina with it grabbing her by the hair and administering blow after painful blow while repeatedly telling her to shut up. Josephina did as she was told shocked by the brutality of Gary’s actions.
Gary then shoved her back into the hole and replaced the plywood lid before disappearing back upstairs. He returned about 30 minutes later with a glass of water ordering Josephina to get out of the hole and onto an air mattress which had been pushed into the corner of the room. He removed her handcuffs and gave her the water which she drank thirstily before Gary proceeded to rape her. Josephina was too exhausted and terrified to fight back. Then to her dismay Gary laid down beside her and fell asleep.
While he slept she looked around for possible ways to escape but she knew it was no use. Gary hadn’t brought the keys to the padlock with him so there was no way she was getting out of her chains. Then Gary woke up with a start. He immediately hopped up grabbed a shovel and got to work widening the hole on the basement floor. As he worked he chattered candidly to Josephina telling her that his one dream in life was to raise a big family. He explained that he’d fathered four different children to four different women but each time the authorities had taken the children away and he never got to see them again.
He spoke with disdain about protective services and the government in general explaining that he used to work as a medic for the Army until they began dosing him with hallucinogenic drugs without his consent. Gary told Josephina:
“I went to the doctors with a medical complaint and by the time they finished treating me I was out of my fucking mind.”
He said he was discharged from the military and had been in and out of mental health facilities ever since. Most recently Gary had signed up for a matchmaking service which paired American men with women from the Philippines. He had been matched with a woman named Betty who flew over to the United States to marry him but Betty wasn’t the subservient wife that Gary had dreamed of. She got pregnant and ran out on Gary before their baby was born. She now refused to let Gary see his son while suing him for child support.
This time Gary had a plan to make sure that didn’t happen again. He told Josephina he intended to hold up to 10 women in his basement and impregnate each one. He said he preferred black women and ideally ones he didn’t consider smart. Once the babies were born Gary said that they would all raise them together under the one roof where no one could interfere like one big happy family.
Josephina listened intently. It occurred to her that not only was Gary deeply unwell he was also incredibly lonely. She figured her best chance of survival was to play along by lending a sympathetic ear and agreeing with what Gary had to say. After he was done digging he left Josephina alone in the basement chained up but free of the handcuffs. She fell to her knees as the gravity of what he told her sank in.
Josephina who was half Puerto Rican and half Mexican had grown up in a loving foster home after she and her siblings were abandoned by their parents. She adored her foster mother and had enjoyed a comfortable upbringing going to a good school and on to college. It was only when she discovered drugs that things in her life spiraled out of control. Before her chance encounter with Gary she’d been determined to start the upcoming year with a clean slate. Now realizing that Gary had no intention of releasing her anytime soon Josephina began to panic. Thinking of her foster mother and children she prayed to God that she’d find the strength to get herself out of this situation.
Josephina knew that no one would realize she was missing or be out looking for her. At that moment she made up her mind that she wasn’t done living and she was going to get out of that basement no matter what.
When Josephina awoke the next day she was alone in the basement freezing and with no concept of time. She hadn’t eaten in 2 days. Her face and her body and mind were weakening. Then she felt vibrations overhead as the engine of Gary’s car began revving in the garage and drove away. Realizing this meant she was alone in the house Josephina wasted no time. Frantically using all of her remaining strength she began picking at the superglue on the screw of the right muffler clamp. After about 30 minutes the screw came loose. Josephina freed her right ankle from the shackles and ran as far as the chain would allow.
It was just long enough for her to reach the one small window in the basement. It was only about 1 and 1/2 ft wide but Josephina was sure she’d be able to crawl through. She pushed the metal flap on the window and was relieved to feel it open easily revealing the trash covered backyard. The welcome sight of daylight flooded into the basement as Josephina tried to hoist herself up but try as she might she couldn’t fit her body more than a few inches into the window still chained to the pipe by one ankle. This left her with very little wiggle room.
Josephina could hear voices nearby and started screaming for help at the top of her lungs. The neighborhood had a large Hispanic population so she screamed in a blend of English and Spanish explaining that a man had her chained up and was raping her. She begged someone to call the police saying this man was going to kill her. Josephina could hear every word of what the people nearby were saying so she couldn’t understand why they weren’t responding to her desperate pleas for help. She managed to grab hold of a stick and started whacking the neighboring fence. She did this for almost 20 minutes until finally somebody heard her but it wasn’t the savior she was hoping for. It was Gary.
Gary was back inside the basement. He grabbed the chain dragging Josephina away from the window in a way that made her feel like a fish on a line. She used all her strength to maintain her position way out of the window still screaming at the top of her lungs. She managed to jam her free foot against the window frame which effectively secured her in place. Gary let go of the chain and a minute later he appeared in the backyard. He stood over Josephina and tried to push her back into the basement from the outside. She continued fighting against him all the while yelling at him to get off and begging for someone to call the police. After a few minutes Gary gave up and went back into the basement. This time he yanked on Josephina’s chain so violently that she was sure her leg would break. The pain was so intense that she relented letting her body flop as Gary pulled her all the way back inside.
Seemingly exhilarated by this victory he said he’d have to do a better job of securing her shackles this time. As he got to work regluing the clamps he assured Josephina that nobody was going to come to her aid. The neighborhood was filled with the drug dealers whom he paid to leave him alone. For her attempt to escape Gary beat Josephina and handcuffed her arms behind her back leaving her on the hard cold basement floor. He then bolted the metal flap on the window to the wall and packed the outside with sandbags sealing off her last possible connection with the outside world.
The next day Gary returned to the basement to give Josephina some bread and water and continue digging out the hole in the ground. He raped her again before ordering her back inside the hole. This time it was big enough to fit the air mattress inside and Josephina was able to sit up relatively comfortably compared to the squashed fetal position she’d been in previously. She heard Gary leave the house but instead of being relieved that he was gone she was filled with fear. Gary was the only one who knew she was down there. It occurred to her that if anything happened to him while he was out she’d be left there to rot.
A few hours later Gary returned but this time he wasn’t alone. Josephina could hear two sets of footsteps along with a woman crying. Gary was trying to comfort the woman saying:
“Come on Sandy you know I’m not going to hurt you right? Why are you crying? You know me. Stop crying.”
Suddenly light flooded into the hole as Gary removed the plywood board and yanked Josephina up by the arm. A young black woman who looked to be about the same age as herself stood there naked with her hands cuffed behind her back and in an obvious state of distress.
Gary introduced the two women as though there was nothing unusual about the circumstances in which they were meeting. He then got to work supergluing another muffler clamp shackle to the ankles of his new victim before padlocking her chains to the sewer pipe. Once he was finished he ordered both women into the hole sealing them inside.
Alone with Gary’s new captive Josephina did her best to calm the woman down. She explained that her name was Sandra Lindsay and she was 25 years old. She had known Gary whose last name was Heidnik for about 4 years. The two had met through the Elwyn Institute a facility in West Philadelphia that provides support and services to individuals with a range of intellectual and physical disabilities. Sandra was intellectually disabled herself and although she lived relatively independently her mental capabilities were more aligned with a 15-year-old. Gary Heidnik was a qualified nurse who had previously worked at The Elwyn Institute and the two became friends.
Sandra explained to Josephina that Gary had always been good to her sometimes taking her out to amusement parks, fast food restaurants or to his place. He was also the self-ordained minister of his own church which catered specifically to people with intellectual and physical disabilities known as the United Church of the Ministers of God. Gary held weekly sermons at his home on Marshall Street where he taught hymns and read Bible passages to the small congregation. Sandra was one of the 10 or so followers who attended often. One of the things she liked most about it was that Gary never asked his congregants for money.
Earlier that day of Saturday November 29 Sandra had been experiencing menstrual cramps and had gone out to buy some painkillers when Gary drove by and offered her a lift. They went out to eat like usual and then back to Gary’s house to have sex. Afterwards he started strangling her and dragged her downstairs.
“I don’t understand it,” Sandra cried. “Gary’s my friend. Why is he doing this?”
It was clear to Josephina that Sandra didn’t fully grasp what was going on. She asked Sandra if she’d ever had sex with Gary before. Sandra responded that she’d had sex with both Gary and a friend of his named Tony Brown. She’d once gotten pregnant by Gary and had an abortion which made Gary angry. Sandra explained:
“Now he says I’m going to have his baby whether I want to or not.”
A few hours later Gary returned to the basement. He laid Josephina and Sandra side by side and raped them both. It struck Josephina that he didn’t seem to get any particular pleasure from this act. His moves seemed mechanical reinforcing to her that he was serious about his twisted reproductive mission. Afterwards he gave the women a shirt each to wear and a portable toilet to use in place of the bucket they’d been using so far.
Gary then got back to work digging the hole deeper and wider. When they were left alone Josephina and Sandra speculated between themselves about what his intentions could be. Was he making space for more captives or did he intend on burying their bodies in there?
Josephina focused on trying to figure out who exactly Gary Heidnik was and what made him tick. Through Sandra she learned that for the most part Gary was a kind man but he didn’t like to be told no. He was highly intelligent with a nursing degree yet received a full disability pension from the government. He’d taught himself how to work the stock market turning $1,500 into a portfolio of over 500,000 within a decade. He also had schizophrenia and had tried to take his own life on more than one occasion. He was supposed to take a daily dose of a medication called Thorazine but he didn’t always do so and instead sometimes hoarded it up for an overdose.
The thought of this terrified Josephina. Already feeling like they were living in a permanent grave she was just as scared of something happening to Gary as she was of something happening to herself.
A few days after Sandra’s abduction the women heard someone knocking at the front door. It was Sandra’s sister wanting to know if Sandra was there. Shortly after Gary came downstairs wearing a pair of rubber gloves and holding a pen and paper. He handed these to Sandra and ordered that she write the following message:
“Dear Mom do not worry we’ll call love Sandy.”
In her childlike handwriting Sandra did as she was told. She then wrote her mother’s address on an envelope and sealed the letter inside. After this Gary locked Sandra and Josephina in the hole and left the house saying he was going to New York to send the letter so that Sandra’s family wouldn’t come looking for her at his place again.
As each hour ticked by Josephina was gripped by panic at the thought that Gary wasn’t coming back. Over 24 hours passed before Josephina felt the vibrations of Gary’s car pulling into the garage. She was relieved by the sound and told him as much. Little did she know this was a huge mistake.
Gary froze.
“How did you hear my car?” he asked.
Only then did it occur to Josephina that the blaring radio had been to prevent her and Sandra from hearing his movements as much as it had been to prevent outsiders from hearing their screams.
Silently Gary went back upstairs. He returned to the basement shortly after with a screwdriver. He pushed Sandra and then Josephina onto the ground.
“Don’t scream,” he warned as he inserted the screwdriver into their ears. “I know how far I can go without making you deaf with this.”
A routine was established. Every morning Gary came down with some bread and water. He’d then rape Josephina and Sandra before continuing work on the hole. If either woman ever put up a fight or screamed Gary beat them often with the handle of his shovel so they quickly learned to comply.
Josephina decided that her best chance of survival was to keep quiet and submit to Gary’s demands no matter what. Whenever Gary left the house he sealed Josephina and Sandra into the hole. He soon brought down a battery-powered television which he let the women take into the hole with them. The pair discovered that leaving the TV on too long deprived them of precious oxygen so they had to ration their viewing time to no more than 2 hours per day. All the while the radio blared in the background for hours on end playing a rotation of the same 10 or so songs which drove the women mad.
Boredom and hunger became a constant. Over time Gary started bringing down tea bags and sugar along with an old coffee pot that the women could use to boil water. They tried to ration the tea bags but loaded each drink with as much sugar as they could handle desperate for the calories.
Gary gave the women sanitary products but at no point were they allowed to bathe. Their only method of cleaning themselves was the occasional baby wipe Gary gave them.
By Monday December 22 1986 almost a month had passed since Josephina Rivera and Sandra Lindsay had been held captive at Gary Heidnik’s home on North Marshall Street. That night the two women were lying on the air mattress when the basement door opened. Suddenly in came Gary with a young black woman naked in handcuffs. He introduced the woman as Lisa chatting jovially as Lisa sobbed. He got to work fitting her with his trademark muffler clamp shackles and chain like with the others. Gary was meticulous about the way he fitted Lisa’s restraints. He counted the number of chain links between her ankles to ensure he could still rape her with ease. He also made sure to chain each woman several feet apart so there was enough space for him to rape them one at a time.
With Lisa secured to the chain he then forced her into the hole sealing her inside before going back upstairs.
Josephina and Sandra immediately raced over and started talking into the hole reassuring Lisa that everything would be okay if she just stopped fighting. They told her about Gary’s deranged plans to impregnate them all and advised her to just do what he said. But Lisa wasn’t hearing it. She constantly screamed at the others to let her out and every time Gary came into the basement from then on in she hurled abuse against him.
For Josephina Deborah’s determination was somewhat admirable. It turned out that Deborah had lived a hard life surrounded by crime drugs and abuse and she’d had to fight every day to survive. But her refusal to submit to Gary’s demands also brought a new level of discord to the situation at Marshall Street. The other women watched on as Gary beat Deborah constantly. He began looking for new objects to discipline her with remarking that nothing he did seemed to make any difference.
Eventually Gary became so frustrated that he started ordering the others to beat Deborah on his behalf. As traumatizing as she found it Josephina didn’t dare to refuse. She apologized to Deborah afterwards pleading with her to stop screaming and to just comply. She explained that Gary was mentally ill and their best chance of survival was to do whatever he said. Deborah refused. She called Josephina weak for going along with things for as long as she had and said it was time for them to come up with a proper plan to overcome Gary. After all there were four of them and only one of him.
Josephina repeatedly explained that without the keys to their padlocks it was no use but Deborah wasn’t having a bar of it. She was convinced that someone would hear them if they screamed loud and long enough. Gary started bringing the other women more substantial foods: oatmeal, rice, shriveled hot dog sausages and poptarts while continuing to feed Deborah nothing but bread and water.
Meanwhile the beatings and rapes continued daily. Deborah and Jackie couldn’t take anymore. Having witnessed what Gary did to Sandra they knew he had absolutely no regard for whether they lived or died. If they wanted to get out of there alive it was time to act. One day when they thought Gary was out of earshot they told Josephina and Lisa they had a plan. The next time Gary came down the four of them would launch an attack against him. With four against one and armed with the stick he’d been using to beat them with the pair were confident they could overpower him. Alternatively knowing that Josephina often received preferential treatment they urged her to try and steal a knife next time she was allowed upstairs. They could wait until Gary was raping one of them and then stab him in the back.
Josephina thought it was a terrible idea and told them as much. Without the keys to their padlocks they’d be doomed. But Deborah and Jackie thought it was worth a shot. They argued it was entirely possible that Gary had been keeping the keys in his pockets all along. When Josephina still refused to help the others accused her of siding with Gary saying she’d been down there so long that she was starting to like it. As for Deborah and Jackie they were going to do it with or without her help.
The next day Gary brought Josephina upstairs for a bath and outright asked her about their scheming. Realizing he must have overheard the entire conversation Josephina replied as casually as she could that there had been some talks between the others but she’d dismissed their plan. When they went back downstairs Gary told the others he knew what they were up to. He assured them he didn’t carry the keys around with him. One wrong move and they’d all die down there.
Deborah and Jackie were furious with Josephina believing she’d ratted them out but that didn’t stop them from trying to get out. One day Gary pretended to leave in his car just to see what they’d do while he was gone. As soon as they thought he’d driven away Deborah and Jackie began screaming and banging on the lid of the hole. Gary burst in and dragged them out along with Lisa. He handcuffed each woman to the hook in the ceiling one at a time and covered their mouths with duct tape just like he’d done with Josephina and Sandra earlier. He took a screwdriver and jammed it into their ears until pus came out.
Jackie felt her spirits beginning to break completely. She later told Deborah:
“There was no point screaming. There’s nobody out there,” she said. “The only one who can hear you cry is God.”
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back
story?**
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It was cold and dreary as Josephina Rivera made her way down 6th Street in North Philadelphia on the night of Wednesday November 26th 1986. It had been a difficult year for the 25-year-old who had lost the custody of her three young children due to her ongoing struggles with drug addiction. With the new year just around the corner Josephina was determined to make some positive changes. Her social worker had promised that if she could find a job and a stable home she’d have a chance at getting her kids back.
Needing money to secure an apartment Josephina had turned to sex work. She was in the process of getting off drugs and making her new home just right so her social worker could see just how serious she was about regaining custody of her children. The following day was Thanksgiving. Josephina intended to make a nice dinner so she headed out with the hopes of doing a quick job or two so that she’d have some extra cash.
She typically found it easy to find willing customers but being a holiday the streets were quiet. Josephina couldn’t help but notice that one particular vehicle had driven by her a couple of times. It was a brand new Cadillac Coupe de Ville. The expensive car standing out in the rough and under-resourced neighborhood. Eventually the Cadillac pulled over. The driver, a white middle-aged male, rolled down his window and asked Josephina if she was working. She responded that she was. The two negotiated a price and Josephina got into the passenger seat.
The man introduced himself as Gary and said he just had to make a quick stop first. The two drove along the quiet street giving Josephina the chance to clock a proper look at Gary. There was nothing particularly remarkable about him. He was of slim build, about 6ft tall, relatively clean cut but with scruffy dark hair and a full beard. He wore jeans and a shabby CPO jacket with fringing down the arms both of which had visible stains on them. In direct contrast to his somewhat unkempt appearance Josephina noticed a genuine gold chain around his neck and an expensive Rolex watch on his wrist.
Gary stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant and grabbed a cup of coffee. Back in the car he told Josephina he wanted them to go to his house. This was something Josephina didn’t typically do. She serviced most of her clients in their own cars or the nearby motels, getting in and out as quickly as she could. But it was a slow night and Gary had offered a decent price. There was also nothing about him that raised any red flags. Just this once Josephina decided to make an exception.
Gary drove a few blocks further north into the 25th district, a predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood notorious for drug-related gang violence. He eventually turned down North Marshall Street, a residential block characterized by deteriorating row houses, most of them two or three stories high and sharing at least one wall with its neighboring building.
Gary pulled up at 3520 North Marshall Street. It was just like all the others save for a couple of distinct differences. Only one side of Gary’s house shared a wall with his neighbor. On the other side was an empty block littered with rubbish. Unlike the surrounding homes whose front door opened directly onto the cracked sidewalks Gary’s house was set several feet back, separated from the street by a short chain link fence.
Gary and Josephina got out of the Cadillac and made their way inside. As Gary unlocked the door Josephina noticed that the key he used was unlike any she’d ever seen before. She asked about it and Gary explained that he’d made it himself by sawing the regular key in half so the front part stayed permanently inside the lock. This way no other key would work except his.
Although Josephina thought this was odd she didn’t give it much more thought. The inside of Gary’s house was otherwise ordinary albeit sparsely furnished and relatively untidy. The only unusual detail was that Gary had meticulously glued coins into the walls of his kitchen. In the living room the window was protected by metal bars which was typical of the area. The room housed a grubby orange couch, a couple of arcade games, a television with a video cassette recorder and a large stack of video cassette tapes. Josephina caught a quicker glance of the handwritten titles and could see that many of them were pornographic films.
She followed Gary upstairs noticing that the walls in the hallway were plastered with $1 bills. Every now and then there was a $20 bill among them. They went into the bedroom and had consensual sex as agreed. Afterwards as Josephina got up to get dressed Gary made some strange small talk. On the drive over Josephina had told Gary that she had three children who were home with a babysitter and she couldn’t be out long. She’d made up the lie about the babysitter so that Gary wouldn’t try to make her stay but instead it seemed to have sparked his interest.
Gary seemed particularly curious about Josephina’s fertility asking if she was still able to have children and probing about whether or not she’d had a hysterectomy. Then out of nowhere Gary came up behind Josephina and secured his hands firmly around her neck. Having been lucky enough not to have experienced violence on the job before Josephina was completely caught off guard. It took her a moment to realize what was happening. Images of her life flashed before her in a way that she described as being like a broken film projector. Before the reality dawned on her that she was being choked.
Gary loosened his grip just as Josephina began to fade into unconsciousness. Coming to she started struggling against him only to realize that he’d managed to slip a handcuff over her right wrist. Josephina begged Gary not to hurt her promising to comply with whatever he wanted. Gary remained completely calm and collected. He said he wouldn’t hurt her as long as she stood still. He then proceeded to cuff Josephina’s hands behind her back and led her back down the stairs.
Once they got to the kitchen Gary opened another door. He led Josephina down a narrow set of steps into a dank damp basement. It was cold and the smell of mold filled the air. There was only one small window more like an air vent which was covered by a metal flap that blocked any view of the outside world. A single overhead light bulb illuminated the bleak surroundings which included a white freezer chest, a washing machine and a bucket. Various bits of debris littered the concrete floor while sandbags and insulation had been stacked against the walls as sound proofing.
Scanning the room Josephina noticed something in the middle of the floor. A section of concrete had been demolished and a hole roughly the size of a small bathtub had been dug out underneath. Wondering what purpose this hole could possibly serve Josephina was struck with the terrifying thought: was she looking at her own grave?
As Josephina stood there naked Gary proceeded to secure a metal chain around her ankle using a homemade shackle device he’d fashioned from a muffler clamp, a small metal bar and super glue. Methodically he used a hair dryer to dry the glue before attaching the other end of the chain to a sewer pipe that ran along the ceiling affixing it with a padlock. This enabled Josephina to move around but only by shuffling her feet and as far as the 12ft long chain would allow.
Gary then shoved Josephina into the hole in the basement floor and covered it up with a piece of plywood. It wasn’t until she was in there that she realized just how restrictive it was. Josephina was only 5’6 with the petite frame but she had to fold her legs against her chest just to fit her whole body inside and even then she stuck out too much for the plywood to sit completely flat. To hold it down Gary secured it by placing a couple of bags of dirt on top.
Josephina could barely breathe. Panic gripped her body as she tried to comprehend what was happening. How long did Gary intend to keep her in the hole? Would he even let her out at all? Certain she’d run out of air Josephina sobbed and begged for mercy as her arms started going numb. She screamed for what felt like hours even though she knew there was no point. Gary had set his radio to a local rock station and was blasting it as loud as it would go. Josephina knew right away this wasn’t to keep her entertained. It was to drown out the sound of her screams.
Hour after hour ticked by as Josephina endured the extreme pain and the discomfort of being stuck in the hole while also battling hunger, exhaustion and emotional distress. Her voice cracked and ached from her constant screaming. It was pitch black but she was able to keep track of time thanks to the radio announcements. 20 hours passed by before Josephina heard footsteps.
Suddenly her vision was flooded with light as the plywood lid was ripped off the hole. Gary was back in the basement. In his hand was a large stick. He lent into the hole and began beating Josephina with it grabbing her by the hair and administering blow after painful blow while repeatedly telling her to shut up. Josephina did as she was told shocked by the brutality of Gary’s actions.
Gary then shoved her back into the hole and replaced the plywood lid before disappearing back upstairs. He returned about 30 minutes later with a glass of water ordering Josephina to get out of the hole and onto an air mattress which had been pushed into the corner of the room. He removed her handcuffs and gave her the water which she drank thirstily before Gary proceeded to rape her. Josephina was too exhausted and terrified to fight back. Then to her dismay Gary laid down beside her and fell asleep.
While he slept she looked around for possible ways to escape but she knew it was no use. Gary hadn’t brought the keys to the padlock with him so there was no way she was getting out of her chains. Then Gary woke up with a start. He immediately hopped up grabbed a shovel and got to work widening the hole on the basement floor. As he worked he chattered candidly to Josephina telling her that his one dream in life was to raise a big family. He explained that he’d fathered four different children to four different women but each time the authorities had taken the children away and he never got to see them again.
He spoke with disdain about protective services and the government in general explaining that he used to work as a medic for the Army until they began dosing him with hallucinogenic drugs without his consent. Gary told Josephina:
“I went to the doctors with a medical complaint and by the time they finished treating me I was out of my fucking mind.”
He said he was discharged from the military and had been in and out of mental health facilities ever since. Most recently Gary had signed up for a matchmaking service which paired American men with women from the Philippines. He had been matched with a woman named Betty who flew over to the United States to marry him but Betty wasn’t the subservient wife that Gary had dreamed of. She got pregnant and ran out on Gary before their baby was born. She now refused to let Gary see his son while suing him for child support.
This time Gary had a plan to make sure that didn’t happen again. He told Josephina he intended to hold up to 10 women in his basement and impregnate each one. He said he preferred black women and ideally ones he didn’t consider smart. Once the babies were born Gary said that they would all raise them together under the one roof where no one could interfere like one big happy family.
Josephina listened intently. It occurred to her that not only was Gary deeply unwell he was also incredibly lonely. She figured her best chance of survival was to play along by lending a sympathetic ear and agreeing with what Gary had to say. After he was done digging he left Josephina alone in the basement chained up but free of the handcuffs. She fell to her knees as the gravity of what he told her sank in.
Josephina who was half Puerto Rican and half Mexican had grown up in a loving foster home after she and her siblings were abandoned by their parents. She adored her foster mother and had enjoyed a comfortable upbringing going to a good school and on to college. It was only when she discovered drugs that things in her life spiraled out of control. Before her chance encounter with Gary she’d been determined to start the upcoming year with a clean slate. Now realizing that Gary had no intention of releasing her anytime soon Josephina began to panic. Thinking of her foster mother and children she prayed to God that she’d find the strength to get herself out of this situation.
Josephina knew that no one would realize she was missing or be out looking for her. At that moment she made up her mind that she wasn’t done living and she was going to get out of that basement no matter what.
When Josephina awoke the next day she was alone in the basement freezing and with no concept of time. She hadn’t eaten in 2 days. Her face and her body and mind were weakening. Then she felt vibrations overhead as the engine of Gary’s car began revving in the garage and drove away. Realizing this meant she was alone in the house Josephina wasted no time. Frantically using all of her remaining strength she began picking at the superglue on the screw of the right muffler clamp. After about 30 minutes the screw came loose. Josephina freed her right ankle from the shackles and ran as far as the chain would allow.
It was just long enough for her to reach the one small window in the basement. It was only about 1 and 1/2 ft wide but Josephina was sure she’d be able to crawl through. She pushed the metal flap on the window and was relieved to feel it open easily revealing the trash covered backyard. The welcome sight of daylight flooded into the basement as Josephina tried to hoist herself up but try as she might she couldn’t fit her body more than a few inches into the window still chained to the pipe by one ankle. This left her with very little wiggle room.
Josephina could hear voices nearby and started screaming for help at the top of her lungs. The neighborhood had a large Hispanic population so she screamed in a blend of English and Spanish explaining that a man had her chained up and was raping her. She begged someone to call the police saying this man was going to kill her. Josephina could hear every word of what the people nearby were saying so she couldn’t understand why they weren’t responding to her desperate pleas for help. She managed to grab hold of a stick and started whacking the neighboring fence. She did this for almost 20 minutes until finally somebody heard her but it wasn’t the savior she was hoping for. It was Gary.
Gary was back inside the basement. He grabbed the chain dragging Josephina away from the window in a way that made her feel like a fish on a line. She used all her strength to maintain her position way out of the window still screaming at the top of her lungs. She managed to jam her free foot against the window frame which effectively secured her in place. Gary let go of the chain and a minute later he appeared in the backyard. He stood over Josephina and tried to push her back into the basement from the outside. She continued fighting against him all the while yelling at him to get off and begging for someone to call the police. After a few minutes Gary gave up and went back into the basement. This time he yanked on Josephina’s chain so violently that she was sure her leg would break. The pain was so intense that she relented letting her body flop as Gary pulled her all the way back inside.
Seemingly exhilarated by this victory he said he’d have to do a better job of securing her shackles this time. As he got to work regluing the clamps he assured Josephina that nobody was going to come to her aid. The neighborhood was filled with the drug dealers whom he paid to leave him alone. For her attempt to escape Gary beat Josephina and handcuffed her arms behind her back leaving her on the hard cold basement floor. He then bolted the metal flap on the window to the wall and packed the outside with sandbags sealing off her last possible connection with the outside world.
The next day Gary returned to the basement to give Josephina some bread and water and continue digging out the hole in the ground. He raped her again before ordering her back inside the hole. This time it was big enough to fit the air mattress inside and Josephina was able to sit up relatively comfortably compared to the squashed fetal position she’d been in previously. She heard Gary leave the house but instead of being relieved that he was gone she was filled with fear. Gary was the only one who knew she was down there. It occurred to her that if anything happened to him while he was out she’d be left there to rot.
A few hours later Gary returned but this time he wasn’t alone. Josephina could hear two sets of footsteps along with a woman crying. Gary was trying to comfort the woman saying:
“Come on Sandy you know I’m not going to hurt you right? Why are you crying? You know me. Stop crying.”
Suddenly light flooded into the hole as Gary removed the plywood board and yanked Josephina up by the arm. A young black woman who looked to be about the same age as herself stood there naked with her hands cuffed behind her back and in an obvious state of distress.
Gary introduced the two women as though there was nothing unusual about the circumstances in which they were meeting. He then got to work supergluing another muffler clamp shackle to the ankles of his new victim before padlocking her chains to the sewer pipe. Once he was finished he ordered both women into the hole sealing them inside.
Alone with Gary’s new captive Josephina did her best to calm the woman down. She explained that her name was Sandra Lindsay and she was 25 years old. She had known Gary whose last name was Heidnik for about 4 years. The two had met through the Elwyn Institute a facility in West Philadelphia that provides support and services to individuals with a range of intellectual and physical disabilities. Sandra was intellectually disabled herself and although she lived relatively independently her mental capabilities were more aligned with a 15-year-old. Gary Heidnik was a qualified nurse who had previously worked at The Elwyn Institute and the two became friends.
Sandra explained to Josephina that Gary had always been good to her sometimes taking her out to amusement parks, fast food restaurants or to his place. He was also the self-ordained minister of his own church which catered specifically to people with intellectual and physical disabilities known as the United Church of the Ministers of God. Gary held weekly sermons at his home on Marshall Street where he taught hymns and read Bible passages to the small congregation. Sandra was one of the 10 or so followers who attended often. One of the things she liked most about it was that Gary never asked his congregants for money.
Earlier that day of Saturday November 29 Sandra had been experiencing menstrual cramps and had gone out to buy some painkillers when Gary drove by and offered her a lift. They went out to eat like usual and then back to Gary’s house to have sex. Afterwards he started strangling her and dragged her downstairs.
“I don’t understand it,” Sandra cried. “Gary’s my friend. Why is he doing this?”
It was clear to Josephina that Sandra didn’t fully grasp what was going on. She asked Sandra if she’d ever had sex with Gary before. Sandra responded that she’d had sex with both Gary and a friend of his named Tony Brown. She’d once gotten pregnant by Gary and had an abortion which made Gary angry. Sandra explained:
“Now he says I’m going to have his baby whether I want to or not.”
A few hours later Gary returned to the basement. He laid Josephina and Sandra side by side and raped them both. It struck Josephina that he didn’t seem to get any particular pleasure from this act. His moves seemed mechanical reinforcing to her that he was serious about his twisted reproductive mission. Afterwards he gave the women a shirt each to wear and a portable toilet to use in place of the bucket they’d been using so far.
Gary then got back to work digging the hole deeper and wider. When they were left alone Josephina and Sandra speculated between themselves about what his intentions could be. Was he making space for more captives or did he intend on burying their bodies in there?
Josephina focused on trying to figure out who exactly Gary Heidnik was and what made him tick. Through Sandra she learned that for the most part Gary was a kind man but he didn’t like to be told no. He was highly intelligent with a nursing degree yet received a full disability pension from the government. He’d taught himself how to work the stock market turning $1,500 into a portfolio of over 500,000 within a decade. He also had schizophrenia and had tried to take his own life on more than one occasion. He was supposed to take a daily dose of a medication called Thorazine but he didn’t always do so and instead sometimes hoarded it up for an overdose.
The thought of this terrified Josephina. Already feeling like they were living in a permanent grave she was just as scared of something happening to Gary as she was of something happening to herself.
A few days after Sandra’s abduction the women heard someone knocking at the front door. It was Sandra’s sister wanting to know if Sandra was there. Shortly after Gary came downstairs wearing a pair of rubber gloves and holding a pen and paper. He handed these to Sandra and ordered that she write the following message:
“Dear Mom do not worry we’ll call love Sandy.”
In her childlike handwriting Sandra did as she was told. She then wrote her mother’s address on an envelope and sealed the letter inside. After this Gary locked Sandra and Josephina in the hole and left the house saying he was going to New York to send the letter so that Sandra’s family wouldn’t come looking for her at his place again.
As each hour ticked by Josephina was gripped by panic at the thought that Gary wasn’t coming back. Over 24 hours passed before Josephina felt the vibrations of Gary’s car pulling into the garage. She was relieved by the sound and told him as much. Little did she know this was a huge mistake.
Gary froze.
“How did you hear my car?” he asked.
Only then did it occur to Josephina that the blaring radio had been to prevent her and Sandra from hearing his movements as much as it had been to prevent outsiders from hearing their screams.
Silently Gary went back upstairs. He returned to the basement shortly after with a screwdriver. He pushed Sandra and then Josephina onto the ground.
“Don’t scream,” he warned as he inserted the screwdriver into their ears. “I know how far I can go without making you deaf with this.”
A routine was established. Every morning Gary came down with some bread and water. He’d then rape Josephina and Sandra before continuing work on the hole. If either woman ever put up a fight or screamed Gary beat them often with the handle of his shovel so they quickly learned to comply.
Josephina decided that her best chance of survival was to keep quiet and submit to Gary’s demands no matter what. Whenever Gary left the house he sealed Josephina and Sandra into the hole. He soon brought down a battery-powered television which he let the women take into the hole with them. The pair discovered that leaving the TV on too long deprived them of precious oxygen so they had to ration their viewing time to no more than 2 hours per day. All the while the radio blared in the background for hours on end playing a rotation of the same 10 or so songs which drove the women mad.
Boredom and hunger became a constant. Over time Gary started bringing down tea bags and sugar along with an old coffee pot that the women could use to boil water. They tried to ration the tea bags but loaded each drink with as much sugar as they could handle desperate for the calories.
Gary gave the women sanitary products but at no point were they allowed to bathe. Their only method of cleaning themselves was the occasional baby wipe Gary gave them.
By Monday December 22 1986 almost a month had passed since Josephina Rivera and Sandra Lindsay had been held captive at Gary Heidnik’s home on North Marshall Street. That night the two women were lying on the air mattress when the basement door opened. Suddenly in came Gary with a young black woman naked in handcuffs. He introduced the woman as Lisa chatting jovially as Lisa sobbed. He got to work fitting her with his trademark muffler clamp shackles and chain like with the others. Gary was meticulous about the way he fitted Lisa’s restraints. He counted the number of chain links between her ankles to ensure he could still rape her with ease. He also made sure to chain each woman several feet apart so there was enough space for him to rape them one at a time.
With Lisa secured to the chain he then forced her into the hole sealing her inside before going back upstairs.
Josephina and Sandra immediately raced over and started talking into the hole reassuring Lisa that everything would be okay if she just stopped fighting. They told her about Gary’s deranged plans to impregnate them all and advised her to just do what he said. But Lisa wasn’t hearing it. She constantly screamed at the others to let her out and every time Gary came into the basement from then on in she hurled abuse against him.
For Josephina Deborah’s determination was somewhat admirable. It turned out that Deborah had lived a hard life surrounded by crime drugs and abuse and she’d had to fight every day to survive. But her refusal to submit to Gary’s demands also brought a new level of discord to the situation at Marshall Street. The other women watched on as Gary beat Deborah constantly. He began looking for new objects to discipline her with remarking that nothing he did seemed to make any difference.
Eventually Gary became so frustrated that he started ordering the others to beat Deborah on his behalf. As traumatizing as she found it Josephina didn’t dare to refuse. She apologized to Deborah afterwards pleading with her to stop screaming and to just comply. She explained that Gary was mentally ill and their best chance of survival was to do whatever he said. Deborah refused. She called Josephina weak for going along with things for as long as she had and said it was time for them to come up with a proper plan to overcome Gary. After all there were four of them and only one of him.
Josephina repeatedly explained that without the keys to their padlocks it was no use but Deborah wasn’t having a bar of it. She was convinced that someone would hear them if they screamed loud and long enough. Gary started bringing the other women more substantial foods: oatmeal, rice, shriveled hot dog sausages and poptarts while continuing to feed Deborah nothing but bread and water.
Meanwhile the beatings and rapes continued daily. Deborah and Jackie couldn’t take anymore. Having witnessed what Gary did to Sandra they knew he had absolutely no regard for whether they lived or died. If they wanted to get out of there alive it was time to act. One day when they thought Gary was out of earshot they told Josephina and Lisa they had a plan. The next time Gary came down the four of them would launch an attack against him. With four against one and armed with the stick he’d been using to beat them with the pair were confident they could overpower him. Alternatively knowing that Josephina often received preferential treatment they urged her to try and steal a knife next time she was allowed upstairs. They could wait until Gary was raping one of them and then stab him in the back.
Josephina thought it was a terrible idea and told them as much. Without the keys to their padlocks they’d be doomed. But Deborah and Jackie thought it was worth a shot. They argued it was entirely possible that Gary had been keeping the keys in his pockets all along. When Josephina still refused to help the others accused her of siding with Gary saying she’d been down there so long that she was starting to like it. As for Deborah and Jackie they were going to do it with or without her help.
The next day Gary brought Josephina upstairs for a bath and outright asked her about their scheming. Realizing he must have overheard the entire conversation Josephina replied as casually as she could that there had been some talks between the others but she’d dismissed their plan. When they went back downstairs Gary told the others he knew what they were up to. He assured them he didn’t carry the keys around with him. One wrong move and they’d all die down there.
Deborah and Jackie were furious with Josephina believing she’d ratted them out but that didn’t stop them from trying to get out. One day Gary pretended to leave in his car just to see what they’d do while he was gone. As soon as they thought he’d driven away Deborah and Jackie began screaming and banging on the lid of the hole. Gary burst in and dragged them out along with Lisa. He handcuffed each woman to the hook in the ceiling one at a time and covered their mouths with duct tape just like he’d done with Josephina and Sandra earlier. He took a screwdriver and jammed it into their ears until pus came out.
Jackie felt her spirits beginning to break completely. She later told Deborah:
“There was no point screaming. There’s nobody out there,” she said. “The only one who can hear you cry is God.”
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary removed the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dumped the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back to Marshall Street.
Gary took Josephina for a drive to the neighboring state of New Jersey on the lookout for the perfect spot to dump Deborah’s body. Along the way they stopped in at a McDonald’s restaurant so Gary could get something to eat. Josephina didn’t look anyone in the eye in case Gary misinterpreted her intentions. They drove along Route 676 in the densely forested Pine Barrens of Wharton State Forest about 40 miles east of North Philadelphia. Eventually Gary pulled down a discreet dirt track that led about 100 yards into the woods and determined:
“This will do.”
Later that night under the cover of darkness Gary retrieved Deborah’s body from a freezer in the basement. He’d been keeping her there folded over into a clear garbage bag. Ordering Josephina to follow him he carried the bag to his garage and dump the body into the trunk of his Cadillac. The pair then made their way back to the Pine Barrens and to the location that Gary had scouted earlier.
Josephina didn’t dare move as Gary removed the keys from the engine and carried Deborah’s frozen body into the dark woods. As she sat there in the car alone she thought about running off. Her heart pounded as she wondered what would happen if Gary caught her. It then occurred to her that he might have brought her along just so he could kill her and dump her body there too.
By the time Gary returned to the car Josephina was almost relieved. She spent the rest of the drive tense and traumatized by what they’d just done. Meanwhile Gary seemed completely unfazed. Again he stopped at McDonald’s for a burger and fries checking his stocks in a newspaper and remarking on their poor performance as though burying a body in the woods was a common occurrence for him.
For the first time it occurred to Josephina that this might actually be a common occurrence for Gary Heidnik. It only just struck her that there could have been other victims before Sandra and Deborah.
The next day Gary took Josephina to buy some clothes from a thrift store and then had her drive behind him in his Cadillac while he took his other car a Rolls-Royce to the mechanic. During each trip Josephina kept her focus on the task at hand and avoided making eye contact or conversation with anyone else. She realized that Gary was enjoying having her company and decided the smartest thing she could do was continue earning his trust. The more trust he put in her the greater her chance would be to escape when the right opportunity arose.
Meanwhile downstairs in the basement the conditions had improved slightly for Lisa and Jackie. Gary brought them blankets and pillows and stopped putting them in the hole. He mostly left them alone although the daily rapes continued. With two of his five victims now dead and only one of them pregnant Josephina could tell that Gary was getting rattled at the realization that his twisted plot wasn’t going according to plan.
By mid-March 1987 Deborah Dudley had been held captive at Marshall Street for 2 and 1/2 months but still she refused to comply with Gary Heidnik’s demands. It was a constant source of contention between the other women who urged her to stay quiet for her own sake as well as theirs. Jackie did her best to fall into line but because she was usually kept in the hole with Deborah she was often deemed guilty by association.
One day Gary came up with a new idea to try to get all of the women to behave. He took the lid off the hole ran a hose into it and filled it with a few inches of water. He then handcuffed Deborah and Jackie together and ordered them back into the hole placing the lid on top. Gary took an extension cord which had been stripped on one end to expose the wires within. He plugged it in and touched the bare wire to the women’s chains sending an electric shock jolting into their bodies. Panicked screams emanated from within the hole. A few seconds later Gary remove the wire and ordered Josephina to have a turn administering a shock.
The very thought sickened her but she knew that she’d pay the price if she didn’t comply. Reluctantly she did as she was told. With Deborah and Jackie thrashing and crying inside the hole Gary seemed satisfied. He unplugged the cord telling them:
“Now you think about that for a while,”
before disappearing upstairs.
Gary’s latest torture device filled the four women with a whole new sense of dread. If his plan really was to impregnate them all then electrocuting them didn’t sound like a smart way to go about it. They worried about what this meant for his state of mind. The other women were also furious at Josephina for obeying his commands and this only added fuel to their belief that she was siding with him.
Two days later Gary was back in the basement. This time he ordered Deborah, Jackie and Lisa into the water filled hole. He plugged in the cord and administered a shock before ordering Josephina to do the same. As she hesitantly touched the exposed wires to Deborah’s chains the three women inside began screaming:
“He’s killing me!” Deborah shrieked.
Then the basement fell silent. Thinking the cord must have stopped working Gary raced upstairs to grab another one but inside the hole Lisa and Jackie watched on in horror as Deborah’s body went limp and collapsed face first into the water.
Outside Josephina heard them announce:
“Debbie’s dead.”
When Gary returned to the basement 10 minutes later it took him a moment to realize that the women weren’t messing around. He removed the lid from the hole uncuffed Lisa and Jackie and dragged Deborah’s lifeless body out by the hair. He laid her out on the floor and looked at the others:
“Aren’t you glad it wasn’t one of you?” he remarked before adding, “Thank God now my troubles are over and my basement can go back to normal.”
As the three surviving women stood around frozen in shock and fear he made them a sandwich. He went upstairs and fetched them a cigarette and a can of beer. Then he handed Josephina a piece of paper and a pen and told her to write the following message:
“March 18th 1987 I Josephina Rivera and Gary Heidnik killed Deborah Dudley by applying electricity to her chain while sitting in a pool of water in a hole in a basement of 3520 Marshall Street.”
Josephina did as she was told. She put her signature on the bottom and handed it to Jackie and Lisa so they could both sign it as witnesses. Gary held the letter up and said:
“If you ever go to the cops I can use this as evidence that you killed Debbie.”
For the first time in almost 4 months he then leaned over and unlocked Josephina’s chains.
“Go upstairs and go to bed,” he said.
In the most extreme of circumstances it slowly dawned on Josephina that her plan had worked. All those months of complying with Gary’s twisted demands and lending him a sympathetic ear had finally paid off. He no longer viewed her as a slave but as a partner. She was allowed to bathe put on clean clothes and walk around his house unsupervised and unrestrained. Having succeeded in his plan to get her pregnant Gary no longer raped her either.
But for all these improvements Josephina was far from free. All of the windows in Gary’s home had bars on them. He didn’t appear to own a phone and his front door could only be opened with the special key that he kept safe in his pocket. Josephina also knew that if she made any attempt to escape Lisa and Jackie’s lives would be at immediate risk. If Josephina got out she had no doubt that Gary would kill the others and destroy evidence of his crimes.
For the next couple of days she tried to go about life as normally as possible following Gary around and doing whatever he asked. Despite the trauma of the past few months being exacerbated by Deborah’s death Josephina made an effort not to display any emotion or act shocked by anything Gary did or said. The only time her tough exterior almost cracked was when Gary brought her into the kitchen and showed her Sandra Lindsay’s charred and rotting remains which he’d attempted to dispose of just as Deborah had described. But there was something the others didn’t know.
Gary revealed to Josephina that he’d tried to feed Sandra’s remains to the neighborhood dogs but they’d left the obviously human bones scattered around his backyard. He said that Sandra’s family suspected he had something to do with her disappearance so he had to be incredibly careful not to attract any attention to himself. It was only when Deborah commented about how good the dog food commercial looked that Gary got an idea. He said he started mincing up Sandra’s remains and mixing them in with the canned dog food which he then fed to the women downstairs.
Josephina did her best to remain expressionless while inside she was reeling from the extreme horror of it all. Gary went on to explain that they wouldn’t have to be so careful with Deborah. No one knew he was linked to her in any way so all they had to do was find a good spot to dispose of her body. If the cops ever found her there would be nothing to tie her back
