Further reading for Gary Heidnik/ Edward Gingerich
The BASEMENT: True Crime Serial Killer Gary Heidnik
Info:
Gary Heidnik, born Nov 1943, in Cleveland OH. His parents divorced when he was two and he and his brother lived with their mother for four years before being changing custody to their father and his new wife. Gary claimed years of emotional abuse at the hands of his father, as his father humiliated in front of the neighborhood for his bed wetting. Gary has a hard time interacting with other kids, never making eye contact, and he had a very oddly shaped head which they say happened as a result of him falling out of a tree.
In his teens, his father enrolled him in military academy where Gary excelled and at the age of 17 he dropped out of school to join the army. It was during his time in the military that Gary began complaining of headaches and blurred vision, dizziness and nausea. A neurologist diagnosed his with gastroenteritis and noted he suffered from mental illness.
Eventually, Gary became a licensed nurse but his mental health kept him from maintaining solid work. He began checking in and out of mental hospitals and made multiple suicide attempts.
In 1985 Gary was able to woo and marry Betty Disto, a woman he met through a dating service. Yet this was a very unhappy and abusive marriage both physically and emotionally, within months of the marriage Betsy filed for divorce. It was after the divorce that Gary because truly twisted, kidnapping women and keeping them chained to pipes or in a pit in his basement. Most of his victims were sex workers or mentally challenged women. Some of his victims died from the abuse, or the horrific conditions, Gary controlled the women by pitting them against each other, picking one to be a favorite and giving them control over the others, it is also believed that he fed the bodies of his dead victims to the survivors.
The story of Gary’s arrest is amazing on its own, he allowed one of his victims to go home and see her family believing she would never tell the truth of where she had been. Luckily she did.
An Amish murder.
Edward Gingerich born 1966, to Amish parents in Pa. He was known to be a bit of a badass in the Amish community growing up, he spent most of his time in the woodshop using the limited tools the Amish allowed and making non-Amish friends. His parents worried about his behavior, figured it would be a good idea to have married and upstanding Amish girl, named Katie.
After the wedding the two had a child and Edward started to become increasingly depressed and his mental state started to fully deteriorate. He began hallucinating and had a psychotic break to the point that the community broke their rules and called 911.
Edward gets diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, however once back home he decides he does not like how the medication makes him feel, combined with the fact that their culture doesn’t believe in the medication, he stopped taking it. Shortly after while having an argument with his wife, he beats her to death, he was later found walking down the road with his young children.
He is then shunned by the Amish community, and while in prison he converts to and Evangelical Christian.
Episode 77
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