Neighbors remembered that Shawcross had been seen with Karen in the vicinity of the bridge before her disappearance, and he had a history of minor run-ins with local children. In 1972 he confessed to the sexual assault and murders of two children. He was 16 years old. With the body count mounting, the police sought assistance from FBI profilers. Shawcross served two years of a five-year jail term. Russian Wikipedia. After his release and discharge from the army, Shawcross and his second wife would move to Clayton, New York where Shawcross would terrorize the surrounding counties until his final arrest. There is no definitive answer as to why Shawcross seemed to embellish the stories of what he did to his victims and what had been done to him throughout his childhood. Shawcross was arrested on October 3, 1972, Shawcross stalled for two weeks before confessing both murders. He didnt waste all of his time there. After relocating due to the publics outcry of his release, he moved to Rochester with his fourth wife. He began biting her groin in retaliation before strangling her to death. Police found mud, leaves and other debris had been forced down her throat and inside her clothing. Sentenced to 250 years to life in prison, 1991. 1 reference. A Thirteenth Century Cannibal. She was the only victim where he went to Wayne County to dispose of the body because he could sense that police were catching up to him and wanted to throw them off the trail. manner of death. The decapitated and decomposing remains of a homeless woman, 60-year-old Dorothy Keller, was found on October 21, 1989, in the Genesee River Gorge. He was cremated. In April 1967, at age 21, Shawcross was drafted into United States Army. Arthur Shawcross was skilled in having conversation with the prosititues about buying sex. Shawcross also made extreme reports about his early sexuality. With nothing to hold him onthe police had to let him go, but not before taking his picture. Arthur John Shawcross, a serial killer who terrorized the Rochester, N.Y., area from 1988 to 1990, died on Nov. 10 of a heart attack.He was 63. Between 1988 and 1989, Arthur Shawcross killed at least 10 women in Rochester, New York, and they were not his first victims. He Wanted Her To Stop Yelling. The one aspect of Shawcross's life that was Inside The Mind Of Arthur Shawcross, The 300-Pound Genesee River Killer. Arthur Shawcross murdered a boy and girl in Watertown, N.Y., in 1972, but he was only convicted of manslaughter and released from prison after 12 years. After throwing Junes body off a bridge by the Salmon River, Shawcross returned two days later and sawed of her genitals and ate them. Shawcross would find his first victim, 27-year-old Dorothy Dotsie Blackburn around this area. (33.02 x 25.4 cm) Frame Size: 14.75 x 11.25 inches . Unfortunately, over the next two-year,many of the prostitutes that he got to know would end up dead. Arthur Shawcross' parents dispute his claims that he was molested as a child, but it's clear that he was troubled. Shawcross is in part responsible for the 2001 ban of prisoners being able to sell artwork they create while incarcerated. [2] In late June 1987, Shawcross' parole officer moved him and Walley into a transient hotel in Rochester, but failed to notify local authorities of this action. As to his aunt sexually abusing him, It was later determined,that if he had been abused, he somehow blocked out his aunt's name because the name that he gave did not belong to any of his real aunts. In contrast to these claims, however, his parents and siblings maintain that he had a normal childhood, and the described events were largely the product of his imagination. Shawcross was born in Kittery, Maine in 1945, the oldest of four children. The trial was a national media event, extensively televised and widely viewed. [2] Shawcross returned to his hometown of Watertown, New York, eventually getting a job with the Watertown Public Works Department and marrying for the third time. Judge Donald Wisner sentenced Mr. Shawcross to the . Its hard to corroborate his stories as later in life Shawcross frequently changed his stories from one moment to the next. [3] On September 2, just prior to the body's discovery, Shawcross raped and killed eight-year-old Karen Ann Hill, who had been visiting Watertown with her mother for the Labor Day weekend. ThoughtCo. Shawcross pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The Genesee River Serial Killer was a man who had previously spent more than 14 years in prison for the murder of two children - and then was released to kill again. Arthur Shawcross, 44, is expected to be charged with three additional killings, raising to 11 the number of murders he allegedly committed since March 1988 in and around Rochester. She died from having her neck broken. 11. Profile of Serial Killer Arthur Shawcross. 3. After suffocating June, a family friend of his and Roses, Shawcross cut her open with his knife to remove her organs and speed up the decomposition process. Both Darlene Trippi and June Cicero were prostitutes that Shawcross picked up, strangled, and disposed of in December of 1989. Jack was never heard from again. The first child was 10-year-old Jack Blake. . Size: 13 x 10 in. AP. They let him out saying he was no longer a danger. People with a desire to murder have a pretty big Venn diagram circle with people who have a craving for human flesh. A bargain was struck: in return for a guilty plea to Karen Hills slaying, no charges would be filed in the death of Jack . Shawcrosss third victim of the 20-month spree was 59-year-old former waitress, Dorothy Keeler, with whom Shawcross had struck up a friendship. The body was not Felicia Stephens but that of missing prostitute June Cicero. Months after Jacks murder, 8-year-old Karen Ann Hill disappeared while on a Labor Day vacation with her mother. and he murdered 12 more women. From his birthplace of Kittery, Maine, his family moved to Watertown, a small town near Lake Ontario in New York State, when he was still a child. There is no way of knowing whose version represents the reality of his upbringing, but what became clear, later on, was that Shawcross would change his stories at will, as he was interviewed by various professionals in the course of their investigations. 17. He confessed and agreed to a plea-bargain in which he revealed the location of one of the boys . She was also a Lyell Avenue prostitute and was last seen by Jo Ann Van Nostrand with the "Mitch" client who she had reported to the police in October. Six days later her body was pulled from the Genesee River Gorge. [10] It was later determined that Shawcross had a cyst pressing on the temporal lobe of his brain, as well as scarring on his frontal lobes areas that are responsible for decision-making and self-control. He was sent to Vietnam from October 1967 until September 1968 and wasthen stationed at Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma. And as if to toast in the New Year, the serial killer attacked one more time on December 28, plucking 20-year-old Felicia Stephens off the streets. A police helicopter searching for a body along the river spotted a man on a bridge near one of the murder victims. When he was unable to get an erection, Anna began to make fun of him. The cause of death was strangulation. Dorothy was Shawcross's first murder after he was released from prison in 1987. The F.B.I. Arthur Shawcross The Genesee Rive Killer Dr. Mike Aamodt Radford University maamodt@radford.edu Birth Born on June 6, 1945 at the U.S. The post-mortem injury inflicted on June Stott, and not on any other victim, indicated that the killer was becoming more comfortable around corpses, probably returning to the crime scene again later to relive the attack. Stott was mentally ill and would occasionally vanish without telling anyone. Shawcross killed most of his victims from 1988 to . The second child was Karen Ann Hill, age 8, who was visiting Watertown with her mother for the Labor Day weekend. They also began checking criminal records for offenders who might be living in the immediate area. Arthur Shawcross was blinking in Morse code during his 2008 interview shortly before his death from cardia. He wouldnt kill again for several months, but after being laid off from his job went into a rage and picked up Anna Steffen. 7. Shawcross had gone fishing with the boy a few days earlier but denied knowing where he was. The discovery of the body of Elizabeth Gibson, on November 27, brought a breakthrough: suspect "Mitch" had been seen with her shortly before her disappearance, but they seemed no closer to establishing his identity. [2] Shawcross's offenses earned him a five-year sentence at Attica Correctional Facility, and later Auburn Correctional Facility. Arthur Shawcross. She had been raped and murdered. In March 1988, Shawcross began cheating on his wife with a new girlfriend. Shawcross says he snapped her neck before cutting her open. When it came time to discuss June Stott, Shawcross appeared to become melancholy. For detectives, June Stott's murder sent the investigation into a tailspin. Murder Inc. He had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. When discussing the murders of the two children in 1972, he told the detectives that Jack Blake had been bothering him, so he hit him, killing him by mistake. However, Shawcross was born with XYY syndrome. Shawcross started his life of crime at a very young age and ended up being a big fat liar about many things he claimed to have done. Shawcross was known to fish from the area under the same bridge. The family moved to Watertown, NY shortly after Arthur's birth and he would be raised there. Then learn the horrifying story of Rodney Alcala, the serial killer who won The Dating Game during his murder spree. YouTubeA mugshot of a young Arthur Shawcross. A monster, whose release is still considered one of the most egregious examples of the unwarranted release of a prisoner. He served two years in prison, was paroled to his respectable parents - and murdered a boy and a girl. Arthur Shawcross died in prison in 2008 at the age of 63. Shawcross came under immediate suspicion. After Vietnam, he was stationed in Oklahoma where he remarried (Shawcross was already once divorced and had given up parental rights to a child who he never saw again) and worked as an armorer. [citation needed]. While serving his five-year prison sentence for arson, Arthur Shawcross went against his violent instincts and saved the life of a prison In October of 1989, Rochester, N.Y., police had uncovered the bodies of three women and believed them all to be the work of the same twisted serial killer. 13WHAM.com (2008118). He was never a good student failingboth behaviorally and academically during his short time at school. <p>If you are from Rochester NY, or at least the upstate area,you know at least part of the story of Arthur John Shawcross. An autopsy revealed that she had suffered severe wounds from a blunt object. See his granddaughter has a Burzum t-shirt on. Det var ikke frste gang, han drbte. When a pair of discarded jeans was discovered near the river on December 31, 1989, containing an ID card for a girl named Felicia Stephens, police began an aerial search of the surrounding area. Under the terms of a plea bargain, he was allowed to plead guilty to one charge of manslaughter, for which he served 14 years of a 25-year sentence. Weve created a community powered by horror fans like you and we need you in it. imported from Wikimedia project. This was not the first time that he killed. Both had been asphyxiated and the press started to show an interest as the cases were linked. On his return from military duty in 1968, he landed in trouble yet again when he was caught and convicted for an arson attack. We hear you like all things creepy we do too. Future news of events, Zoom movie marathons, books, and streaming updates will be delivered first to our newsletter readers. 9 October 2017. place of death. Both marriages saw patterns of spousal abuse and violence perpetrated by Shawcross. From rape to mutilation, he terrified the Rochester area for over 17 years. In all the previous cases at least some attempt at concealment had been made, which police felt indicated previous criminal or military experience. Then the body of 26-year-old June Stott, who was neither a prostitute nor drug user, was found on Thanksgiving Day. At this time he divorced his first wife and gave up his rights to their 18-month-old son, whom he never saw again. 14. This victim was Dorothy Blackburn, a 27-year-old prostitute he strangled to death on March 24, 1988. Marie Welch, age 22 was a Lyell Avenue prostitute who was reported missing on November 5, 1989. His withdrawn behavior earned him the nickname "oddie" from his peers. The strangulation and bodies dumped in rivers formed some workable theories as to the killers identity. After serving 22 months, he was granted an early release in October 1971, in part due to his role in the rescue of a correctional officer during a prison riot. He also claimed that an aunt sexually molested him when he was 9 years old and that he acted out by sexually molesting his younger sister. The victims were:[7], All the victims were murdered in Monroe County except for Gibson, who was killed in neighboring Wayne County. John, who claims he had a "bond" with the late . William DeLong is a freelance wordsmith. [1], Arthur John Shawcross was born in Kittery, Maine, the first of four children of Arthur Roy Shawcross and Elizabeth "Bessie" ("Betty") Yerakes Shawcross. Arthur Shawcross: The Genesee River Killer: Directed by Beth Parkes. In June 1987, Shawcross and his new girlfriend, Rose Marie Walley, were relocated to Rochester, New York. He received a 25-year jail sentence, and third wife Penny divorced him shortly thereafter. He dropped out of high school in 1960. [2] He served one tour of duty with the 4th Supply and Transport Company of the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. One of Rochester's most notorious serial killers, Arthur Shawcross killed 13 people in a span of two decades, including 11 Rochester-area women many of them prostitutes . 0 references. He also admitted to his first homosexual encounter at the age of 11, which he says was followed by experimentation with bestiality. His first admission that he was involved in the murders was when he told police that Clara had nothing to do with it. He was convicted of eleven murders, with a twelfth not officially ascribed to him. Later, when Shawcross served in Vietnam, he claimed, although he had never served in combat, that he had . Just three weeks later, Shawcross married his third wife who was pregnant with his child. Personal Life. Partly told through the letters of Arthur Shawcross, The Shawcross Letters is the tale of one of America's most notorious serial killers and his relationship with his would-be biographer, John Paul Fay. His family moved to Watertown, New York, when he was young. His first known murders were in 1972 when he killed a young boy and a girl in his hometown of Watertown, New York. Charles Montaldo. There was an immense criticism of Shawcross being allowed to participatehed previously served 9 months of a 2-year solitary sentence for giving art to outside individuals to sell on eBay, which is not allowed. beheading mama-sans and nailing their heads to trees as a warning to the Vietcong., The High Falls of The Genesee River (Ken Gallagher/Wikipedia), A Woman Went To A Funeral To Berate A Grieving Mother, It Turns Out Her Daughter Might Be TheMurderer, Watch Chris Watts Give A Chilling Speech About Relationship Deterioration. This one piece ofevidence could have led the authorities right to Shawcross, had they known that he was living in Rochester. This Hiking Photo Has A ChillingBackstory, She Met A Man Online And Ended Up Taking Down An Active SerialKiller. He was probably a local man familiar with the area, and he probably had a criminal record. Albany. The detectives gave Shawcross a list of 16 women missing or murdered, and he immediately denied having anything to do with five of them. The interrogation tactics Shawcross employed with his Vietnamese captive are very similar to those used in the Phoenix Program, which was a . In November 1990, Shawcross went to trial for the 10 murders that had occurred in Monroe County. Arthur Shawcross. Road patrols were also sent out, and on New Year's Eve, they found a pair of black jeans belonging to Felicia Stephens. While several later tests showed his intelligence to be sub-normal or even "borderline disabled,"[citation needed] Shawcross received As and Bs in his first two years of grade school but was later tested to have an IQ of 86, signifying below-average intelligence. ThoughtCo, Sep. 8, 2021, thoughtco.com/profile-of-serial-killer-arthur-shawcross-973145. In a disturbing interview, Shawcross details some of his crimes while vehemently refusing to discuss others. After reports surfaced detailing that Shawcross had been seen with Karen before she disappeared and he later was seen eating ice cream cones on the bridge where the body was found, Shawcross was brought in for questioning. Being out of prison was challenging for Shawcross once word would getout about his criminal past. Shawcross' family members strongly denied that he was abused and described his childhood as normal. Abstract. [2] His second wife Linda experienced several aspects of his disturbing behavior, especially his penchant for starting fires; an Army psychiatrist told her that Shawcross derived sexual arousal from setting fires. Despite officials on the ground, Arthur Shawcross got away. From March 1988 to December 1989, Shawcross is believed to have killed 12 women, mostly prostitutes in the Rochester, New York, area and then dumping most of . The artist died in 2008. Local authorities discovered patterns of behavior regarding the killer, which led them to ask FBI profilers for assistance. Montaldo, Charles. Shawcross did time in prison for these crimes, being released 1 year early and being settled in . Patrol teams on the ground were alerted to the vehicle, which had sped away. He hid Patricias body under scraps of construction material, Francess down a nearby embankment and dumped Maria into roadside bushes. He was arrested in 1972 for the rape and murder of two children. After deliberating for just one-half hour, they found him sane and guilty. He murdered Darlene after she made fun of him for failing to get an erection and hid her body in the woods. When you opt in, not only do you get our curated list of the best horror streaming and stories, you support our work and help us keep the lights on. Aileen Wuornos killed seven men and was executed by lethal injection in 2002. She divorced him shortly afterward citing abuse and his propensity to being apyromaniacas her reasons. Shawcross began to beat her and as she tried to get away through the Genesee River, he drowned her and let her body float downstream. As prostitutes continued to disappear, it became apparent that the killer must be someone familiar to the women who worked in the area. Arthur Shawcross was a 300-pound serial killer who ruthlessly murdered 14 people. He even admitted to the killing of two undiscovered bodies, those of prostitutes Maria Welsh and Darlene Trippi, leading investigators to their bodies. It did not take long for himto become bored with his new menial life. His second marriage quickly ended in divorce, after which Shawcross became a frequent arsonist. Shawcross was sentenced to five years in prison for arson in 1969. Arthur John Shawcross was also known as The Genesee River Killer and The Rochester Strangler all due to how he would carry out his murders and where he would frequently dump the bodies of his victims. An aerial search commenced and her body was found on January 3rd. 20. Women said this particular john was prone to violence. He was 63 years old. To get through the PTSD, I used therapy and microdosing 5-meo-DMT. natural causes. He preyed primarily upon prostitutes from Lyell Ave, raping and mutilating his victims before and after dumping their bodies in out of the way locations throughout the city.He had a penchant for securing their bodies by way of a . July 21, 2017. Arthur Shawcross's work has been offered at auction multiple times. 6. [9], In response to the defense's claim that Shawcross's actions were the product of post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from his war service, FBI criminal profiler Robert K. Ressler reviewed the claim on behalf of the prosecution before the trial. Shawcross claims that his adolescence was turbulent, and cites a difficult relationship with both parents, particularly his domineering mother, for his later troubles. Arthur John Shawcross (June 6, 1945 - November 10, 2008), also known as the Genesee River Killer, was an American serial killer. They had the bodies of four women, all who went missing and were murdered within seven months of each other; three had been murdered within a few weeks of each other; three of the victims were prostitutes from Lyell Avenue, and all the victims had bite marks and had been strangled to death. From earlyon,Shawcross was socially challenged and spent much of his time alone. Shawcross and his girlfriend Clara Neal were brought to the police station for questioning. On March 18, 1998, Blackburn was reported missing by her sister. Arthur John Shawcross was an American serial killer who killed between 1972 and 1990 around Rochester, New York. Arthur is what is called a serial killer/ murder. He was a pathological liar and it was difficult to determine what was truth and what was not. August 29, 2018, 12:00 AM. The body, which was surrounded by fresh footprints in the snow, was that of June Cicero. From his birthplace of Kittery, Maine, his family moved to . An autopsy revealed that Stott had been strangled to death. Felicia went missing December 26, 1989, and a few days later on the 31st, a pair of hikers found some jeans with her ID in the pocket. He set fires to a local paper mill and the factory where he worked before being arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released in October 1971 and returned to Watertown again. The press also grew interested in the murders and dubbed the killer as the "Genesee River Killer," and the "Rochester Strangler.". After serving less than 15 years of this sentence, he was released on parole in April 1987. Shawcross has claimed that his mother and an aunt repeatedly molested him as a child and that in junior high he had a sexual relationship with his younger sister as well as a cousin. He died in hospital in Albany, New York on the 10 November 2008, aged 63.. At the time he was incarcerated at Sullivan Correction Facility in the Hudson Valley and had been transferred for medical treatment. Getty ImagesArthur Shawcross leaves court in 1990 in Rochester, New York. His mother has denied that there was any sort of abuse in their family. He dropped out of school after failing to pass the ninth grade, and the next few years were punctuated with violence and jail sentences. Died in prison on November 10, 2008. Shawcrossdropped out of schoolafter failing to pass the ninth grade. Arthur Shawcross, AKA The Genesee River Killer, murdered at least 14 people. They also believed that the killer would return to mutilate the bodies of his victims when possible. He claims he was molested by an aunt at age nine, but his family disputes that claim. Angry that she was going to reveal his affairs to both Clara and Rose, Shawcross grabbed a log and beat her on the side of the head. Mr. Shawcross confessed in 1972 to strangling an 8-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy in his hometown, Watertown, N.Y., and served 15 years of a 25-year sentence for manslaughter, officials said. When it came to Arthur Shawcross, this certainly appeared to be the case, because, throughout the years when interviewed,his answers to the questions seemed to change depending on who was doing the interviewing.
