The depraved crimes of serial killer Gary Michael Heidnik, whose horrific acts are said to have inspired the infamous 'Buffalo Bill' in Silence of the Lambs, included a sickening joke to a neighbour as he boiled a victim's head on his stove.
The House of Horrors on North Marshall Street
Between November 1986 and March 1987, Heidnik kidnapped, tortured, and raped six women, aged between 18 and 25, holding them captive in a self-dug pit in the basement of his Philadelphia home. He would murder two of his victims in a prolonged reign of terror.
Neighbours began to notice a terrible odour emanating from the property. Doris Zibulka, who lived next door, described repeatedly calling the city about the smell. One day, she confronted Heidnik directly.
"I asked Gary about the smell," Zibulka told Philadelphia Magazine. "He said 'I haven't smelled anything. I've been cooking. Maybe you just don't like my cooking.'"
A Grisly Discovery and a Narrow Escape
Even when a police officer was called to investigate the stench, Heidnik brazenly shrugged it off. The officer reported knocking for 15 minutes before peering through a rear window. "I could see a large pot. Something was overboiling, and the smell was twice as strong," he recalled.
Heidnik eventually emerged, telling Zibulka and the officer, "I'm cooking a roast. I fell asleep and it burnt." The officer left, and the killer returned to his atrocities.
His crimes were finally exposed on March 24, 1987, when one of his captives, taken out to help find another victim, bravely seized her chance. She convinced Heidnik to let her attempt a kidnapping alone, then fled to a phone booth and called police.
Officers responding to the "bizarre tale" found Heidnik's house fortified with metal doors and barred windows. Inside, they descended to the basement. "Laying on the floor were these half-naked girls, and they were screaming, 'We're saved, we're saved'," said Officer John Cannon.
Three women were found still chained in the pit. The remains of two others were discovered. One victim, Sandra Lindsay, had been starved to death after being hung by her arms for three days as punishment. Another, Deborah Dudley, had been electrocuted.
Justice Served After a Chilling Trial
The investigation revealed Heidnik had dismembered Lindsay's body. One survivor recounted hearing "a sound like an electric saw" followed by a terrible odour for days. Police found body parts in his freezer.
At his trial, his defence team failed to prove he was legally insane, not helped by the fact Heidnik had amassed over $500,000 through shrewd stock market investments.
Gary Heidnik was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, six counts of kidnapping, and five counts of rape. He was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in Pennsylvania on July 6, 1999, remaining the last person executed in the state.
