Gary M. Heidnik Episode 2: The People Collector

What happens when one kidnapped woman becomes several, and a basement prison turns into a nightmare of torture, murder, and cannibalism?

In this episode of Torture: A Dark History, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan continue the horrifying story of Gary Michael Heidnik and the women he held captive beneath his Philadelphia home.

We’ll follow the arrival of Sandra Lindsay, Lisa Thomas, Deborah Dudley, and Jacqueline Askins as Heidnik continues adding women to his basement prison. We’ll look at the increasingly brutal conditions they endured, the constant threat of violence, the infamous screwdriver attacks, the attempts to keep them isolated from the outside world, and the complicated relationships that developed between the captives as they tried to survive.

Then things take an even darker turn. Sandra Lindsay dies under horrific circumstances, and what follows is one of the most disturbing chapters of the entire story. With her body hidden in the house, Heidnik begins using human flesh as food, while the women downstairs have no idea exactly what they are being fed.

We’ll follow the death of Deborah Dudley, the shocking attempt to dispose of her body, and finally the escape plan that gives Josefina Rivera her chance to get out and bring the police back to 3520 North Marshall Street.

And because this is Torture: A Dark History, Kevin and Dan bring their uniquely inappropriate sense of humor to a story involving dog food sandwiches, Chinese takeout, homemade electrocution, and a man who apparently thought kidnapping women was a perfectly reasonable way to build a family.

We’ll also look at Heidnik’s trial, his claims of insanity, his financial empire, his death sentence, his execution in 1999, and the strange legacy he left behind, including the possible inspiration he provided for Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.

If you’re interested in Philadelphia true crime, serial killers, kidnapping, torture, cannibalism, criminal psychology, The Silence of the Lambs, and some of the darkest crimes in American history, this is the horrifying conclusion to the story of the People Collector.

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