Dig Me a Grave
The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Who Seduced the South
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The definitive true “Southern Gothic” account of the life, crimes, conviction, and execution of Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins, the charismatic, brutal, well-liked, remorseless South Carolina serial killer who was dubbed the Charles Manson of the South—written by the prosecutor who brought him to justice.
Of the hundreds of murder cases that noted South Carolina attorney Dick Harpootlian has prosecuted, one in particular haunts him. Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins was a serial killer and rapist, a master manipulator who claimed to have killed over 100 people and is known to have murdered over a dozen, including a toddler, and his own teenage niece. Yet it was on Death Row that he pulled off his most audacious murder—killing another inmate with a military grade explosive.
As personable as he was ruthless, Pee Wee defied easy categories. He killed to avenge minor slights as well as for pleasure, using any convenient method—including stabbing, shooting, poison, suffocation, and drowning. Evidence suggested he forced at least one victim to dig his own grave, stand in it, and be shot.
With escalating callousness, Pee Wee murdered acquaintances, friends, family members, and strangers. Yet within his North Charleston community he was well-liked—a family man who took neighborhood kids to the beach and hosted cookouts. Ice-cold within but outwardly charming, he joked with judges, reporters, and Harpootlian himself, but didn’t hesitate to hatch a plot to kidnap the prosecutor’s daughter in order to extort an escape.
Dig Me a Grave is a haunting look at a prolific, remorseless killer, as well as a provocative exploration of justice and the death penalty.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Attorney Harpootlian and journalist Assael (The Murder of Sonny Liston) detail the case of serial killer Pee Wee Gaskins in this gripping if occasionally sensationalistic work of true crime. Gaskins first came to Harpootlian's attention in 1982, when the author was serving as chief deputy prosecutor in Columbia, S.C. Gaskins was already on death row, having been convicted of one of his dozen murders in the 1970s, and had just killed fellow inmate Rudolph Tyner with a bomb whose components had been smuggled into his prison. Harpootlian parallels his attempt to seek an additional death sentence for Tyner's murder with a recap of Gaskins's killing spree, which included the murder of his niece and various accomplices he'd recruited while working as a roofer. The authors convincingly depict Gaskins's "razor-sharp mind and gift for organization"—during the Tyner case, he nearly organized the kidnapping of Harpootlian's four-year-old daughter as a bargaining chip—but stumble when dramatizing his crimes, sometimes leaning too far into luridly imagining the mindsets of his victims. Still, this is a fascinating firsthand account of tangling with a monster.
