Case Atlas🎲

← All cases

Gary Heidnik

Also known as: House of Horrors

Active
1986–1987
Region
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
State
PA
Kind
Serial
Status
Executed
Victims
2

Between November 1986 and March 1987 Gary Heidnik abducted six women and held them captive in the basement of his North Philadelphia house, where two of them, Sandra Lindsay and Deborah Dudley, died. In March 1987 he let one captive leave to visit her family; she went to police, who arrested him at a gas station where he was waiting for her and freed the remaining women. A jury rejected his insanity defense and convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder in July 1988. He was sentenced to death and executed at SCI Rockview on July 6, 1999, the last person executed in Pennsylvania.

Ask the Atlas about this case →

Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

Timeline of locations

  1. November 25, 1986
    Heidnik's house, North Philadelphia (Crime scene, approximate area)

    Heidnik held six women captive in the basement of his house. Sandra Lindsay and Deborah Dudley died there; police freed the survivors after his arrest in March 1987.

  2. 1988
    SCI Pittsburgh (Prison)

    Heidnik was held on death row at SCI Pittsburgh while his case was appealed.

  3. June 1988
    Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia (Court / trial, approximate area)

    A jury rejected Heidnik's insanity defense and convicted him on July 1, 1988, of two counts of first-degree murder and of kidnapping, rape and assault charges. He was sentenced to death.

  4. July 6, 1999
    SCI Rockview, Bellefonte (Prison)

    Heidnik was executed by lethal injection in the state execution building on the Rockview grounds, the third and most recent execution in Pennsylvania since 1976.

Watch, listen, read

Read

  • Cellar of Horror: The Story of Gary Heidnik (1992, Ken Englade)

Active at the same time, nearby

A coincidence of time and place, not a connection. All overlaps

Sources

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.