Arthur Shawcross /// The Genesee River Killer /// 198 | Forensic Files

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GameChanger [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that is so scary that when he walks through the
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talk some true [Music] crime [Music] people on the outside do not know what evil is a quote by serial killer Arthur
J shawcross FBI criminal olist and former Army criminal investigator Colonel Robert K
westler coined the term serial killer this term was used to separate them from spree killers and mass
murderers as defined by the FBI a serial killer murders two or more victims at separate
times murder is one of the most complicated and difficult crimes to solve often there are only two witnesses
Pres present when a murder is committed and usually neither witness is talking because one is the offender and the
other is dead according to a study conducted in the 1990s 62% of the time the victim of a
serial murderer is a complete stranger and as we know stranger on Stranger murders are extremely difficult
to solve at one time Arthur J shawcross was reported to be the most studied serial
killer of his day interviewed extensively by local law enforcement the FBI and dozens of
psychologists yet no one could say for certain why sha cross had committed the atrocities we know him to be guilty
of some wonder if sha cross himself knew the reasons why there is little doubt that he was truly
evil this week we take an in-depth look into the life of one man and those around him and examine how one little
baby boy grows up to become known as the monster of the rivers the Rochester Strangler and perhaps the most notorious
of all the genese River [Music] Killer Arthur John shawcross was born in KY Maine on Wednesday June 6th
1945 this coincidentally on the one-year anniversary of D-Day his parents are Arthur Roy shawcross and Elizabeth
better known as Bessie or Betty shawcross his father was 21 at the time and Betty was just 18 at the time of
Arthur Shaw cross's birth he would be the oldest of four children the story about his parents courtship
and marriage is a simple one and it goes like this his father was in the Marines
and had returned to the US in early 1944 he and Betty were childhood sweethearts both now adults and later
that same year they got married the name Shaw cross is derived from the old English which Loosely translates as
belief in the cross and the colonel in Old English is transl ated into drunken bloke Arthur was born 2 months premature
but outside of that there were no complications he was a healthy little boy he spoke his first words earlier
than average but walked later than normal at four years old Arthur says this is when he started getting punished
by his father using either a broom handle or a belt when he would get into trouble I want to bring something up
right here before we really get into Shaw cross's History something I want all of you to put in your detective
handbag and to keep in mind as we discuss this guy throughout this timeline there will be accusations from
Arthur about sexual encounters and abusive Behavior by multiple family members these have all been adamantly
denied by all people involved except for uh some of the beatings from his father
which have some school records to support those incidents I will include some of these stories
throughout but not all as these are pretty much all unconfirmed accusations by Shaw cross his parents and siblings
maintain that he had a normal childhood and state the described events were largely the product of Arthur Shaw
cross's imagination but other than these school records is his family members denying that he was beaten as a kid
correct they are denying all of these allegations from Arthur Shaw cross as he recounts his childhood now most of the
time I would just report all of the stories to you and let let you all and the captain decide what is the truth and
what is not the truth however in this case I will just repeat a few because there are a lot of these stories
and and I I want to kind of back up my reasoning behind that with this Arthur shawcross would change his stories at
times at will regarding these accusations throughout his life and frankly I don't believe a lot of them to
be true MH uh this first story is true however at 5 years old Arthur created two Imaginary Friends one was called
Paul who was a boy of Arthur's age and the other was a friend um who was slightly younger a blond-haired girl
with no name during the months that follow Arthur would often carry on Long conversations in baby talk with these
imaginary friends which gave others the impression that he was talking to himself later he would tell psychologist
and authors quote I had to have these friends because I wanted someone to play with no one else liked me now his
childhood consisted of frequent nightmares bed wedding which he blamed on his little brother Jimmy um and he
started to stand out as being quote odd to others and he was actually nicknamed by the other school children as
aie at 6 years that's not a fun nickname as a kid no and I imagine he was probably Arty at one time you know for
Arthur and then they they changed that to aie at 6 years old he started running away from home this is believed that he
did this just to get attention as he would often return he would also kind of tell people in advance I'm running away
it didn't seem to have any serious significance to his life at that time yeah he would say Mom and Dad I'm
running away and they'd say okay see you at dinner at 8 years old Shaw cross began
bullying younger children when he was 9 years old he receives the first head trauma incident of which there will be
quite a few he was hit in the head with a stone for which he received stitches and claimed it caused
numbness now also when he was at nine years old and I believe this could be one of the largest impactful moments in
all of Shaw cross's life not just as a boy but forever okay so his grandmother on his mother's side she receives a
letter from a lady named thma Jun who lives in Australia good day mate who is Thelma June well for those of you who
like soap operas here is your true crime garage soap opera moment of the week sha
cross's father remember we had said he served this great country as a marine well back in 1943 a year before little
Arthur Shaw cross was born M his father was actually married to this Thelma Jun a woman who had he had met in Australia
while on leave they had a son together um and this was uh they named the son Hartley and after this after his time
was up he in 1944 returned to the US he never mentions to anyone that he is technically already married and has a
family uh when he gets back in and you know gets married here in the states and starts a new family yeah very honest guy
so it's at this very pivotal point that little Arthur Shaw cross's mother discovers that his father has a wife and
child in Australia this changes the family Dynamic incredibly and of course for the worse at 10 years old Arthur he
continued his his odd behavior which caused other children to bully him while he bullied weaker younger children he
began shoplifting and committing other Petty thefts he continued to run away again this is behavior that strongly
believed that Arthur was running away simply for the attention he would receive from his family and others at
this time he also began to get bad grades in fact he flunked the fourth grade and was forced to repeat the
fourth grade at 11 years old he says his mother caught him masturbating and threatened him with a butcher knife and
he also would later say that not only did she threaten him but she inserted a broom handle into his
rectum moving on when shawcross was 13 years old the shawcross family moved and a bunch of the extended family moves to
Brownsville New York so three sets of relatives move move nearby and then this area ends up being nicknamed Shaw cross
corner now Arthur does not fit in at school at this point in fact he doesn't even fit in with his cousins and other
family members according to them at 14 years old later in life this is the age when the sexual claims really start to
escalate as an adult he would claim that at 14 he was having oral sex with his sister and cousin on a regular basis he
also says when he was 14 he was tricked into getting into a car which later led him to have been raped by a male
stranger Shaw cross also said that he was having sex with animals even killing a chicken during the ACT we won't get
into that but chickens were not the only species he claims to have had sex with all of this extracurricular activity
leads to failing the eighth grade and that's how Arthur shawcross ends up being 16 years old and still in the eth
grade as he has failed two grades at this point are you implying that all the sex with animals is what caused him to
do bad in his stud he should have focused on school yeah stop having sex with chickens right leave the chickens
alone Arty uh people around him refer to him as a loner with deep mood swings this is also where we see another case
of him occurring a uh head trauma he was hit with a disc can you imagine that that's got to be
super painful he was hit with a discus and spent 4 days in the hospital at 17 years old art is a freshman at General
brown high school but he dropped out that same year so he would have been 20 years old when he would have finished
school or actually he would have been on Pace to fail a grade once more so 21 possibly right at the time of graduation
had he graduated he be drink he be bringing beer to school well that hey hey Arty where you been oh I've just
been having sex with some chickens bringing new meaning Captain to the old Matthew mccon quote from Dazed and
Confused I keep getting older and they stay the same age those chickens never get older after dropping out of high
school he used all of that extra free time to burgler rise homes and he started peeping in Windows he broke into
stores stealing both Merchant ice and cash he however is either somewhat skilled at this or at least very lucky
because he is never caught nor arrested for these crimes right he also took on a
new persona people say that Shaw cross became extremely violent at this age when he would be crossed he was known to
have fired his 22 rifles several times at different people threatening them he was feared in his neighborhood well and
even though he was bullied he was bullied the weaker so I think this was his way of going if people aren't going
to like me well then screw them I'm going to make them fear me yeah and it doesn't take a very tough man to
threaten people with a firearm right now in 1963 Shaw cross was arrested for the
first time this was for burglarizing a Sears department store he broke into the basement of the store and set off the
alarm now he claimed he had he he claimed to have a good reason for this he told the judge that he was poor and
that he was stealing Christmas gifts so this found favor with the judge so he was only sentenced to 18 months
probation he received no prison or jail time for this uh burglarizing the department store in 1964 Shaw cross
found love when he met Sarah Lewis Chatterton when he was working at the family bargain Center store the two got
married in September of 64 at a Baptist Church he would have been let's see uh 19 at the time and Sarah was 20 years of
age after marriage he held a job as a butcher and he claimed it was his favorite job his here's a quote from Sha
Shaw cross regarding his time spent as a butcher he says quote I used to eat a lot of raw meat in ' 64 and 65 when I W
worked as a butcher I used to butcher 19 cows a day and just like the taste of raw meat you know I'd just cut cut off a
chunk and I could tell just by the taste of the blood whether we could turn it into steaks or
hamburger but shawcross would not be able to stay out of trouble and after a probation violation for unlawful entry
his wife Sarah files for divorce the marriage lasted less than two Years Don't Judge Sarah would later go on
record as saying Arthur was very immature and always faking illness or injury to miss out on work sex with him
was lousy he just couldn't keep it up at you're not a chicken at 20 years old sha
cross is arrested for beating a 13-year-old boy this is after the youth threw a snowball at his car what sha
cross called a sued up Pontiac for this sha cross that's what he says sued up Pontiac souped up Pontiac I guess is
what he's trying to say for this Shaw cross receives six months probation he is okay so so he's in his car and then
this teenager throws a snowball hits the car yeah I don't know if he he could have been driving or could have just
been parked and he witnessed the boy throwing a snowball at his car but he the I don't know how aggressive he was
with the 13-year-old but according to the record it states that he was arrested for beating a 13-year-old boy
now during this time he he received six months probation he's also evaluated by a psychologist who labels him as a an
emotional an emotionally unstable personality you think right you think guys having sex with chickens and
beating up 13-year-olds because they threw snowballs at him when he is 21 on April 7th
1967 Arthur shawcross is drafted into the US Army he is private number 529 67041 and started his training at Fort
Lee Virginia he then completed his basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia and
was designated a supply and parts specialist he meets Linda Ruth Neri while on a 30-day leave also while in
the military he fell off of a ladder hitting his head and concussing himself so another head trauma yeah he marries
Linda Neri in October of 1967 they both have stated that they thought that there
was a good chance that he would die in Vietnam so they got married in advance after getting hitched shawcross was
stationed in South Vietnam where he served a 12-month Tour of Duty with the supply and Transport company of the
fourth infantry division Arthur shawcross says that he was based in the central Highlands and was a Rambo type
oneman First Strike weapon fighting In the Heat of the action in one of his letters he wrote I shot a woman who was
hiding some ammo in a tree she didn't die right off I tied her up gagged her then searched the area found the Hut
with another girl inside of the age of about 16 knocked her out with the butt of the gun and carried her to where the
other girl was there was a lot of rice ammo and other stuff in the Hut I tied the young girl to a tree still gagged
tied her legs too they didn't say anything to me at all I had a machete that was very sharp I cut the girl's
throat then took off her head and placed it on a pole in front of that Hut that girl at the tree peed then fainted I
stripped her then first I gave her oral sex she couldn't understand what I was doing but her body did I untied her then
retied her to another small tree She fainted several times I cut her slightly from the neck to crotch she screamed and
[ __ ] herself I took my M16 p pulled on a nipple then put the gun to her forehead
and pulled the trigger cut off her head and placed it on a pool where they got water another time I went on patrol and
shot a kid chained up into a tree he killed one GI with an M1 our own weapon that made three again on patrol I killed
two women in a river after they killed two GIS they had a map of base camp plus AK 47 rifles and ammo food and
$280,000 in money belts I split the money with some guys smashed the AKs and ammo took everything else back to camp
we let the bodies drift Downstream he also claimed a combat kill total of 39 which when investigated
later was also discounted as a fabrication authorities claim he killed no one on his Tour of Duty and saw no
action sh cross in interviews will talk about his time in Vietnam and it seems like the story changed from the way I
heard him tell it to the way you're telling it and it's like then if he tells it again it changes a little bit I
mean the stories are roughly the same it's just the details kind of switch yeah and I think there's several
things that make that difficult one the most likely thing is that he's lying and
totally making up these stories and he can't keep his lies straight two he tells different accounts to
different people this this account is taken from a letter that he wrote right now he also claims a combat kill total
of 39 so often when he's talking about these different let's call murders that he did while on tour um he he just
simply refers to these victims as the girl or the older woman or the boy that was tied up to the tree um he doesn't
give any names or a lot of times not even specific locations to kind of give you an idea of who he's referring to in
that long quote unquote combat kill total of 39 that he claims to have had well and he was no John Rambo right but
that doesn't mean that he wasn't going off on his own and killing people that he wasn't supposed to be killing and
just murdering EnV yes I mean we can't account for every waking minute that he had while on tour
on that tour of Duty for 12 months in October of 1968 John I said John Rambo John Rambo well
on that note it looks like I need a quick beer [Music] break this show is sponsored by better help do
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of John Rambo on October of 1968 Arthur shawcross was reassigned to Fort Sil Oklahoma as a specialist fourth class
repairing weapons he was honorably discharged in the spring of 1969 and moved with his wife to Clayton New York
which is located along the St Lawrence River he put in a disability claim for war injuries although Veterans
Administration examiner found no substance to Arthur's claim the former soldiers constant badgering though won
him a $73 a month Disability Pension shortly after being discharged from the Army Shaw cross had nightmares and flag
flashbacks this led him to heavy drinking he started beating his wife around this time on one occasion the
beating caused her to Mis carry as she was 4 months pregnant they should have locked him up for murder that son of a
[ __ ] Linda then files for divorce this is in the fall of 1969 but it does not get finalized until
1971 so 7 months after leaving the Army shawcross found employment with the Nolton Brothers paper mill this is the
city's largest employer in April of 1969 He Set Fire to the place causing $28,000
worth of damage 3 months later a hay barn mysteriously caught fire and it was Arthur shawcross who had reported the
Fire 3 days later he set fire to Crowley's Cheese Company this was the city's second largest employer and
Arthur J shawcross also called the fire department to report this fire shortly after the chief Cheese Company fire sha
cross attempted to rob a gas station the proprietor of the business he knew sha Cross by sight and called the sheriff
and Arthur was arrested during questioning he ends up confessing to all of his crimes which included the arson
attacks a Jefferson County Judge sentenced shawcross to 5 years in Attica prison while in prison he claims to have
been raped by three other inmates he also claims he later extracted Revenge by beating and raping each of
his attackers in separate incidents he wrote his own version of the incident years
later titled the misbegotten son quoting sha cross quote got raped in Attica prison by three black guys I was lost
threatened and in pain I got all three my way their way I hurt them like they hurt me but I used a sock with soap as a
blackjack knocked them out and screwed them and then smashed them once in the nuts I was never bothered after that sha
cross was later transferred to Auburn prison right so these three black men wanted to rape him well he claims the
three of them attacked him um the three of them teamed up on him attacked him and raped him and then later he decides
to get revenge on them attacking them individually one at a time and raping them correct I think we should keep in
mind though here captain that with this incident a lot like the incidents that he talks about from his childhood
there's no one to cooperate any of these stories you know this is just AR Arthur
shawcross saying this is I was a victim and then I individually I was Stronger than these people and I attacked them I
was more brutal than they were to me and I was never attacked after that well you
you won the boner award John Rambo he was later transferred to Auburn prison now listen to this story this is a
interesting one on November 4th 1970 troopers were sent to Auburn prison when rebelling inmates refused to return to
their cells failed to report to assign workshops and prevented other inmates from doing so as well by 11:45 a.m.
seven guards had been clubbed by inmates inmates armed with boards and pipes seized 30 guards as hostages prisoners
had taken control of the entire prison with the exception of the administration building 322 troopers were mobilized
with an additional force of 300 guards and sheriff's deputies placed in a support role Corrections officials
refused to discuss grievances until all of the hostages were released the show of overwhelming Force quickly
ended the riers desire to continue the attack at 3:30 p.m. the first hostage was freed and inmates started returning
to their cells without further incident approximately 450 inmates were actually involved in this Rebellion this incident
would lead to the October 18th 1971 parole of one Arthur J shawcross that's right right after only 22 months of a
60-month sentence Shaw cross was given an early release when he served when he saved the life of a prison guard who had
been clubbed during the prison riot how did he save his life I couldn't find the
the specifics the detailed report of of what he did during that to save this officer's life but that's why he was
Grant granted leniency on his sentence before his parole hearing he was examined by the prison's supervising
psychiatrist in his report Dr William Tucker wrote inmate is an immature adolescent with schizoid personality who
decompensated an ego functioning under the influence of stress and rejection by his wife he should be viewed as a
schizoid arsonist who requires supervision emotional support and immediate referral to to a mental health
clinic upon parole Leighton projected homicidal intent of at least two of his arson should not be underestimated he is
a fair parole risk and will require psychiatric treatment Plus close supervision upon his release Arthur went
to go live with his parents and he got a job the parole officials insisted that he undergo outpatient Psychotherapy at a
VA hospital this was scheduled Ed but shawcross regularly missed appointments and no action was taken by the
overworked parole officers after release from prison at 26 years old he returned
to Watertown he started seeing Penny shabino they knew each other from high school just after Christmas the
Watertown public works department hired him under the federal emergency employment program a supervisor assigned
him to a far corner of the 60 acre landfill at the end of Water Street Arthur shawcross and Penny got married
April 22nd 1972 so this is his third wife this would be his third wife that's correct yeah Penny already had two
children when they got married plus she was pregnant with Arthur's baby at the time however this baby was
miscarried they moved into an apartment at 233 Cloverdale Street Arthur claims that the marriage came under threat when
Penny's father accused him of sexually assaulting Penny's younger sister we need to introduce the Blake family at
this time the Blakes were a rough family but they loved their children they had nine children in total and they lived
just about a mile from the far corner of the 60 acre landfill where Arthur shawcross worked Jack Owen Blake was the
seventh of nine children and he had once saved his sister from drowning ing in the Black River he was 11 years old and
in the fifth grade he was an impressionable boy and he liked to go fishing he and his brother Peter who was
only 9 years old they would sometimes go to go fishing with a guy that their mother Mary Blake had said was sort of a
weird guy aie mm M and she would she had warned her son not to associate with the
man named Arthur shawcross and she didn't like Arthur because she states that this guy was always boasting about
his service in Vietnam and he was also showing the boy photographs of naked women he rode around on a white woman's
bicycle but the boys ignored their mother's warning they they like to go fishing and they and they like playing
around the water so sometimes they would lie to their mother right and tell her that they were going elsewhere but then
they would often go down by the water now sha cross many times went fishing by himself when he caught something he
would bring it home filet it and cook it up cook the fish for dinner sometimes when Shaw cross was down by the water
with a line in the water he would see some children down there playing many times he saw the Blake boys come down
there they even started talking to Shaw cross at some point asking him about fishing so after a while sha cross was
he was out walking heading down toward one of his favorite fishing spots and he sees the kids and asks them if they
wanted to go fishing this became a regular thing Shaw cross was very much he very much preferred to be alone so
fishing is a great hobby for somebody like him but he didn't mind the company when he would be fishing and it seemed
like he preferred the company of young children compared to that of adults on Sunday May 7th 1972 on that
day the two Blake brothers Jack and Peter they went fishing with shawcross at the Black River afterward Jack headed
to a friend's house at the old Cloverdale Apartments just a few blocks away Peter went home and that was the
last time that Peter saw his brother Jack when Jack didn't return home later that night Mary reported to the police
that her son was missing explaining that Jack had wanted to go fishing with shawcross and despite her warning he had
probably probably gone against her wishes suspicion therefore fell upon shakos from the outset mhm police talked
with shoss going to his Cloverdale apartment knocking on the door he spoke with them he told them yes he had seen
the Blake boys down by the river several times he had even spoke to the boys on a
few occasions but he denied being with Jack that day the Blakes as we said were a rough family this was well known in
their community and they were known to be strong disciplinarians police began to think
that Jack was a runaway they were able to convince some of Jack's family that the boy had run away as well but at the
urging of a desperate and depressed mother who hounded the police time and time again to talk with shawcross
because quote he's weird and he knows something the police did follow through with her request but with no other
evidence to to suggest otherwise Shaw cross was released following two interviews with police and once again
the thought was that Jack had run away from home yeah so we have the family in this situation that they believe that
their son is not just missing but he was murdered and he was murdered by Shaw cross cuz he's a weird dude right and
this weird guy aie their kid was known to fish with him and this was you know pretty common knowledge to the brother
mhm to the parents now on Friday May 26th Arthur shawcross was again questioned by police this time it was
when he was caught stuffing grass cting down the shirt and shorts of a six-year-old boy and spanking him uh
this for this offense he received a $10 fine and was reprimanded by the court Wednesday September 2nd 1972 Karen Anne
Hill age 8 was last seen playing by the river she was not from Watertown and was
there that day only because her mother was staying with a friend now let's go through the police investigation yeah
it's going to start off with the eyewitness reports from children claiming that they saw a man that looked
like Arthur walking Karen across a bridge yes this is the Pearl Street bridge over the Black River which would
just be a short downhill walk from where Karen had been staying although the children didn't know the man by name
they and specifically a teenage girl recognized his distinctive white bicycle with its Brown mud guards and basket
which he had leaned against a wall styling and profiling from a distance the Curious children watched as the man
lifted Karen over the railings and gingerly led her down the bank to show her the fish when the alarm was raised
that Karen was missing the children came forward to tell the cops what they had seen at 10 p.m. search officers equipped
with flashlights discovered a crumpled body it was covered by a slab of concrete and lying face down crammed
into a sewage outfall pipe on the South Bank of the bridge police dogs were called for they tracked as scent up
Pearl Street to Starbuck Avenue and eagerly tugg their handlers left into Clover Street straight to the stoop of
Arthur cross's front door Karen Anne Hill was found dead under a bridge near the Black River she had been raped
mutilated and strangled when a police investigation revealed that hill and shawcross had been seen together earlier
that same day and they received another report that Shaw cross was seen eating an ice cream at the bridge near where
the body was found after the dog sniffed out this piece of [ __ ] they're going to
take him in for questioning well you have a combination of things happening here so the girl the poor little girl is
reported missing and hours later they find her body you have the dogs which you just mentioned they they walk the
officers from the crime scene to the where the body was found to Arthur Shaw cross's front door right and as if that
wasn't enough they start getting reports from these children that are coming forward and saying look we saw a guy
that kind of looked like him with somebody that kind of looked like Karen earlier today plus one thing that I
think is very telling here is Arthur has a very distinct bike it it doesn't look
like the other bikes in town you know this isn't a bike that is made for an adult it's white it has a basket on it
well it's made for a woman and it's a man writing it so that's also sticks out well I don't know if this is the same
bike that he had a long time ago it probably is at the odd Toops the medical examiner discovered that the girl had
died because of Suffocation and her killer had stuffed weeds and debris into the child's nose mouth vagina and rectum
now as the captain pointed out Shaw cross was picked up and he was question for this murder it took some time but he
would eventually confess to killing Karen Hill he also told investigators where they could find Jack Blake's body on
Tuesday October 17th 1972 after much negotiation Arthur shawcross plad guilty to the Lesser charge of first-degree
manslaughter and after proceedings which lasted only 20 minutes he was senten to
a maximum term of 2 to 25 years for the murder of Karen hill by a disgusted judge who had the misfortune of actually
having seen Shaw cross in front of him before this was the same judge who had sentenced him to 5 years for the arson
and the robbery right this manslaughter sentence was light um but it was agreed to in part to clear the Jack Blake case
however he was never charged with the murder of Jack Blake well I think it came down to that police didn't know
what happened they assumed that it was Shaw cross but that that the family wanted to know too and they wanted to
know some details and so I think that's why they made this horrible agreement yeah they needed to
recover the the boy's body right and without shawcross that wasn't going to happen and I think leading up to this
point I think the police thought that it was a little farfetch that somebody had
killed the boy until they find this girl dead now all of a sudden it doesn't seem
so so big of a leap right that we we may have a child killer killer in our area so now we have his second set of prison
years um which started in 1973 he was once again sent to Anica prison during this time period he states that he was
threatened by other inmates because of his crimes against children uh he filed for divorce from his wife Penny because
she refused to visit him while he was in prison all right well sorry I'm not visiting a piece of [ __ ] that kills
children he earned his high school equivalency certificate and qualified in carpentry he was transferred to Green
Haven Correctional Facility at Stormville New York this prison houses many of the state's most evil criminals
where 742 prisoners this is 33% of the population at that time were rapist and murderers prison psychiatrist diagnosed
him as a dangerous schizophrenic pedophile suffering uffing from an intermittent explosive personality and
it was noted that he heard voices when he was depressed sha cross was a Troublesome inmate and he continually
faked illness or psychiatric problems to gain attention we've seen this before fake The Runaway get attention a fake
you know when he was married I think to his second wife when he had faked illness so he didn't go to work he soon
learned that the key to an early parole lie in the hands of the people around him so what he decided to do was he
started playing the game and he started sucking up to the the officers in the prison sucking up to the prison
psychiatrist and the church that was offered there and he started to behave himself he became a model prisoner he
gained a penpal named Rosemarie Wall-E now while well into his sentence Arthur was found exhibiting all the
behavioral traits of a reformed man he figured that it was better to accept responsibility for the murder of Karen
Hill he worked his way into a counselor's job in the prison's mental health unit while there he learned the
language of Psychiatry and psychology and in doing so he eventually conned the support of three of the thre man State
parole panel who granted him his freedom he was granted parole on his ninth attempt his he was denied the
first eight attempts on Tuesday April 28th 1987 the gates of hell were opened and outw walked Arthur J shawcross a man
who spent just 15 years in prison for in all reality what was the rape and murder
of two children yeah it should have been two life sentences or like the death penalty but uh because they didn't have
the body they had to make that agreement and there was a parole officer this is Robert Kent who objected and made a
statement of quote at the risk of sounding dramatic this man could be possibly the most dangerous individual
to have been released to this community in years he was in fact released on parole
and Arthur shawcross had difficulty settling down in the communities as the neighbors would protest his presence
and employers would fire him yeah he first moved to Binghamton New York and then relocated to Deli New York this
with his girlfriend Rose remember she was once his pen pal while he was in prison when Delhi residents became aware
of sh cross's presence the couple were forced to move to nearby flashman's New York only to be met with hostility there
as well finally in late June of 1987 Shaw cross's parole office off moved him to the a transient hotel in Rochester
New York in mid October shawcross and his girlfriend Rose found a more permanent lodging this was at 241
Alexander Street in Rochester now Rochester is a city that is much larger than his previous days and it was
believed and encouraged by his parole officer that the larger population would allow sha cross to kind of sink into the
community and back into civilian life or be a cover well Rose once they were there Rose enrolled as a nurse at
the local hospital and Arthur shawcross found work with a vegetable and fruit wholesaler based in the public market
which was to the south of the city he would cycle an hour each way on a lady style blue Schwin Suburban bike okay
maybe it was a different bike before I ladies bikes but that's what I think you're hitting on here Captain I don't
know if the other because it was two white bikes or maybe the same white bike or seems like maybe he painted the old
white bike blue it seems like he's always having a a woman's well this again is another city so I don't know
that he's bringing the bike with him you never know after a long prison sentence
to the uh new city of Rochester but again a lady style bike for some reason I don't know maybe he prefers the uh
what is that the crossbar that's low crossbar yeah anyway this bike was quite distinct in itself it was a bluewin
Suburban bike which had a shallow basket um and had a Stars and Stripes flag on the handlebars with two deep baskets
straddling the rear wheel in which he would keep his fishing gear so he's a creature of habit of course Captain we
see this guy that in his free time he's going to Bicycle around town and he's going to go fishing mhm his weekday
working hours were between 7:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. which left him the evenings to
pursue his Hobbies let's say well do we know what shift his wife is working I believe
she worked the evening shift mhm so he'd be by himself quite a bit yeah yeah and
he was actually having an affair at this time as well with a woman named Clara Neil she was 40
she was 58 years old um and she had a lot of kids a lot of grandkids but the two of them were having an affair while
his girlfriend was at work mhm he would borrow cars from both his girlfriend that he lived with and the woman that he
was having an affair with now um one of the vehicles was a small metallic blue Dodge Omni and the other was a some sort
of Gray Chevrolet I used to drive a Dodge Omni yeah and he well he would use these to do you know run errands to go
out on the evenings or to go fishing mhm now sha cross married Rose after two years of living together this took place
in August of 1989 right and the count of wives for Arthur is up to number four yeah just putting that out there well
and it was sometime after his wedding captain that his employer found out and discovered that he was a former convict
and at at that point they released him or fired him from their employment his next job that he had was selling hot
dogs on Main Street before he landed a permanent job as a salad maker for the g& Food Services which provided catering
services to hospitals and schools now at that time Arthur did work the night shift he worked nights and he was
getting paid $66.25 an hour uh which this was back in 1987 MH so actually approximately if you
convert that to today's it would approximately been making about like 13 to14 an hour which is pretty good money
for somebody that's been forced to move around because they're a convict that nobody wants to hire right also during
this time shortly before his marriage he started visiting sex workers and having
sex with them uh female or male uh females well and starting in 1988 Rochester is going to
find um a problem on their hands they're going to find a series of murdered victims female victims well and the
first believed victim in this series that you had mentioned Captain is thought to be Dorothy who went by the
name of Dotsy Dorothy Blackburn she was 27 years old she was a mother of a six-month-old boy and two older children
she was a small boned woman with a slender figure uh brown eyes and long brown hair petite and dainty she was
StreetWise with two convictions for loitering in 1985 she was last seen alive on Tuesday
this is March 15th 1988 after having lunch with her sister and she was seen on a a place that's
going to become familiar throughout this case and it's called ly Avenue mhm during an interview many years later
shawcross claimed that he had been driving Claire Neil's Omni around and he admitted that he had killed dosi at the
Northampton park because she had bitten his penis during fellatio he said that she was laughing
at him because he couldn't get his what he refers to as he couldn't get his pecker up and when she started laughing
at him and making fun of him he said that he slap slapped her around and when he did that she bit him and he got m in
hell and that's when he decided to kill her old what he had the old wet noodle he says that he dumped her clothes in a
trash can he cleaned the blood from the seat of the car and then he drove home Al doi's body was found by hunters
during the morning of Tuesday March 24th floating face down in Salon Creek a stream that meander through Farmland in
woods on Rochester's Eastern Fringe a crew of laborers clearing debris and garbage that had clogged a
covert they soon realized however that what they were looking at was a woman's frozen body her face had a distinctive
heavy eyebrows full lips slightly irregular teeth and her left eye was shut she had long dark hair and wore
jeans a hooded sweatshirt and a single white soda pops brand sneaker at the autopsy the medical examiner determined
that she had died as a result of manual strangulation and noted that she had been bitten several times around the
vagina which is probably retaliation for her biting his penis is I'm I'm guessing
those bites around the vagina well or yes or or as he claims mhm he's a well yeah who knows what to
believe with [Music] Arthur a lot more to get to on this case in part two if you'd like to support the
garage go to True Crim garage.com click on the store Page and check out the nice
jib tank tops thank you to everybody for joining us here in the garage tonight we
will see you back here tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music]
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Arthur Shawcross /// The Genesee River Killer

Part 1 of 2

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Episode 198 - Arthur Shawcross, the monster often referred to as “the worst serial killer, you’ve never heard of”. That may not be the case as Shawcross came from one of New York state’s more populated cities. This man was a convicted child killer set free by the state to kill again. During his time in prison Shawcross allowed members of the media to interview him on several occasions. Shawcross also had several pen pals that he wrote to often. This week we discuss the life and murders committed by “The Genesee River Killer” and speak with one of his pen pals, John Paul Fey. John is the co-author of the soon to be best seller “The Shawcross Letters”Beer of the Week - Genesee BeerGarage Grade - 3 out of 5 bottle caps

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Brief Summary

Arthur Shawcross's life story reveals a troubled childhood, military service, and a series of brutal murders in Rochester, New York.

Key points

The Life of Arthur Shawcross. An in-depth look into the life of the notorious serial killer, exploring his childhood and early influences.
Shawcross's Troubled Childhood. Arthur Shawcross's early years were marked by trauma and abuse, shaping his future actions.
Shawcross's Military Service. Arthur Shawcross's time in Vietnam is filled with questionable claims of violence and combat.
Arthur Shawcross's Troubled Past. After being discharged from the Army, Shawcross struggled with PTSD and violence against his wife.
The Disappearance of Jack Blake. Jack Blake goes missing after fishing with Shawcross, raising suspicions about his involvement.
The Murder of Karen Anne Hill. Karen Anne Hill is found dead, leading to Shawcross's arrest and confession.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

People on the outside do not know what evil is.

Quote by serial killer Arthur J. Shawcross

4:22WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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