Arthur Shawcross

Arthur Shawcross
Arthur Shawcross (middle) with his daughter (left) and granddaughter (right) at the Sullivan Correctional Facility.
Born	Arthur John Shawcross
Cause of death	cardiac arrest
Other names	The Genesee River Killer The Genesee River Strangler The Monster of the Rivers The Rochester Strangler Mitch
Conviction(s)	11 counts of murder in the first degree 1 count of manslaughter
Criminal penalty	250 years
Details
Victims	14
Span of crimes	May, 1972 – January, 1990
Country	U.S.
State(s)	New York
Date apprehended	January 5, 1990

Arthur John Shawcross (June 6, 1945 – November 10, 2008) was an American serial killer, also known as The Genesee River Killer in Rochester, New York. He claimed most of his victims after being paroled early following a conviction in the manslaughter of two children, which led to criticism of the justice system.

Early life

Shawcross was born in Kittery, Maine, but his family moved to Watertown in New York State when he was young. As a child he was socially awkward and rarely accepted by his peers, who frequently called him "Tom", and at times taunting him with words such as "he who expects".

While several later tests showed Shawcross' intelligence to be sub-normal or even "borderline retarded", he received A's and B's in his first two years of grade school. His IQ was tested to be "low-normal" (between 86 and 92) when he was in the fifth grade. Shawcross was prone to behaviors such as bullying, bed wetting, and physical violence. He dropped out in 1960, and when he was 19 he enlisted in the Army. He fought in the Vietnam War where, he later claimed, he had murdered and cannibalized two young Vietnamese girls, although there is no corroborative evidence.

Back in civilian life, living in Watertown once more, Shawcross married four times, but his wives left him after a short time because of his violent and erratic behavior. It was there, in May 1972, that he sexually assaulted and murdered 10-year-old Jack Owen Blake after luring the boy into some woods. Four months later, he raped and killed eight-year-old Karen Ann Hill, who was visiting Watertown with her mother for the Labor Day weekend.

Arrested for these crimes, Shawcross confessed to both murders. Under a plea bargain he was to reveal where he laid Jack's body. He plead guilty to killing Hill on a charge of manslaughter and the charges relating to Jack Blake were dropped. He was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment.

Shawcross served 14 1/2 years in prison before he was released on parole in April 1987. He had difficulty settling down as he was chased out of homes and fired from workplaces as soon as neighbors and employers found out about his criminal record. His parole officer had him relocated to Rochester, New York in late June of 1987.

Second series of murders

Beginning in March 1988, Shawcross began murdering again, primarily prostitutes, in the area, claiming 12 victims before his capture less than two years later. The victims were:

#	Name	Age
1.	Dorothy Blackburn	27
2.	Anna Marie Steffen	28
3.	Patricia Ives	25
4.	Dorothy Keller	59
5.	Marie Welch	22
6.	June Stotts	30
7.	Frances Brown	22
8.	Kimberly Logan	30
9.	Elizabeth Gibson	29
10.	Darlene Trippi	32
11.	June Cicero	34
12.	Felicia Stephens	20

They were usually strangled and battered to death and were often mutilated as well. Most of them were found near the Genesee River.

All the victims were murdered in Monroe County, except for Gibson, who was killed in neighboring Wayne County.

June Cicero's body was discovered by aerial surveillance on January 3, 1990. Fortuitously, the killer was also at the scene.

Shawcross was spotted urinating as he sat in his car on a bridge over Salmon Creek, upon whose frozen waters the body of his final victim rested. He was stopped in Spencerport on January 3, 1990, taken into custody and was later arrested. He eventually confessed in custody.

Trial and conviction

In November 1990, Shawcross was tried by Monroe County First Assistant District Attorney Charles J. Siragusa for the 10 murders in Monroe County. The trial was televised and drew many viewers. Shawcross pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, with testimony from psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis that he suffered from multiple personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and possible child abuse. This testimony did not help and the jury found him sane and guilty, with the foreman later saying about Lewis that "the more she talked, the worse it got. It's just too bad she didn't leave after she read her qualifications." The judge sentenced him to 250 years' imprisonment.

Federal Bureau of Investigation profiler Robert K. Ressler reviewed the PTSD claim on behalf of the prosecution before the trial. Ressler wrote that "his claim of having witnessed wartime atrocities was patently outrageous and untrue."

A few months later, Shawcross was taken to Wayne County to be tried for Gibson's murder. He pleaded guilty and was given a life sentence.

In 1992, true crime author Joel Norris wrote a book about the case. The paperback came with a tape that contained "the live confessions of Arthur Shawcross and his hideous crimes!" This drew some criticism that Norris was sensationalizing the case.

Imprisonment

Shawcross was held at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, New York until he died on November 10, 2008.

In 2003, Shawcross was interviewed by a British reporter, Katherine English, for a documentary on cannibalism. He bragged about slicing out and eating the vaginas of three victims, but refused to discuss allegations of eating the genitals of the boy he killed in 1972. Some criminologists have doubted these stories and suggested Shawcross embellished his crimes to impress the reporter and viewers.

In 2006, he was interviewed by Columbia University forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Stone for the Discovery Channel series Most Evil. In the interview, Arthur Shawcross claimed to have been sexually abused as a child by his mother, and also admitted sexually abusing his younger sister as a child. He also claimed to murder the prostitutes in revenge for supposedly having sex with an HIV-positive prostitute, and to eat the body parts in order to speed up the process of death (he had assumed he was infected). Stone agreed with the jury's conclusion and did not believe Shawcross' claims of not being in control during the prostitute murders.

Death

Officials said he complained of a pain in his leg on the afternoon of November 10, 2008, his date of death. It is reported that Shawcross had also been complaining of leg pains on Friday, November 7. On November 7 he was denied the use of a wheel chair because the medical staff and the Sergeant on duty at Sullivan Correctional Facility did not feel he had a valid complaint. Leg pains, when followed closely by sudden death, are entirely consistent with, and highly suggestive of, a deep venous thrombosis of the leg leading to (fatal) pulmonary embolism. He was taken to the Albany Medical Center, where he went into cardiac arrest and died at 9:50 p.m.

Arthur Shawcross was privately cremated and his ashes are in the care of his daughter.

References

• Olsen, Jack (1993), The Misbegotten Son, Delacorte Press, ISBN 0-385-29936-2
• Ressler, Robert; Schactman, Tom (1992), Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Hunting Serial Killers for the FBI, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-95044-6
• "Paroled Killer Charged Again". The Spokesman-Review. January 6, 1990. Retrieved 6 January 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• "Serial Killer Arthur Shawcross Dead". Rochester, NY: 13WHAM.com. 2008-11-08.
• "Upstate New York Serial Killer Dies". AP. 11 October 2008. Retrieved 22 January 2010.

Further reading and External links

• Norris, Joel. (1992) Arthur Shawcross: The Genesee River Killer, Pinnacle Books, ISBN 1-55817-578-4
• Crime Library article on Arthur Shawcross
• WGBH Educational Foundation (1992). Mind of a Serial Killer (TV-Series). PBS Nova.
• "Democrat and Chronical PhotoGallery". Retrieved 2008-11-18.

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