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[indistinct chatter]

[tense music]

♪ ♪

[indistinct radio chatter]

- I was trying to find something that worked

That would make them shut up to stop hollering--

- Aggressive kind of

Infliction of pain on these women.

- I was trying to find something

That would make them behave.

- But it was painful to them. - I hope so.

I don't mean I hope so.

But, I mean, yeah, that's what I was trying to achieve,

You know, to make them behave.

♪ ♪

- Charges were filed in philadelphia today

In a gruesome story of captives, torture, and murder.

- Heidnik's house of horrors

Where he kept six women in chains in his basement.

- Heidnik is accused of luring prostitutes to his house

And then raping, torturing, and murdering them.

- And the mother of one of the dead women

Said she led police to the house last December.

- They didn't do nothing.

The policemen didn't do nothing.

If they had did this, my daughter would be alive today.

- At first, I tried to make it nice, right?

- Yeah, how did you do that, gary?

- I was holding parties there, for one thing.

I had a christmas party and a new year's party.

- He was out to establish

A throne of power, control, and adoration

And create this harem of sexual slaves

And have all these children.

- Gary heidnik was religious.

He was a self-ordained minister

And started a church,

The united church of the ministers of god.

♪ ♪

- In his mind, he was creating

A church for all the other misfits in the world,

And he saw himself as this benevolent leader.

And it really was just to play god.

- He would actually have church services

On the first floor of his house

While girls were in his basement

Chained together.

♪ ♪

- The captive women had been imprisoned

As long as four months and fed dog food, bread, and water.

- And in the kitchen,

Police found body parts of two people.

They suspect cannibalism.

Police say that they were led to heidnik's house by a woman

Who told them that she had escaped from the basement.

♪ ♪

- I think you just question all the time, you know,

"why was it me that ended up here in this basement?"

Like, "what did I do to deserve to be tortured and raped,

You know, for these days?"

And I think, you know,

God put me there to save the other girls.

Well, at least that's what I believe,

And I kind of accept that, and that keeps me sane.

- I remember she telling me,

"be patient. She would get us out."

But she just didn't tell me

When she was gonna take me through.

[sniffles]

When we got out, society made me feel that

Whatever rivera did was justifiable

Because of the predicament we was in.

A lot of people don't know what she actually did

'cause she wasn't never truthful about it.

She should've just told the truth from the beginning,

And we wouldn't be here now.

♪ ♪

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

Philadelphia was crazy then.

We lived in the projects,

So you only expected to do certain things

'cause you poor.

♪ ♪

I was 12

When I first started dealing with the streets.

I had a good mom.

She was a mother and a father.

You know, when I didn't want to listen

To the rules and regulations, I ran away.

And when I ran away, I was looking for love,

And I found it in the wrong places.

I was, like, 12 years old messing with a 26-year-old man.

Back then, I didn't know no better,

And I thought I was grown at 12.

He was selling drugs, and I was using them.

♪ ♪

I was just a young girl trying to find her way in life

With an older man that didn't set no directions.

[soft melancholy music]

The people that supposed to have been in my life

To guide me the right way, they wasn't,

Because I wasn't letting them.

So I was going off to the deep end of the streets.

♪ ♪

And that's where I met gary heidnik.

- My upbringing and discipline from catholic school,

I think that had a lot to do with me surviving heidnik.

I was born in 1961 in philadelphia.

And a police officer

Delivered me in the back of his car.

I was raised in a great foster home.

I mean, I wanted for nothing.

I went to school, went to high school, graduated,

You know, went to college, and I don't know.

Somewhere along the line, I got sidetracked

And got caught up with weed and then cocaine.

And it's very easy to get caught up

In things like that, you know what I mean?

So now there's not enough-- sufficient money

To go along with what you're doing,

So then the alternative is prostituting.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

I was living in an apartment on 6th street, 6th and girard.

I was a mother of three.

It was the day before thanksgiving.

I was gonna make thanksgiving dinner,

And, you know, I needed a couple extra bucks.

It just kind of worked out

That I ended up being out there on that night.

I was prostituting.

I was always on front street.

It's where basically all the girls would generally go

If they were turning tricks.

♪ ♪

It was a rainy night. It was cold.

It was kind of pretty chilly out.

So it was really dreary,

And because it was right before the holidays,

It wasn't a lot of cars or a lot of traffic.

So it was just, like, a slow walk

Going down to front street.

I saw the brand-new cadillac go by a couple times.

I didn't really pay it any-- much attention.

He pulled over. We started to talk.

He had some money, and he was so tall.

He was six foot.

He seemed pretty normal, but, you know,

The word "nut" is not really stamped on anybody's head,

So you were basically just taking a chance

To hopefully--that you're gonna get this done

And get back home safely.

♪ ♪

He was talking, and he was saying,

"well, you know, it's hard for me to do stuff in the car.

You know, I'd rather go to the house."

And it was a little inconvenient.

It was basically the first time I made an exception

About going to someone's house,

Because I generally did dates in the car.

I got in the car, and we headed to his house.

♪ ♪

When we got to his house,

It was nothing that looked dangerous.

I mean, he had coin change in his kitchen

On the walls and stuff like that.

He had some dollar bills glued on his stairway,

Like, going up to the bedroom.

He had pinball machines.

But there were no, like, intuitions,

Like he was a bad person.

And we went upstairs, and, you know,

I took off my clothes, he took off his clothes.

You know, we had sex.

And I remember him asking me distinct questions like,

"well, can you still have children?

Are your tubes tied?"

You know, that was about it. We had sex, I got up.

As I'm, like, trying to put my shirt on,

I remember him coming up behind me, and he's choking me.

All I can remember was, like,

You know when you're in school and you have a movie projector

And it slides off, and it's like,

Click-click-click-click-click really fast?

And it was, like, just things in my life

Were just flashing in my head,

Not realizing that he was actually choking me.

And then he kind of let loose a little bit,

And then I'm like, "well, what are you doing?"

And he already had a handcuff on one of my hands.

And I was, like, struggling with him, and he was like,

"no, put your other hand behind your back.

I don't want to hurt you."

And I put my other hand behind my back,

And he handcuffed it,

And then he proceeded to take me downstairs.

[door opens, creaks]

He took me down into the basement.

It was a hole in the basement.

The basement has no windows or anything.

It's, like, a freezer is down there.

And he proceeded to put me in this hole.

It was hard for me to breathe

'cause I'm, like, still handcuffed.

I really thought it was a grave.

I'm, like, looking around, and I'm like,

"is there bodies here?"

Is he just bringing me here to bury me alive in his basement?

♪ ♪

- Once he found his sort of victim pool,

He started his church.

- You have to be doing good work

If you call yourself a minister.

He was doing work, but that work wasn't good.

- She was an easy mark.

And he knew it'd be very easy to trick her

And get her into the basement

To be his, you know, second slave.

♪ ♪

[foreboding music]

♪ ♪

- I was still in that coma state.

I remember waking up and would hear the chain

And think I was dreaming.

But it was really nuts stuff.

This guy kidnapped me,

And I've been chained in this basement.

I had been in there for hours.

And I'm banging on the board.

I'm, like, crying, and I'm screaming,

And I'm hollering.

He came downstairs and he's lifting this board,

And he's, like, grabbing me by my hair and pulling me out.

And he's beating me, telling me,

"shut up, shut up, shut up."

Then he puts me back in there again,

And he covers me up.

♪ ♪

The following day...

Gary heidnik took me out of the hole,

And then he started handcuffing me with these muffler clamps,

With this krazy glue and that,

With this chain attached to this sewer pipe.

And as he's doing that,

He talked to me like he knew me for years.

He was saying, like, you know,

He had impregnated all these girls,

And every time he would have a baby,

Philadelphia dhs would just snatch them up,

And he would never get to see them.

Then he started explaining to me his agenda.

He wanted to gather girls on marshall street,

And then just keep impregnating all these girls

So he would have all these kids

And he would be able to raise his own children.

He was just really desperate,

And he just couldn't see another way out of it.

- Heidnik, his idea was to...

Kidnap women

And create this harem

Of sexual slaves

That he would impregnate them

And have all these children.

He was out to establish

A throne of power, control, and adoration.

- He was obsessed with money.

He was obsessed with fame.

He wanted to be a big shot,

Driving around in a brand-new cadillac.

On the other hand,

The other gary heidnik was religious.

He was a self-ordained-- when I say self-ordained,

You could buy a corporate kit and ordain yourself a bishop.

So he was an ordained minister and started a church,

The united church of the ministers of god.

And he would actually have church services

On the first floor of his house.

The church was-- in actual services

Where it was part prestige.

He was looked up to in the area--

Where people would call him bishop heidnik.

He loved that.

He would have the church services and give a sermon,

And he loved the authority over them.

He was somebody.

And he would preach to about seven to ten people each week.

- He used to wear a roman collar.

I mean, he even had a plastic sign

On the front of his house--

"the church of the united ministers of christ."

But the reason he did that was

He didn't want to have to pay taxes on the money

He was making and withdrawing from his investments.

- He was a degreed nurse

From the university of pennsylvania with a 148 iq.

He made $700,000 back then in the stock market.

[soft dramatic music]

- In '83, he moved to marshall street

In philadelphia.

- When they first moved in, he would tell me

He wanted what I had, a family--

Three beautiful girls.

You know, he wanted to have a wife and children someday.

- He had a filipino mail-order bride.

He got the idea because he read that

Asian women would be totally subservient as a wife,

And he loved that idea.

- It was all right at first...

And it seemed like after she got pregnant,

When things were starting to go wrong.

Walls were thin, so you could hear them yell or arguing.

His wife told me--she says, "oh, gary hit me."

And I said, "well, don't let him do that."

I said, "and if you can't stop him,

Then you need to leave."

And then it wasn't long after that, she left.

♪ ♪

That's when he started bringing a lot of girls home.

They were only there for one purpose--

To get money for whatever they could do.

♪ ♪

- Gary heidnik was in a poor neighborhood.

People turned a blind eye

To things that he did.

Some of them were not so unusual,

Black women going into the home.

But I think mainly because he was a white male,

He was able to project himself as this...

Normal human being.

And it enabled him to get away with the things that he did.

- Issues of poverty accelerated

During the 1980s.

The city of philadelphia's housing policies

Deliberately underfunded areas

Like north philadelphia.

The racism has been embedded in the city,

And that was a problem going back to the colonial period.

Policies from city hall were driving

The impoverishment.

This purposeful exclusion created barriers

To the rise of economics in the black community,

And that all fed the crime.

- I worked 5th to 10th, poplar to norris,

Which is predominantly black and hispanic.

A lot of drug trafficking,

A lot of robberies, shootings.

It's a rough neighborhood.

- At that time, we were experiencing

Somewhere between 300 to 400 homicides a year.

- North philadelphia was going down,

And it just kind of had a whirlpool-type effect,

Which sucked it down even further during the 1980s.

The ladies who were victimized by gary heidnik,

Had they been of a different race

Or a different economic class,

Clearly there would've been a different response

And responsiveness.

[suspenseful music]

- It took me a couple days

To get oriented to what actually is really going on.

♪ ♪

He started handcuffing me behind my back.

It was, like, the worst thing in the world.

I would be that way for so long

That, when he would finally take the handcuffs off,

I couldn't even move my arms.

I wasn't fighting,

Because basically there was really nothing you could do.

Hollering, screaming, and making noise,

You're just gonna get a punishment.

You're just gonna get your ass beat.

[tense music]

I was in the hole,

And I remember hearing the footsteps.

And I just heard this crying.

He kept saying, "shut up. You know you know me.

You know I'm not gonna hurt you."

He took me out of the hole,

And I saw this girl sitting there.

And she has handcuffs on,

And he's putting these muffler clamps on her now.

Putting krazy glue,

And he's air-drying them with the hair dryer.

He kept telling her, "I don't know why you're crying.

"I don't know why you're upset. You know me.

You've been in my house a thousand times."

You know?

But I'm sure she hadn't been there in that capacity.

♪ ♪

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- This is the gary heidnik house,

The place where I was held hostage for 100 days.

It doesn't even seem like I've been here before.

♪ ♪

I don't even know what to say.

So much horror and torture went on here.

♪ ♪

I thank god that I'm standing outside this house

Instead of being in this basement.

♪ ♪

I was in the hole, and I remember hearing--

Just hearing a girl crying.

And he takes me out the hole,

And I'm looking at this girl, and she's naked.

She has handcuffs on.

And he's like, "this is sandra,

And, sandra, this is josefina,"

As he's putting these muffler clamps on her.

And I can see from her talking

That she has some type of mental disability.

- I think that he picked sandra next

Because she was an easy mark

And he knew it'd be very easy to trick her

And get her into the basement

To be his, you know, second slave.

- Sandra lindsay was a girl

Who was mildly mentally deficient,

Had gone to training at the elwyn school

In west philadelphia that treated people

That could not survive in a regular school setting.

She was just an innocent person from a loving family.

- He preyed on people who could not fight back.

Prostitutes, they can't run to the police.

So, if he kidnapped

A prostitute,

Who's gonna miss her?

If he went after somebody who was mentally ill,

Who's gonna miss her?

She's not gonna know what to do.

So he always preyed on weak people

Because he wanted to be dominant,

He wanted to totally be in control.

♪ ♪

- With heidnik, fear of abandonment

Is a theme that just drives

Right through all of his history and his crimes.

Really had a persecution complex almost.

"why do people hate me?"

Because he was such a social outcast,

Books and things became his escape,

Where he could envision himself as powerful

And loved and popular--

All the opposites of what his real-world experiences were.

- He went into the army.

He was trained as a military nurse

And assigned to germany.

When he was over in germany, he proceeded to act up,

And eventually he got a military discharge.

- Him being trained as a medic

Gave him the idea of being a nurse

Once he got back into the states.

The position he got with the elwyn institute

In west philadelphia,

Which serves folks with intellectual

And developmental disabilities...

He very quickly found not only could he excel

And feel like he was an important person,

He could easily take advantage

Of these poor intellectually disabled women.

He would take the clients out on these tours

Into the community,

And then he would sneak them off to his apartment

To exploit the women for sexual favors.

It was a big, huge boost

To his, you know, tiny, weak, fragile ego.

[foreboding music]

Once he found his sort of victim pool,

He started his church with his small community.

And he used the church for his purposes.

- He would have sessions every Sunday,

Where he would bring mentally deficient young women

And other people into his house and preach to them.

♪ ♪

- Hustlers do not shy away from religion.

It's a way to captivate people,

'cause people will look at it,

And it'll give that veneer of respectability

Because you are associated with religion and the lord.

You have to be doing good work

If you call yourself

A minister.

He was doing work,

But that work wasn't good.

And I think that church gave him cover,

And that cover worked to his advantage.

♪ ♪

- In his mind, he was creating a church

For all the other misfits in the world,

You know, a church that would specialize in folks

With intellectual disabilities that would be, you know,

Cast aside by normal churches.

And he saw himself as this benevolent leader,

And he pronounced himself bishop.

[scoffs] and it really was just to play god.

♪ ♪

- Heidnik knew sandra lindsay from before he kidnapped her.

- I remember sandra. She used to come over a lot.

After a while, gary started locking the gate.

I said, "well, you can step over right here

"and step down in the yard,

And then you can go over to the door."

So she climbed over the fence and went to the door,

And she knocked, and gary opened the door,

And she went in.

♪ ♪

- After sandra got there, we are in a hole for hours.

We were just buried alive.

It was like living in...

Just living in a permanent grave.

That's how it felt, 'cause we're just in dirt,

Just laying in dirt.

A while later, we're talking in a hole.

Like, she's telling me she's from west philly,

That she knew gary for quite a few years,

And that, you know, she didn't really understand

Why he was doing this.

And I start just digging for information,

You know, that tells me a little bit

About his personality and, you know,

What's going on in his head, because she knew him so long.

Now I have to try to figure out,

Where am I gonna go from here?

'cause I have no idea.

I made up my mind I was gonna make

Every effort possible to be able to get out of there.

I had no plan.

'cause I wanted to live, and I wasn't done living.

♪ ♪

- Philadelphia made josefina a hero.

She wasn't a hero for me.

- When I see, I don't know if I'ma run up to her

And start punching her.

I don't know if I'ma hug her.

After 30 years,

I'm yet to hear one apology.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

- Sandra lindsay's family is desperately looking for her.

And they know that she was fond of gary heidnik,

And they know that the last person she was with

Was supposed to be gary heidnik

Because she stated, "I'm going to see gary."

And they know where he lives.

♪ ♪

- Jeanette perkins, who was the mother of sandra lindsay,

She and sandra's other sister, tracey lomax,

They went to the house and knocked on the door,

And they got no answer.

- She didn't have a whole lot of family

With any wherewithal to find her.

Gary heidnik knew there wouldn't be an army out

Looking for her-- perfect heidnik victim.

Abused her, had sex with her at his will,

And he wasn't gonna get caught.

Nobody was gonna do anything about it.

But sandra's family filed a missing-persons report,

So the police go to gary heidnik's house.

♪ ♪

- The officers had gone to the house

At the request of the family looking for sandra.

- They knock on the door to look for sandra.

He doesn't answer the door.

The girls were downstairs, chained up at that very moment.

[train horn blares]

- Heidnik's house was in the 25th district,

Which, at that time,

Was one of the busiest districts in the city.

30 years ago, they didn't have the access to, you know,

Information right on the spot like they do now.

So that meant the officer would've had to come in

Off the street, into the operations room

Or to the detective division

To try to have them-- what we call

"run the information through the computer."

The officer that went to the house

Was given incorrect information

In terms of the spelling of heidnik's name.

- Gary heidnik-- do you spell it I-e?

Do you spell it e-I?

It could be either way.

So you don't try different combinations?

And that was the testimony,

That he didn't try different combinations.

- Based upon that misspelling of the name,

The officer was not able to find out

That heidnik did have a prior record.

- And the effort was made,

The box was ticked,

And we move on.

And it wasn't a thorough investigation.

- Bad policing.

He had a prior record for abusing women.

♪ ♪

- In '78, he had a common-law wife

By the name of anjeanette davidson.

She was mentally disabled.

She had a sister, alberta davidson,

Who had been in a mental institution

Since the time she was 14.

Anjeanette and gary went out to visit her one day.

They brought her back to philadelphia.

He then proceeded to rape her

And not return her to the institute as he had promised.

[knock at door]

Doctors who were caring for her

Came to philadelphia, confronted him.

Found her locked in a storage area

In the apartment building.

The institute contacted the police here in philadelphia.

He was convicted of kidnapping,

Interference with the custody of a disabled person,

And reckless endangering another person.

He was sentenced to three to seven years in prison.

♪ ♪

He got out in '83.

The whole episode with the davidson sisters,

I believe, is prime example

Of the maliciousness and the depravity of this man.

♪ ♪

- That is where he went to prison,

But he had many encounters with women

Where he absolutely petrified them.

♪ ♪

Gary raped his mail-order bride daily

And beat her daily.

So finally she escaped and went to a home

Where they gave her some guidance.

And she went to the authorities.

They arrested him for it-- spousal sexual assault.

But she was so deathly afraid of him,

And she wasn't about to step foot in that courtroom

Without a guarantee that he would never get out of jail.

He was never even convicted of it

Because she didn't show up to testify.

♪ ♪

- Had that officer been able to find out

The correct spelling of heidnik's name

And that heidnik did have a prior record

For kidnapping and rape,

Things may have been very different.

- I don't like to play the race card,

But I have to say

That the handwriting's on the wall in this case.

The fact that sandra was from a poor black family

Who doesn't have any connections,

I think that that's what ended the investigation.

- Very often cases are "broken"

Because somebody says, "hey, wait a minute.

"let me take a second look at this,

Maybe a third look."

But in this case, it didn't happen.

- You have good cops and bad cops

And stupid cops and smart cops.

We had a lazy and stupid cop,

Which is a lethal combination for sandra.

♪ ♪

- It was quite a few times that we heard pounding at the door.

I never questioned him, sandra never questioned him

About who's at the door or anything like that.

[door opens, creaks]

Heidnik came downstairs,

And he had on these rubber gloves,

And he had this pen, paper, and envelope.

And he told sandra,

"okay, you're gonna sit down and write this letter.

"'hey, mom, you know, I'm fine. I'm going to new york.

"'I'm having a great time. Don't worry about me.

You don't have to look for me. I'll be home soon.'"

♪ ♪

Then he told sandra to make sure

She touched the whole paper,

Like, you know, feel it all up

So her prints would be on there.

Then he made her do the envelope the same way,

And he made her lick the envelope herself.

- You have gary heidnik driving to new york.

- Heidnik then mailed that letter

From new york to jeanette perkins

To defer them from trying to come back to his house

And find their sister and daughter.

- He was gone for a long time, like, hours.

We heard the car when it left,

And then we heard the car when it came back.

There was times where we were in the hole for hours.

And the thing was, what if something happened to him

While he was out?

Who was gonna find us then?

So, when he came home, I told him

I knew he was gone for, like, hours and hours and hours.

And he was like, "really?"

And then he kind of distinguished

That we knew when he was coming in and out the house.

And I remember him saying,

"well, I have a solution for that."

He went back upstairs,

And then he came downstairs to the basement.

He had a phillips screwdriver,

And he's, like, taking these screwdrivers,

He says, "I'm just gonna dig everybody's eardrums out

So you wouldn't be able to hear."

And he was just, like, digging them in our ears,

Trying to get in our eardrums.

It was horrifying.

It was horrifying, 'cause it really hurt.

It really hurt.

It's just so hard to explain because it was just so unreal,

You know, that somebody would want to torture

And hurt somebody that badly, to be that ruthless,

You know, to want to cause somebody else's pain,

It's just--it's just really hard to believe

That somebody would even do that.

♪ ♪

Whether we could hear or not,

We still knew when he was coming in and out.

The garage was right next to where the basement is.

You know, when he start the engine,

You know, the basement floor would vibrate.

♪ ♪

Me and sandra were in the basement.

I could hear people walking up above us.

And then we can hear another girl

Coming down the steps, crying.

He puts the shackles around her ankles and stuff.

He introduced her-- "this is lisa."

- And he took me down the cellar,

And I seen all these bags, right?

I thought there were body parts in there.

I said, "don't kill me, don't kill me."

He said, "no, I'm not gonna kill you.

Trust me, I'm not gonna kill you."

♪ ♪

- Lisa thomas was one of the younger women.

She was 19, I believe.

I don't know why he picked her out.

- Lisa thomas, she was streetwise.

- She says she was not a prostitute.

I'll take her at her word.

He pulled up in the flashy car,

Asked her to get in, took her shopping.

But getting in that car

Was the worst decision she ever made.

Maybe she thought that this guy was paying attention to her

And buying her things and liked her.

Nobody really knows.

She willingly had sex with him,

And then the next thing you know, she wakes up,

And she's tied with the rest of the women in his basement.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- After lisa got there,

He came down, and he put her in the hole.

And at that point, it was really only enough room

For two people still to be in the hole at one time.

Three people wouldn't fit.

So then it got that sandra and lisa

Would be the two to stay in the hole

And I would just be in the basement

'cause he couldn't fit me in there.

- Once he had multiple victims in his basement,

He would sort of set up this hierarchy,

And he was playing victims against each other.

Josefina became his favorite because josefina was the best

At giving him that kind of adoration,

Reassurance that he wouldn't be abandoned,

That he was handsome and sexy and good-looking

And whatever he needed or wanted.

She realized, "if I give him what he wants here,

You know, I can live another day."

- After the first month,

Then he would start taking me up for a bath,

And those were times when, you know,

He would talk about different things.

You know, the more I learned about him

From him speaking to me and what I learned from sandra,

That gave me that kind of insight.

If I was more on his side,

It would be more in my favor

To be able to try to find a way out of here.

You know, he would talk about things

That he wanted to do in the future,

And it would just be these women and these babies.

♪ ♪

- He was trying to get these girls pregnant.

He wanted to raise a perfect race

With no influence from the outside world

In his basement.

♪ ♪

- He didn't put us in the hole every time he went out.

It was basically when he was going to be gone

For, like, hours.

We were just in the basement,

And you could feel the vibrations in the house,

You know, him walking.

And so we hear the basement door open,

And I heard struggling.

We all look up, and we can see the bottom of her legs

Coming down the steps.

And I'm, like, sitting there, saying to myself,

"oh, my god, there's another girl."

And then he's introducing us-- "this is deborah dudley."

♪ ♪

- Deborah dudley was a prostitute

Who easily got in gary heidnik's fancy car.

Go back to the house, sex with him.

She's downstairs, tied up with the rest of them.

- Deborah johnson dudley was a tough street girl,

A very fiery person.

And she gave him a lot of fight.

- Deborah dudley never stopped fighting.

She was very resistant

And always gave gary a hard time.

- From the beginning, deborah kept acting up,

And I mean acting up and acting up

And howling and screaming and, you know,

Being defiant and rebellious.

♪ ♪

And I remember right after he had beat her so bad one time,

And I was like, "you know, well, this is not working,

"so why do you want to sit here

"and keep making him torture you?

"you just really got to straighten up

And pull this together."

She's like, "why? Am I gonna die here?"

Absolutely you are

If we keep going in this direction that you're going in.

♪ ♪

- It was January the 18th.

I was working on 16th and poplar,

And when I seen gary heidnik car,

He said, "well, how much would you charge me?"

It was this other girl,

And me and her was actually arguing over gary heidnik.

And he ended up picking me.

I got in the car, and he was like,

"I just want to spend some time with you,

Talk to you, take you out to eat."

We had dinner, you know, and I let my guard down.

So now we leave, he say,

"well, jackie, I got to stop at the house to take the cake

'cause today is my daughter birthday."

And I'm like, "okay."

[door opens, creaks]

He got an old video game that used to be out--"dig dug."

That's the first time I ever played the game.

He was playing with me.

For some reason, he, like, slid off, you know,

And I, like, kept looking back behind me

But not trying to show him that I was kind of scared.

And out of nowhere, he just... [exhales sharply]

Grabbed me from the back of my neck.

♪ ♪

As we fighting,

I see he got some stuff behind the video game--

Hammers, a pick.

I was trying to get to one of them to get him.

I wanted him off of me.

We fought and fought, and he put the handcuffs on

And started guiding me towards the basement.

♪ ♪

I get down there. I see three girls.

Some had clothes on, and some didn't.

One girl, she was crying.

♪ ♪

Gary heidnik put me in this hole in that basement

And threw these bags on me and told me he'd be back.

I screamed and screamed and screamed,

And I remember josefina rivera coming over there.

She like, "shut up. I got you.

I'ma get you out of here, but you got to be patient."

And I be like, "no, I want to get out now."

- She was 18 years old. She was really young.

And I don't think she understood

The severity of the situation.

- He came down. He stripped me.

Then he started beating me with a blackjack.

So I was just saying, "I want to go home."

Anything I could say to him so he could let me go.

And he wasn't.

I just didn't know he wasn't letting me go.

♪ ♪

- The day after jackie got there was my birthday.

And it was, like, so unbelievable.

I'm like, "really?

I'm really celebrating my birthday here?"

He came back with food from takeout,

A birthday cake, and a birthday present.

♪ ♪

They sung "happy birthday." we ate chinese food.

I opened up a present.

He bought me a pair of slippers.

I don't think I've had a birthday party since then.

That made me think that he went through so much effort,

That he went out and he planned this whole birthday party,

And I'm like, "well, you're not gonna do that

For somebody that you don't like."

I said, "okay, so he has a soft spot for me, apparently."

♪ ♪

I remember that record "stand by me" came on,

And he danced with me on that song "stand by me."

Yeah. [scoffs]

For some reason, he just thought

That I was on his side and, you know,

I was standing by him and-- you know what I mean?

So I said, "okay, let me see what I can do with this,"

But there wasn't no brilliant plan.

I kind of took everything on a day-by-day.

You know, I was hoping that it was going somewhere.

♪ ♪

- Everybody had a chain that was separated,

Like, 30 paces apart so that it was big enough

Where he can get between us to have sex,

And we could walk around.

♪ ♪

We would get up.

We didn't know if we was gonna eat the next day or not.

I mean, gary heidnik used to tell us

That he gonna give us a glass of water and some bread.

And we had to work our way up

To getting our clothes, a bed.

I don't think we was meant to come out of that basement.

He put a grave in that basement.

I know you're supposed to say if I accept jesus christ

As my savior, god will come with you.

Well, I need you now. We all need you.

So I just picked up the bible

And just started reading that verse every day.

I thought that was my way of getting closer to god

And him helping us out of there.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

- The last time jackie saw me was in the basement.

We never had that closure part.

To see each other being all right,

Being able to talk to each other about, you know,

What happened, and you haven't said,

"hey, we made it, we're free," you know what I'm saying?

And it's, like-- all that was missing.

♪ ♪

- Actually, I'm gonna be talking to rivera.

I ain't seen her in 30 years.

Me and her got to talk

Because I got a burden on my shoulder about her,

And it's not a good one.

She took so much from me

That I didn't know how to forgive her.

- I really--I'm looking forward to seeing jackie.

I hope I'll be able to make her feel better, you know,

To make things a little easier in her mind and in her life.

♪ ♪

Sandra wasn't feeling all that great,

And she wasn't eating.

Gary thought that she was pregnant,

And he was constantly trying to force-feed her.

She wasn't going for it.

I knew she wasn't feeling well, and I was like,

"sandra, just try to eat something.

"you know, you don't have to eat everything,

"but just try to eat something,

You know, to kind of sustain yourself."

In the frame of mind that he's in,

He thought she was being rebellious.

I said, "this is not going in the direction

It needs to be going on."

And then when he started punishing her,

I'm like, "oh, my god." that was really hard for me.

- He locked her up on the ceiling,

And he tells sandy,

"chew something,"

And she wouldn't chew it fast enough for him.

- So he was kind of forcing the food in her mouth,

And at the same time, he was, like, beating her.

You know, "eat the food, sandra.

Eat it, eat it, eat it."

- So next thing I know, she went limp.

- And he just put the key in the handcuff

And just turned it.

And it came off her arm, and she fell--psh.

♪ ♪

- And I ran over to her,

But he told us to get away from her.

And he checked her.

- She was gone.

♪ ♪

And he was really upset.

He was like, "now I lost another baby."

♪ ♪

It was just so sad for me, you know, when sandra died.

I was so brokenhearted.

We, you know, had a relationship.

We spent many hours in that hole together.

She's been with me here from the beginning.

I just thought that was just the end.

♪ ♪

- I remember when she died,

It hit gary heidnik so hard

That rivera told debbie

To stay out of gary heidnik way,

Because gary heidnik blamed debbie for sandy's death.

And we didn't understand why.

But it's whatever josefina rivera told him.

She had to put everything on us

To make it seem like we was the troublemakers

And she was just going with the flow.

It was just all lies that she was telling

For us to get in trouble.

- He was out to establish in that hole

Grandiosity of wanting to be in control and the master.

He never saw beyond it to, like,

The sheer practicalities of having that many women,

You know, in your basement, trying to take care of them.

"care" is a horrible word for it.

- Josefina was the only victim who was clever enough

To know that he was constantly gonna be watching her.

So josefina would discipline the girls

When gary wasn't there.

She convinced gary heidnik that she was his ally,

That she would help him.

♪ ♪

- The following day, there was this horrible, horrible smell

That I will never forget in my life.

It was bad.

And we could not figure out what was going on,

But we know this odor was consuming the whole house.

- It smelled awful.

It's coming from gary's house.

And my father says, "it smells like a dead body.

It's disgusting."

So we called the police

Because we couldn't get anybody

To answer the door at gary's house.

An officer came,

And all of a sudden, gary's front door opens.

And it was gary.

I says, "gary, what is that smell?"

He says, "yeah, I burnt the roast in the oven."

So the officer left,

And gary apologized for the smell,

And then he went back in the house,

And then we went back in our house.

♪ ♪

- Now all of the windows-- he's got them all sealed

So that these girl can't scream or know who's walking outside.

Do you think one of the cops would say,

"well, why don't you open the windows and let the smoke out?"

No.

100% satisfied with a guy who answers the door,

Closes it behind him,

Leans against it as if you're not going inside.

"I burnt a roast."

"okay, our work is done here. Thank you."

Give me a break.

He got away with it for a few more weeks.

♪ ♪

- I think that church gave him cover,

And that cover worked to his advantage

In some of the early reports 'cause police would say,

"well, we're getting these reports about this guy,

"but what we're hearing is incompatible

With somebody who's religious, somebody who's a minister."

- He would actually have church services

On the first floor of his house

While girls were in his basement chained together.

[tense music]

- Next thing I know, he came in the basement

With some rice and dog food.

That big piece of meat on there,

I didn't know what it was.

And then I realized that the whole time

He was upstairs burning sandy...

Cooking her so he can dismember her body.

It wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here,

'cause I ate her.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

- In that basement,

It's a good side and a bad side.

I got put on the bad side

Because I talked to debbie dudley.

Every time gary heidnik came down them steps,

Josefina would say,

"jackie and debbie was doing this,

Jackie and debbie was doing that,"

To the point he believed her.

He would beat us, beat us.

She had to tell this man all this stuff

For him to come at us,

So I used to just look at her, like,

"why would she do this to us?"

♪ ♪

We was planning a way to get out.

So we came up with this plan that because heidnik did trust

Josefina rivera more than anybody,

He would let her go upstairs.

And she could take baths.

She walked around in the house.

Debbie said, "well, when you go upstairs,

"you can get a knife, so when you come downstairs,

"I'ma be, like, on my four legs,

"and we gonna push him over me,

And we just all gonna just start fighting him."

And whatever we had to do we gonna do

To get out of there.

- The girls came up with a plan

To get out of the basement.

What sense does that even make?

First of all, he doesn't bring the keys downstairs with him.

Second of all, the basement sits on the ground.

If he's dead, we still can't get out of here.

Now we're stuck with a dead body

In the midst of everything.

I mean, the girls came up with a ridiculous plan.

You know, I didn't really let on to anybody

What my plan was or what I was doing.

A lot of times the girls were trying to cutthroat each other.

So I knew I couldn't sit down and say,

"well, look, we're gonna do this, or we're gonna do that,

Or we're gonna do the other,"

Because then whoever wants to be in his favor

Is gonna be telling, and that's gonna put me back

To have to start over again, you know?

♪ ♪

And I remember him asking me about this plan.

And I said, "yeah, there was a discussion about that,

"and I kind of squashed it because, you know,

"you didn't bring the keys downstairs

To the basement," you know what I mean?

- So, you know, gary heidnik came downstairs.

Me and debbie looked at each other,

And we knew by the way he came down them steps,

He knew what was going on.

So he sat down in front of us

And asked us to tell him about our plan.

- And he was saying to them,

"okay, I hear there's some plans going on

"with somebody trying to jump me.

"but if you knock me out

"or something happens to me down here,

There's no way out of this basement,"

Basically, which it wasn't.

He came downstairs, and he unchained deborah's chain,

And he took her upstairs.

She was up there maybe five, eight minutes.

And then she came back down,

And then we were all asking her,

"what's wrong? What's wrong? What happened? What happened?"

And she was like, "oh, he showed me sandra's ribs

"cooking in a roasting pan in the oven.

"he showed me her body parts in the freezer.

"and her head was in a pot on the stove."

And he was telling her, "well, if you don't straighten up,

This is gonna be you, too."

- Josefina rivera told him what we was gonna do.

If we all there together,

We got to work together to get out of a situation.

And now you just messed up the whole thing.

And that's how I felt.

♪ ♪

- He just said he was gonna come up

With a better punishment plan because, you know,

The basement is just out of order, basically--

Something that he say he learned in the service.

- He was gonna torture us every day

Until we learned to stop screaming.

But rivera was lying on us.

We not saying nothing,

But you couldn't him because rivera was the holy bible.

And we was the devil.

He had us chained up.

He filled the hole up with water...

And he took wire that he used to have in the basement,

And he had stripped it

And put the wires on the chains

So we would electrocute in the water.

- His thing was, it would give them an electric jolt,

Which would make them behave,

Like some type of shock therapy.

And he was like, "okay," and then he had me do it.

♪ ♪

Now he's making me do it, too.

He stops, and he goes upstairs.

♪ ♪

- And then you felt the electricity, and I looked,

And I remember her doing it.

It was like they was together.

At some point in time,

I just thought they was together.

- Josefina is trying to gain gary heidnik's confidence.

So, yes, she did inflict

The electrocution and the electric shocks.

♪ ♪

- All I know-- debbie just fell in the water,

And I lift her up, and I'm like,

"something wrong with debbie,"

So I'm trying to lift the board up.

- And I was hollering for him--

"gary," I said, "jackie is saying deborah's dead."

And he comes back downstairs.

- Heidnik come over there and slammed it back down

So I fall back in the water.

- And he looks.

Deborah's in the middle,

And her head-- she's folded over like this.

♪ ♪

- Debbie dudley was on this side of me.

By now, I knew she was dead.

Rivera--she killed debbie.

We all could've got out of there alive.

A lot of stuff that she did she didn't have to do.

I just thought she took on her serial killer ideal, too.

Like, she was the oldest.

She was supposed to protect us.

Even though she was in a bad situation,

She was still supposed to protect us.

- He says, "good, now my basement can get back to order

'cause now I got rid of the troublemaker."

And we're, like, just standing there devastated

Because this girl's body is now laying

In the exact spot where sandra lindsay's body was.

- Then he give us a cigarette and a beer

And a can of dog food.

Heidnik go into where the deep freezer was

And put debbie body in there.

And I remember he have rivera over there,

And she signed the piece of paper.

- And he wants me to write,

"gary heidnik and josefina rivera

"electrocuted deborah dudley by making her sit

In a pool of water while we electrocuted her chains."

And he made me sign it, and he signed it.

And he took that letter upstairs,

And then he came back down and took the chains off,

The shackles off and told me to go upstairs.

- That's where gary heidnik trusted her...

That she wouldn't snitch

Because they both will go to jail

Because they both killed someone.

'cause she killed debbie,

She got to walk around the house freely.

- I was free, but I wasn't free

Because these other girls were still in the basement.

Even if I get away,

The first thing he's gonna do is get rid of them

'cause that's all the evidence.

So, at that point,

Now he thinks me and him are on the same side.

We're both boyfriend and girlfriend or whatever.

Now he has somebody that's on his side

That's with him in his play.

- And then, like, maybe three days later,

He had to get rid of debbie's body.

- He calls me downstairs

And wants me to look at deborah dudley's body--

I guess as a reminder this really could be me.

And he makes me look at her body,

And I'm like, "okay."

Then he takes her upstairs.

He puts her in the trunk of the car.

[engine turning over]

Now he's like, "we're gonna take a ride."

So now we're driving.

We go through the toll,

And we're driving down this highway.

And he turns off on this off-road,

And it's total woods,

And it's so freaking quiet.

I'm like, "what is this plan all about?

Is he gonna leave me out here, too?"

And so he gets out of the car,

Opens the trunk.

And I can hear her body, frozen body...

[imitates thud] hit the trunk.

I can hear him walking on the leaves.

[crunching]

♪ ♪

And then it was so quiet for so long.

- Josefina wasn't going to be a victim.

- She going around getting girls for him.

- Just didn't have the time to make her understand.

- Well, would you like me to put you in a ----ing basement?

And then you tell me if you got a damn choice.

♪ ♪

- I remember after gary heidnik

Dumped deborah's body,

We came back to philadelphia,

And we went into the mcdonald's.

He's in this crowded place,

And he's just reading the paper, like...

You know, eating a sandwich.

It was amazing to me. I couldn't even believe it.

How can you sit there so calmly like nothing ever happened?

I just got finished dumping a dead body with you.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

After we left there and we got back to the house,

He was saying he wanted me to go with him

To pick up another girl.

I'm thinking about this, and I said, "here's the deal.

We can go pick up another girl."

I said, "but when we get done,"

I said, "you're gonna take me to see my family."

And he went for it.

We go down front street, and we run into agnes adams.

Now, she was from the same neighborhood that I was from,

But I did not know her, but she knew gary.

- Agnes adams was a little bit older than some of the girls.

- She also was a innocent-projecting person

That had turned to a life on the street.

- Gary heidnik had a previous relationship with her,

In the sense that he would pay her for sex,

So it wasn't that difficult to lure her back there.

♪ ♪

- Them two went upstairs to the bedroom.

I was sitting there in the living room on a couch.

They weren't up there but, like, three minutes.

- We overheard the conversation.

She going around getting girls for him.

Rivera went and got her

And brought her in that basement.

When agnes came downstairs,

She was yelling and screaming like everybody else,

And he put her in that hole.

- I remember I came down them couple steps

And leaned over the bannister, and they all looked up at me.

Expression on their faces--

It was breaking my heart, because I couldn't say to them,

Only reason why I didn't run

Was the fact that they were still there.

- He gave her back her wig.

She had a brown leather jacket, like--

I think he bought her an outfit.

I'm not sure.

So I thought they was in cahoots together.

After I seen that, I had no more love for rivera.

I would've never went and got one of my girlfriends,

Then bring her in the basement with me.

No.

- Josefina-- she saw that he killed

Two people in that basement.

She wasn't going to be a victim.

She did whatever was necessary for survival mode.

She convinced gary heidnik that she was his ally,

That she would help him.

♪ ♪

- She was the one that was best

At giving him what he really wanted.

You know, even if it was an illusion,

Even if josefina was faking to save her own life,

For heidnik, he believed it.

He knew that she was not an escape risk

Like the others would be,

That he didn't have to worry about her escaping.

"this person adores me. I'm a god, a sex god."

♪ ♪

- After we got back to the house with agnes adams,

I said, "well, I guess we're gonna go see our family now,"

And he said, "yeah, okay, we can do that."

I said, "but I can't take you with me

"'cause I've been gone for so long

That they're gonna have way too many questions."

I said, "they might even be, like, upset with you

"because I haven't been in touch with them.

"you could wait for me at the gas station at 6th and girard

"because I only live down the street.

"and I'll go down there and talk to them,

And then I'll bring you down there and introduce you."

♪ ♪

Get into the gas station, and I'm, like,

Saying to myself, "okay, I know there's a phone booth

At 6th and thompson." I knew that.

So I knew I had to get from 6th and girard

To 6th and thompson.

He went with it. He went for it.

You know, and I'm walking away from his car down 6th street.

I'm saying to myself,

"oh, my god, is this gonna work?

"is he gonna get out the car and go walk to the corner

To see where I'm going?"

And then when I get to the phone booth and I call...

The cops-- they don't believe me.

I keep trying to stress to them on the phone--

It's a time limit.

I said, "I don't want him to get back there and, you know,

Hurt these other girls because he thinks I'm not coming back."

So, when the paddy wagon finally gets there

And they're, like, looking at me

Like I just completely lost my mind.

♪ ♪

My whole intent always was to make sure that I was free

And these girls were safe as well.

And now we are so close to being free that--

It's, like, so-- it's, like, right there

But you can't reach it.

- We just happened to be the first one on the scene,

And...

It was one bizarre story.

Josefina approached us, said she was held captive,

Chained up, beaten, raped repeatedly...

And that there was other females

Being held in the house.

I was a little skeptical.

I asked her, "are you a hooker?"

She said, "yes."

I said, "well, what's this all about?

You didn't get paid or something?"

And she said, "no, you really have to help me."

She was visibly shaken.

And she said, "he's gonna go back,

And he's gonna kill them girls."

- It was really a hectic 15 minutes.

I'm telling them the same exact story again,

And I'm telling them about the shackles.

And then the officer that was on the passenger side said,

"lift up your pants' leg," and I lift up my pants' leg,

And you can see the marks from the muffler clamps.

- There was obvious bruising where she was chained up.

With that, I knew that this is for real.

We're gonna go down and check it out.

If he's there, I'll call you down,

And you can identify him.

- They said, "you stay right here.

We're gonna send another officer."

[sirens wailing]

- We pulled up directly behind him

So that he couldn't pull out, he couldn't get away.

We placed him under arrest.

♪ ♪

- I go up to the paddy wagon.

They opened the doors, and it's him.

And he just had this look on his face like,

"I really should've got rid of this bitch

When I had a chance."

He was not a happy camper.

♪ ♪

- After taking gary into custody,

We transported josefina rivera to special victims

For further investigation.

- The 26th district officers

Had gone to east detective division

And the homicide division,

And they did not choose to investigate it.

But the 26th district officers were persistent,

And we were sort of the last people to come to.

My sergeant actually came to me,

And he told me with, you know, some question in his voice,

"this is a job that's come in.

I want you to interview this woman."

As bizarre as a story as it was, she was credible,

And I believed her.

♪ ♪

What really set in for me was that she kept asking,

"is someone gonna go back for the other women?"

♪ ♪

- Finally, I got their attention enough

For them to go and see what was going on.

♪ ♪

- The door was forced open,

And once inside, I noticed everything that made sound

Was turned full volume.

Tvs were blasting. Radios were blasting.

The heat was turned up to about 90 degrees.

[door creaks]

- I wake lisa up.

Like, "lisa, somebody upstairs.

You hear it?"

♪ ♪

The cops coming down the steps, I swear to god,

It was this black, black cop with pink lips.

I leaped over to him, like, to say,

"you the most 'beautifulest' thing in the world."

- I came down the steps.

I see these three women chained and shackled.

♪ ♪

- They were beat from the waist down.

They all had visible bruising, weeping wounds.

They were scared to death.

- They were naked,

Just exposed.

It was just...

I asked the officers to go get blankets

So they could be covered.

♪ ♪

The sight of those three women was horrible to me.

It makes me angry still, still.

[scoffs] believe it or not, but, yeah.

♪ ♪

[sirens wailing]

- Heidnik's house of horrors

Where he kept six women in chains in his basement.

- Captive women had been imprisoned

As long as four months

And fed dog food, bread, and water.

- Police say that they were led to heidnik's house by a woman

Who told them that she had escaped from the basement.

[dramatic music]

- All hell let loose,

And the police knocked in gary's door.

Everybody woke up to watch what was going on.

I was floored. I couldn't believe it.

And then all the noises, all the sounds

All came together

When you found out what actually happened.

♪ ♪

It was around 7:00 in the morning

When they finally brought the girls out of the house.

- And, like, the whole street

Was cheering for us,

So it kind of made me feel like,

"how are y'all cheering for us,

"and y'all didn't even know we was in the basement,

"and this man was doing what he was doing to us?

"how y'all not hear it?

Y'all live right next door to him."

♪ ♪

- The women were transported to episcopal hospital,

Where they were evaluated and treated.

- When I got to the hospital, I was only 46 pounds.

♪ ♪

I had to put the weight back on me.

I had to get my muscles back.

I had to learn how to walk again.

Like, I had so much work to do with these doctors,

And they had to help me,

'cause I was like a little bone

Walking around with skin slapped on them.

- I conducted the interviews of the women

At episcopal hospital,

And we went back and processed the scene.

♪ ♪

In the kitchen, we found...

Body parts in the freezer.

- It was about a 20-quart aluminum pot on the stove.

It had crusting around it.

And inside the oven,

There was what looked like a rib and a braid of hair.

Really shook me up a little bit,

And I became nauseous.

The whole story came together.

This guy was cooking a human body

In that kitchen.

Thank god we followed up on this.

If we didn't, you know,

Who knows what would've happened to these women?

You know, they--they most likely would've been dead.

- You think you'd see in a video movie,

And you hardly would ever expect

This to happen in real life, but, unfortunately, it has.

♪ ♪

- Gary's lawyer, chuck peruto,

Came by gary's house a couple times,

Checking out stuff for his case.

And I asked him, "mr. Peruto, what did you do to gary?

You made him look like manson. He looks crazy."

And he goes, "that's my whole thing."

- Peruto knew he wasn't gonna overwhelm

The facts of this case.

He'd have to do it through the insanity defense.

- The definition basically says,

"you don't know right from wrong."

So I knew it was a very uphill battle,

But the answers I was getting from him

Are the answers that I need.

♪ ♪

"were you ever hospitalized before for mental illness?"

"yes."

He was given full social security benefits

For mental illness,

That he was incapable of working.

That's how much they thought he was nuts.

♪ ♪

- He also trained as a psychiatric nurse,

So he knew all the symptoms to show mental illness.

And he used that to continue receiving his disability.

- And I was trying to find something that worked

That would make them shut up to stop hollering--

- Aggressive kind of

Infliction of pain on these women.

- I was trying to find something

That would make them behave.

- But it was painful to them. - I hope so.

I don't mean I hope so, but, I mean, yeah,

That's what I was trying to achieve,

You know, to make them behave.

♪ ♪

- The best case I could hope for

Was not guilty by reason of insanity.

That's almost unattainable.

I wanted to beat the death penalty, personally.

So I was hoping for third-degree murder.

♪ ♪

- In the state of pennsylvania,

You can only get the death penalty

If it's first-degree murder and you prove it.

♪ ♪

- When josefina testified at the preliminary hearing,

I saw an opening to convince the jury

On second- and third-degree murder.

Heidnik trusted her,

And he trusted her for a reason.

She did a good sell job on making him believe,

"hey, you've converted me. I'm with you."

And I wanted to use that against her in the trial.

♪ ♪

- And the trial went on for two weeks.

I was very concerned about the four surviving young ladies

Coming in and telling about these traumatic,

Horrendous acts that happened to them.

♪ ♪

- I tried to convince the jury

That she was in on it with heidnik

And she was feeding a sick mind,

That she was letting him know

What he was doing was proper, it was okay,

So it gave him that corroboration that he needed.

♪ ♪

I befriended the other three girls

Out in the hallway at city hall.

I got them to agree with me

That josefina is as bad as heidnik.

- It really baffled me, because I'm like,

"I risked my life to save yours.

And now you're trying to throw me under the bus?"

You know what I mean?

- In the juror interviews who later spoke,

They believed that josefina was more culpable

Than was presented,

But she wasn't the one on trial.

♪ ♪

- She wasn't charged with nothing that happened.

[camera shutters clicking, indistinct chatter]

- I wasn't as concerned about the proof that he was sane

Because I thought it was overwhelming.

♪ ♪

- Charlie called these witnesses.

They all testified against him.

They had no reason to believe,

They had no hint, they had no suspicion

That he was crazy.

Charlie gallagher presented that evidence

In a slow, methodical, and organized fashion.

"if this guy is so crazy,

"how was he able to negotiate the sale price of a cadillac?

"how was he able to call his own stock for purchases

And turn $20,000 into $680,000 almost overnight?"

- I actually disagree with jack apsche,

The psychologist on the defense team at the time of the trial.

♪ ♪

Don't really see gary heidnik being so psychotic

That he didn't know right from wrong.

♪ ♪

- I think the jury was out

For maybe two days on the verdict phase.

And then they were only out

For maybe 45 minutes to an hour,

And the jury handed down a death sentence.

After he was convicted in 1988,

He claimed he didn't want an appeal.

- He's the last person to be executed in pennsylvania

Because he wanted to be.

♪ ♪

- I wanted to watch the execution.

I was able to get in there and watched him die.

It didn't bring no closure.

♪ ♪

- I would've preferred for him to stay in jail

Because that would've been more of a suffering.

But there's never a day

That I actually feel like I'm really free from this.

I don't dwell on it every day,

But I have way more easier days than hard days now.

♪ ♪

We're gonna meet jackie today,

Who I haven't seen in 30-some years.

I don't know.

I have mixed emotions, I guess.

You know, I want it to all go well.

I hope I can put her mind at peace, at ease.

I just want her to be well. [chuckles]

♪ ♪

- At the end of the day,

Philadelphia made her a hero.

For who? For us?

No, she wasn't a hero for me.

I'm yet--after 30 years,

I'm yet to hear one apology-- just, "I'm sorry."

♪ ♪

She was the snake, lying on us.

She would tell him

That we doing certain things so he can beat us.

She was there so long to the point

That she started acting like him for real.

She killed debbie.

I don't think nobody had to die to get out of there.

I can't even tell you how I'ma feel when I see her.

I don't know if I'ma run up to her and start punching her.

I don't know if I'm gonna run up to her and hug her.

All I can tell you is that I'm willing to take this chance.

At the end of the day, this is not about me or her.

This story bigger than us.

♪ ♪

[grunts]

Oh, over there.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- We're gonna meet jackie today,

Who I haven't seen in 30-some years.

- After 30 years, I'm yet to hear one apology--

Just, "I'm sorry."

She had to tell this man all this stuff

For him to come at us.

He would beat us, beat us.

Why would she do this to us?

♪ ♪

- At the end of the day, it's not about me or her.

This story bigger than us.

♪ ♪

A lot happened since I last--

- I'm sure we gone through a whole lot of mess.

- Yes.

I ain't gonna lie, I did have some hate for you.

I blamed you for a lot of stuff that happened down there.

- I'm sure.

- My reason for being mad at you

Had a lot to do with that basement.

I didn't understand why--

A lot of stuff you did down there.

You telling heidnik we was yelling and screaming,

Making him beat us more and more.

That sh-- broke me down.

My body was so ----ed. - Yeah.

- But--and when we got out, they kept saying,

"but what about rivera? She's not on your side.

She was getting that lovey-dovey from gary heidnik."

- I don't know. I'm not upset about it.

- When they used to lie-- - because I knew--

What I needed to do, I did.

There's a lot of misinformation there.

I was only free, like, two or three days.

And after I was out of chains,

I know I purposely made sure I never came downstairs

So he wouldn't go to y'all--

- They was trying to tell me that rivera did it

Because she had no other choice.

And it was, like, an argument there.

And so I said, "well, would you like me

"to put you in a ----ing basement

And do you like he did us?"

And I put rivera down here with you.

And then you tell me if you got a damn choice.

"oh, well, rivera had to do that.

"she had to do it, but we gonna give her immunity

If she tell us everything."

I said, "well, if you give her immunity,

Then she could just tell you that she killed debbie."

- Right. Okay, so let's clarify this.

First of all, at no time did the district attorney's office

Ever press any kind of charges against me for anything.

There was no reason to give me immunity,

'cause I was a victim.

- I just didn't see it the way they seen it.

- Because no-- now, see, here's the thing.

None of y'all really knew what was going on.

Everybody kind of assumes.

Even when the police finally came down there,

Nobody even really knew that it was because

Of what my actions were.

After he got me to go with him to get agnes,

I told him I wanted to go see my family,

But he couldn't go with me, and that's how we got free.

They just made it like they just happened

To come to the house, and y'all were rescued.

- I just figured--you know how them people that say

That they been through something,

And they come out acting like

The person that victimized them?

- Right.

- That's what I thought happened.

- No.

But at no time did I ever think about leaving.

Right?

My whole plan was always to make sure y'all were safe,

I was safe, he couldn't get back to us.

- Mm-hmm. - So whatever appears,

It was just nothing more than that.

I'm surprised it even worked, but it did.

- It was meant to work. - Amen.

- And now I don't know if that plan with debbie

Would've worked. - Right.

- I think the one you did was the best one.

At the end of the day, we here.

- Yeah, we are. I'm glad to see you.

- Did you feel like you was gonna ever get out of there?

- Well, I think I said from the beginning,

I walked in there, and I was gonna walk out.

- I had a real hard time walking out.

- I know it.

- I was mentally and physically abusing myself

All over again... - Hmm.

'cause I was lost. - Mm.

You know, wherever your mind was

These last past years after being free

Doesn't even matter.

- I wish we could've said this 30 years ago.

- Right. - We should've been together.

- Together, yeah.

It would've probably made a lot of difference.

- Sometimes when we get in situations like this,

It's not an apology that's needed or to be said

To be accepted. - Exactly.

- And the person that should be apologizing to us is not here.

- Right.

- I really wanted him to see us now.

♪ ♪

- A horrific crime was solved.

Justice is done.

But there should have been justice

For the victims themselves.

And that's where the system fails too often.

- If gary heidnik's victims

Had been middle-class white women,

Everything would've been different.

I think there would've been more help for these women.

More organizations would've come forward to help them.

And absolutely, it would've been different.

- You got a monster off the street,

But what about the monster in their heads?

- I still think about it, you know.

I still think about josefina.

Months afterwards, I bumped into her on the street.

I was talking to her, and I asked how she was doing.

And she said she's getting by.

- In 1987, the resources and the organizations

Weren't there for those women.

Over time, that has changed.

- We talk so much about victims' rights,

But we don't do enough.

- Irrespective of how they got there,

They're still victims of the crime,

And society needs to see them as that.

- I learned something through my journey with this.

I'ma have to let it go, 'cause at the end of the day,

It's killing me to keep it there.

I got to let it go in order to live.

♪ ♪

- I was happy to see her,

Happy to see she's doing as well as she was doing.

My main objective was to put her mind at ease.

- Just being around her

Made it a more positive energy for me.

- If she calls me, I will always answer.

I think she should be able to move on,

'cause she does have some understanding.

- I just hope from this day forward,

Me and her can have a relationship,

Because we the only two know what we went through.

Maybe that's what we both missing out of our life--

Each other.

♪ ♪