All language subtitles for Monster Preacher (2021)

- 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.

♪ ♪