Brian Berry

Case file

Donald ‘Pee Wee’ Gaskins: the Prospect graves, two death sentences and a bomb on death row

In December 1975 a search for a missing girl led investigators to graves in the woods near Donald Gaskins’s home in Florence County. Spared execution once when South Carolina’s death-penalty law fell, he killed a fellow prisoner on death row, and that killing sent him to the electric chair in 1991.

Hand-drawn portrait of Donald ‘Pee Wee’ Gaskins from the Bloody America coloring book
Donald Gaskins — a detail from the full page, drawn by hand.
  • Born1933 by most accounts, near Prospect, Florence County, South Carolina
  • Known as‘Pee Wee’, for his size: he was barely five feet tall
  • Convicted ofTen murders: nine from the 1970s, and the 1982 killing of a fellow prisoner on death row
  • ArrestedLate 1975, on a lesser charge linked to a missing teenager; murder charges followed after graves were found near Prospect in December 1975
  • SentencesDeath, May 1976, vacated after the state’s death-penalty law was struck down; ten life terms; death again, March 1983, for the prison killing
  • ClaimedMore than 100 killings, in the posthumous book Final Truth; never proved or charged
  • DiedExecuted in South Carolina’s electric chair, Columbia, 6 September 1991, aged 58

Donald Henry Gaskins, known all his life as “Pee Wee”, was a career criminal from the tobacco country of northeastern South Carolina who was convicted of ten murders. Nine of them were killings from the 1970s, uncovered after a search for a missing teenager led investigators in December 1975 to graves in the woods near his home at Prospect, in Florence County. The tenth was committed in prison. In September 1982, while he was serving life sentences, Gaskins killed a fellow inmate on death row at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia with a small homemade bomb, in a revenge killing arranged and paid for from outside the walls. For that killing a jury sentenced him to death in March 1983, and on 6 September 1991 he was executed in South Carolina’s electric chair.

The number of people he killed has never been settled. He was convicted of ten murders. At the time of his execution United Press International described him as the confessed killer of 13 people, while The State, the Columbia newspaper, reported that a statement he gave investigators in 1978 described 15 killings, and that he led the authorities to at least 13 buried bodies. Later, in a book published after his death, he claimed to have killed more than 100 people. Those larger claims were never proved, no one was charged over them, and investigators and even one of his own lawyers have said they do not believe them.

This account rests on federal court rulings in his appeals, contemporary reports by UPI, the St. Petersburg Times and Amnesty International, and later reporting and local histories listed at the end. Where they disagree, it says so. In line with this site’s rules, the people Gaskins killed, their families and his own family are not named, and neither is the prisoner he killed in 1982.

Prospect and an early record

Gaskins was born in 1933, by most accounts, near the Florence County community of Prospect; the sources differ on the exact date, and one gives 1931. He was barely five feet tall, according to the South Carolina Encyclopedia and South Carolina Public Radio, and his small build gave him the nickname he kept to the end of his life.

He was in trouble with the law from boyhood. As a teenager he was sent to reform school after a violent attack on a girl, according to the St. Petersburg Times and The State. His adult record, as the South Carolina Encyclopedia summarizes it, ran from petty theft and car theft to aggravated assault, and he spent much of his life before 1975 in prison. In 1964, both The State and the Lynches Lake Historical Society report, he escaped from custody in Florence County and was later recaptured.

1975: a missing girl and the graves near Prospect

The case that ended his freedom began with a disappearance. In 1975 a 13-year-old girl from North Charleston went missing, and investigators learned that she had been at Gaskins’s home. He was arrested on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, The State reported in 1991; Oxygen and the Lynches Lake Historical Society give the same account. While he was in jail on that charge, investigators found that several other missing people were either related to him or had known him.

A former associate of Gaskins led investigators to a burial ground in the woods near Prospect, according to the Folly Current and the Lynches Lake Historical Society. Digging began on 4 December 1975, The State reported, and several bodies were recovered within the first few days. The dead included criminal associates of his, women he knew and a small child, according to the South Carolina Encyclopedia, The State and the Folly Current. More remains were found elsewhere over the following year.

Gaskins was charged with murder in Florence County. How many counts he faced at first is reported differently: five, according to the South Carolina Encyclopedia, and eight, according to The State.

The first death sentence

In May 1976 a Florence County jury convicted Gaskins of one of those murders – that of a man whose body was among those found near Prospect, according to The State and the Folly Current – and he was sentenced to death. The South Carolina Encyclopedia dates the sentence to 28 May 1976. An associate of his was convicted in the same case, The State and Oxygen report.

The sentence did not stand. South Carolina’s death-penalty law at the time, passed in 1974, made death mandatory for certain murders. On 2 July 1976 the US Supreme Court struck down mandatory death statutes in North Carolina and Louisiana, and on 21 July, in a case called State v. Rumsey, the South Carolina Supreme Court held that the state’s own statute was unconstitutional for the same reason. Gaskins’s death sentence was vacated as a result, the federal appeals court that later heard his case recorded, and he was left facing life imprisonment instead. South Carolina passed a new death-penalty law in 1977.

Ten life sentences

In April 1977, The State reported, a second jury convicted Gaskins of killing a farmer and he received another life sentence, a couple of months before the new death-penalty law took effect. The Folly Current says that case, a killing for hire, was tried in Williamsburg County.

In 1978 he made a deal. Over four days that April, according to The State, he gave investigators a 331-page statement describing 15 killings. Under a plea bargain, the federal court record says, he pleaded guilty to several other murders, and he received further life sentences. When he killed again in 1982 he was serving ten life sentences, nine for murder and one for burglary, according to the federal appeals court and UPI; UPI’s report of his 1983 trial gave the tenth as armed robbery.

He served them at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia. Although he was no longer under sentence of death, he was held on the prison’s death row, where, according to the South Carolina Encyclopedia, he worked as a prisoner; the Folly Current says he had been put there for safety.

The killing on death row

Among the condemned men on the same cell block was a 24-year-old prisoner who had been condemned for the 1978 shotgun killing of a husband and wife who ran a small country store in Horry County, on the coast, according to UPI and The State. A stepson of the murdered couple wanted revenge. Through an acquaintance he was put in touch with Gaskins, the federal appeals court recorded, and Gaskins agreed to do it.

The plot was arranged by telephone. Gaskins made collect calls to the man who hired him, and some of the calls were recorded; prosecutors later played the tapes to the jury, according to the federal court, UPI and The State. Poison was tried first, and failed. Gaskins then turned to explosives: plastic explosive was smuggled into the prison, and he built it into a small device that the target was led to believe would let the two men talk between cells, the court and UPI reported.

On the afternoon of Sunday 12 September 1982 the device exploded in the prisoner’s cell. He was taken to the prison infirmary and died within minutes, UPI reported that evening; at first prison officials did not know what had caused the blast. According to trial testimony summarized by the federal appeals court, another inmate, who delivered meals on the block, had carried the device to the cell at Gaskins’s request. Gaskins denied having any part in the killing, according to the St. Petersburg Times and The State.

The trial and the second death sentence

Gaskins was tried for capital murder in Richland County, in Columbia. The case was prosecuted by Dick Harpootlian, then a deputy solicitor, who sought the death penalty; UPI, the St. Petersburg Times and The State all identify him as the prosecutor, and he has since written about the case. The jury convicted Gaskins and sentenced him to death in March 1983. The jury found two aggravating circumstances, the federal appeals court recorded: his prior murder convictions, and that the killing had been done for hire.

The St. Petersburg Times described Gaskins as an avowed racist who said he had killed the prisoner, who was black, partly because of his race; the federal appeals court noted that evidence of his racist views had been put before the jury. Gaskins was white.

The man who hired him pleaded guilty in May 1983 to conspiracy and received eight years in prison, according to UPI, Amnesty International and the St. Petersburg Times, and was released long before the end of that term.

Appeals

The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the conviction and the death sentence, and in 1985 the US Supreme Court declined to review them. In October 1990 the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected his federal habeas corpus petition, and on 3 June 1991 the Supreme Court again declined to hear the case, Justice Thurgood Marshall dissenting.

His execution was set for 1 a.m. on 6 September 1991. Amnesty International asked its members to appeal to Governor Carroll Campbell Jr. for clemency. A later study of South Carolina’s death penalty by the law professors John Blume and Lindsey Vann – Blume had argued Gaskins’s 1990 appeal – records that Gaskins himself chose not to ask the governor for a commutation. On 4 and 5 September the South Carolina Supreme Court and then the Fourth Circuit turned down his last petitions, and UPI reported that the US Supreme Court refused a stay, by eight votes to one, the day before the execution.

The execution

Hours before he was due to die, Gaskins cut his wrists and arms with a razor blade he had swallowed when he was moved to the death house the week before and later coughed up, UPI and the St. Petersburg Times reported. He was treated, with about 20 stitches, and the execution went ahead. He was put to death in the electric chair in Columbia – at the Broad River Correctional Institution, according to the St. Petersburg Times – shortly after 1 a.m. on Friday 6 September 1991, aged 58.

His execution was widely reported as the first in the United States of a white person for killing a black person since 1944, a point made by the St. Petersburg Times and, in narrower terms, by Amnesty International. Harpootlian called executing him for the prison killing “two for the price of one”, according to both UPI and the St. Petersburg Times.

The count he claimed

On death row Gaskins told his story to a writer, Wilton Earle, and the result was published after his death as Final Truth, a first-person account in Gaskins’s voice. In it he claimed far more killings than he was ever charged with: roughly 100, in the South Carolina Encyclopedia’s summary, and more than 100 according to South Carolina Public Radio, Oxygen and the Lynches Lake Historical Society, many of them hitchhikers he said he had picked up along the coast of the Carolinas.

Those claims are his own and remain unproved. Oxygen reports that the authorities have questioned his totals, and the Lynches Lake Historical Society calls the claims unverified and notes how often Gaskins lied. Grady Query, a lawyer who worked on his appeals, told the Folly Current that Gaskins had admitted at least 20 killings to investigators and later put the figure at more than 50 in conversation with him, but that he regarded the book’s coastal murders as inventions meant to taunt the police. Gaskins himself later disowned parts of his 1978 confession, saying it had been obtained by trickery or coercion, according to The State and the federal appeals court.

The prosecutor who sent him to the electric chair has since told the story from his side. In 2025 Harpootlian and the journalist Shaun Assael published Dig Me a Grave, an account of the case, Fox Carolina and CrimeReads reported.

Where the sources disagree

  • His date of birth: the South Carolina Encyclopedia gives 31 March 1933; the Lynches Lake Historical Society 3 March 1933; South Carolina Public Radio gives 1931, and Amnesty International described him as 60 in August 1991. UPI and The State give his age at death as 58, which fits 1933.
  • The first murder charges: the South Carolina Encyclopedia says he was first charged with five murders in Florence County; The State (1991) says eight.
  • How the first death sentence ended: the Fourth Circuit says it was vacated when the state Supreme Court struck down the statute; the South Carolina Encyclopedia says the convictions were overturned in 1976 and replaced with life sentences; the St. Petersburg Times calls it a commutation; The State (1991) and Oxygen credit the US Supreme Court.
  • The 1978 confession: The State (1991) says it ran to 331 pages and described 15 killings; the passages read to the 1983 jury, the Fourth Circuit says, admitted seven other murders; the Lynches Lake Historical Society says he confessed partway through a trial to secure a deal.
  • The life sentences: the Fourth Circuit and UPI (1991) say ten, nine for murder and one for burglary; UPI (1983) says nine for murder and one for armed robbery; the Lynches Lake Historical Society mentions eight.
  • How many he confessed to: UPI and the St. Petersburg Times (1991) say 13; The State and Oxygen say his 1978 statement described 15.
  • The bomb: UPI (1991), the St. Petersburg Times and Amnesty International say a bomb disguised as a radio; the Fourth Circuit a speaker built into a plastic cup; UPI (1983) and Oxygen an intercom; the Folly Current a walkie-talkie.
  • The man who hired him: Amnesty International and the St. Petersburg Times call him the victims’ son, the Fourth Circuit and The State a stepson, the Folly Current an adopted son. On his time in prison, the St. Petersburg Times says he was released after six months, Amnesty International and The State after less than three years.
  • The date of the 1983 sentence: the South Carolina Encyclopedia says he was convicted and sentenced on 24 March 1983; Amnesty International says he was sentenced on 26 March.
  • His last words: the St. Petersburg Times says he made no statement in the death chamber but left a written one; Oxygen and the Folly Current give different final words. This account does not quote any of them.
  • The racial “first”: the St. Petersburg Times says no white person had been executed in the United States for killing a black person since 1944, and none in South Carolina since 1880; Amnesty International says he was the first under the death-penalty laws then in force; the Lynches Lake Historical Society says he was the first person in South Carolina executed for killing a black man.
  • Final Truth: the South Carolina Encyclopedia dates it to 1992 (Atlanta: Adept); the Lynches Lake Historical Society to 1993. The encyclopedia spells the co-author’s first name both Wilton and Winton.

The portrait

The portrait above is a detail of Gaskins’s page in Bloody America, the coloring book that gives one killer to each state; he is its South Carolina page.

If you find an error in this account, write to hello@truecrimeart.com and it will be corrected.

Questions people ask

How many people did Pee Wee Gaskins kill?

He was convicted of ten murders: nine from the 1970s, and the 1982 killing of a fellow prisoner on death row. UPI reported in 1991 that he had confessed to 13 killings, and The State that his 1978 statement described 15. In Final Truth, published after his death, he claimed more than 100, but those claims were never proved or charged, and investigators and one of his own lawyers doubted them.

Why was Donald Gaskins called Pee Wee?

Because of his size. He was barely five feet tall and slightly built, according to the South Carolina Encyclopedia, and the nickname stayed with him all his life.

Why was his first death sentence overturned?

He was sentenced to death in May 1976 under South Carolina’s 1974 law, which made death mandatory for certain murders. In July 1976, after the US Supreme Court struck down mandatory death statutes, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the state’s law unconstitutional, and Gaskins’s death sentence was vacated. He then received life sentences.

Who did Pee Wee Gaskins kill in prison?

In September 1982 he killed a 24-year-old fellow inmate on death row at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, a man condemned for the 1978 murder of a couple who ran a country store. A relative of the murdered couple hired Gaskins, who used a small bomb disguised as a radio or intercom. He was sentenced to death for that killing in March 1983.

When and how was Pee Wee Gaskins executed?

He was executed in South Carolina’s electric chair in Columbia shortly after 1 a.m. on 6 September 1991, aged 58, hours after cutting his wrists with a hidden razor blade.

Is the book Final Truth true?

Final Truth is Gaskins’s own account, written with Wilton Earle and published after his execution. Its claims of more than 100 killings have never been verified; no charges followed from them, and Gaskins’s appeals lawyer Grady Query told the Folly Current he considered the coastal murders it describes to be inventions.

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Sources

Every date and name on this page was checked against at least two of the following. Where they disagree, the disagreement is stated in the text rather than resolved silently.

  1. Gaskins v. McKellar, 916 F.2d 941US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 15 October 1990
  2. Gaskins v. McKellar, 500 U.S. 961 (certiorari denied)US Supreme Court, 3 June 1991 (Legal Information Institute, Cornell)
  3. Gaskins v. Evatt, 943 F.2d 49US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 5 September 1991
  4. State v. Rumsey, 267 S.C. 236, 226 S.E.2d 894Supreme Court of South Carolina, 21 July 1976 (South Carolina Bar)
  5. A death row convict in South Carolina’s Central Correctional…United Press International, 12 September 1982
  6. Prison-bound man ‘at peace’ with revenge killingUnited Press International, 22 June 1983
  7. Urgent Action: Donald Gaskins (AMR 51/33/91)Amnesty International, 30 August 1991
  8. Further information: Donald Gaskins (AMR 51/35/91)Amnesty International, 9 September 1991
  9. Killer executed hours after slashing wristsUnited Press International, 6 September 1991
  10. White inmate executed for murder of black manSt. Petersburg Times, 8 September 1991
  11. Pee Wee Gaskins: Prospect’s Notorious Serial Killer (reproducing The State, 1 September 1991 and 10 November 2015)Johnsonville SC History
  12. 40 years ago, infamous SC killer ‘Pee Wee’ Gaskins slayed last victim — a fellow prisonerThe State (Sarah Ellis), via AOL, 24 September 2022
  13. Gaskins, Donald HenrySouth Carolina Encyclopedia (Hugh Munn), University of South Carolina, 17 May 2016, updated 4 August 2022
  14. G is for Gaskins, Donald HenrySouth Carolina Public Radio, South Carolina from A to Z, 11 November 2021
  15. Folly Beach lawyer recalls defending Pee Wee Gaskins, South Carolina’s most notorious serial killerFolly Current (Jenny Peterson), 7 October 2019
  16. Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins Is One of the South’s Most Prolific Serial KillersOxygen (Jill Sederstrom), 9 May 2024
  17. Pee Wee Gaskins: The Prospect of a Wee ManLynches Lake Historical Society & Museum, 9 December 2024
  18. Forty Years of Death: The Past, Present, and Future of the Death Penalty in South CarolinaJohn H. Blume and Lindsey S. Vann, Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy, 2016 (SC House Oversight Committee copy)
  19. SC attorney Dick Harpootlian to release book on serial killer ‘Pee Wee’ GaskinsFox Carolina (Anisa Snipes), 28 April 2025
  20. How an opponent of capital punishment put a serial killer on death rowCrimeReads (excerpt from Dig Me a Grave, Dick Harpootlian and Shaun Assael), 16 December 2025

The facts on this page come from public records and the published sources above. If you find an error, write to hello@truecrimeart.com and it will be corrected.

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