Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Jim Chapman

Standing barely over five feet tall and weighing around 130 pounds, Donald Henry “Pee Wee” Gaskins looked nothing like the monster he was. Nicknamed for his small stature, the South Carolina native became one of the state’s most prolific and sadistic serial killers—known in some circles as the “Meanest Man in America” or the “Redneck Charles Manson.”

From the late 1960s into the mid-1970s, Gaskins distinguished between what he called his “coastal kills” (random hitchhikers and strangers he tortured for pleasure) and his “serious murders” (people he knew: friends, associates, and even family). Among the confirmed victims were his own 15-year-old niece, Janice Kirby, and her 17-year-old friend Patricia Ann Alsbrook, whom he beat to death. He also murdered pregnant Doreen Dempsey and her two-year-old daughter, among others whose bodies were later found buried in shallow graves near his property in Prospect, South Carolina.

Timestamps:
01:38 South Carolina’s Pee Wee Gaskins
05:36 Prison, Parole, and Early Killings
09:37 The Confirmed Victims Begin
19:05 Murders for Money and Silence
21:56 Kim Lyons and the Killings That Followed
26:13 The Graveyard and Gaskins’ Capture
28:28 Prison Murder Plot
33:59 Execution and Final Words

In this Halloween episode, Jim revisits haunted prisons and jails, discussing their histories and reports of unexplained voices, footsteps, apparitions, and other activity. We then recount several murders and deaths associated with Halloween, including both solved cases and unsolved killings.

Timestamps:
02:37 Yuma Territorial Prison’s Dark Cell
07:45 Charleston’s Infamous Old City Jail
13:09 Missouri’s Haunted Prison Walls
15:45 Butch Cassidy’s Wyoming Prison
18:00 West Virginia Penitentiary Hauntings
20:44 Dillinger’s Escape from Lake County Jail
29:32 Murders Committed on Halloween Night
29:48 A Halloween Night Killing in Napa
37:37 The Halloween Murders of the Griffin Family
38:38 An Unsolved Manhattan Halloween Killing

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Gary Mark Gilmore committed two cold-blooded murders by robbing Max Jensen, a young gas-station attendant and BYU student in Orem, ordered him to the floor, and shot him twice in the head—reportedly saying one bullet was “for me” and the other “for Nicole.” The next evening he did it again, killing motel manager Bennie Bushnell in Provo under nearly identical circumstances.

Timestamps:
04:58 A Family Built on Lies and Violence
11:12 Prison Becomes Gary’s Home
18:40 Two Young Fathers, Two Brutal Robberies
24:30 Conviction—and a Death Sentence
29:06 A Mother, the ACLU, and the Battle 
31:26 A Failed Suicide Pact and a Hunger Strike
33:11 Gilmore’s Final Night and Firing Squad Execution

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At Louisiana State Penitentary at Angola, 48 incarcerated fathers spent time with their sons through fishing, games, boat rides and conversation as part of an outreach program focusing on building stronger relationships between incarcerated fathers and sons, how did they do it, and what is the impact of an event like this?  Jim Chapman brings you behind the wire and onto a 400 acre lake in this episode.

Timestamps:
01:41 Angola’s Father-Son Fishing Day
03:25 Lake Killarney’s Storied Past
04:49 Reuniting Fathers and Sons
08:28 First Meetings and Family Stories 1
1:27 Incarceration’s Generational Impact
15:05 Fishing, Games, and New Memories
25:47 Rehabilitation Through Family Connection
31:46 Angola Cowboys Take the National Stage
34:23 Rodeo, Redemption, and Recognition
36:46 Camp 57 Repair Update

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Thomas Randolph called 911 on the night of May 8, 2008, from his Las Vegas home with a chilling story: he and his sixth wife, Sharon Causse, had just returned from a date when a masked intruder shot her in the head. Randolph claimed he then killed the intruder in self-defense. The dead man turned out to be Michael Miller, a handyman Randolph knew. Investigators quickly saw problems with the scene and the story.

Prosecutors later argued Randolph had hired Miller to kill Sharon so he could collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in life insurance, then shot Miller to eliminate the only witness and stage the whole thing as a heroic act of self-defense. It was a calculated double murder dressed up as a random home invasion. What made the case even darker was Randolph’s history. He had been married six times, and four of his wives were dead by the time he was arrested.

One earlier wife in Utah, Becky Gault, had also died from a gunshot wound in circumstances that raised suspicions; Randolph was tried and acquitted in that case years earlier. The pattern—marriages, insurance policies, and untimely deaths—earned him the nickname “the Black Widower.” The road to conviction was long and complicated. Randolph was found guilty in 2017 and sentenced to death, but the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the verdict because jurors had heard evidence from the earlier Utah case. At his 2023 retrial, with that prior-act evidence barred, a second jury still convicted him of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of first-degree murder. In 2024 he was sentenced to 60 years to life. He continues to maintain his innocence.

Timestamps:
02:06 Vegas Home Invasion
05:28 Early Marriages
09:50 Becky’s Death
14:05 Jailhouse Plot
14:43 Leona’s Marriage
15:44 Gayna’s Escape
19:03 Frances’s Mysterious Death
26:13 Sharon’s Murder
29:42 Conviction Overturned

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