PEE WEE: Serial Killer or Homicidal Maniac: A Novelized True Crime Story Volume I :

By O. Grady Query

Pee Wee Gaskins killed without hesitation and apparently without remorse over and over again. He did so as he meandered in and out of maximum security prisons where he spent more than half of his life. Sentenced to reform school at age thirteen he honed his skills in the use of extreme violence. The horror of his crimes is played out agains

• Language: English
• Publisher: Go To Publish
• Release date: Nov 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781647494650

Book preview

Introduction

I first heard of Donald Henry Pee Wee Gaskins, also known as Junior Parrott, when I began representing a young man who was accused of murder as an associate of the soon-to-be notorious Pee Wee Gaskins. James Knoy Judy was charged with the murder of at least two people and was a suspect in the deaths of four other people. Six bodies had been found buried in shallow graves on what had once been Black Mingo Plantation located in the small farming community of Prospect, South Carolina. Prospect was little more than a crossroads with a country store that also contained the post office. Located in the Pee Dee area of South Carolina in the heart of the Tobacco Belt, it was defined by swamps, rivers, and rich farm land.

No one will ever know whether any version of the crimes committed by Pee Wee Gaskins is completely accurate because Gaskins was fascinated by duplicity and he included a little or a lot of it in everything he said. As his lawyer for many years, I’m convinced that the accounts described in the chapters of this book which provide the details of the different murders as told to me by Pee Wee Gaskins are probably the closest to the truth. Pee Wee told me these things, one on one, under circumstances in which there was little or no motivation for deceit. Gaskins no longer had any exposure to further penalties, and I was bound as his attorney to keep his confidence about anything he told me, unless he told me about a crime he intended to commit in the future. The descriptions related in these pages from our conversations are often fairly close to what he told officials in Florence, South Carolina, during debriefings when I was present and they are consistent with physical evidence and investigative findings. The glaring exceptions are the murders that he either left out of the debriefing or denied during that debriefing. He explained the differences between what he said to me and what he told officials in Florence, at least in part, as having been for his own protection in prison or for the safety of his family on the outside because of the racial aspects of many of the murders.

It is less clear why he chose to avoid the truth in his autobiography, especially since it was to be published posthumously. In the purported autobiography, he again avoided or minimized most of the racial connotations. I believe that he feared disclosure of the racial motives could bring retribution against members of his family. For whatever reason, there are other fabrications in that book.

An easily noticeable and irrefutable example of mendacity in the autobiography is his assertion that authorities were led to the bodies of his victims Barnwell Yates, Martha Ann Clyde Dicks, Kim Ghelkins, and Janice Kirby by his long-time accomplice and prison lover, the dull-witted Walter Neely. I was actually with Pee Wee when he led officers to the bodies of Janice Kirby, Barnwell Yates, Kim Ghelkins, and Martha Ann Dicks. This is not conjecture; I was there when he led police to the bodies and watched while a part of each of those bodies was unearthed with Pee Wee standing there in chains beside me. Further, as requested by Pee Wee, I guided investigators to the remains of Patricia Alsbrook, and I was present when her skeletal remains were identified at the bottom of an abandoned septic tank. Patricia Alsbrook is also identified in the autobiography as a body located with Walter’s assistance. The author who wrote the autobiography for Gaskins could not have known these statements were false, since he was relying entirely on Gaskins to tell him what had occurred.

I personally doubt much of the perversion and torture that Gaskins described in his autobiography. It is inconsistent with what I learned about him through the years whether from Gaskins or from those who lived with him and observed him. I was present when he told similar wild stories about mutilation, necrophilia, and cannibalism while under the influence of sodium amatol or truth serum when it was administered to him to confirm the truthfulness of his confession. Those stories were proven to be pure fabrication by officials who found that the victims Gaskins told them he had killed and tortured were still alive. Despite digging hundreds of holes officials never found graves or human remains at the locations he described during his ramblings while under the influence of the truth serum. I believe his coastal murders were contrivances that he intended as his final finger in the eye of law enforcement.

Nothing in my many years of experience with Donald Henry Pee Wee Gaskins ever led me to believe that he was not a cold-blooded killer nor did anything lead me to conclude that he was somehow the innocent victim of his upbringing, although it certainly contributed. Pee Wee was a killer apparently devoid of conscience. He even murdered a two-year-old child—but I doubt that he molested her. He repeatedly crossed moral and criminal lines in his use of women too young to consent to the sexual activities that he both promoted and in which he participated—but the rapes and infant molestation described in the book are not supported by any physical evidence and are entirely inconsistent.

They are in direct contradiction to anything he ever told me personally or anything described by the countless long-term associates (friends, enemies, relatives, victims, or law enforcement) whom I have interviewed or whose statements I have read.

As unbelievable as it sounds, Pee Wee was, as shown in the pages that follow, consistently protective of small children. In committing the heinous murder of little Michele Dempsey, he was driven by his lifetime obsession of preventing or punishing racial mixing. His belief that a racially mixed child was a social and moral abomination led him to believe that drowning the little girl would save her from a cruel life—a cruel life that was her mother’s fault. This rationalization for the murder is much more consistent than the sexually motivated murder described in Pee Wee’s book.

Pee Wee was extremely manipulative and possessed an above average, though macabre, intelligence. He consciously decided that the use of extreme violence and brutality and a disregard for human life would be the tools of his trade, and he used them to create an aura of invincibility within his little cult and within the walls of the maximum security penitentiaries where he spent most of his life.

One fascinating aspect of the examination of his life from which we might discern something about the workings of his mind is the illusion that he held about his own self-contrived code of behavior. His private ethics consisted of an intractable set of morals and personal philosophy, albeit it ever so deranged. This mental and emotional framework existed in a context void of conscience wherein he permitted himself the latitude to decide when the circumstances merited or justified violating the law or even the taking of a human life. At the same time he imposed rigorous standards for the behavior of others, taking great umbrage to profanity in the presence of children or women, and to drunkenness and drug abuse.

Donald Henry Pee Wee Gaskins understood and used brutal force and murder to accomplish his purpose of the moment. He did it without hesitation and without any apparent regret. These undeniable facts define him, and that will not be changed by any amount of scrutiny. Perhaps nothing that can be said or written will help us understand such a person, but it may be worthwhile to examine the details of his incredibly aberrant behavior that included his ability to rationalize cold-blooded murder again and again.

Gaskins Timeline

SECTION ONE

CHAPTER ONE

The Hatchling

Junior got into a fight every single day at school. It was not unusual for him to use a rock or knife to ensure victory. No amount of punishment or kindness from his teachers could alter t he course.

Junior was the child of Eulea Parrott, an unmarried woman, at a time when that was unacceptable and the term bastard had real meaning. Born at home in 1933 with the assistance of a Negro midwife, he was given the name Donald Henry Parrott, Jr. The family moved frequently as his mother struggled to keep her children in food and clothes. They lived in the neck, an area located in the swamps of the Lynches River in Florence County, South Carolina. Yielding to her son’s insistent queries about the identity and whereabouts of his father, Junior’s mother eventually told him that his father was a wealthy landowner and storekeeper named Gaskins from an adjacent community. From that day forward Junior began to use the name Gaskins for his surname and insisted that all others adopt his new identity. So adamant was he, that he became known as Donald Henry Gaskins, Jr. His insistence was such that it became a de facto name change and his name began to be reflected in the public records, mainly those of the criminal courts, as Donald Henry Gaskins, Jr.

More than once the home of one of his mother’s relatives was the family’s only refuge. In those homes, Pee Wee often caught the brunt of the patriarch’s anger against any or all of the other children. They once lived with one brother or cousin of his mother. Pee Wee never knew what the relationship was for certain, but he was told that he was to call him Uncle Earl. Under his roof, the anger turned to violence and then to brutality. When Earl’s own children were admonished and sent to bed or in the worst of circumstances, spanked for their misdeeds, Pee Wee was whipped and beaten with a razor strop or belt until angry welts rose up over his tiny back and skinny legs. As the slight but inconceivably tough little boy learned to bear up under those onslaughts, the powerfully built farmhand switched to plow traces, the thin reins used to guide the mule or horse when plowing. These hemp lines the size of an index finger when doubled or tripled and used for flogging, added a ragged cutting surface that made the welts red and angry and often tinged with blood.

CHAPTER TWO

Arrested

Junior Parrott’s mother became romantically involved with a sharecropper who worked on one of the big farms in what is known as the Pee Dee area of South Carolina. Cleburn Stallings was a good farmer respected for his hard work and mechanical knowledge around a farm. He had bought five acres for himself next to the big farm and lived on that property in a little four-room clapboard cabin. The tiny unpainted cabin was situated between the main tobacco fields and the river. Junior’s mother brought her young son with her to this new home.

The cabin didn’t have a real room for the boy, but there was a small storage room that had been added on. The add-on shed was made of rough planks that came from the first cuts and side trim cuts from logs when they were cut into boards at sawmills. One whole side or one or both of the edges was still covered with the bark from the tree. Because of the differences in shape and size of these crude boards, the fit was less than great and light shone through the many cracks. The roof was tin and the floor was dirt. When the small boy saw that the room was empty except for a few tools, he begged to be allowed to sleep there.

Why in the world would you want to sleep out there, boy? asked Stallings.

I ain’t never had a room of my own, the tiny boy answered. He was inches shorter and pounds lighter than other boys his age.

Won’t hurt anything, I guess, said the man to the mother of the boy. He’ll get tired of it in no time.

The gentle farmer couldn’t have been more wrong. The boy relished the privacy and was undaunted by the primitive aspects of the attached shed. It was bitter cold in the winter, and Junior would heat rocks on the pot-bellied stove before he ran outside and into the single door at night. He would pack the rocks between his quilts and lie against them. Spring and fall were comfortable except for the mosquitoes and other insects, but in summer it was actually the coolest part of the house. The mosquitoes however were still there. Most important to the little boy was that he learned that he could go and come as he wished.

From early years, the boy loved to go into the woods at night and just sit perfectly still and quiet and watch for animals moving about. After a few years he learned not only how to be absolutely quiet but also how to use different plants to rub on his skin to kill the smell of man. He also learned that some weeds and herbs when mashed together and rubbed on his skin would keep away the biting bugs. Another combination of herbs would seem to be a scent that animals didn’t notice. As he spent more time in the wild he learned to walk up within just a very few feet of the most skittish deer. He learned from an old hunter that smearing dirt soaked with the urine of a deer, whether doe or buck, on his shoes and clothes could cover his own smell. He tried boar, possum and raccoon urine, which were all very strong and he found that while it would allow him to get close to that particular animal, it frequently seemed to arouse the jitteriness of other species. As his skills improved he actually spent one whole night under the light of a full moon watching a young black bear sow birthing a cub and then cleaning it and teaching it how to find her teats for milk. He wasn’t more than twenty feet from them and remained so perfectly still that he went unnoticed. He slipped away at first light without disturbing mother and cub.

Most of the men that Eulea Parrott and her son, Junior, lived with and those that the young boy knew in his mother’s family or from the surrounding farms were hunters and fishermen, and he learned from each and every one of them. He learned everything available to him about the woods and the waters, as well as the fish and animals in them. He probably learned the most from Cleburn Stallings and from his stepfather. Each of those men enjoyed his enthusiasm for learning and took him with them frequently and taught him to shoot and to fish.

Young Gaskins spent any available time in the woods and swamps, if not with the adult men, then on his own. He loved building traps and trying different ways to set and bait them. He kept an abundance of rabbit, squirrel, coon and opossum on the table wherever he and his mother were living. From the time he was ten he was hunting every time someone would loan him a gun or take him hunting. He shot deer, turkey and wild hog to keep the smoke house full. He ran trotlines for catfish and caught some nearly as big as he was. He fished with cane poles for brim, redbreast, and crappie and amazed other fishermen when he was able to land a big bass on a hand line. He never found trouble in the woods. It seemed that mixing with people was where he always went wrong.

Just after Junior turned ten, Cleburn Stallings found the door to the little shed unlatched and Junior nowhere to be found.

Junior, I don’t like the idea of you being locked in your room every night, but it’s not safe for a youngster out there in the swamps at night. There’s wildcats, bears, gators, even one or two panthers out there, boy. You’d just be a tidbit for one of those big cats. Bears don’t hunt people, but you run up on one when it’s eatin’ or when it’s with a cub and there’s big trouble. So you need to keep to the house, and you and me will spend plenty of time in them woods huntin’.

The man didn’t understand that every day wasn’t enough time in the woods for the boy, and he had no way of knowing that the boy had seen every one of the animals he had cautioned the boy about from just a few feet away. Bored at night, the diminutive boy soon discovered a loose board at the corner of his rudimentary shelter. The opening was much too small for the boy to fit through. It was only a little larger than his head. But as the youngster twisted and turned to squeeze through the tiny hole, his shoulder suddenly popped out of its socket. The pain was excruciating, but he soon realized that he could now slither through the opening. Grabbing his upper arm he was able to snap the shoulder back into place with a similar amount of pain involved. He would use his newly found trick well throughout his life.

With his new freedom of movement, Junior expanded his horizons beyond his fascination with the woods and swamps. Walking one night to find a familiar access to the river’s edge, he passed a country store that had been closed for hours. He pried open a small window in the rear and pulled himself inside the store. He was frightened as he moved about in the dark store and he found the feeling exhilarating and addictive. Young Gaskins began to make the break-ins a part of his routine. He seldom took anything other than trinkets, reasoning that it was too well known that he had so little, that showing up with a new shirt or shoes would probably result in a visit from the sheriff. The excitement for him came from finding a way in and spending time inside without being caught. He worked on ways to attempt to disguise his entry and his exit so thoroughly that no one would even realize that he had invaded their space. He took candy or moon pies or other popular sugar snacks. The fact that these were never available to him gave disproportionate value to the small prizes.

Gaskins grew closer to his mentor and father figure, Stallings. Stallings did well with his farming and sharecropping and built a more proper farmhouse on his small farm. Junior doted on the man. He stopped breaking into places, feeling that it was a personal betrayal of the kindness. He continued and increased his forays into the wilds spending long hours in the woods and swamps, watching the wildlife and setting and checking his homemade traps. Mr. Cleburn, as Gaskins called him, provided a look at a life Gaskins had never known nor dared to dream of. Mr. Cleburn took him fishing and hunting, but he also took him with him when he was just working on the farms. Many days the stunted boy was at the man’s side from sun to sun in the summer.

The rest of the year he was up at dawn to help him milk and feed before leaving for school, and the boy was back to help with afternoon chores and milking after school.

In addition to all of the other things that Gaskins learned about the wilds, about farming and about hunting and fishing, he learned how to fix things. While most of the equipment Stallings used on his own farm was old and powered by horse or mule, there were still broken parts that had to be repaired or rebuilt. To the young boy, the talents of Stallings seemed unlimited. When a plow shear or a metal fastener or brace was broken on one of the old pieces of equipment, the quiet man would take the pieces and, with the boy in tow, head for the blacksmith shop. It was located in a little open shed with a roof and no sides. He would light his fire and bring it up to the desired heat using the bellows. The boy would be allowed to slowly turn the bellows to maintain the temperature while the metal was expertly heated. With tongs and hammer, the glowing metal would be beaten into shape on the anvil. Stallings would alternate heating the metal and then dipping it into water watching for the color change that would indicate that he was obtaining the desired hardness without it becoming brittle.

On the big farm, the sharecropper repaired the tractors, plows, mowers, planters, and combines that were pulled by powerful tractors instead of mules and horses, again with the small boy at his side. If all of the field equipment was operating properly, the corn grinder or the tobacco barns and other stationary equipment would always need attention. This never ending work and the constant variety were fascinating to the boy, and he was soon a reliable mechanic’s helper. He soon knew all of the tools by name and recognized wrench sizes by sight.

The men who hunted and fished the Pee Dee and Lynches Rivers of South Carolina soon began to know about the small boy who outshot most of the men with rifle or shotgun and who knew the secret fishing spots and the currents of the streams and rivers. Most of the deer hunting was done with dogs or from stands and the majority of the shots were close in at one hundred yards or less. With dogs the hunters waited at chosen spots where the deer were likely to break from cover. On the other hand when hunting from their stands, they waited, solitary, quiet and motionless, in stands built in trees or on stilts with camouflage. They patiently watched areas where deer frequently crossed or where corn had been left to attract them.

Young Gaskins preferred to hunt by stalking the deer, shooting them at long range with the big rifles. His patience and determination were his greatest assets as he would trail a deer all day in order to take a shot, often as long as three hundred yards. His deadly aim became the only asset that mattered. When Stallings bragged about the boy’s shots, the other men laughed at him for believing that the small boy could have made such a shot. Stallings backed up his belief with cash and placed a bet with the others. A corn pile was placed at the edge of the swamp and the men gathered four hundred yards out while the young boy half buried himself and disguised his location with brush at a distance of two hundred eighty yards from the spot. When the big 270 Remington rifle cracked sending echoes throughout the swamp, far across the wide field the unfortunate eight point buck jerked once, tried a step and went down from a perfect shot just above the shoulder. Stallings had admonished the boy not to attempt that difficult a shot but rather to go for a greater mass, but the brash youngster couldn’t resist. The others paid and the story spread.

On a wild hog hunt a big boar tore at the ground and slobbered over huge tusks as it crashed out of the underbrush to charge at the diminutive target standing firm against a small gum tree in the rutted path. To the shock of his mentor and the others who could see the drama unfold, the boy raised his rifle and steadied himself against the tree. Barely able to steady the big gun, even braced against the tree, he aligned front and rear sights directly on the snout of the huge beast as it steadied its own gaze and charged. The boy took a long breath and let out half of it as he squeezed the trigger. This time it was a powerful thirty-aught-six Weatherby rifle that bucked knocking the boy off balance so badly that he sat down squarely on his butt. By the time the retort of the explosion could register, the heavy slug had slammed into the brain of the boar. The hog dropped to its front knees still slashing right and left with the big tusks.

In the same instant, Stallings, who had stepped forward when he saw that the boy was not going to scramble up the tree and let the beast pass, bought some insurance with a thirty-thirty round from his old Winchester. It was clear, however that the big boar was down for good before Stallings shot.

I thought I told you to get up in the tree, he said to the boy, his tone devoid of any anger and instead brimming with pride. He had cut the throat of the ugly hog to let it bleed out, and the other men were tying the feet around a sturdy pole in order to carry it out.

I could see it in the brush thrashing around, and I wanted to get a clean shot when it broke clear, the boy rasped.

With that the man went straight back to the big boar and, using his hunting knife and pliers, he extracted one of the huge tusks.

This is yours, son. You earned it. Not many of these men have ever looked a big boar down and then made a clean shot with the ground starting to shake around them. Of those who have tried, some have run, others have pissed their pants and most have frozen and been saved by luck or good shots from men behind them. You keep that tusk, boy, for luck and as a mark of bravery.

Good thing you was there to shoot, Cleburn, said one of the hunters. otherwise that big hog woulda et that boy alive.

Hell, that hog was dead before I put my gun to my shoulder, growled Stallings. Boy made a perfect kill shot. I was just puttin’ another one in its brain for safety. You know, I’ve seen those big boars get back up after a square shot to the brain. Boy made the kill and that’s why I gave him the tusk. Maybe you boys’ll get your own someday.

Junior Parrott, as he was known to most, or Donald Gaskins, as he preferred, was the happiest that he had ever been. His Mr. Cleburn took him to rifle matches, turkey, boar, deer, dove, quail, and coon hunts. The boy always came out near the top as a shooter. He did his chores and asked for extra work and then headed to the woods to practice whenever he could. He shot mostly with a twenty-two rifle because the ammunition was cheap, but his mentor would let him shoot the heavy caliber rifles often enough to remain accustomed to the recoil and the loud explosion when the high powered cartridge detonated in the chamber.

School, however, still did not go well for Gaskins. He was first to head toward the fields on the days when absence was officially condoned. During that period South Carolina held to the notion that picking cotton or putting up tobacco in the fall or tending the young plants in the spring was more important than attending school. Thus attendance was waived when these important tasks were at hand. The Pee Dee depended on cotton and tobacco and the poor children, white and black, were a part of the machine that brought them to market. Gaskins actually did fairly well in his studies, preferring math and English, but it was in the interaction with other children that his problems arose. He was the smallest in his class, and for that matter the class behind him and every bully or wannabe bully had to have a go at him and each of them paid dearly for yielding to that temptation.

Gaskins responded to every assault without hesitation and never resorted to flight except to dash away for a few yards to confuse his attacker before turning back on him like a wild animal switching from flight to fight. Once the battle was joined whether against one or more than one, Gaskins would use his fists, his feet, his teeth, his fingernails, a stick, a rock, or a pocketknife to send his attackers away with no desire for a rematch.

Unfortunately for the pint-sized combatant his penchant for inflicting extreme pain or even permanent injury usually resulted in trouble with teachers and principals, despite the fact that his violence usually began as self-defense. School yard fights among members of his own age group usually resulted in scrapes or bruises or a bloody nose or black eye at worst. However when Gaskins was involved, cuts, stabbings and broken bones were frequently the outcome.

Gaskins ignored warnings and disciplinary actions. He believed that a second encounter with his antagonists, when he was outsized, outnumbered, or both would result in a confrontation with a better prepared adversary. For that reason, in the first altercation, he focused entirely on inflicting an injury sufficiently painful and frightening to dissuade his attackers from entertaining a second encounter.

The young boy, driven by fear and by the stubborn determination he had developed from taking beatings at home without any concession to the pain he endured, realized that he possessed a special ability to go into an almost hypnotic state in which he became virtually immune to pain and during which he was able to focus his entire being on the fight at hand. As a conflict began, his eyes would widen and his vision would seem to intensify. He would feel that he was seeing every move by his adversaries and actually felt that all movement went into slow motion allowing him to react, to block and parry or to go on the attack, almost impervious to the attempts of his attackers. Young ruffians were astonished as their blows went just wide or seemed to land harmlessly on their feinting and ducking target. He slipped punches, moving his head just enough for the fist to fly by or barely graze his head, and then followed with a punishing blow to the off balance assailant. That failing or if the adversary was too large he would deflect or elude oncoming blows and then counter with a bite, a disabling smash with a rock or even a quick stab or cut from a small but razor-sharp pocketknife.

Gaskins could sense the most basic fears of his targets once he had taken the offensive. Somehow he knew whether mere pain, the sight of their own blood or the fear of permanent maiming was the key that destroyed the will of his opponent. Boys who had been driven by brutality moments before were literally frozen with fear in the acceptance of the intense harm that Gaskins was willing to inflict and they would collapse much like a wild animal accepting the final grasp of a predator. The disadvantage of his strange trance when in a fight was that he seemed to lose any perspective of the danger of his actions, exposing his opponents to harm beyond even that which he intended.

When there was more than one attacker, Junior would always go to the knife or a weapon of some sort, delivering severe punishment from the beginning of the foray. When the first stab or cut brought a scream the remaining boys would often freeze in shock because of the sudden violence that was beyond anything they had intended. During that instant a second scream would rend the air as the small boy moved to a second combatant and delivered more pain and fear. In any fight he would bite, kick, punch and gouge until he had the advantage and then he would add something for his attacker to remember. When school officials suggested that it might be better for the boy to just concentrate on farm work, Cleburn Stallings kept insisting that he should be allowed to go to school and admonished the officials to concentrate their efforts on controlling the bullies. Gaskins cared little about school, but he was astonished by the first support he had ever felt from anyone other than his mother.

Unfortunately Stallings would die suddenly of a heart attack and that left the Parrott family again on their own.

After Stallings’ death, they would spend a short time at a family member’s house, either a brother or cousin of the mother. It was a home where they had stayed on other occasions when there were no other options. Finally they found a small living area attached to the back of a store and lived there in return for cleaning and doing laundry. Gaskins’ mother married not long after that move and they lived on his farm. Her new husband had two sons of his own, both of whom were younger than Junior. Junior had quit school after the death of Stallings and had very limited involvement with the two younger boys since they were still in school. The unfortunate association that he did have was that his new stepfather punished him with brutal beatings and often blamed and beat him for the misdeeds of the younger boys. The man did provide a home, food, and clothing. Eulea Parrott Hannah would have another son and a daughter as a result of that marriage.

At eleven and having now quit school altogether, Gaskins was so accomplished as a mechanic that he was able to get a part-time job at a little shade tree garage. Hired as a helper, jobs were soon turned entirely over to him and his earnings grew. On one occasion a regular customer returned to see the tiny boy practically buried under his hood.

What the hell’s that kid doin’ messin’ with my car, the man yelled at the garage owner.

Go watch him for a minute, John, that boy’s better than any mechanic I’ve had workin’ here in the last five years.

He ain’t big enough to turn a bolt even if he could figure out which one, the customer continued.

I’m tellin’ you, go take a look. He’s got the hand strength of a grown man but he can get those little hands in places you wouldn’t believe. I’m serious. Ask him what he’s doin’. Tell him it’s your car.

The boy was ecstatic as he explained that he had replaced the spark plugs, tuned the carburetor, but was not satisfied that the engine was running at its best.

If I was you I’d go ahead and put in a new coil, the boy said nonplussed by his own age and confident in his area under the hood. I’m sure the boss’ll let me set the timin’ if you put in the coil and she’ll be hummin’ like your mama’s Singer sewin’ machine.

The customer confirmed the diagnosis and the free adjustment and purchased the coil. When Gaskins was through the customer was thrilled with the result.

Ya’ll got yourself somethin’ there, he beamed to the owner.

While working at the garage Junior met two boys who had also dropped out of school. They were thirteen years old, and the younger boy was fascinated by their talk of girls and adventure. Unlike Junior, they had no jobs and weren’t looking. The boys were Danny and Marsh, and they soon invited young Gaskins to join them hanging around the country stores. His main attraction to them was no doubt his pocket money from the job at the garage.

It was from these boys that the nickname of Pee Wee first came into usage. Junior did not like the name but did not complain as he sought to curry favor with his newfound friends.

The older boys began to show Gaskins things they had stolen by breaking into stores, houses, and farm buildings. His recollection of the thrill of his excursions into country stores aroused his interest, and he told the boys about those adventures. The boys said they didn’t believe him but would give him a chance at a little store where they could hoist him up to a back window. The burglary was a success, and the boys got almost thirty dollars in cash and pockets full of candy. They next tried a service station where they found a hidden roll of bills that totaled almost seventy dollars. With all of that money Marsh had an idea.

Let’s go in to Florence. I know where there’s a whorehouse and we got enough money here to each get us some pussy, he told the others.

How the hell we gonna do that? Gaskins asked. We got no way to get there and we ain’t gonna get into no whorehouse—just three kids.

They don’t give a shit how old you are. If you got ten dollars you can get a screw, Marsh boasted.

Like you would know, Gaskins ragged him.

Hey, I been there. I’m tellin’ you, you little shitass. You don’t wanna go then stay here.

No, I’m goin’ if ya’ll are goin’, Gaskins said. I helped get that damn money and I’ll help spend it.

The boys walked miles to get to the railroad tracks where they climbed into an open boxcar as the train waited on a siding. They rode hidden inside until the car stopped in the big railyard in Florence. The boys then walked from the yard and eventually found the place that Marsh had talked about. It was near the railyard and one of several frequented by the railroad men who often had layovers in the sleepy southern town. There was nothing to give away the nature of the enterprise in the house or even to distinguish it from a residence or one of the many boarding houses. It was an old two-story white house. It was made of wooden planks that needed painting and everything generally looked old.

The three youngsters went up on the porch and Marsh knocked at the door. A middle-aged woman came to the door and told them to get off the porch. Marsh held up twenty dollars and she told him to come inside.

Either show me your money or get hell off my porch, the woman said to the two boys still standing on the porch.

Pee Wee Gaskins thought that he might rather just keep his ten dollars and go back home, but when his buddy held up his ten, he did the same. When they were escorted into the sort of living room, they didn’t see Marsh anywhere.

Well, now what do you boys want, the old woman laughed.

Uh, you know. We want to do ten dollars’ worth, Gaskins sort of mumbled to her.

All right, honey, as soon as she’s done with your little friend, I’m sure she’ll be glad to let ya’ll do ten dollars’ worth, she laughed out loud, shaking her head and looking at the boys.

When it was Pee Wee’s turn, this really grown-up woman came and told him to follow her. His misgivings increased each step as he followed her up old stairs to a room with two chairs and a bed. As soon as she had closed the door, the woman pulled her dress over her head and started taking off her brassiere. She laid her things on one of the chairs and then took off her panties and put them there as well.

Junior Gaskins just stood and watched literally with his mouth hanging open. He could only think: Wow, she has tits and big nipples and thick black hair at her crotch.

You want to take your clothes off or you gonna spend your time gaping? she asked.

I’ll do whatever you want me to, he said.

Honey, I don’t care what you do, but you paid your money. Now get your clothes off and tell me whether you want to be screwed or sucked.

He never did say, but she lay down on the bed pulled him on top of her and put him inside of her. It was wild for a few minutes, and then he came way before he wanted to. She got right up from the bed. Junior, completely overwhelmed by the moment, grabbed her as she was standing there and hugged her waist. She pushed him away, picked up her clothes, and started toward the door.

That’s all you paid for, sweetie, you come back when you want to spend another ten dollars, she said with what he thought was a real pretty smile.

Junior suspected that the others got the same result, but they said they gave her a real good screwin’. He thought maybe he would do that when he had another ten dollars. The pursuit of female favors would dominate the rest of Pee Wee’s life.

After that, the boys became more brazen. They started catching young boys and girls on the way home from school and taking their money. Sometimes they would make the girls get naked. Sometimes they would make them suck them, boys or girls. They told them that if they told anybody they would come back to kill them. Apparently the threats worked because nobody ever told until they were caught in the act. The boys called themselves the Trouble Trio.

Marsh or Danny had a sister who liked to hang around with the three boys. As nature would have it, she suddenly started to change from just one of the gang into a real girl. The boys would joke with her and pinch her titties, and she would laugh and try to hit them in the nuts. Finally though, they kept playing around and everybody started getting very excited. There was feeling and rubbing and show me and I’ll show you, and the boys became insistent that things go farther. The young girl, who was slightly older than Pee Wee but younger than Marsh and Danny dashed away from the boys, and ran into the barn. The trio chased her into the barn. At that point, she was still giggling as they pulled at her clothes and felt her breasts or her butt as they cornered her in a stall. The boys stripped off their overalls and the girl allowed them to undress her. Everyone was just rolling around naked.

The girl, however, became alarmed as the ardor of the boys increased and hands and young erections became more insistent. She yelled for them to quit when Marsh got on top of her and tried to screw her but things were way too far gone by then; she was raped first by him and then by the others. She was crying, and the three of them were holding her down when her mother came looking for her. It was obvious to the mother that the boys were gang-raping the young girl and that she was trying to get away.

After the assault, the girl’s father tied the boys up and beat them with plow lines until their backs and legs were raw and bleeding. The law was not brought into it. The girl’s parents decided that the embarrassment would cause even more harm for the young girl. It was a conclusion all too often reached in the rural south of those times. Danny and Marsh ran away from home after the beatings and Pee Wee seldom saw them again after that day, but the name Pee Wee stuck.

Pee Wee was a little past thirteen years old, and he began to think about girls almost all of the time. The little breasts that were beginning to show on many of the girls his age fascinated him, and a couple of the girls would laugh and play nitty grab. He also noticed the change in the shape of their legs and how their butts began to take on a pokey little apple shape. He became obsessed with trying to catch a little glimpse of thigh, which was difficult in that time of long skirts and crinolines that went well below the knees. For all of the violence that he showed toward the other boys, Gaskins was always polite to the girls, and they often told him that they felt safe with him because they knew that they would not be bothered when they were with him.

When he wasn’t working he would go to the woods or jump the train and go into Florence. He started doing burglaries almost weekly. For the first time he had a little money in his pocket from work and from taking what he could find in stores and peoples’ houses. He soon found a pawn shop in Florence that would buy silver and gold that he had stolen.

Everything changed when Gaskins broke into a big house on a Saturday. It had appeared that everyone was away from the house for the weekend, but a young woman came home while he was loading up some silver from a big cabinet in the dining room. She was older than Gaskins, but she recognized him from school. She was so angry that she ran out of the house and grabbed an axe from the woodpile and charged at the boy as he was leaving the house. Gaskins went crazy when he realized that she actually thought she could hit him with the axe. He took it away from her and hit her with it. He hit her on the arm with the blunt side, and the axe glanced off and hit her in the head. He wanted to hurt her and he wasn’t sure that he cared whether he killed her, but he did not hit her again.

A Florence County deputy named Barnes came to investigate and found a footprint in the mud. He knew about the connection between Gaskins and the Trouble Trio and had suspected Gaskins of breaking into several houses in the county, but he had never been able to pin any of the crimes on the small boy. This time he went to the house where Gaskins and his mother were living and brought a casting of the footprint. Since Junior only had one pair of shoes, it didn’t take the deputy long to make a match. He arrested Gaskins on the spot and took him to the hospital.

Deputy Barnes hadn’t put Gaskins in handcuffs; he just put the boy in the passenger seat of his car and drove over to the hospital. At the hospital he took Gaskins by one arm and half led and half dragged him along the halls of the place. Barnes turned into a room and, standing behind the boy, held Gaskins by his shoulders forcing him to face the girl with her bandaged head as she lay in her hospital bed.

This him? he said to her.

Yes, sir, that’s him, Deputy Barnes, she answered, and with that he jerked Gaskins back out of the room and hauled him along back to the car.

The deputy then began to explore the various burglaries that had gone unsolved and the similarities began to lead him to the same three boys each time. Barnes was even able to uncover the undisclosed evidence of one of the gang rapes.

Deputy Sheriff Barnes took Gaskins in front of the County Judge for Florence County after he had been in the Florence County Jail for a few days. He had been held in solitary lockup at the jail to keep the other prisoners from hurting him. The young criminal had to be protected because he was so small and because he had sexually attacked a young girl—a crime that could often bring retribution from the other prisoners in an ironic play on justice. Deputy Barnes told the judge that Gaskins’ actions were unprovoked and that it was a particularly brutal assault that would leave scars and could have killed the girl. Barnes said that Gaskins had often been violent at school and that he needed to be sent to reform school for as long as possible.

He also added, Puttin’ this boy up at the reform school for as long as possible would be best for everyone. If he’s around here, that girl’s daddy might just kill him. I can put this boy and his two cohorts in a handful of burglaries and at least one gang rape. He needs the maximum sentence, Your Honor.

Donald Henry Pee Wee Gaskins aka Junior Parrott was sentenced to the South Carolina Industrial School for Boys in Florence to be held there until he was eighteen years old. That was the maximum sentence for a juvenile.

CHAPTER THREE

Learning the Way

Thirteen years old and not as large as many eleven-year-olds, young Gaskins was not ready for the shock of reform school. Gaskins was accustomed to being the smallest person in his class and was experienced at dealing with school bullies, but nothing he had seen or done compared with the population of bullies and gangs that was to become his worl d in 1946.

The mornings came early; the reform school boys were rousted out of bed at four thirty. The newcomers dressed clumsily in the clothes they had just been issued the day before. Each boy received two pairs of socks and a pair of ankle-high lace-up brogans. The shoes were stiff as a new plow collar and sizing was not very precise. Since Gaskins wasn’t used to new shoes, he both liked and disliked the experience. Needless to say, blisters came on heavy as he struggled to break them in. While Junior was dressing that first morning, he noticed that his bib overalls sported a white stripe along the side seam from waist to ankle. He had seen the day before that the shirts were stenciled with the name of the reform school in two lines across the back.

The cuffs of his shirt touched the tips of his fingers, and the pants legs bunched around his ankles. This had been explained by the officer issuing the clothing.

You’ll be here plenty long enough to grow into them or for them to shrink to fit you.

The first month was spent in lockup where the boys were kept in their cells except for meals and individual exercise that consisted of a walk around the inside of the building. They were not allowed to talk to anyone but a guard. Junior’s first beating was for answering I’m from Prospect to a guard who asked where he was from.

Boy, you just got your first trip to the gate, the guard said, amused by the boy’s ignorance of the rules. Around here you say: ‘I’m from Prospect, Sir.’

The Gate was a building next to the back gate where the official whippings were given and where solitary was located. Young Gaskins was marched to that building and given two licks with a heavy leather strap about two inches wide and four feet long. The strap was wielded by a guard who had volunteered for the duty.

After a month in lockup the recent arrivals were assigned to wards according to age and sent to their ward designated as a newcomer. Beginning the day was not pleasant for newcomers. The first task was to empty the slop jars. These were white enamel buckets set next to the wall, one for every two double bunks for toilet emergencies during the night since the boys could not leave the ward. Newcomers gathered the buckets each morning and took them to the outdoor toilets known as outhouses where they were emptied. Water from a barrel was then poured into each slop jar so that it could be cleaned, dumped again in the outhouse, and then returned to the sleeping rooms. It was said that the older boys would hold back from using the toilets until after lights out to be sure there was something nice for the new boys in the mornings.

After being awakened by the ringing of the big central bell, which was echoed by the loud clanging of steel on steel from the triangle hanging near the building entrance, boys were all marched to the yard where several long-handled water pumps stood in front of trough like sinks that would each accommodate four boys at once. One boy would pump until everyone else had washed and brushed their teeth and then someone would pump for him to finish. This was all accomplished without a word being spoken. Next they returned to their building to put up toilet bags and then they were marched to breakfast. Some of the boys from the city were amazed by the long-handled pumps, having spent all of their lives with city water in their houses. Junior had lived in more places where a hand pump inside would have been a luxury. Most of the tenant houses he had lived in around the Neck had a well with a bucket, and if you wanted water inside you carried it inside.

After breakfast, everyone went to school for four hours. After class they were assembled in work groups and marched to their various chores. Each group was composed of a mixture of boys of various ages and sizes and the number and composition was apparently determined by the nature of the tasks to which the group was to be assigned. Each group had two of the school’s largest and oldest boys with it. These boys were called Chasers. Each of them carried a stick a little less than three feet long; through a hole near the top of the stick a leather thong was attached to form a loop that was worn over the wrist when the stick was held in one hand. Since the school was an operating farm and there were no fences except those intended for the cows, pigs and sheep. The chasers were responsible for running down anyone who decided to try to run away. It was well known that the stick would be utilized freely first to stop the escapee and then to remind the aberrant youngster of the stick’s purpose while he was being returned to the Office of the Superintendent.

On their first day, the newcomers were taken to a classroom where they were told the rules. There was to be no talking in lines or in classes. They were to be marched everywhere with their group, which could mean the boys from your building, your class, or your work group. Anything a boy was told by any guard, teacher, or any adult was a direct order, and trouble would come from disobeying any direct order. They were not allowed to speak during any time that they were being marched from place to place.

Soon Junior was assigned to a work group and instructed to follow a particular guard to his assignment. He was marched with eight others and two chasers to an area near the mess hall. A wagon drawn by two mules soon arrived, and the boys pushed off an entire wagon load of field peas.

Get on top of that pile, Gaskins, the guard grunted. You work your way to the ground. Until those peas are shelled you live on that pile. The guard then left and would be seen again only occasionally until the group was assembled for the evening meal and marched to the mess hall. The other boys with the group were not newcomers, and before his departure, the guard watched them go to their assigned tasks. Two of the boys began shucking corn while others started scrubbing potatoes, shelling limas, or washing greens. The chasers would take the full buckets of shelled, shucked, and scrubbed and empty them in big pots as needed.

Lunch was called dinner and was normally the big meal just as it had been in Prospect. The meals were country wholesome