Gary M. Heidnik Episode 1: All The Gonorrhea

What happens when a man who claims he wants a family decides that the best way to build one is to kidnap women and keep them locked in his basement?

In this episode of Torture: A Dark History, Kevin Young and Dan Hourigan begin the horrifying story of Gary Michael Heidnik, a deeply disturbed man whose childhood, military career, mental illness, obsession with control, and bizarre attempt to create his own church all eventually lead toward something much darker.

We’ll follow Heidnik from his troubled childhood and time in the military to his years in psychiatric hospitals, his relationships with vulnerable women, and the creation of his United Church of the Ministers of God. We’ll also look at the increasingly disturbing behavior that surrounded him, including abuse, violence, sexual assault, and his obsession with having the large family he believed society had denied him.

Then we arrive at the house on North Marshall Street, where Heidnik’s twisted plans finally begin to take shape. On Thanksgiving Eve 1986, Josefina Rivera enters his home expecting a quick transaction. Instead, she becomes the first known victim in a horrifying series of kidnappings.

And that is where things get much, much worse.

Because in the basement, Heidnik has a pit, chains, shackles, and a plan to build the family he has always wanted. And Josefina is going to have to figure out how to survive long enough to escape.

And because this is Torture: A Dark History, Kevin and Dan bring their particularly uncomfortable dark humor to the first chapter of one of the most disturbing true crime stories Philadelphia has ever seen.

If you’re interested in Philadelphia true crime, serial killers, kidnapping, psychological torture, sexual violence, criminal psychology, cults, and some of the darkest crimes in American history, this is only the beginning of the nightmare.

Thank you to True Crime BnB for starting off the show!

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