Arthur John Shawcross

Arthur John Shawcross (born June 6, 1945 in Kittery , Maine , † November 10, 2008 in Albany , New York ) was an American serial killer who murdered at least 13 people between 1972 and 1990.

Crime series

On April 7, 1972, he strangled and sexually abused 10-year-old neighbor boy Jack Blake. His body was only found five months later. In September 1972, the body of missing 8-year-old Karen Ann Hill was discovered under a bridge. Witnesses testified that they saw Shawcross fishing with Blake on the day Blake disappeared, and neighbors watched him near the bridge the day Hill disappeared. He was arrested on October 3, 1972. However, since no evidence could be substantiated against Shawcross, the court decided to enter into a deal with him in which he should provide an exact description of Blake's murder. That deal gave him a reduced sentence in the Hill murder case. However, due to his testimony, the trial of Blake's murder was dropped. He was found guilty of the murder of Karen Ann Hill on trial and sentenced to 25 years in prison, from which he was released on April 28, 1987.

He then moved to Rochester , New York , where he married for the fourth time. There he abused, mutilated and strangled the eleven prostitutes Patricia Ives (25), Frances Brown (22), June Cicero (34), Darlene Trippi (32), Anna Marie Steffen (28), Dorothy Blackburn (27) between 1988 and 1990 , Kimberly Logan, June Stotts (30), Marie Welch (22), Elizabeth Gibson and Dorothy Keller (59), whose bodies he mostly deposited in or near the Genesee River . Ten of the victims were murdered in Monroe County, only Elizabeth Gibson in neighboring Wayne County.

Arrest and conviction

When the site of the last victim was monitored, as a psychological report was based on the assumption that the perpetrator would return to the crime scene, he was arrested at the site on January 3, 1990 after urinating in a nearby parking lot. According to his testimony, Shawcross saw himself as a different person during the murders. He pretended to be suffering from schizophrenic psychosis, but this could be refuted as he remembered his murders very well. He also stated that his experience in the Vietnam War resulted in a post-traumatic stress disorder . Shawcross also said he was sexually abused by his mother as a young boy and that she slept with him when he was 14. This made him a confused young man by his own account. His mother denied this.

Shawcross' allegations were exposed as lies by prosecutors and his defense did not pursue them. He was convicted of all ten Monroe County murders in November 1990 and sentenced to 250 years in prison. A few months later, he was sentenced to life in prison for the eleventh Wayne County murder. During his imprisonment, he also confessed that as a soldier in the Vietnam War he had murdered two young Vietnamese women and partly consumed them, but this could no longer be proven.

Shawcross died on 10 November 2008 at Albany Medical Center a cardiac arrest .

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personal data
SURNAME	Shawcross, Arthur John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	The Genesee River Killer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American serial killer
DATE OF BIRTH	June 6, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH	Kittery, Maine
DATE OF DEATH	November 10, 2008
Place of death	Albany, New York