445 | Down in a Hole: Gary Heidnik (Part 1 of 4)

Under the chilling shadow of Thanksgiving 1986, Josefina Rivera - a street-hardened survivor - descends from abduction into the depths of a serial killer's grim dungeon, a world away from the city's deceiving lights.

Gary Heidnik was an American serial killer and rapist who, between 1986 and 1987, kidnapped six women in Philadelphia, imprisoning them in a pit dug in his basement where he tortured, raped, and abused them; two of the women, Sandra Lindsay and Deborah Dudley, were murdered. Heidnik dismembered Lindsay’s body, stored parts as “dog food,” and killed Dudley by electrocution during a torture session, while the remaining captives were rescued in March 1987 after victim Josefina Rivera escaped and led police to the house. He was convicted of multiple counts of murder, kidnapping, rape, and related charges, sentenced to death, and executed by lethal injection in Pennsylvania on July 6, 1999, becoming one of the inspirations for the “Buffalo Bill” character in The Silence of the Lambs.

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