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World's Most Evil Killers S05E05 Arthur Shawcross
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CreativityTranscript
00:04On the 27th of October 1989, the body of a woman was found covered in cardboard
00:11and hidden under a bush behind the Maplewood YMCA in Rochester, New York.
00:18She was the fourth woman to be discovered in a tiny area by the banks of the Genesee River.
00:24Women didn't want to go out alone at night at this point in time.
00:29There was a real sense of fear.
00:32The killer was 44-year-old Arthur Shawcross, a tall, imposing outsider
00:38whose deadly deeds had started over 15 years before,
00:43100 miles north in the small city of Watertown.
00:47He would not have stopped himself for any reason,
00:49and he didn't think of victims as people.
00:53It was business, business as usual.
00:56That was his attitude.
00:58Back in October 1972, Shawcross had confessed to killing two young children
01:05and was convicted of manslaughter.
01:08He offered no defense for him.
01:09I mean, totally unemotional, totally unconcerned with anything that was going on.
01:16Remorseless Arthur Shawcross once again started targeting innocent victims
01:21after he was released from prison,
01:24beginning a killing spree that would see the deaths of 11 women,
01:28making him one of the world's most evil killers.
01:55On the 3rd of January 1990,
01:58detectives made a breakthrough in their hunt for a serial killer terrorizing the streets of Rochester.
02:05Senior investigator John McCaffrey spotted the perpetrator from a helicopter he was using to locate the missing bodies.
02:14Some people will say, well, you got lucky with the helicopter.
02:19Not really.
02:20We were doing good police work.
02:24John and Rochester police captain Lynd Johnston tirelessly worked the case together
02:30in order to bring the killer to justice.
02:33When you don't work together, the bad guy wins, and that's totally unacceptable.
02:38After he was apprehended, Arthur Shawcross went on trial, accused of 11 homicides.
02:44If convicted, the man later dubbed the Genesee River killer would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
02:53The case is exceptional simply because this is all in one place, all at once, all in one short period
02:59of time.
03:00It's that relentlessness that makes it exceptional.
03:09This killer's story begins in Kittery, Maine, on the 6th of June, 1945.
03:16Arthur Shawcross, also known as Art, was born to Mother Betty and Father Arthur Senior.
03:23His father was a corporal, and quite shortly after he was born,
03:28he and his mother moved to Watertown in New York State.
03:34His father wasn't around a lot, so he lacked the classic father figure.
03:40Shawcross said that he had been sexually abused, first he said, by his aunt,
03:46and then it was his mother, and then he added his sister,
03:49all of whom said that didn't happen.
03:52And in fact, the aunt's name, he didn't even get right.
03:59The young Shawcross was labelled a loner at school.
04:03He was nicknamed as Oddie because he was regarded as so strange and difficult.
04:09And in a way, I think he took pleasure from that.
04:13I think he enjoyed being separate.
04:16He liked being the loner.
04:18There was also cruelty to animals in his childhood.
04:21So here's somebody who enjoys the suffering of others,
04:25and the fact that this is present in his childhood is very alarming indeed.
04:31Throughout his teens,
04:33Shawcross's violent and unruly behaviour marked him out as different.
04:39He never graduated from school up there.
04:41He was arrested for arsons and burglaries,
04:45and, you know, he did some other time,
04:47and then he ended up getting married.
04:53At the age of 19, Shawcross married his first wife, Sarah.
04:59When I look at Shawcross's relationships with women,
05:02it's very clear to me that he's somebody who sees women
05:06as serving a purpose for him.
05:08So he doesn't see women as people to have mutual,
05:12respectful relationships with.
05:13They're there to serve a purpose.
05:15So Shawcross is a misogynist.
05:18That is his value system,
05:20and that informs so much of his behaviour.
05:23His child is born in 65,
05:26and he gets caught again,
05:28no master criminal,
05:29for second-degree burglary,
05:31and gets six months of probation.
05:33He's got all sorts of odd jobs.
05:35He's digging graves, he's labouring,
05:38he's an apprentice butcher.
05:39He is the proverbial square peg in a round hole.
05:43He doesn't fit in very much anywhere.
05:46By August 1966,
05:48after just two years of marriage,
05:51Shawcross and Sarah separated.
05:53His wife eventually asked for a divorce,
05:56not necessarily because of his unfaithfulness,
05:59though that was persistent,
06:00but more because he kept getting jobs
06:02and then losing them,
06:03and being laid off,
06:04and not having anything to go...
06:05He was just literally an unstable personality.
06:09But we're talking about the middle 60s.
06:11America is at war in Vietnam,
06:13and everybody is being drafted.
06:17On the 7th of April, 1967,
06:20at the age of 22,
06:22Arthur Shawcross was drafted
06:24into the American military.
06:31Just five months later,
06:33unstable Shawcross married his second wife, Linda.
06:37He spent the first year of their marriage in Vietnam.
06:41He claimed he was subjected to Agent Orange,
06:45that he had killed almost three dozen people,
06:48that he had been part of the massacre of a village.
06:51He had killed some prostitutes
06:53and cannibalized them and all that.
06:55And then it turned out
06:57that much of what he had described
06:59had come from novels about Vietnam
07:01and from a movie.
07:03Well, the truth of the matter was,
07:05he was the supply clerk in Vietnam.
07:07He saw no combat.
07:09He was the one that stayed back in the supply room.
07:14He never saw combat.
07:16In the spring of 1969,
07:20Shawcross received an honorable discharge
07:22from the army.
07:23The fantasies he created in Vietnam
07:27now started to manifest as dangerous behaviors
07:30back home in the U.S.
07:35When he had come back to Watertown
07:38after the military,
07:39he had been arrested for burglary.
07:41He was an arsonist.
07:43His wife left him.
07:46Over the next three years,
07:48volatile Shawcross served time for burglary,
07:52divorced Linda,
07:53and married Penny, his third wife.
07:55Then, in 1972,
07:58Shawcross's dark desires
08:00suddenly took a more sinister turn.
08:03On the 7th of May,
08:05a young boy called Jack Blake went missing.
08:08He lived near the river in Watertown,
08:11and he was a typical 10-year-old.
08:13I think he went down near the creek
08:14and probably throwing stones in
08:16and maybe even fishing,
08:18and that's where he ran across Art.
08:22And Art was fishing,
08:23and the assumption of the investigators
08:26was that the 10-year-old was annoying to him.
08:29He claims that the kid kept following him.
08:31He told him,
08:32go home, don't follow him.
08:33He said he finally got angry with him
08:35and hit him once
08:36with his right hand right between the eyes
08:38and said he just left him there.
08:40Jack was reported missing,
08:42so they did the search,
08:44couldn't find the body,
08:45and Art was somewhat of a suspect
08:48because he was known to fish in the area.
08:54Shawcross was questioned.
08:55He didn't know,
08:56but the police didn't much care for Shawcross
08:59because he was known to harass the kids,
09:02and sometimes he liked to step leaves
09:04down their pants,
09:05which, you know, has sexual connotations,
09:08so they kind of kept denying him
09:10as a potential pedophile.
09:13He just denied it.
09:14He just denied any involvement,
09:16and they didn't have enough to arrest him.
09:19Then four months later,
09:22another child disappeared.
09:23In September 1972,
09:26an eight-year-old girl called Karen Ann Hill
09:29goes missing when she's playing outside.
09:32Again, no one really knows what's happened.
09:35She's literally disappeared from the front yard.
09:39It would be less than 24 hours
09:41before her lifeless body was located.
09:47Tragically, the following day,
09:49the police find Karen's body.
09:53She's been raped.
09:55She's been strangled.
09:57Mud and grass has been shoved into her mouth.
10:01It's a horrifying killing,
10:02and you have to say,
10:04whoever committed it
10:06has to be the most depraved of minds.
10:10The fact that Karen Ann Hill is a girl
10:12is really significant here,
10:14and I think that tells us something
10:17about the difference
10:17between the murder of Jack
10:19and the murder of Karen Ann.
10:21When you're putting dirt and twigs
10:23and debris in there,
10:24you want to demean them and humiliate them,
10:27and I think that's what he's trying to achieve here.
10:33Once again, 26-year-old Arthur Shawcross
10:37was brought in for questioning.
10:39The police immediately suspected Shawcross
10:42in the murder of Karen Ann Hill
10:44because he'd been linked
10:45to the disappearance of Jack earlier,
10:48and a member of the public
10:50had seen Karen close to a bicycle
10:53which matched the description
10:54of one that Shawcross owned.
10:56Now, Shawcross's innate cunning
10:59comes into play
11:00because he realizes
11:01he's got to be a prime suspect.
11:04So he does a deal with the police.
11:07He says, okay, I'll admit
11:10to killing Karen Ann Hill,
11:12but I'll also take you
11:14to the remains of Jack Blake,
11:16which are now, I'm afraid, skeletonized.
11:19And he does that to lessen the charges.
11:23With little physical evidence
11:25to connect him to either crime,
11:27detectives couldn't guarantee
11:29and guarantee a murder conviction
11:30when the case went to trial.
11:33So on the 17th of October, 1972,
11:37Shawcross pled guilty to manslaughter
11:40for the killing of Karen Ann Hill.
11:42He was not indicted with Jack's killing.
11:45So this sends out a message to Shawcross
11:48that actually he's the one that's in control.
11:51He's the one that has power.
11:52And even though he's about to go down
11:54for a lengthy prison sentence,
11:56he feels on top of the world
11:58because he feels that he's the one
12:00who's pulling the strings here.
12:04Arthur Shawcross was given
12:05an indeterminate sentence
12:07with a maximum term of 25 years.
12:10However, less than 15 years later,
12:15Shawcross would be free once more
12:17and searching for new ways
12:19to satisfy his deadly urges.
12:34In 1987, Arthur Shawcross
12:37was serving a sentence
12:38of up to 25 years
12:40for the killing of 8-year-old
12:42Karen Ann Hill
12:43in Watertown, New York.
12:46Despite also confessing
12:48to being responsible
12:49for the death of 10-year-old Jack Blake,
12:52a plea deal meant
12:53that he was never convicted
12:54of Jack's murder.
12:56On April the 30th,
12:59Shawcross once again demonstrated
13:01that he knew how to play the system
13:03when he was released
13:05after serving just 14 and a half years.
13:14The reason he got out on parole
13:17is that he had met a woman
13:19by the name of Rose Wally
13:20while he was in prison
13:22and they became pen pals.
13:24And one of the ways you get paroled
13:27is not only being a model prisoner,
13:29but you have to have somebody
13:30in the community
13:31to find you a job
13:32and someplace to live.
13:34So she provided that to him.
13:37So he has this all set up
13:39for when he gets out.
13:40She's going to provide him
13:41with a veneer of respectability.
13:42But it doesn't quite work out that way initially
13:45because in the town that they moved to,
13:48people get to know about his past.
13:5541-year-old Shawcross
13:57initially settled in the city of Binghampton
14:01in upstate New York.
14:02Basically, the people in the community,
14:04once they found out that a person
14:06who had killed two children were in the area,
14:08they chased him out of the area, really.
14:10And they relocated him to another town.
14:13That town did that.
14:14This is a child killer.
14:16Even today, I have to pinch myself
14:18to think that you do allow a child killer out
14:20after only 14 and a half years
14:22to resume, quote,
14:23it's a normal life.
14:25After being run out of two different towns,
14:29Shawcross found anonymity
14:30in the bustling city of Rochester,
14:33115 miles north.
14:35It's a little larger city,
14:37so you're not as well known.
14:38I mean, some of the small towns,
14:40everybody knows everybody.
14:42Rochester's a little bigger.
14:43You'd probably just blend in a little more.
14:51Shawcross found a job
14:52preparing food on the night shift
14:55at a company called G&G Cheese.
14:58And in his free time,
15:00he trolls around looking for prostitutes.
15:03He also, at this point,
15:05has a mistress,
15:06a woman named Clara.
15:08Clara Neal worked
15:10at a local nursing home
15:11where Shawcross would often visit her.
15:14She's 56
15:15and has had 10 children.
15:18He's 42.
15:20But nevertheless,
15:21he strikes up a relationship with her.
15:24It wasn't blissful.
15:25I mean, they argued and fought,
15:27and he would leave and come back,
15:29and she would throw him out.
15:30But it was a kind of stable relationship.
15:34So he's figured out that if he wants to kill again,
15:38he's going to have to change his approach.
15:41He wants easy victims.
15:43Kids were easy,
15:44but they drew a lot of attention.
15:46He'll shift his victim type.
15:48We call that situational
15:51rather than preferential.
15:54Things remained quiet for over a year.
15:57Then, on the 24th of March, 1988,
16:01the body of a woman was found.
16:03Detective Lind was a captain
16:05with nearby Rochester police at the time.
16:09Dorothy Blackburn was found in Salmon Creek
16:11out in Northampton Park.
16:13She was thrown into the water there
16:16by a little culvert or bridge.
16:17Dorothy was last seen nine days earlier.
16:22Her disappearance was out of character,
16:24and her worried sister had reported her missing.
16:28The post-mortem examination
16:30on the 27-year-old's body
16:32revealed that she'd been strangled
16:34and her genitals had been bitten.
16:37Her murder would remain unsolved for over a year.
16:41For a time, things go quiet.
16:44Shawcross has various problems.
16:46He has sexual problems in particular,
16:49but other things get in the way.
16:51His on-off relationship with Clara comes and goes.
16:54For me, I believe he was profoundly unsettled
16:59and was simply a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.
17:04On September the 11th, 1988,
17:08another body was discovered.
17:10When we first found Anna Stephan,
17:13we really didn't even know who she was.
17:15She was a skeleton.
17:16It appeared that she'd been hidden.
17:19Roofing shingles, brush put over her.
17:22Her tank top was around her wrist,
17:24and the pants she was wearing
17:25was down around where the ankle was.
17:3127-year-old mother of two, Anna Stephan,
17:35had been arrested in July, 1988, for prostitution.
17:39She was pregnant at the time and had lost contact with her family.
17:44No one reported her missing.
17:47Anna has also been strangled and attacked
17:50and dumped in the Genesee River Gorge,
17:52but her body isn't discovered for several months.
17:55We took the skull to a forensic pathologist
17:58down in Syracuse, New York,
18:00and he was able to do a reconstruction of a skull.
18:04We then photographed it and had it put in the paper,
18:06and we got a call from her father who identified her.
18:12I think it was difficult in the beginning
18:14because he's targeting a population who are quite transient.
18:17Sex workers move around a lot.
18:20Very often, they will go off the radar for weeks or months,
18:23and that's not necessarily because they've been murdered.
18:25It's because they're in a different part of the country.
18:27The police had very, very little to go on.
18:30No fingerprints, no fingernail scrapings, no semen.
18:34And it's impossible to know
18:35whether they were each individually raped
18:37before they were killed.
18:39But certainly, there's no clear evidence.
18:44You would look at all the types of activity
18:46that happened at those crime scenes.
18:48Was he covering them up?
18:50Was he mutilating them?
18:52And then you'd start trying to prioritize all your tips.
18:55And then they found another one or two bodies,
18:58and some of the bodies had been mutilated.
19:01So by the time they got to the third and fourth body
19:03over the next few months,
19:05there were a lot of common denominators and similarities.
19:13On the 27th of October, 1989,
19:17Captain Lynn Johnston was called to the murder
19:20of another sex worker in Maplewood, Rochester,
19:26as that of 25-year-old Patricia Ives.
19:30When you stood at the scene of Patricia Ives
19:34and you looked to your left,
19:36and just down over the hill,
19:37where the body of Anna Stephan was found.
19:40Then if you looked north
19:41and you went down to Seth Green Island,
19:44there was another body they found.
19:46So there was a tight bunch of them, right,
19:49all in the same area.
19:50Those were areas that fishermen frequented.
19:53They were brushy so that bodies could be hidden.
19:57There'd be building materials from the river
20:00that would have washed up to the shore
20:01so he could cover the bodies up
20:03with those building materials.
20:05They weren't the places that the average person went to.
20:09And I got really nervous about that point,
20:12that there was certainly something
20:14very unique going on here.
20:16In just over a year and a half,
20:19detectives had found four bodies,
20:21concealed, mutilated,
20:24and all within half a mile of each other.
20:29The police, to their credit,
20:31decide that they must alert the community of sex workers
20:34that they are in danger.
20:36And so in the autumn of 1989,
20:39if you work as a sex worker in Rochester,
20:42it must have been a very frightening time.
20:46And then we, for lack of a better word,
20:48we made what we call a war room.
20:50And what we did was we hung their photographs up
20:53because we want to remember who the victim is.
20:55You know, a lot of people don't care
20:57because they're a prostitute.
20:58Well, they're people.
20:59And they have mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers.
21:02So we believed he was right down in that area
21:05of Lyle Avenue or West Main Street,
21:07all these areas where the prostitution activity took place.
21:12And we just needed to find them.
21:14This is a time when police investigations
21:17are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
21:19They're drawing on a lot of different techniques.
21:21And I think that was the key thing in this case.
21:24It was the range of different evidence that was used.
21:27We had certainly surveillance teams out,
21:30people on roofs with binoculars.
21:33Every traffic ticket was looked at.
21:35Every parking ticket was looked at.
21:37Footbeats were put down there, extra patrols,
21:39and a lot of other covert activities that we did,
21:43which I won't discuss because we might use them again.
21:47As part of the investigation,
21:50field interviews were conducted
21:52with some of the sex workers on Lyle Avenue.
21:56Detectives were informed a guy called Mitch,
21:59who worked at G&G Cheese,
22:01was often seen talking to women in the area.
22:04The unfortunate part there was when the police went there,
22:08they talked to management that worked during the day.
22:11Shawcross worked at night,
22:13and they really weren't connected to him.
22:15We've now got multiple victims
22:18within a very small area of upstate New York.
22:22who were being killed relentlessly.
22:24Now the full weight of the police are brought to bear.
22:29It is a full-scale manhunt.
22:32And every day that we didn't find this person,
22:35somebody else might die.
22:36So there was a lot of internal pressure on ourselves.
22:39We put it on ourselves.
22:44As more bodies were found
22:46along the banks of the Genesee River,
22:48and women continued to disappear from the streets,
22:52Rochester detectives combined forces
22:54with the New York State Police
22:56and threw everything they had
22:58at catching the mysterious killer,
23:01knowing it wouldn't be too long
23:02before he struck again.
23:16In the fall of 1989,
23:19Rochester detectives were on the hunt
23:22for a serial killer,
23:23terrorizing the streets of Rochester, New York.
23:26On the 11th of November,
23:29another body was found
23:31matching the killer's M.O.
23:33With five bodies now linked to the case,
23:36New York State Police were drafted in
23:39to support the investigation.
23:41Captain John McCaffrey
23:43coordinated the joint operation.
23:49We had done several investigations together,
23:52and it wasn't until the end of 1989
23:56when the Rochester Police Department
23:58thought there was a strong possibility
24:00that the unknown killer
24:02would start to deposit the bodies
24:04outside of their jurisdiction.
24:06So they invited the New York State Police in.
24:09In the wake of these brutal killings,
24:12detectives became concerned
24:14that the perpetrator's behavior
24:16would continue to escalate.
24:18In October, late October 1989,
24:22a young woman called June Stott went missing,
24:25and her body was found months later
24:28in November 1989.
24:3630-year-old June had mild learning difficulties.
24:40She was found along the banks of the Genesee River
24:43at Turning Point Park.
24:45But this time, it was much worse.
24:48He has eviscerated June's body,
24:51cut it from sternum to pubic bone,
24:54removed some of the body parts
24:56in what's known locally as a deer hunter's cut.
24:59June was somebody Arthur Shawcross knew.
25:02They were on friendly terms.
25:04So when he targeted her,
25:06this is quite an interesting turn of events.
25:08He is targeting women who are available to him,
25:12not just because they're sex workers,
25:14but because they're in his social circle.
25:17June's start is probably the,
25:20they're all tragic,
25:21but there really was a sad scene
25:23because she was a young girl,
25:26not a prostitute at all.
25:27I remember walking down the path
25:30with some of the other investigators
25:31and we're just thinking,
25:33what's he going to do next?
25:35As well as the mutilation
25:37and concealment of the bodies,
25:39another pattern had emerged
25:41linking all the victims.
25:43So we came up with a list
25:45of all these different categories
25:47that we wanted to start comparing.
25:49And then we're finding that most of them
25:51were found either in creeks or near water.
25:54The exception to that
25:55was a lady by the name of Elizabeth Gibson,
25:57whose body was found out
25:59in an apple orchard in Wayne County.
26:04With concern mounting
26:06for the safety of women across the city,
26:09an FBI profiler was brought on board.
26:12So during the 1980s,
26:14the concept of behavioral profiling
26:16became very prominent.
26:17Looking at what we could see
26:19from a crime scene
26:21that would tell us about
26:22the personality of the killer.
26:24If we could have somebody else come in
26:26and just look at the cases
26:29to make sure we didn't miss anything,
26:31maybe offer some suggestions.
26:33This is long before the full weight
26:35of the behavioral science unit
26:37has grown into what we now recognize
26:39on television programs.
26:41This is the early days of profiling.
26:44But nevertheless,
26:45the FBI do come up
26:46with a preliminary profile.
26:49A lone middle-aged man, 30s,
26:52they believed he was a menial-type worker,
26:55just the kind of guy
26:56that would be on the assembly line
26:58or just some menial job.
27:00He drives a lot,
27:01which turned out to be the truth.
27:03He frequents the river area
27:05because he liked the fish.
27:06He was all around water.
27:08He was familiar with the river gorge,
27:10certainly, because of the fishing.
27:11He was capable of a relationship
27:13with a female.
27:14The relationships would be unstable,
27:17and certainly it was.
27:18Possibly he would be sexually dysfunctional,
27:21which he was,
27:21and he had a potential
27:23to return to the scene.
27:25Shawcross was not educated.
27:26He was not a good-looking guy.
27:28He was overweight.
27:30He was just a person out there
27:32that took advantage of the girls
27:34by befriending them,
27:35providing them with some food
27:37and using that to get close to them.
27:44By late December,
27:46detectives had linked
27:47seven bodies to the killer,
27:49and a further three women
27:51were thought to be missing.
27:52We're talking about
27:54a relentless spate of killings
27:55within a six-month period,
27:57preying on vulnerable women.
27:59There is no real explanation for it.
28:01He not only started escalating
28:03by the mutilation,
28:04his frequency of abducting
28:07and killing them escalated,
28:09and that's what really
28:10concerned everybody.
28:12Then, on New Year's Eve 1989,
28:15a uniformed trooper
28:17was handed a vital piece of evidence.
28:20It was a winter day.
28:21I was working in the office,
28:23and I received a call
28:25from the trooper,
28:25and he said that passing motorists
28:28had just located a pair of boots
28:30on a snow-covered highway
28:32in Northampton Park.
28:34So he went there,
28:36and in the field,
28:37he found a pair of blue jeans,
28:40and lo and behold,
28:41in the blue jeans,
28:43in the rear pocket,
28:45was a birth certificate
28:46of a young lady
28:48by the name of Felicia Stevens.
28:5220-year-old Felicia Stevens
28:54was a sex worker
28:56in the Lyle Avenue area
28:58of Rochester.
28:59Her jeans were found
29:0113 1⁄2 miles west
29:03in Northampton Park.
29:05So I immediately called
29:06the crime analysis unit
29:08with the RPD
29:09that was working this case,
29:11and I said to the investigator,
29:13is Felicia Stevens
29:15a missing person?
29:16Is she a subject
29:17of your investigation?
29:18And we got people
29:20over to her mother's house,
29:21and she indicated
29:23she hadn't seen her
29:24since December the 26th.
29:26And she hadn't lived
29:27with mom
29:28because they had
29:28a big falling out
29:29because of drugs
29:30and her being a prostitute.
29:32So at that point,
29:33we assumed
29:34that it's connected
29:35to the case,
29:36and the state police
29:37started our own
29:38missing persons investigation.
29:40So all the agencies
29:42all got together
29:43and formed a massive search
29:44out in that area,
29:46bringing in the horses
29:47so you could see higher,
29:48canine dogs,
29:50troopers and city police
29:51walking the lines together,
29:53trying to find her.
29:55As the ground search
29:56got underway,
29:58John and the New York State Police
30:00took to the skies.
30:02We have our own helicopter,
30:03and it was based in Rochester.
30:05So we immediately
30:07put the helicopter
30:08in the air,
30:09and for three days,
30:11we flew that area
30:12searching for the body.
30:14And I told the pilots,
30:15I says,
30:16let's fly from
30:17Northampton Park
30:18back to where
30:20Felicia Stevens
30:21was last seen
30:22or would have been working
30:23on Lyle Avenue.
30:25That is Route 31,
30:27and the distance
30:28from Northampton Park
30:29back to the city
30:29is probably 12 or 15 miles.
30:32So as we left
30:34Northampton Park
30:35in the helicopter,
30:36we were only probably
30:37two minutes into the flight.
30:39As we were flying over
30:40Salmon Creek,
30:41underneath the bridge,
30:43frozen in the ice,
30:45was a body.
30:48John had a hunch
30:49this was a victim
30:50of the Genesee River killer.
30:53But that wasn't
30:54his only discovery.
30:57Now, on top of the bridge
30:58was this gray celebrity,
31:00and the passenger door
31:02was open,
31:02and this guy was actually
31:04urinating
31:05out of the passenger side.
31:07And as we flew over
31:08with the helicopter,
31:09he slid over
31:10into the driver's seat
31:11and proceeded
31:12in an easterly direction
31:14towards the village
31:15of Spencerport.
31:16We had discussed
31:18with the profilers before.
31:20These guys like
31:21to come back to the scene.
31:22Of course, we didn't know
31:22who the body was yet,
31:23but we had a list
31:25of potentials.
31:26My immediate assumption
31:27was that,
31:29because this was
31:29the first time
31:30that the state police
31:31had used the helicopter
31:32in the investigation,
31:34that possibly this person
31:35came back
31:36to relocate the body.
31:38So we couldn't find it
31:39because it was
31:40so easily seen.
31:43John immediately
31:44scrambled troopers
31:46from Rochester
31:47to Northampton
31:48as he continued
31:49to follow the gray
31:50celebrity car
31:51from the air.
31:53He pulled into
31:54the rear parking lot
31:55of a nursing home,
31:56and we hovered.
31:57I had radioed
31:58for a uniformed trooper
32:00to come to the location,
32:02and as the person
32:03got out of the car,
32:04they just walked
32:05into the nursing home
32:06in the back door.
32:08With a potential suspect
32:10in sight,
32:11John waited for news
32:13from forces on the ground
32:14as the state trooper
32:16entered the nursing home.
32:17The trooper radioed
32:19and told me
32:20that the person
32:20that he was interviewing
32:21was Arthur Shawcross,
32:23and the first questions
32:25any uniformed trooper
32:26usually asks is,
32:28can I see your license
32:29and registration?
32:30And Art told him,
32:32well, I don't really
32:33have a driver's license.
32:34I'm on parole.
32:39It didn't take long
32:41for investigators
32:42to learn that the man
32:43they had in front of them,
32:4544-year-old Arthur Shawcross,
32:47had killed two children
32:49in Watertown
32:50in the 1970s.
32:53This obvious red flag
32:55set alarm bells ringing
32:56for John and the team,
32:57who were hopeful
32:58this was the Genesee River killer
33:00in their grasp at last.
33:02Now all they needed to do
33:04was to prove it.
33:19On January the 3rd, 1990,
33:22just three days
33:23into the new year,
33:25senior investigator
33:26John McCaffrey
33:28spotted a potential suspect
33:30in the Genesee River killings,
33:3244-year-old Arthur Shawcross.
33:35As New York State troopers
33:37conducted an initial interview
33:39with Shawcross,
33:40the forensics team got to work
33:42identifying the body
33:44under the bridge.
33:51It was when we were on the ground
33:53that we discovered
33:54that the body underneath the bridge
33:56was not that of Felicia Stevens,
33:58but of another missing prostitute
34:01by the name of June Cicero.
34:0334-year-old June Cicero
34:06had been missing
34:07since the 17th of December.
34:10Now the unique thing
34:11about June Cicero was
34:12she was kind of known
34:13as the queen bee
34:15of the prostitutes.
34:16She kind of controlled
34:18the whole area.
34:19Whatever corner
34:20she wanted to work on,
34:21the rest of the prostitutes
34:22would let her work there
34:23because she was mean
34:24and aggressive.
34:28June's body had been cut
34:30to the bone
34:31on both sides of her crotch
34:32and the killer
34:34had tried to remove
34:35her sex organs.
34:36I think for Shawcross
34:37she represented
34:38a bit of a challenge, actually.
34:40She is the kind of woman
34:41that he really despises.
34:43So I think this one
34:44was quite seminal, really.
34:46The fact that he'd gone back
34:48to the site,
34:50was that evidence
34:51of him taking pleasure
34:53in his trophies,
34:54thinking,
34:55what a clever boy I am?
34:56It's difficult not to think
34:58there might have been
34:59an element of that in it.
35:01Whilst talking
35:02to state troopers,
35:04Arthur Shawcross claimed
35:05he knew nothing
35:06about the body
35:07under the bridge.
35:08He said that he had
35:10to urinate
35:10and he had a bottle
35:12and he was starting
35:13to pee in the bottle
35:14and the copter came
35:15so he put the cap back on,
35:17swung around
35:18and just drove down
35:20to where Claire Neal
35:21was working.
35:22Said, I don't know
35:23why they're following me
35:24because all those
35:25they're doing
35:25is taking a pee
35:26on the bridge.
35:28Shawcross remained cool,
35:30shrugging off
35:30the initial suspicions
35:32of detectives.
35:33I think he thought
35:34he could kind of
35:35bluff his way out,
35:36you know,
35:37just cooperate
35:38and not talk of anything
35:39of any real substance.
35:41The more he talked,
35:43the more viable
35:44of a suspect he became.
35:45We provided him
35:47with a lunch
35:47actually took him
35:48to a restaurant
35:49and bought him dinner
35:51and all this time
35:52he was talking to us.
35:54Unbeknownst to him,
35:55he was providing us
35:57a lot of significant information.
36:00That evening,
36:01investigators conducted
36:02a preliminary search
36:04of Shawcross's apartment.
36:06We found under the sink
36:08these handy wipe,
36:09dusting type of material
36:11that was found
36:12at the scene
36:13of June Stott
36:13and also at
36:14the Dorothy Keeler scene.
36:16And overnight,
36:17we contacted the company
36:19in Ohio,
36:20the manufacturer,
36:21and they told us
36:22that the only place
36:22in Rochester
36:23that has them
36:24was G&G Cheese
36:25and that's the place
36:26he worked.
36:27Detectives knew
36:28if they were
36:29to corner their man,
36:30they needed to conclusively
36:32link Shawcross
36:33to his victims.
36:36Lind and the team
36:37went back
36:37over their old field interviews
36:39to see if anyone
36:41would be able
36:41to identify the killer.
36:44One woman,
36:45another sex worker
36:46called Joanne Van Nostrum,
36:48provided just that.
36:50So Joanne Van Nostrum
36:52said she saw
36:53this person
36:54in this car
36:55that went across
36:57the bridge
36:58with Elizabeth Gibson
36:59in the car.
37:0129-year-old
37:02Elizabeth Gibson's body
37:04had been found
37:05amongst some trees
37:06in neighboring Wayne County
37:08five weeks earlier.
37:10Elizabeth Gibson
37:11was taken out
37:12to a vacant field
37:13with a small stream
37:14and strangled.
37:16When we finally knew
37:17who Arthur was
37:18and we got a hold
37:19of Van Nostrum again,
37:20she was able
37:21to identify his picture.
37:24Now they had
37:25a positive identification
37:27of Shawcross,
37:28the investigation
37:29was really starting
37:30to come together.
37:32But the search team
37:33meticulously going
37:35through the car
37:35that Shawcross
37:36was found driving
37:37had also made
37:38excellent progress.
37:40In the car
37:41there was an earring
37:42and that earring
37:43belonged to June Cicero
37:45and the other one
37:47was on her body.
37:48And forensically,
37:49I believe they found
37:50some fibers that matched
37:51from the towel
37:52or the blanket
37:53that was in the back
37:54of the trunk of the car.
37:55There was just a variety
37:57of good physical evidence
37:59that linked him
38:00to these crimes.
38:03The following morning
38:04on the 4th of January,
38:061990, 44-year-old Shawcross
38:09was officially arrested.
38:11So we took him
38:13to Rochester Police Department
38:14headquarters,
38:15put him in an interview room
38:17and we had two teams
38:18of investigators,
38:20state police and RPD,
38:22teamed up
38:22and they started
38:24talking to Art.
38:25What for me
38:26was the most striking moment
38:27of the entire case
38:29was when he was arrested
38:30and the period after that.
38:32He was very calm.
38:33He was emotionless
38:34about it.
38:35The turning point
38:36was they asked him,
38:37is your girlfriend
38:38Claire and Neil
38:39involved in killing
38:40the girls?
38:41And he emphatically says,
38:43no, Claire is not involved.
38:46Well, you have to tell us
38:47or we're going to think
38:49that Claire is involved.
38:51He said, no,
38:51Claire has nothing
38:52to do with this.
38:53It was me.
38:59After an investigation
39:01lasting nearly two years,
39:03thousands of hours
39:04in manpower
39:05and many sleepless nights,
39:07the Genesee River killer
39:09had been caught at last.
39:12But with women still missing,
39:15detectives needed Shawcross
39:16to start cooperating.
39:18They had all the photographs
39:20of the victims
39:21and they put the photographs
39:23on the table
39:24and Art picked
39:26the photographs up
39:27and it was like
39:28a deck of cards.
39:29He says, I killed her,
39:31this is so-and-so
39:32and he admits
39:33to ten homicides.
39:35But every one of these,
39:37it was always their fault.
39:38They did something
39:39that made him die,
39:40broke the gearshift
39:41of his car,
39:42tried to take his wallet,
39:44bit him.
39:45It was always somebody else's
39:46fault instead of his.
39:48Although he admitted him,
39:49I don't think he ever
39:50took full responsibility
39:51for why he did them.
39:54Arthur Shawcross agreed
39:56to assist the police
39:57with their remaining inquiries.
40:00After his confession,
40:01he said he wanted
40:03to take the police
40:04to recover the bodies
40:05of a couple
40:06that we haven't even found yet.
40:08And he took the police
40:09down to Island Cottage Road
40:10to recover the body,
40:12Maria Walsh.
40:18Investigators now
40:19had 11 victims
40:21they believed Shawcross
40:22had murdered.
40:23But despite his confessions,
40:26Arthur Shawcross
40:27wouldn't admit
40:28to killing Felicia Stevens.
40:30The only homicide
40:32that he would not admit to
40:34was that of Felicia Stevens.
40:36The unique thing
40:37about Felicia Stevens
40:38was that she was
40:39an Afro-American female.
40:42and we assumed
40:44that he did not want
40:45to admit
40:46that he had had sex
40:47with a Afro-American.
40:50She had been strangled
40:51in the same manner
40:52that the other girls had.
40:55Despite his denials,
40:57Shawcross was charged
40:59with Felicia's murder.
41:03His trial began
41:04on the 17th of September,
41:071990.
41:08Now, the world,
41:09according to Arthur,
41:11isn't actually
41:11probably all the truth.
41:12You've got to be very careful
41:13about what Art says
41:14because we really believe
41:16he's a pathological liar
41:18and he serves himself
41:20to make it look like
41:21it was other people's fault.
41:23His defense was insanity
41:24and that was easily disproved
41:27because he took us
41:29to the bodies
41:29that he had disposed of.
41:31So you couldn't be insane
41:32and know where
41:33you left the bodies.
41:34And at this point,
41:35he introduces the fact
41:36that his mother
41:37abused him as a child.
41:38It's all fantasy.
41:40I very much doubt
41:42he suffered anything
41:43at the hands of his mother
41:44just as he never saw
41:46any action
41:47in the jungle in Vietnam.
41:48It's just an excuse.
41:51First Assistant District Attorney
41:54Charles J. Siragusa
41:55led the prosecution.
41:57He systematically
41:59laid out the case
42:01of how each body
42:03was discovered,
42:05how each body
42:06had been killed
42:07and tied all the bodies together.
42:09The jury deliberated
42:11less than eight hours
42:12after two or three weeks
42:14of testimony
42:15and found him guilty
42:17of all ten homicides.
42:23Shawcross is sentenced
42:24in the Monroe County cases
42:26to 25 years
42:28in prison
42:29for each
42:29of the ten victims,
42:31a total
42:32of 250 years
42:34in prison.
42:35He is later
42:36to be tried
42:37for the one victim
42:38in Wayne County.
42:41Arthur Shawcross
42:42received an additional
42:44life sentence
42:45in Wayne County
42:46for the murder
42:47of Elizabeth Gibson
42:48on top of the
42:49250 years
42:51he'd already been
42:52sentenced to
42:53in Monroe.
42:54This was all about
42:55the families
42:56of the girls.
42:57Just because a person
42:59becomes involved
42:59in drugs
43:00and a prostitute,
43:01they're still
43:02somebody's daughter,
43:04somebody's sister.
43:06So there was a great deal
43:07of satisfaction
43:09and relief
43:10that we had brought
43:11closure to
43:12these families.
43:14Unfortunate closure
43:15but closures.
43:17Shawcross was sent
43:19to Sullivan Correctional Facility
43:21in Fallsburg, New York.
43:23After complaining
43:25of leg pain,
43:26he died of a cardiac arrest
43:28behind bars
43:29in 2008
43:30at the age of 63.
43:33I didn't know
43:34how emotionally
43:35tied up you could be
43:36on something like this.
43:38I remember
43:39coming home
43:40after he was arrested
43:41walking upstairs
43:42and crying.
43:45Just because
43:45I was so tired
43:46and put so much effort
43:48all of us
43:49put so much effort
43:50into this case
43:52it was the only time
43:53in my career
43:54that I had those feelings.
43:57What really angers me
43:58about this case
43:59is that there was
44:00a chance to stop him.
44:01He killed two children
44:03and yet he was still
44:04released from prison.
44:05It really saddens me
44:07to think
44:07that there are women
44:08who would still
44:09be walking around today
44:10had Shawcross been dealt
44:11with properly
44:12the first time around.
44:15Arthur Shawcross
44:16was a dangerous loner
44:18who targeted vulnerable women
44:20in order to satisfy
44:22his deadly urges.
44:23He brutally murdered
44:25and mutilated
44:2611 women.
44:2816 years before
44:30this depraved killing spree,
44:33Shawcross had also
44:34savagely taken the lives
44:36of two young children.
44:38Belligerent and unremorseful,
44:40Arthur Shawcross
44:42maintained his actions
44:43were entirely the fault
44:45of his victims,
44:46making him one of
44:47the world's most evil killers.
44:50Lewis
44:51that
44:51that
44:53I'm
44:54that
44:54I'm
45:13that