It's been two decades since Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins, the most prolific killer in South Carolina history, was put to death by the electric chair at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Among those who were there to witness Gaskins' execution that day was former Florence county Sheriff Billy Barnes, one of the law enforcement officers most responsible for bringing Gaskins to justice.
"It was the end of a chapter, so to speak, in my career and it's unfortunate all of it happened but it did and that was finally full closure for it," Barnes said, reflecting on the twentieth anniversary of Gaskins' execution on Sept. 6, 1991.
Gaskins was born on the outskirts of Lake City, South Carolina in 1933. He was small in stature and was picked on for his size at an early age. Gaskins got in trouble with the law early in life, spending his teenage years at a state reform school after attacking a girl with an ax. Throughout his life, Gaskins remained a petty crook, well known in Florence County for burglaries and other small crimes throughout the '60's and early '70's. Barnes said it wasn't until 1975 that anyone in law enforcement suspected that Gaskins was capable of murder.
That year, the mother of a missing 14-year-old Charleston girl was persistent in finding her. There were other missing persons as well, connected to the same killer, though police didn't know it at the time, Barnes said.
"The other people that were victims, their families just never saw them and they never really looked for them that much, but this lady was very persistent and it led to Florence County and that's what led to the first bodies being discovered in 1975," said Barnes.
Gaskins had accomplices for many of his murders and it was one of those accomplices who revealed Gaskins as the man responsible for the deaths. Bodies began being discovered around the village of Prospect, near where Gaskins lived, Barnes said. "There were 8 of them in the first grave site that were found and then the others were found in different parts of the county."
Though Gaskins has been called the most prolific serial killer in South Carolina history, Barnes believes Gaskins doesn't fit the profile of a serial murderer. His victims didn't fit into any specific category and he used many brutal and sadistic ways to kill them.
"Shot some of them, cut some of their throats, drowned some," Barnes said. "Just different ways. Even poisoned one."
Barnes calls Gaskins a mass murderer, not a serial killer. "Pee Wee was just a very cunning fella. He was smart like a fox. But he just really didn't need much of a reason to kill somebody."
Gaskins faced a jury within a year after the first bodies were discovered. He was found guilty of one of the murders and sentenced to death in 1976. He later admitted to 7 other murders, but by the time of his sentencing, the U.S. Supreme Court had declared most state death penalty statutes as unconstitutional. Gaskins faced spending the rest of his life in prison for the murders he had already committed, but that changed in 1982, when he killed again while on death row. Gaskins was hired by someone on the outside to murder a fellow inmate, using explosives smuggled into prison. When the courts reinstated the death penalty, Gaskins faced an execution date again.
It is not lost on Barnes that Gaskins died for killing a prisoner and not his many other innocent victims. "Very ironic, but that was the law at the time."
Before Gaskins' execution in 1991, he dictated the story of his life to author Wilton Earl. The book, "Final Truth" was published in 1993. In it, Gaskins claimed more than 100 other victims, though he never revealed where any of them were buried.
Today, Barnes doesn't believe a word of it. "I think if there had been anybody else, he would have called me and wanted a chance to get out of the penitentiary to walk around in the woods, to show me another body, because he was always looking for a chance to escape. He called me on a regular basis and I think if there was anything else, he would have told me about it."
In all, Barnes knows of 13 people Gaskins is responsible for killing. Ten bodies were found in Florence county, the others in Sumter County.
Though Barnes has been retired as a Florence County sheriff for nearly 20 years, he's still active with the sheriff's department, as a polygraph expert. And he still hears from people who want to know more about the state's most infamous killer.
"There's still an awful lot of interest in that particular case, because I get calls on a weekly basis really from all over the country asking me questions about Pee Wee."
What Barnes tells those who are interested is that there will never be closure for the families of Pee Wee Gaskins' victims.
"He was just a bad person."
