Arthur Shawcross: The Genesee River Killer

Arthur Sawcross is a serial muderer who currently resides at the Sullivan Correctional Facility, where he is living out his sentence for multiple murders. Shawcross fits the typical profile of the anger-retaliatory murderer. The people who are grouped into this category are often domineered by a controlling woman, usually a mother. They act out their frustrations by murdering women who bear a resemblance to their mother, or the female figure that demeaned them. They substitute the victim for the true source of their anger. Although there have been some exceptions, most of these people do not kill their mothers. Anger-retaliatory homicide usually involves violent sexual assault and overkill. Such killers are often the products of overbearing, abusive or promiscuous mothers. These killers are intimidated by female authority figures and sincerely believe that it is the victim's own fault that she was murdered. A majority of prostitute-killers are members of this category. Arthur Shawcross was no exception.

Arthur Shawcross was born on June 6, 1945. He was the eldest sibling and claims to have had a very domineering mother who molested and abused him. Shawcross was a very disturbed young man and was somewhat of a loner. He was often referred to as "Oddie" by his classmates and did not have any friends. Typical of many serial killers, Shawcross experienced enuresis (bed-wetting) into his teens and pyromania, the urge to set fire to things.

Shawcross was drafted in 1968 and served in the Vietnam War at the age of twenty-three. Shawcross claimed that he raped and slaughtered two young women while serving in the war. After being discharged in 1969, Shawcross began to experience a severe case of posttraumatic stress disorder. This is not uncommon amongst war veterans and was formerly referred to as shell shock. He suffered from violent flashbacks and his pyromania resurfaced. He was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison after several commissions of arson. He was released early, after serving only two years. Shawcross relocated to Watertown and married for the third time on April 22, 1972. He already had two short-lived marriages by this time.

A couple of weeks later, a young boy named Jack Blake was reported missing by his mother. From the beginning, she suspected that a "creepy" man that she knew as Art had something to do with the disappearance of her son. Mrs. Blake was escorted by police officers to the home of Arthur Shawcross. He claimed to have seen the boy earlier that day, but stated that he did not know his whereabouts. The police listed the boy as a runaway and did not pay any further attention to the case.

On September 2, 1972, an eight-year-old girl by the name of Karen Hill was reported missing. A witness claimed to have seen the girl climbing a fence near the Black River. Upon searching, police found the half-naked body of the young girl under a bridge. The necropsy showed that Karen was strangled and raped.

News of Karen's death reached Mrs. Blake, who insisted that the police interrogate Arthur Shawcross. A motel clerk recalled seeing Shawcross in the woodlands of Watertown around early May, the same time that Jack Blake disappeared. Police searched the area and found the nude corpse of the young boy. Due to the advanced decomposition of the body, the cause of death was undetermined.

The case against Shawcross was not easy to prove due to the lack of concrete evidence. In light of this, the District Attorney's office offered him a deal: a full confession for the reduction of charges from murder to manslaughter. He admitted to raping and strangling Jack Blake and then eating parts of his body. He also admitted to raping and strangling Karen Hill. He buried her alive with leaves and wet mud, causing her to suffocate. Shawcross was sentenced to only twenty-five years in prison for the double homicide.

Shawcross was paroled in March of 1987. His parole officer warned the correctional workers that he should not be released into society and was extremely dangerous. His warning was not heeded and as a result, eleven other people would lose their lives at the hands of Arthur Shawcross.

Arthur and his fourth wife settled in Rochester. In October of 1989, a series of bodies began turning up near the Genesee River. On the twenty-first of October, fishermen found the skeletal remains of a woman. Her pants were pulled down and she had been decapitated. Approximately one week later, the body of local prostitute, Patricia Ives, was found behind a YMCA building. The body of Maria Welch, a local prostitute, was found on November 5^th. Five days later, the asphyxiated cadaver of Frances Brown was found. A homeless woman by the name of June Scott was found dead on November 30^th. Elizabeth Gibson's body was found on December 4^th. She was also a prostitute. Soon after, the bodies of Dorothy Keeleer, Darlene Trippi, Felicia Stephens, June Cicero, Dorothy Blackburn and Anna Steffen were found. Many of these women had been mutilated and had parts of their genitals removed. Panic in the city's red-light district was spreading like wildfire as police searched for the man dubbed by the media as the "Genesee River Killer."

On December 31, 1989, a pair of pants containing the identification of Felicia Stephens was found. Police searched the area by air and spotted a corpse on January 3, 1990. Shawcross had a habit of revisiting the bodies of his victims and having sexual intercourse with them. During the aerial search, police spotted a man masturbating near a bridge where many of the bodies had been found. They questioned the man and he confessed to each murder.

The jury found Arthur Shawcross sane and competent to stand trial. He received ten consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. There is some debate as to whether or not Shawcross was truly sane. He suffered from severe emotional disturbances and sustained four major head injuries when he was young. The injuries caused the scarring of his brain tissue and the formation of a cyst on his temporal lobe, the part of the brain responsible for auditory perception. Whether or not he was sane, Arthur Sawcross was one of the most vicious and deplorable serial killers in the annals of criminal history.