I have heard the name Pee Wee Gaskins all of my life.  Gaskins murdered my Dad’s first cousin, my Great Aunt Gladys’ daughter, Patricia Ann Alsbrook, in 1970.  He lived in and around my hometown of Sumter, South Carolina, and, from the mid-60’s to mid-70’s, murdered possibly over one hundred people around Sumter and up and down the coast of SC.

He was put to death in the electric chair in SC the year I graduated from high school.  I remember watching people cheering and other people protesting the electrocution on TV when it happened.

I did not know until recently that, before he died, Gaskins left his story in audio.  It is entitled Final Truth.  I will not link to it.  The relish with which Gaskins tells his story coupled with a complete lack of remorse made it a truly vile and hellish reading experience.  I read it because of our family connection, though I skipped portions of it that were just too much.

Wilton Earle, who transcribed the tapes and who listened to Gaskins tell his story, said that he did not believe in evil or in the death penalty when he began the project, but he believed in both when he finished.

Gaskins was maniacal, hellish, and almost boundlessly wicked.  At the conclusion of his story he says:

“No one, and nobody, and no thing can ever touch me.
I have walked the same path as God.
By taking lives and making others fear me, I become God’s equal.  Through killing others, I become my own Master.
Through my own power I come to my own redemption.
Once I seen the miracle light, I didn’t ever again have to fear or obey the Rules of no Man or no God.”

Gaskins’ crimes, like all crimes, were ultimately crimes against God.  Interestingly, Gaskins recounts how he was finally done in by the conversion of his friend Walter Neely with whom he had shared a great deal of information about his murders:

“I just wish there had been some way we could have talked before he went to his Preacher…Because of all that was happening to him, Walter went and talked to a Preacher about everything…so Walter and the Preacher prayed and prayed until finally Walter was ready to make his confession to God and get redeemed and be borned-again into the salvation of Jesus Christ – all of which would’ve been fine if he had just stopped right there – but then the Preacher convinced Walter that they also ought to go one step higher and have a talk with The Law…in December of nineteen-seventy-five, the Coroner had the bodies, and Jesus had Walter, and The Law had me…Walter surely weren’t real bright, and he did pretty much anything I asked him, up until he got borned-again and forgot all about what loyalty and friendship meant.”

It’s an interesting observation he makes about Neely’s conversion to Christianity:  “all of which would’ve been fine if he had just stopped right there.”  But, no:  Neely, for all of his own problems, at least thought coming to Christ meant a full confession of his deeds and of his knowledge of Gaskins’ deeds.

So Pee Wee was done in by another criminal meeting Jesus.  When all is said and done, our crimes against God do not go unnoticed.

I have gotten this vile story out of my house, and, in time, I pray, I will get it out of my mind.  But even in the dark pit of this terrible story we see that the gospel has power to save and to bring justice to the enemies of God.