Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Jim Chapman

Standing barely over five feet tall and weighing around 130 pounds, Donald Henry “Pee Wee” Gaskins looked nothing like the monster he was. Nicknamed for his small stature, the South Carolina native became one of the state’s most prolific and sadistic serial killers—known in some circles as the “Meanest Man in America” or the “Redneck Charles Manson.”From the late 1960s into the mid-1970s, Gaskins distinguished between what he called his “coastal kills” (random hitchhikers and strangers he tortured for pleasure) and his “serious murders” (people he knew: friends, associates, and even family). Among the confirmed victims were his own 15-year-old niece, Janice Kirby, and her 17-year-old friend Patricia Ann Alsbrook, whom he beat to death. He also murdered pregnant Doreen Dempsey and her two-year-old daughter, among others whose bodies were later found buried in shallow graves near his property in Prospect, South Carolina.Timestamps:01:38 South Carolina’s Pee Wee Gaskins05:36 Prison, Parole, and Early Killings09:37 The Confirmed Victims Begin19:05 Murders for Money and Silence21:56 Kim Lyons and the Killings That Followed26:13 The Graveyard and Gaskins’ Capture28:28 Prison Murder Plot33:59 Execution and Final Words

In this Halloween episode, Jim revisits haunted prisons and jails, discussing their histories and reports of unexplained voices, footsteps, apparitions, and other activity. We then recount several murders and deaths associated with Halloween, including both solved cases and unsolved killings.Timestamps:02:37 Yuma Territorial Prison’s Dark Cell07:45 Charleston’s Infamous Old City Jail13:09 Missouri’s Haunted Prison Walls15:45 Butch Cassidy’s Wyoming Prison18:00 West Virginia Penitentiary Hauntings20:44 Dillinger’s Escape from Lake County Jail29:32 Murders Committed on Halloween Night29:48 A Halloween Night Killing in Napa37:37 The Halloween Murders of the Griffin Family38:38 An Unsolved Manhattan Halloween KillingJoin Bloody Angola on Patreon for Commercial Free Early Releases and more here: www.patreon.com/bloodyangolapodcast

Gary Mark Gilmore committed two cold-blooded murders by robbing Max Jensen, a young gas-station attendant and BYU student in Orem, ordered him to the floor, and shot him twice in the head—reportedly saying one bullet was “for me” and the other “for Nicole.” The next evening he did it again, killing motel manager Bennie Bushnell in Provo under nearly identical circumstances.Timestamps:04:58 A Family Built on Lies and Violence11:12 Prison Becomes Gary’s Home18:40 Two Young Fathers, Two Brutal Robberies24:30 Conviction—and a Death Sentence29:06 A Mother, the ACLU, and the Battle 31:26 A Failed Suicide Pact and a Hunger Strike33:11 Gilmore’s Final Night and Firing Squad ExecutionJoin Bloody Angola on Patreon for Commercial Free Early Releases and more here: www.patreon.com/bloodyangolapodcast

At Louisiana State Penitentary at Angola, 48 incarcerated fathers spent time with their sons through fishing, games, boat rides and conversation as part of an outreach program focusing on building stronger relationships between incarcerated fathers and sons, how did they do it, and what is the impact of an event like this?  Jim Chapman brings you behind the wire and onto a 400 acre lake in this episode.Timestamps:01:41 Angola’s Father-Son Fishing Day03:25 Lake Killarney’s Storied Past04:49 Reuniting Fathers and Sons08:28 First Meetings and Family Stories 11:27 Incarceration’s Generational Impact15:05 Fishing, Games, and New Memories25:47 Rehabilitation Through Family Connection31:46 Angola Cowboys Take the National Stage34:23 Rodeo, Redemption, and Recognition36:46 Camp 57 Repair UpdateJoin Bloody Angola on Patreon for Commercial Free Early Releases and more here:CLICK HERE:

Thomas Randolph called 911 on the night of May 8, 2008, from his Las Vegas home with a chilling story: he and his sixth wife, Sharon Causse, had just returned from a date when a masked intruder shot her in the head. Randolph claimed he then killed the intruder in self-defense. The dead man turned out to be Michael Miller, a handyman Randolph knew. Investigators quickly saw problems with the scene and the story.Prosecutors later argued Randolph had hired Miller to kill Sharon so he could collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in life insurance, then shot Miller to eliminate the only witness and stage the whole thing as a heroic act of self-defense. It was a calculated double murder dressed up as a random home invasion. What made the case even darker was Randolph’s history. He had been married six times, and four of his wives were dead by the time he was arrested.One earlier wife in Utah, Becky Gault, had also died from a gunshot wound in circumstances that raised suspicions; Randolph was tried and acquitted in that case years earlier. The pattern—marriages, insurance policies, and untimely deaths—earned him the nickname “the Black Widower.” The road to conviction was long and complicated. Randolph was found guilty in 2017 and sentenced to death, but the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the verdict because jurors had heard evidence from the earlier Utah case. At his 2023 retrial, with that prior-act evidence barred, a second jury still convicted him of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of first-degree murder. In 2024 he was sentenced to 60 years to life. He continues to maintain his innocence.Timestamps:02:06 Vegas Home Invasion05:28 Early Marriages09:50 Becky’s Death14:05 Jailhouse Plot14:43 Leona’s Marriage15:44 Gayna’s Escape19:03 Frances’s Mysterious Death26:13 Sharon’s Murder29:42 Conviction Overturned#bloodyangolapodcast #podcast #ThomasRandolph  #podcast #truecrime #Nevada

In this episode Jim Chapman examines the crime, conviction, and eventual failed execution of death row inmate Christa Pike in Tennessee after being convicted in the murder of Colleen Slemmer.Timestamps01:45 Failed Execution Shock02:58 Job Corps Background10:33 Krista Pike Emerges20:11 Clues on Campus26:31 Pike Confesses30:05 Death Sentence Handed Down32:11 New Execution Date Set34:15 Medical Issues Raised36:21 Execution Goes WrongPatreon Linkhttps://www.patron.com/bloodyangolapodcast 

In this episode Jim Chapman brings you to Alaska and tells you the story of Israel Keyes. Jim covers the disappearance of Samantha Koenig in Anchorage in 2012 and the investigation that followed, including the ransom scheme and the evidence later linked to him. Jim also dives deep into Keyes  background, military service, and adult life, along with the violent behavior and confessions that shaped the case. Timestamps05:12 Wilderness to Extremism10:38 Soldiers See the Rage20:05 Samantha Koenig’s Last Night26:43 Ransom Scheme Unravels30:13 Murder and Body Disposal39:14 Confession and Charges41:08 Failed Escape Attempt43:19 Victims Revealed Patreon Link https://www.patron.com/bloodyangolapodcast 

On the afternoon of November 21, 2021, downtown Waukesha, Wisconsin, was packed for the city’s annual Christmas parade. Kids in baseball uniforms. Bank employees handing out candy. The Milwaukee Dancing Grannies in sequins and pompoms. Then a red Ford Escape came down the route and did not stop.In the span of a few blocks, Darrell Edward Brooks Jr. struck dozens of people. Six were killed. More than sixty were injured. The dead ranged from 8-year-old Jackson Sparks, marching with his brother and the Waukesha Blazers, to 81-year-old Wilhelm Hospel, walking with the dance group his wife belonged to. Three members of the Dancing Grannies — Virginia Sorenson, 79; LeAnna Owen, 71; and Tamara Durand, 52, in her first parade with the troupe — never made it home. Jane Kulich, 52, was walking with a Citizens Bank float.This episode reconstructs that Sunday: the domestic fight earlier that day, the low cash bail that had put Brooks back on the street, the barricades he ignored, and the five-block path of the SUV. It also traces the two decades that came before it — battery, domestic violence, prior incidents involving vehicles, and open Milwaukee felony cases that never kept him locked up.

In 2008, a young man from Chillicothe, Ohio, slit his girlfriend’s mother’s throat, sat on the couch, and watched her die—then set the apartment on fire. He called himself “Box Cutter.” Prosecutors wanted death. A psychologist’s finding about his IQ took it off the table. He went to prison for life. That should have been the end of the story. It wasn’t.In February 2016, Casey Pigge carved a cinder block out of his cell wall at Lebanon Correctional Institution, talked his cellmate into a “card trick,” and beat Luther Wade to death. He later said he wanted a cell to himself. Officials still put him on a prison bus. Two days after he pleaded guilty to that killing, he sat in the back of a transport vehicle with no cameras and no line of sight to the officers up front. Using a restraint chain, he strangled and smothered 61-year-old inmate David Johnson while other prisoners watched. When it was over, Pigge boasted: “I guess you never seen that on a bus before.” A year later, in another February, he and another lifer used homemade shanks to stab a Lucasville correction officer 32 times. The officer lived. Pigge did not stop talking about killing again.

On November 15, 2017, 24-year-old Sydney Loofe left her Lincoln apartment excited for a second Tinder date. She posted a Snapchat: “Ready for my date.” She never came home.The woman she matched with was Bailey Boswell.Sydney didn’t know Boswell lived with older boyfriend Aubrey Trail — a career criminal prosecutors said was already looking for someone to kill. Boswell lured Sydney to a basement apartment in Wilber. There she was strangled with an extension cord, cut into 14 pieces, stuffed into trash bags, and dumped along rural roads. For three weeks her family and the FBI searched. Then the bags were found.Store video showed Trail and Boswell buying saws and bleach while Sydney was still alive. Trail was sentenced to death. Boswell got life. In 2024 her conviction was upheld. Sydney just wanted a second date. What she walked into was a trap set before they ever matched.Timestamps:03:51 Sidney Loof14:26 Aubrey Trail’s Criminal Past18:27 Bailey Boswell’s Fall25:21 The Wilbur Basement29:00 Tinder Trap Set38:07 Trials and Verdicts41:37 Justice After Loss