0:03

Peewee Gaskins recorded several

0:05

conversations he had with Tony Siemo

0:07

about his unsuccessful attempts

0:10

to fatally poison Rudolph Tiner.

0:13

Tony provided Peewee with strychnine

0:16

and oleander, but it just made

0:18

Tiner sick as a dog. He

0:21

was on borrowed time and running out

0:23

of appeals, but Tony Siemo

0:25

and Pewee Gaskins would not wait

0:27

for the courts to work out the legal issues.

0:31

They were going to execute Tiner before

0:33

the State of South Carolina ever got

0:35

to him.

0:41

When Pee Wee murdered China stopped,

0:45

I didn't do anything else. I

0:48

thought that I was going to be accused and accomplished

0:51

to murder that pee Wee had committed it. A

0:54

little bit of dread, a little bit of horror.

0:57

Oh my gosh, I could have happened,

1:00

and I froze. I

1:02

was devastrated. What have

1:05

I done?

1:11

From my heart radio at Doghouse Pictures.

1:14

This is pee Wee. Gaskins was

1:16

not my friend. I'm Jeff

1:18

Keating. Earlier

1:30

he had asked me to deliver the radio to

1:33

his son, which I did not on time,

1:35

but I did one

1:37

day that we walked in at the close

1:39

of the visit, he said, I want to ask your

1:42

favor. He said, could you mail me a

1:44

package? And I said what

1:47

He said, I need fifty feet of

1:50

TV wire and

1:52

you go to any hardware strowing by, But

1:54

I need fifty feet. Says, we have

1:57

an antenna on the top of the building. He

1:59

said, if I and wire the TV to

2:01

that antenna, fifty people can

2:04

watch Sunday football. Wrap

2:07

it up in an end book and

2:09

mail it to me here they

2:12

will examine it and give it to me.

2:14

I said, you really think they'll let me do that? He

2:16

said, what We do it all the time. People

2:18

send me things all the time. So

2:23

Jim went to the hardware store, bought

2:25

the wire and mailed it to c c I.

2:29

Unbeknownst to Jim, it would

2:31

help he we complete his murderous

2:33

plan. I

2:37

had no idea that Pepe

2:40

was going to use it for anything other

2:42

than what he said, and that was to connect

2:45

to an antenna. They would enable fifty

2:47

people to watch television. And I thought,

2:50

if I can take this cable so that people

2:52

can watch Sunday football the same

2:54

way I do. Little

2:57

did I know Jim

3:01

Batty knew as much as anyone could

3:03

about South Carolina's most notorious

3:06

mass murderer, and he was

3:08

hopeful his book, Pee Wee and

3:10

Me would be a full account of

3:12

the meanest man in America.

3:15

He was writing a novel that aimed

3:17

towards redemption. It wasn't

3:19

going to be like In Cold Blood, a

3:21

book Jim taught on occasion that

3:24

was too sordid for Jim's storytelling

3:26

approach. Jim was optimistic

3:29

that he could share some characteristics

3:31

of Peewee that people often didn't

3:33

see, like honesty and

3:36

compassion. But in reality,

3:39

pee Wee rarely showed these traits. In

3:41

fact, Pee Wee told them as

3:43

much during their interviews together.

3:48

I said, pee Wee, would you ever lie to

3:50

me? Thinking, you know, we'll

3:52

all budds, we're all friends. He's

3:55

not gonna loud to me and need a lot of me. And

3:58

he thought first, and

4:00

he looked right at me and said,

4:03

yes, I would. I said, Peewee,

4:07

you would lie to me? When he

4:10

said without hesitating half

4:13

the time, he

4:17

said without hesitating

4:20

half the time. It

4:24

had started in their first interview when

4:26

Peewee said, look, I

4:29

want to set the record straight on some things,

4:32

and so many things out there that have been said

4:34

about me that are wrong. I want

4:37

you to know what they are and to make those

4:39

things right, he

4:41

said, without hesitating. Half

4:44

the time, I

4:49

also think that he had respect

4:51

for me and were somewhat kind to me.

4:55

Half the time, he

4:58

said, if I can wire the TV to

5:00

that antenna, fifty people

5:02

can watch Sunday football. Half

5:06

the time, Peewee

5:14

had a fellow prisoner named James Brown

5:17

delivered the plastic cup device to tyner

5:19

cell with instruction that

5:21

he was to plug it into the wire Peewee

5:24

had connected from his cell. Tyner

5:27

yelled into the event towards Peewee cell

5:29

when he plugged it in and

5:32

bee We told him to hold it up to his ear, and then

5:34

he plugged his end into the one TAN socket

5:38

and it went off. Vent

5:46

ty We pulled the wire back the route, chopped it up,

5:48

and witnesses say that he was weighing on his bed,

5:50

saying what was that. The

5:53

explosion rocked the prison and caused

5:56

a chaotic mess. While

5:58

Tyner was dying in his cell of rubble,

6:00

inmates yelled questions through their prison

6:03

bars. Guards ran around

6:05

assessing the scene, and Peewee

6:07

gaskins laid there smiling on his

6:09

cot. Holly

6:13

Gatling covered the Gaskon story from the

6:15

start and was the first to speak

6:17

to Peewee after the bomb exploded.

6:20

I got a tip that there had been

6:22

an explosion at C C I, and

6:25

I had his number and I called him

6:28

and I said, what's going on? And

6:31

he said, I need to call you back on a

6:33

different phone, and he did. He called

6:35

me right back, and then

6:38

he said, you know, some bomb

6:40

went off. And he said, next

6:43

thing you know, they'll be saying I did it.

6:46

They're probably gonna accuse me of doing

6:48

it. And I thought that was

6:50

a mighty strange thing to say half

6:54

the time. Initially,

7:04

when the report came in from law

7:07

enforcement, there was an opinion

7:09

that Tyner had made a bomb

7:11

out of match heads and it was trying to blow

7:13

his way out of his death row fell. But

7:16

quickly forensics folks I think from

7:18

the FBI, found it was a C four plastic

7:20

explosive, and that's when the scrutiny

7:23

and the real investigation began. Investigators

7:26

considered Tyner had committed suicide

7:29

since he'd been sick several times recently,

7:32

often looking ashen and gaunt. Even

7:35

the guards had noticed it

7:37

it's possible that by taking his

7:39

own life he would avoid the electric

7:41

chair, but the

7:43

way he died was so extreme that

7:46

the focus quickly turned to homicide.

7:49

He lived for a little while, but it was a traumatic

7:52

injury. They determined

7:54

that somebody had murdered Tyner

7:57

because they found a shrapnel

7:59

include eating a speaker embedded

8:01

in his head. His hand had been blown

8:04

off, as if he was holding something his hand up

8:06

to his head at the time it went

8:08

off. It was seafo explosive was found

8:11

and shrapnel I'm talking about nuts and

8:13

bolts and nails were found all over his

8:15

body in his cell. The

8:17

pictures are horrendous. So

8:27

at that point a homicide investigation

8:30

began and a guy named al Waters,

8:32

who was an investigator for the Department of Corrections,

8:34

heard what he thought was a solid rumor that pee Wee

8:36

had been involved. Al

8:40

Waters was the lead investigator and

8:42

would later testify at the trial. He

8:45

was joined by sled investigator Tom

8:47

Henderson, who had a history with

8:49

Gaskins in the Prospect murders

8:52

that landed Gaskins in jail for life.

8:55

To start, al Waters had

8:57

Pee Wee sell searched and

8:59

they on all the tools necessary

9:01

to as symbol a bomb, a

9:04

soldering iron used to attach a wire

9:06

to plugs, and plenty of nuts,

9:09

bolts and screws to create

9:11

shrapnel. He

9:13

had melted a hole in the bottom of this cup

9:16

and put a female plug in it. That

9:18

plug was attached to a blasting cap

9:20

and surrounding that blasting cap with sea for explosa,

9:23

which was surrounded by nuts, bolts,

9:25

screws, any shark deise metal and glued

9:28

on the top was a speaker like

9:30

you'd get out of a radio. They

9:34

also found a telephone jack, razor

9:36

blades, marijuana, electrical

9:39

cords, and daming Lye thirty

9:42

eight audio cassettes recorded

9:44

audio from television programs, recorded

9:47

calls he made from the nearby prison pay

9:50

phone. He recorded his family.

9:53

Most importantly, he recorded

9:55

his conversations with Tony Siemo, the

9:57

man who hired him to kill Rudolph Tyner.

10:00

Was c four a cup and

10:02

a wire. I

10:07

found out from the local newspaper,

10:10

and I was petrified. I

10:13

realized I mailed him

10:16

the wire that he

10:18

used to murder Rudolph China, and

10:21

I froze. I

10:24

was devastated for my own safety

10:27

and my wife's safety and our family

10:29

saying what have I

10:31

done? Extrangely

10:34

enough, I did not speak with

10:36

anybody about

10:39

that dilemma without fear

10:42

except Anita. I

10:44

didn't go to any kind of law enforcement,

10:49

and I realized, what does this do with my interviews?

10:52

What does this do with our books? I

10:56

didn't think about it around the time of murder

10:59

until Jim was is if by slid, But that

11:01

visit came hard on the heels of Tina's

11:04

murder, and

11:06

I immediately found out that I

11:08

would never be able to see people again

11:12

because of what he had done.

11:17

It was Sunday, September two

11:21

when the bomb exploded into Tyner's

11:23

head. Like the rest of

11:25

the outside world, Jim Batty

11:27

learned about the story the next day in the newspaper.

11:31

He was shocked. He

11:33

and Anita talked about what to do. They

11:36

decided to do nothing, but

11:38

they did prey on it. I

11:41

felt some peace knowing that

11:43

I was totally innocent. But

11:48

then a while later, Jim

11:50

Batty was teaching a class,

11:52

an English class at Coastal Carolina University.

11:56

The doors of the classrooms have

11:59

slender, tiny windows,

12:01

and I noticed as I was ending

12:03

my lecture. I think it was on Shakespeare

12:06

and I noticed these two well dressed,

12:09

three piece suit gentlemen outside

12:12

in the hall. Quite frankly,

12:14

I thought they were preachers of some sort,

12:17

or maybe used car salesman. I couldn't

12:19

figure. As the class

12:21

has dismissed. The men come in

12:24

and one of them I knew that I had

12:26

seen before, and he flashed

12:29

his badge inside his coat and

12:31

said, hello, dr Baby,

12:34

I'm Tom Henderson, and

12:36

I remembered Special Agent Tom

12:38

Henderson of SLED. He

12:41

says, you got a few minutes we'd

12:43

like to talk with you. Well

12:48

again, like Peewee's

12:50

call, I turned

12:53

a wider shade of pale, and

12:56

he said, can we go to your office? And

12:59

we did. Jim's

13:02

heart was racing, his

13:04

hands were sweating. All

13:06

those what ifs he and in need of question

13:08

during their late night talks flashed

13:11

in his mind as he led the authorities

13:14

to his university office. And

13:18

I had only one chair in my tiny office

13:20

in addition to my chair, and

13:23

I offered it to Tom and

13:25

he said, no, I'll stand. The

13:27

other gentleman sat. I sat

13:29

in my chair and Henderson

13:32

said, Professor, did you have occasion

13:35

to mail a TV cable

13:37

to pee wee Gaston's a month

13:39

before he murdered Rudolph Tiner.

13:43

I did. He said, did

13:45

you know that Pee Wee used that to

13:47

murder Tiner? I said

13:50

I did not know that. He said, well,

13:52

that is what he used, the wire

13:54

that you mailed him to murder

13:56

Rudolph Tiner. Hedn't

14:00

say anything else. I

14:02

didn't say anything else. There

14:04

must have been silence for fifteen

14:08

seconds. That was fifteen hours

14:10

to me. And he

14:12

said, can I sit down and let's

14:14

talk? So his

14:16

gentleman stood up. He then

14:19

sat down and spoke

14:21

with me. He

14:24

said, you know the trial is set, you know when

14:26

it will be, and you will be subpoened.

14:31

And I said, well, who will supena

14:33

me? Will the defense supoena

14:35

me? Well, the prosecution

14:38

supon me? He said, we're not sure, but

14:40

you will probably be subpoened. And

14:46

the gentleman left. I walked

14:49

out of the office store with him,

14:51

and Tom Henderson and his partner

14:54

moved down the hall for a few steps,

14:56

and I watched every step, every

14:59

move mo of each foot on the

15:01

carpet leaving, praying that

15:03

they would be gone forever. And

15:07

as they stopped, and Henderson

15:09

turned and smiled and said, by the

15:11

way. I said yes. He

15:14

said, I'd love to take one of your English classes.

15:17

See you later. I

15:19

walked back into the office and

15:23

called Anita.

15:26

Then I was really scared because it

15:29

wasn't clear to me whether he'd be called as

15:31

an accomplice or to go testify.

15:35

I thought that he was going to tell

15:38

me that I was going to be accused

15:40

as an accomplice to murder that we

15:42

had permitted. Tiner

15:58

was killed September twelve, eighteen

16:00

eighty two, in March

16:02

of night three. It took

16:04

a month to see the jury of eight women

16:07

and four men for Peewee's

16:09

murder trial. It was very

16:11

difficult to get a jury because you know the question you

16:13

ever heard about Donald Pewee asaid, yeah,

16:15

what do you know about the largest master murder industry? To

16:18

stay well, could you put that aside

16:20

and you know, base your verdicts on the evidence

16:22

in this case. And a lot of people were very honest

16:24

and said no. So it took a several hundred

16:26

jurors to get twelve. The one

16:28

guy said, could you consider giving him life

16:31

or would you give an electric chair because that's what we use

16:33

back then, And this guy said no, no,

16:35

no, I wouldn't give an electric chair, and I was thought, well,

16:37

this is one we can maybe maybe use. He

16:40

said no, I had hanging. I mean that's how

16:42

that went. So I don't remember

16:44

three hundred and something people we went through before we got

16:46

I think we had fourteen twelve and two alderness.

16:51

With the jury selected the trial

16:53

began, prosecution

16:55

was confident in their case. They

16:58

had a trove of evidence, and

17:00

they had James Brown, a star

17:02

witness who delivered the explosive

17:04

to Tyner. As usual,

17:07

Gaskets didn't fail to deliver

17:10

spectacle at his trial. I

17:13

think he was a self promoter.

17:16

I think he had hold over

17:18

a lot of people because their feeble minds didn't

17:21

understand that he was lying, that he

17:23

was bigger than this five feet would

17:25

show. And I think at the end of the day,

17:28

this plan, it's just ridiculous

17:30

plan to blow up a guy on

17:32

death row. I mean, that's

17:34

what ends up killing him. His sort of poetic

17:37

justice. This is an outsized crime by

17:39

a little man. You know, this guy was thinking

17:41

all the time. He was crafty. I wouldn't

17:43

say he was a brilliant, but he was a very

17:45

crafty guy. He's always working the angles,

17:48

and he would have gotten away with it. But for those

17:50

recordings, we've never had

17:53

any evidence. We hadn't had the recordings, we wouldn't

17:55

have gotten James Brown. Even if we had, James Brown

17:57

would be his word against Peewee's. James

18:01

Brown was on death row for a double murder,

18:04

so his word alone was suspect, even

18:06

compared to Peewee's. James

18:09

Brown killed two women and have sex

18:12

with him after they were dead. When I met

18:14

him, he looked like Robinson Crusoe.

18:16

He had hair down to his waist, a

18:18

beard down to his waist. He looked

18:21

disheveled, scraggly, and

18:23

I needed to get him prepared to testify.

18:25

So I bring him up to the courthouse every

18:28

Saturday. Get him some McDonald's,

18:30

which they couldn't get in the prison, went

18:32

over his testimony with him, got him to cut

18:34

his hair, got him to shave his beard, got him a three

18:36

piece suit, regimental tie. He

18:38

looked like a million dollars. So

18:41

I put James understand he knocks it

18:43

out of the park. James

18:46

Brown testified that Peewee had him

18:48

take the plastic cup to time your

18:50

cell. The cup was filled

18:52

with nails, screws and

18:54

metal. Brown said

18:57

that right after the explosion he

18:59

went to gas skin cell and saw

19:01

Gaskins pulling a wire from the bottom

19:03

vent in his cell. A few

19:06

moments later, he heard Gaskin's

19:08

toilet flush. Gaskins

19:10

came out of his cell and went downstairs.

19:14

He may have been on his way to talk to Holly

19:17

Gatling at that moment. That's

19:19

unclear, but prosecution

19:22

was able to link Gaskins to a conspiracy

19:25

to cover up the murder with James Brown's

19:27

assistance and the heart evidence

19:30

gathered in Peewee cell. One

19:33

of the things we confiscated during

19:35

this trial was a letter

19:38

from Gaskins to James Brown.

19:40

He instructed James Brown to

19:42

go to the Catholic

19:45

priest and confess he

19:47

killed tyger okay

19:50

In Gaskins in the letter reasons we

19:52

put this evidence, this letter into evidence, reasons

19:55

that if you tell him you did it, my

19:57

lawyers can call him to the stand

20:00

and he'll have to say that somebody

20:03

else confessed to him, but he can't say

20:05

who it was. I mean, the

20:07

guy was him. He worked every angle.

20:09

Of course, James Brown gave us the letters that

20:12

sort of ruined that plan. Jack

20:15

Swirling was Gascon's defense attorney,

20:18

and his only tactic was going for

20:20

reasonable doubt, convincing

20:23

the jury that it wasn't Peewee who

20:25

made the bomb. Swirling

20:27

attacked James Brown while he was on the stand,

20:30

so harput Lean had to cross examine

20:32

to counter Swirling's move. Jack

20:37

did a pretty good job of trying to instill

20:39

doubt. I mean reasonable doubt was the only defense

20:41

in the case, and that is to attack James Brown

20:44

to challenge his credibility. James's

20:48

mother was sitting in the courtroom nervously

20:50

watching her son testify

20:52

against Peewee. So

20:56

Jacks Rowling, who's defending Peewee, begins

20:58

to attack him for not

21:00

really being pee Wee's friend of pee Weee want to be.

21:03

So when I got back up and I said,

21:06

James, Mr Swirling is intimated

21:08

that you were not friends with the Peewee

21:10

that your pee Wee want to be. Is that true?

21:12

No? I said, Now, what was your real

21:15

relationship with pee Wee? And

21:17

I'll never forget His eyes bugged wide

21:19

open. He looked at me, he looked back at his mom,

21:22

and he says, very quietly, we were lovers.

21:26

What I can't hear you. I can't hear you, James.

21:29

He said we were lovers, and

21:32

the courtroom explodes

21:35

in pandemonium.

21:38

Swirling explodes out of his

21:40

chair and starts lundering towards bench,

21:42

screaming, objection, objection. Peewee,

21:45

who's barely I don't think he was five. He

21:47

probably didn't weigh a hundred and thirty pounds, grabbing

21:49

onto Jack's cowtail and sort

21:51

of being drug along with him and screaming, and

21:53

then Peewee yells at Jack in

21:55

this high pitched voice. Jack,

21:59

Jack acid, who was on top.

22:04

Jim only hoped he would write a courtroom

22:06

scene as bold as Shakespeare's

22:09

Winner's Tale or To Kill a Mockingbird

22:11

by Harper Lee. Only

22:13

those heavy weights could fashion

22:15

such a picture with words. And

22:18

now Peewee's words would be used

22:20

against him. When the prosecution

22:23

played the recordings between Seemo

22:26

and Gaskins, pee

22:29

Wee's recordings with Semo were devastating,

22:32

devastating. You have Peewee planning

22:34

it, talking to Semo about

22:36

what he needed, how I was going to put it in a radio.

22:39

He said. It didn't turn out to be a radio. He came

22:41

up with a more devious device. Forensics

22:43

were that he was holding a device

22:45

made of plastic cup, the

22:48

unbreakable plastic cup and that speaker

22:50

and other debris shrapnel

22:53

if you will, entered his head and body.

22:55

It was C four explosives. It

22:57

was consistent with what James Brown testified

23:00

got from Teawe and delivered,

23:02

which was consistent with the recorded conversation.

23:05

So was it a tough case. No, And

23:08

we had the recordings for Peewee, and by the way,

23:11

we hit ten part murder convictions. I mean,

23:13

this was not not heavy lifting.

23:15

It took eight weeks, but it

23:17

was not the toughest case I ever prosecuted by

23:19

a long shot, hard

23:21

physical evidence, testimony

23:24

from an eyewitness, accomplice, courtroom

23:27

drama, sex between inmates.

23:30

The whole Peewee Gaskin saga had

23:32

all the makings of a legal thriller, and

23:35

the courtroom didn't have to wait long for

23:38

the verdict. As

23:40

a practical matter, pee Wee probably

23:42

could not have been prosecuted under

23:44

the new death penalty law for

23:46

crimes committed prior to that going into effect.

23:49

He probably never could have gotten death. Again, the

23:51

tier case was the only way he could get to death.

23:54

The jury was out an hour before they found him guilty,

23:56

and they were out an hour when the acts and ends

23:58

of death. I don't think they wrestled with either decision.

24:03

When Jim Batty lead investigators

24:05

out of his office and off the university

24:07

campus, he hoped that he would never

24:09

see those guys again. He

24:12

sweated, fretted, wished,

24:14

and worried that he was never called to

24:17

testify and his prayer

24:19

was answered. He didn't even

24:21

go to the trial. He

24:23

was never approached again by authorities

24:26

and was never charged with anything. Investigators

24:30

knew he had been an unwitting accomplice

24:32

to the murder. Here's

24:34

Dick harpoot Lean in two thousand twenty one

24:37

being told about the wire Jim Batty

24:39

mailed to Peewee in prison. I've

24:43

always assumed because he had wirecutters

24:46

and Clyres and you named the tool,

24:48

and there was plenty of wire around where

24:50

the cellblock was, I just assumed he got it

24:52

from somebody there. I never knew about Jim

24:55

or the wire. No one ever reported that

24:57

to me. Jim

24:59

and Anitis lowly let go of their fears

25:01

and anxieties, but others

25:03

were charged for their role in the assassination.

25:07

Jack Martin, a friend of Siemo from

25:09

Mural's inlet, got Siemo in

25:11

touch with Gerald McCormick inside

25:13

c c I, and he served

25:15

eighteen months for intimidation of

25:17

a witness. Gerald

25:20

pop McCormick still had twenty

25:22

six years left of his thirty year sentence

25:25

for house breaking, grand larceny,

25:28

and burglary. He received

25:30

a five year sentence concurrent with

25:32

his existing one. James

25:35

Brown was transferred to a Tennessee prison

25:38

as part of his deal with prosecutors.

25:41

Of all the people involved in this bizarre

25:43

case, only Peewee Gaskins

25:46

went to trial. Tony

25:48

Siemo still awaited his fate.

25:51

It seems most everyone was sympathetic

25:53

to the Moon's grieving sun. He

25:58

seemed like the most normal, all

26:01

American guy in the world, just had

26:03

this obsession with avenging the death of

26:05

his parents. You know, a jury,

26:08

I think he would have a hard time getting

26:10

a unanimous verdict to convict

26:12

him of anything serious because all he

26:14

did was what we were trying to

26:16

do, and that was execute Tyner.

26:19

And of course some folks, a number of folks who looked

26:21

at his conduct. Is a two fer. Not

26:23

only do we get Tyner, we got Gaskers. The

26:26

question is, would you get twelve jurors

26:28

to convict Tony Simo

26:31

of something that results in a lengthly prison

26:33

sentence for him for getting pee wee Gaskins

26:36

to basically do what

26:38

not? Basically he executed a guy on death

26:40

road. Now there is the argument

26:42

that he put officers lives in danger in the getting

26:45

C four it into the Department of Correction

26:47

and giving it to a homicidal maniact like pee

26:50

wee, you don't know what he's gonna do with it, And

26:53

we just felt we talked, I mean, we talked

26:55

to a number of people whose judgment I trusted

26:57

about how the community would treat him, and clearly

27:00

we didn't want to spend several weeks

27:02

trying him on a very serious charge and end

27:04

up in an jury.

27:08

Tony Semo pled guilty to misprision,

27:11

making a bomb threat, and conspiracy

27:14

to commit murder. His

27:16

wife, two daughters, plus

27:18

thirty or so family and friends were

27:20

at the sentencing when the judge said, quote

27:23

to deter others from like behavior,

27:26

I'm going to incarceerate you. I

27:29

know that you and your family have gone through a lot

27:31

and will continue to, but we

27:34

can't have people taking the law into their own

27:36

hands and exacting punishment

27:39

end quote. He received

27:41

concurrent sentences of eight years. The

27:44

community had a barbecue and raffle and

27:47

raised three thousand dollars to offset

27:49

semost thousand in legal fees.

27:52

He served only six months and

27:55

was released to a halfway house for the

27:57

remainder of the sentence. He

28:00

was contrite. He was ashamed,

28:03

all the kinds of real good emotions you expected

28:05

of a very normal person. But at the same

28:07

time, I think he was relieved that China was dead.

28:10

One local resident told the Associated

28:13

Press quote, A man

28:15

could only stand so much. I'd

28:18

have done the same thing as Tony if I could have end

28:21

quote. Ira Parnell

28:23

puts it this way. I

28:27

can't really blame tone. People

28:30

get distraught over things. I

28:33

might intempted to do the same thing. I

28:35

don't know, but that

28:38

would just be bad by the being. But

28:42

thankfully he didn't drow him much time from

28:44

it. I think everybody has thought the same

28:47

way. It was

28:49

said. Still really ran. It

28:53

was a sad story, and in two

28:57

years after the trial, a TV

28:59

movie called Vengeance The Story

29:01

of Tony Siemo began production

29:04

with a two million dollar budget. To Seemo's

29:06

dismay, South Carolina

29:08

did not allow criminals to profit

29:11

from their crimes with movie, TV

29:13

or book deals. Therefore,

29:16

his fifteen thousand dollar payoff was

29:18

given to Rudolph Tyner's family. Simo's

29:23

life after the murder was hardly idellic.

29:26

Problems with drug use and

29:28

perhaps a haunting sense of dread plagued

29:31

him until two thousand and one, when

29:33

he suffered a fatal drug overdose. A

29:38

newspaper in Orangeburg, South Carolina,

29:40

called The Times and Democrat, printed

29:43

a statement from his two daughters, who

29:45

were then in their twenties. No

29:48

one will know what was in his mind Sunday night,

29:52

but we believe in his heart he

29:54

did not see a positive future. Jim

30:07

Batty had been working feverishly on his

30:09

book before Pewee's bomb killed

30:11

Tyner and blew up Jim's

30:13

dreams. But what happens.

30:16

I'm merely mair to the prison,

30:19

and he blows a fellow and made his head

30:21

off with it. So so much

30:23

for my hope of redemption. My

30:28

prayer was that through what I wrote,

30:31

what I had studied, and what I

30:33

thought I had learned, is that one

30:36

child, one child would

30:38

have been spared from ever

30:41

becoming another Peewee gascons.

30:44

Rather than hold this individual

30:48

up as a monster, period

30:50

hold him up as a monster and

30:53

see why and how we could

30:55

do otherwise with

30:57

a four year old little boy.

31:00

I had already finished the book, but I was

31:02

editing, working a good bit, writing

31:05

a good bit. But when it

31:07

fell, when the project fell,

31:10

I stopped it.

31:12

When we murdered China, I

31:15

literally dropped my pen. Now

31:17

I stopped. I didn't do anything

31:19

else. There's no book, there's

31:22

no whole book story ever being told.

31:27

I was really frightened for Jim because

31:30

an accomplice to murder. My

31:32

God, he really was an

31:34

unwitting accomplice, which

31:36

I thought, when I had my wits about

31:39

me, we'd keep him from

31:41

being charged because he was so

31:43

innocent. Only now

31:45

do I see the connection between Jim's

31:48

forgetting to take the radio to Donnie

31:50

Jr. And maybe

31:52

pee Wee's conscious setting Jim up in

31:55

that last interaction exchange.

31:58

I don't know, but I mean that's of

32:00

think Peewee might have done, because he did

32:02

set people up, and he did take

32:04

a while to get his revenge if

32:06

you disobeyed him. So that made

32:09

me a little bit extreme. I think he really

32:11

had affection for Jim, but who knows. In

32:16

the rubble of Jim's relationship with Peewee,

32:18

the babies wondered if it had all gone

32:21

sour When Jim failed to promptly

32:23

deliver the radio. Peewee

32:26

was definitely upset by that. There

32:29

was not one time was the

32:31

exception. What I knew. Pee Wee was

32:34

angry with me that I did not

32:36

happily walking into

32:38

that place to see him. I was looking

32:41

forward. It was like going

32:43

into a class to teach

32:46

that I was ready and I could not wait

32:48

to get from him what I

32:50

was going to get about life

32:52

and living no thing. I

32:56

think my guard was always down. I

32:59

don't have much people are on anybody.

33:03

I was certainly looped by Peewee and

33:05

being poured in as an accomplish. Absolutely

33:08

I was. I thought I was doing a

33:11

good deed. I

33:13

think that I became one

33:17

more piece of the puzzle that

33:19

pee Wee used every opportunity

33:22

that he had. All

33:25

of us in the family lived that story with

33:27

Jim. There were nights when he'd come

33:29

home and we couldn't wait to hear what happened

33:32

and hear the stories. But also

33:34

it got you in the pit of your stomach. I

33:36

can remember now, I can even feel it,

33:39

a little bit of dread, a little bit of horror,

33:42

a little bit Oh my gosh, I could

33:44

do that have happened? How could

33:46

that be? And how could he have done this? And how could

33:49

he still be around? And how could my

33:51

children be entering the phone on Sunday

33:54

and talking to this guy? But also

33:57

how fascinating he was and

33:59

how Jim cared about what

34:01

made him the way it was. I

34:04

do still carry that today. Whether

34:08

or not the radio incidents set Jim's

34:10

fate will forever remain a mystery,

34:14

as with so much in this story, But

34:16

for Jim, the whole of the saga

34:19

was worth studying, worth researching,

34:23

and worth telling. My

34:26

mentality going in as

34:28

far as writing this true

34:30

life novel was that I

34:32

was equipped to do that, although

34:35

I had not tried it before, but

34:38

I had talked from true

34:40

life novels, and I

34:42

felt that the Peewee Gaskin's

34:45

saga, or the story itself,

34:48

needed to be told. I

34:50

could never get away from

34:53

the necessity of that being done

34:56

for social reasons.

34:58

There was something that are around

35:01

this situation that I think

35:03

the world needed to be told

35:05

because the world needed to correct it, and

35:08

I was in that world. I

35:12

became more and more confident

35:15

that the task was necessary.

35:18

And when he murdered Rudolph

35:20

Kiner, it squashed my

35:22

project, which of course was my

35:25

selfish concern. I

35:27

was disillusioned. I didn't

35:30

think there was any good in

35:32

pee Wee. I

35:34

realized that I could not portray

35:37

this man with any form of redemption,

35:40

none whatsoever. I

35:43

completely gave up on the possibility

35:45

of my being a writer. Jim

35:51

found out that he was no more of a friend

35:53

of pee Wee Gaskins than any

35:56

of his dead victims, and

35:59

in nineteen eighty three Peewee

36:01

found himself on death row again. Even

36:05

from there, he was still able to play

36:07

games with people and implicate

36:10

them in his brazen schemes.

36:14

Death penalty appeals are standard

36:17

legal maneuvers for most convicts.

36:20

In South Carolina. Death sentences

36:22

are automatically appealed. Through

36:25

the nineteen eighties, Peewee's defense

36:27

team, led by Jack Swirling,

36:30

fouled five different appeals with

36:32

dozens of various charges in each.

36:35

Each appeal was denied, and

36:37

Peewee sat on death row. Sometime

36:43

after the Rudolph Tyner murder. Dick

36:45

carput Lean joined up with Jack Swirling

36:48

and started a law firm.

36:50

They practiced together for years. Peewee

36:53

was no longer in their legal lives, but

36:56

one day Dick was reminded

36:58

of Peewee's incredible audacity.

37:01

I'm playing golf and I get

37:03

a call from Chief Stewart, chief

37:06

of swed and said where are you? And I said,

37:08

I'm playing golf. He said, and where's

37:10

your daughter? And I did not like the sound of that.

37:14

He said, we think there's a plot maybe to kidnap

37:16

her. Will send sweed agents there, and

37:19

she was at home. So by

37:21

the time I got home, he had Sweed agents there. The

37:24

story came out that pe We had met with his

37:26

son, little Donnie, and that

37:28

Donnie had gone to a friend to his and says

37:31

his dad said the kidnapped the

37:33

solicitor's daughter or the

37:36

governor's son, and that he

37:38

intended on kidnapping the swister daughter, who

37:40

was four years old, and he needed this young man to

37:42

help him do it. And he told

37:44

the young man that his dad, and he asked

37:46

the dad what if he won't if I kidnap her? And

37:48

he won't do what you want him to do?

37:50

What do I do? And he said we should keep

37:52

her in a drunk and if he won't do it, to kill her. What

37:56

he was supposed to do was tell me to have pe we

37:58

brought up to my office in the court house. And

38:01

this is the chilling part. He

38:03

we knew somehow that I had a

38:05

back door to my office. That if I told

38:08

the swed agents to bring him in my office and we

38:10

they didn't know the door was there, and they would wait and he could

38:13

just go out the back door. I mean, I don't know how

38:15

he nobody knew that. So the

38:18

kid went de soon went and talked to

38:20

another kid that that could immediately want to share

38:22

Barnes, thank god, and so they like

38:24

there, she was fine, my wife was fine. And

38:26

they had warrants out for Donnie for carset

38:29

or something, so they arrested him and took him into custody.

38:34

Brenda Chase was a new reporter

38:36

for the Florence Morning News when

38:38

Donnie Gaskins was detained in the Florence

38:41

County Sheriff's office. It

38:43

was just my second job out of college,

38:46

covering cops and courts

38:48

and all things related to law.

38:51

Enforcement. We had some friends

38:53

over at the Sheriff's office, one who

38:55

gave me a call and said, you're never going

38:57

to believe this, but we actually

38:59

have Uwee. Gaskin's son in

39:02

the county jail right now. His name is

39:04

Donnie, and we've got him on a

39:07

forty eight hour hold, and he

39:09

wants to speak to the media. Would you like to come over

39:11

here and talk with him? And I was

39:13

like absolutely. I thought

39:15

I had arrived at the big time and I

39:18

had only been there for a few months, and

39:20

I just thought, man, this is cool. I'm

39:22

getting the biggest scoop of the decade. And

39:25

fortunately the Florence newspaper was

39:27

very, very close to the county jail, and

39:30

so I ran across the street and

39:33

they brought him in. And he was so young looking.

39:36

I believe Donnie was twenty, not much

39:39

younger than myself at that time. He

39:41

had never really had any time at all

39:43

with his dad because his dad had pretty

39:45

much been in jail his whole life. And

39:48

it was so interesting talking to him

39:50

because it was almost like there

39:53

was this connection to Peewee Gaskins

39:55

through Donnie, but very little

39:57

time had he ever spent with his dad. So

40:00

he just talked about how he didn't

40:02

believe all these stories about his dad, and his

40:04

dad could not have done this. And then

40:06

he was of course proclaiming his innocence

40:08

that he was not doing any of the things that they said

40:11

he was going to do. And so it was just a very

40:13

odd conversation and was through the

40:15

plexiglass at the county jail, and

40:18

it was kind of bizarre that this young

40:20

young man, with absolutely

40:23

no idea of how secure his

40:25

dad was being held, really

40:27

thought, well, we could get him out of jail. And

40:30

then he would say a few things that kind of led you

40:32

to believe that he really was trying. And then

40:34

he would of course remember, oh wait, I can't say

40:36

that because um, like not

40:39

gonna be guilty of this. So it was

40:41

kind of an odd conversation. You

40:45

know, I did feel a little bit sorry

40:47

for Donnie. I don't know that he ever

40:49

had much of a chance. You know, when

40:51

you're growing up in that p D area

40:54

of South Carolina, everyone knew

40:56

who Peewee Gaskins was, so everyone

40:58

knew who his father was, as if he ever told

41:01

them. And I just don't think he stood much

41:03

of a chance coming into that

41:06

local community with that last

41:08

name and that as a father, but I don't

41:10

think he had any kind of a chance

41:13

growing up. So

41:17

the cops held Donnie Gaskins for two days,

41:20

but the fear lasted longer for Dick

41:22

harpoot Lean. For

41:26

the next two weeks, we lived with sweat

41:28

agents around our house and outside of our house.

41:30

My daughter was a preschool and when she went to

41:33

preschool, they had sweat agents around

41:35

there. I don't think the other parents appreciated

41:37

it much, but actually we stopped taking her

41:39

over there after a couple of days because it was just too

41:42

much for them to put their children

41:44

at risk. So we lived for a couple

41:46

of weeks. Get up in the morning, the sweat agents

41:48

in the living room and around the house, out

41:50

in the yard. You'll go to bed at night, that's

41:52

the last thing you see. It led me to

41:55

the conclusion I never want to live with Secret

41:57

Service protection or anything like that.

41:59

It is so of Trusia, and it affects

42:02

your mentality about the world at large. There's

42:04

in other words, you look at the rest of the world is threatening.

42:09

Threatening. The reason

42:12

Peewee Gaskins was not your friend because

42:14

there's always a gun or knife's

42:17

edge, threatening at your doorstep,

42:20

or your office, or your daughter's

42:22

preschool. Even

42:25

though Dick harput Lean was one of South

42:27

Carolina's most well known prosecutors,

42:29

he was still tinged by Peewee's reach.

42:33

The fear was real, and

42:35

his friend and law partner, Jack Swirling,

42:38

had his own scare. Several

42:40

years after harput Leon's kidnap, Shock

42:43

Swirling felt the wrath of a former client.

42:50

On June thousand and two,

42:53

Swirling, his wife, and daughter returned

42:56

home from an out of town trip. As

42:59

they were eating hand Burgher's, two

43:01

armed gunmen barged into their house and

43:03

bound the family with duct tape. After

43:06

ransacking the place, one

43:08

of the massed assailants jammed a gun into

43:10

Jack's neck and demanded to be told

43:12

where the money in the house was. Swirling

43:16

said he didn't have any at home. The

43:18

man new Swirling's name, which

43:20

added a level of amazement to the whole ordeal.

43:24

He yelled at Jack, I'm going to give you

43:26

one more chance, where's the money, or

43:28

I will kill you. Luckily,

43:31

after they rummaged through the entire house,

43:33

the men left without killing anyone. Soon

43:39

after, James Causey was arrested

43:42

and charged with numerous crimes, including

43:45

kidnapping, armed robbery,

43:47

and burglary. It turns

43:50

out that Swirling defended Causey in

43:52

two different trials. He

43:54

got him a reduced sentence in each case,

43:57

but apparently cause he still

43:59

held a grug that he had to go to

44:01

jail at all. He's

44:03

still serving life without parole. Jack

44:08

Swirling lives with the memory of his family

44:11

bound and held at gunpoint in their

44:13

own home. Dick

44:15

carput Lean lives with the memory of

44:17

Gaskin's kidnapping plot. Does

44:20

Jim Batty worry about his own involvement

44:23

in Peewee Gaskin's last murder? Of

44:26

course I worried about it. I'm

44:29

worried about that now. Pee

44:43

Wee Gaskins was not my friend. It's a joint production

44:46

from My Heart Radio and Doghouse Pictures,

44:48

produced and hosted by Jeff Keeping. Executive

44:51

producers are Courtney DeFries and Noel Brown.

44:53

Written by Jim Roberts, Courtney DeFries

44:55

and Terry James edit Nixon. Sound

44:58

designed by Jeremiah Kolani Escot.

45:00

Music composed by Diamond Street Productions,

45:03

Spencer gard and Ian Newberry. Special

45:05

thanks to Jim and Anita Baby. Additional

45:07

thanks to the University of South Carolina Moving

45:10

Image Research Collections and the University

45:12

of South Carolina