Arthur Shawcross Term Papers

Arthur Shawcross, otherwise known as the Genesee River killer, was a serial killer who began his reign of terror in 1972 until his capture in 1989. Shawcross was born in Maine, but moved with his family to upstate New York when he was a young child. There are conflicting accounts of his intelligence, number of actual murders, and childhood abuse. Some say he was “borderline retarded” after scoring extremely low on IQ tests during criminal proceedings, but scored above average while testing for the U.S. Military. To his own admission, Shawcross was a chronic bed wetter until the age of 12, was sexually and physically abused by his mother and aunt, and claimed to have sexual relations with his own sister. There are several admissions

Years pass and Arthur marries his first wife, Sarah, this ends due to violence and unlawful entry charges. A year after the divorce Arthur marries another woman which again would end due to violence. He is then drafted into the military during the Vietnam War in which he claims he has 39 confirmed kills, but is later disproved and confirmed that he had zero. Along with his fabricated kills he also claimed to cannibalize two Vietnamese girls to obtain information about the Vietcong’s location. When returning from his tour in 1968 he was arrested on arson charges and would serve two years for these

Months later Arthur confesses to the killings of both children and would only be charged with the death of Karen due to lack of evidence to the death of Jack. He serves 15 years of his 25 year sentence and upon his return his third wife divorces him. Now widely publicized Arthur struggles to keep a job and is eventually run out of town with his new girlfriend Rose. Being run out everywhere he went began to cause issues for Arthur and authorities sealed his criminal record landing him in Rochester, New York where he got a job and apartment. He then marries Rose making her his fourth wife, but the lack of relations made Arthur seek relations elsewhere. Arthur became a regular customer to local prostitutes and got a mistress, Clara. Arthur will claim another life, 27 year old prostitute Dorothy Blackburn, police found her body dumped in the Genesee River with bite marks by the groin and cause of death was strangulation. Another body was discovered shortly, another prostitute Anna Steffen, the cause of death was strangulation much like Dorothy without the bite marks. Now local authorities are searching for the murderer and deploy officers undercover in hopes to catch the murderer. This proved to be