1975: "Pee Wee" Gaskins Arrested After His Best Friend Turned Informer
Donald Henry "Pee Wee" Gaskins was a wiry, affable con man already notorious across South Carolina's criminal underworld when his closest friend decided he had had enough. Walter Neeley had listened for years as Gaskins boasted of people who had simply vanished, and had even been shown where some of them were buried, including, Neeley came to suspect, his own sister.
On 10 October 1975, Gaskins lured Dennis Bellamy into the woods behind his trailer home with a promise to return stolen guns, then shot him in the back of the head. Minutes later he killed Bellamy's teenage half-brother the same way, to make sure neither could talk.
Neeley could stay silent no longer. On this day in 1975 he went to police and confessed what Gaskins had told him about the killings, triggering Gaskins's arrest. Three weeks later, Neeley led investigators to land near the family home, where police dug up eight more bodies.
