Bernard Giles | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | Bernard Eugene Giles April 9, 1953 Titusville, Florida, U.S. |
Conviction(s) | First degree murder |
Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment |
Details | |
Victims | 5 |
Span of crimes | September –November 1973 |
Country | United States |
State(s) | Florida |
Date apprehended | December 11, 1973 |
Imprisoned at | Tomoka Correctional Institution, FL [1] |
Bernard Eugene Giles (born April 9, 1953) is an American convicted serial killer and rapist who murdered five girls and women in Titusville, Florida, in late 1973. After his arrest in December of that year, he fully admitted his guilt and was sentenced to serve several life imprisonment terms in 1974. [2]
Giles was born on April 9, 1953, in a Titusville family with three other children. His parents led a law-abiding lifestyle and were described as not very good at parenting.[ clarification needed ] Most of his friends described him in a very positive manner. He attended Titusville High School, where he took an interest in visual arts. He achieved some success in this field, but soon lost interest in studying as a whole. Due to chronic absenteeism and poor academic performance, he was forced to leave school at age 16. He then mastered the trade of an electrician and began working. In 1972, he married 17-year-old Leslie Jo Ann, who gave birth to a daughter in July 1973. [3]
As victims, Giles would choose young girls, most of whom hitchhiked. Their bodies were found, in some cases raped, in orange groves or wooded areas in Brevard County. [4]
Nancy Gerry, 18, disappeared on September 26, 1973. Her fully clothed body was found in a palmetto thicket, shot in the head, on December 10, 1973. [5] [6]
Paula Darlene Hamric, 22, disappeared November 17, 1973. Her nude body was found strangled, hands bound, eight days later. [5] [4]
Carolyn Jan Bennett, 17, disappeared on November 15, 1973. Her skeleton was found on Christmas Day. She had been shot in the head. [6] [7]
Sharon Mary Wimer, 14, disappeared on November 5, 1973. She was found strangled, wearing only a St. Christopher's necklace; her shirt and sweater were found near her remains. [6] [8]
Krista Jean Melton, 14, was reported missing on November 14, 1973. On January 31, 1974, she was found fully clothed with a gunshot to the head. [9] [10]
On December 10, 1973, Giles lured two underage hitchhikers into his car and drove them to the woodlands outside Titusville, where he attempted to attack them. The victims fiercely resisted, which caused Giles to draw his gun to shoot them, but his pistol malfunctioned and misfired, and the girls managed to escape. They went to police and described their attacker and his car, providing even his name, which they had glimpsed in a book while riding in his car. The next day, Giles was arrested, his car was examined, and his 22-caliber pistol was seized. He was charged with assault and attempted rape. [11] Following Giles' arrest, he was investigated as a suspect in the disappearances of more than 11 girls who had been reported missing since August 1973 and the murders of several others, but in January of the following year, most of the missing girls were located, and Giles was no longer suspected in those cases. [12] [13]
A forensic ballistic examination confirmed that Gerry had been killed with the revolver belonging to Giles, and he was subsequently charged with her murder. He insisted on his innocence, and in early 1974, his lawyers filed a motion for a forensic medical examination, which was granted. In the spring, two independent examinations were conducted, which determined that Giles did not suffer from any mental illnesses or abnormalities. He was declared sane, and a trial date was scheduled for April 29, 1974. [14]
The Brevard County State Attorney's Office said that if Giles was convicted, they would seek the death penalty. Because of this, Giles made a plea bargain with prosecutors shortly before the beginning of the trial. He confessed to the murder of Hamric; then, during the trial, he pled guilty to the murders of the three remaining girls and to a series of non-lethal attacks and attempted murders. Giles admitted that he had been prone to violence from the age of six, often playing games in which he imitated killing the other participant. He claimed to have enjoyed pretend-strangling his childhood friend, who played the role of a witch in one of the games. This was confirmed by a number of acquaintances from that period. According to his testimony, he began to make his first attempts to attack girls in 1969 after dropping out of school but was unsuccessful. Due to the plea bargain terms, he was spared the death penalty and on August 13, 1974, was given several terms of life imprisonment. [15] [16]
After his conviction, Giles was transported to serve his sentence at the Florida State Prison in Bradford County. In October 1979, Giles escaped with two other prisoners. With the help of a few hand-made smoke grenades, he and his accomplices distracted the guard dogs and the prison guards. Then, using locksmithing tools, they managed to make a small gap in several rows of wire through which they escaped. In the subsequent search, police staked out his ex-wife's house as they had received a tip that Giles was planning to kidnap his daughter from his ex-wife. However, he was found five miles away from the prison, 26 hours after escaping. He was found guilty of escape and given an additional 15 years imprisonment. [17] [18]
Since then, Giles has been moved to various penitentiaries around the state. In 2019, he received a second wave of fame after British journalist and TV host Piers Morgan visited Giles in prison to conduct an interview for one of his new segments. [19]
Titusville is a city in and the county seat of Brevard County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 48,789, up from 43,761 at the 2010 census. Titusville is located along the Indian River, west of Merritt Island and the Kennedy Space Center, and south-southwest of the Canaveral National Seashore. It is a principal city of the Palm Bay–Melbourne–Titusville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Paul John Knowles, also known as The Casanova Killer, was an American serial killer tied to the deaths of 18 people in 1974, though he claimed to have murdered at least 35.
Ottis Elwood Toole was an American serial killer who was convicted of six counts of murder. Like his companion Henry Lee Lucas, Toole made confessions which resulted in murder convictions, and which he later recanted. The discrediting of the case against Lucas for crimes for which Toole had offered corroborating statements created doubts as to whether either was a genuine serial killer or, as Hugh Aynesworth suggested, both were merely compliant interviewees whom police used to clear unsolved murders from the books.
Daniel Camargo Barbosa was a Colombian serial killer and rapist. He is one of the most prolific serial killers in history and is believed to have raped and murdered at least 72 young girls in Colombia and Ecuador during the 1970s and 1980s.
Gerard John Schaefer Jr. was an American murderer and suspected serial killer, known as the Killer Cop, the Hangman and the Butcher of Blind Creek, who was convicted of the 1972 murder and mutilation of two teenage girls in Port St. Lucie, Florida. He is suspected of up to twenty-six further murders.
Harvey Murray Glatman was an American serial killer active during the late 1950s. He was known in the media as the Lonely Hearts Killer and the Glamour Girl Slayer. He would use several pseudonyms, posing as a professional photographer to lure his victims with the promise of a modeling career.
Donald Henry "Pee Wee" Gaskins Jr. was an American serial killer and rapist from South Carolina who stabbed, shot, drowned, and poisoned more than a dozen people. Before his convictions for murder, Gaskins had a long history of criminal activities resulting in prison sentences for assault, burglary, and statutory rape. His last arrest was for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 13-year-old Kim Gehlken, who had gone missing in September 1975. During their search for the missing girl, police discovered eight bodies buried in shallow graves near Gaskins's home in Prospect, South Carolina.
Richard Francis Cottingham is an American serial killer who was convicted in New York of six murders committed between 1972 and 1980 and convicted in New Jersey of twelve murders committed between 1967 and 1978. He was nicknamed by media as the Torso Killer and the Times Square Ripper, since some of the murders he was convicted of included mutilation.
Gerald Eugene Stano was an American convicted serial killer. Stano murdered at least 22 young women and girls, confessed to 41 murders, and the police say the number of his victims may be closer to 88.
The Alphabet murders are an unsolved series of child murders which occurred between 1971 and 1973 in Rochester, New York.
John Brennan Crutchley was an American convicted kidnapper and rapist. A possible serial killer, he was suspected of murdering up to thirty women. He was called the Vampire Rapist because he drained the blood of his one confirmed victim almost to the point of death while he repeatedly raped her.
David Joseph Carpenter, also known as The Trailside Killer, is an American serial killer and serial rapist known for stalking and murdering a variety of individuals on hiking trails in state parks near San Francisco, California. He attacked at least ten individuals and was convicted in seven murders and was confirmed to be the killer in an eighth murder; Carpenter is also suspected in two additional killings. Two victims, Steven Haertle and Lois Rinna, mother of television personality Lisa Rinna, survived. Carpenter used a .38 caliber handgun in all but one of the killings. A .44 caliber handgun was used in the killing of Edda Kane on Mount Tamalpais.
Necrophilia is a pathological fascination with dead bodies, which often takes the form of a desire to engage with them in sexual activities, such as intercourse. Though prohibited by the laws of many countries, there have been many reported cases of necrophilia throughout history.
Anthony Cook and Nathaniel Cook are American brothers and serial killers who committed at least nine rape-murders between 1973 and 1981. They were active in Toledo, Ohio, and surrounding areas with most of their victims being young couples. Anthony was arrested and convicted for the final murder, but his and Nathaniel's guilt in the other killings would not be uncovered until Nathaniel was detained for a misdemeanor in 1998, after which DNA profiling exposed their involvement. Both brothers were later convicted and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment; Anthony received multiple life sentences, while Nathaniel was sentenced to 75 years with a minimum of fifteen years served, and he was paroled after eighteen years in 2018.
Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 people, nearly all women, between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.
Eddie Lee Mosley was an American serial killer and rapist who murdered at least eight women in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, between 1973 and 1987. He was arrested in 2001 following the results of a DNA profiling test, after being the prime suspect in several murders for many years. Before his arrest, two other men were wrongly convicted of several murders later attributed to Mosley: Frank Lee Smith, who spent 15 years in prison and died behind bars before he could be exonerated, and Jerry Townsend, who spent 22 years in prison before being released. Mosley's true victim count is unknown, with authorities speculating that he committed at least 16 murders and dozens of rapes.
Henry Lee Jones is an American criminal, spree killer and suspected serial killer who has been sentenced to death on multiple occasions for the murders of three people in Tennessee and Florida in August 2003. In addition to these crimes, he remains the prime suspect in a fourth killing dating back to 2002, and possibly other murders.
Ronald Hinton is an American serial killer who committed the murders of three women in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, between 1996 and 1999. He pleaded guilty to each murder in 2004 to avoid a death sentence and was subsequently given three life terms.