Serial killer Arthur Shawcross, who was serving life in prison for strangling 11 women in the Rochester area, has died at 63.
NBC News
Nov. 11, 2008 / Source: The Associated Press
Serial killer Arthur Shawcross, who was serving life in prison for strangling 11 women in the Rochester area, has died at 63.
Shawcross died late Monday at an Albany hospital, where he had been taken after complaining of leg pain earlier in the day at the Sullivan Correctional Facility, Corrections Department spokesman Erik Kriss said Tuesday. The cause of death was still under investigation, he said.
Shawcross' 13-week trial in 10 of the killings included graphic testimony about mutilation and cannibalism.
Shawcross, also known as the Genessee River Killer, was blamed for a wave of slayings discovered between 1988 and 1990 in the downtown Rochester area. Authorities said he preyed primarily upon prostitutes, raping and mutilating his victims before dumping their bodies in out-of-the-way locations throughout the city.
At the time, he was on parole after serving 15 years in prison for killing two children in northern New York's Watertown in 1972.
Shawcross was arrested in January 1990, a day after state police spotted him near the frozen body of one of his victims.
In December 1990, he was convicted of killing 10 of the women after jurors deliberated only 6 1/2 hours. Jurors rejected defense arguments that he was legally insane at the time of the killings because of brain damage, abuse during childhood and his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam.
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