June 6, 1945 - Arthur Shawcross

The case of the Genesee River Killer carries a particular weight because so much of the harm was preventable — his later murders occurred only after an early parole release that psychiatrists and criminologists would subsequently cite as a cautionary example of institutional failure. After serving time for the killings of two children in Watertown, Shawcross was freed and relocated to Rochester, where over the course of roughly two years he killed more than a dozen women. The controversy surrounding his release became as much a part of his legacy as the crimes themselves.

From Wikipedia

Arthur John Shawcross (June 6, 1945 – November 10, 2008), also known as the Genesee River Killer, was an American serial killer active in Rochester, New York, between 1972 and 1989. Shawcross's first known murders took place in his hometown of Watertown, New York, where he killed a young boy and a girl. Under the terms of a plea bargain, he was allowed to plead guilty to one charge of manslaughter for those two 1972 murders, for which he served 14 years of a 25-year sentence.

Shawcross killed most of his victims in 1988 and 1989 after being granted an early parole; the granting of that early parole later led to controversy. A food service worker, he trawled the streets of Rochester in his girlfriend's car looking for prostitutes to kill. Shawcross died on 10 November 2008, while serving a prison sentence of 250 years for his 1980s crimes, at the age of 63.

Michael H. Stone, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and an authority on violent behavior, identified Shawcross's early parole as "one of the most egregious examples of the unwarranted release of a prisoner" in his book The Anatomy of Evil.

⚠ Report a problem with this article