419: Serial Killer Pee Wee Gaskins w/ Dick Harpootlian

Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

Erik Rivenes

True Crime, History, Education

4.7 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Among the many murder cases handled by South Carolina attorney Dick Harpootlian, one continues to stand apart: the prosecution of Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins. A serial killer and sexual predator, Gaskins claimed to have taken more than 100 lives and is known to have murdered over a dozen people, including a young child and his own teenage niece. He killed for both revenge and gratification, using whatever methods were available - from knives and firearms to poison, suffocation, and drowning. Disturbingly, he maintained a charming persona, presenting himself as friendly and generous while privately committing the most heinous of crimes. One of his most shocking occurred on Death Row, when he murdered another inmate using an explosive device, demonstrating that his capacity for violence extended even behind bars. In this episode, I’m joined by Dick Harpootlian, author of Dig Me a Grave: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Who Seduced the South, who prosecuted Gaskins, to share firsthand insight into the man and his crimes. The official book website: https://www.dickharpootlian.com/ or https://digmeagrave.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	A world on fire, nations collapsing, ideologies clashing, and ordinary men and women caught in the storm.
0:09.3	Hi, I'm Ray Harris Jr. of the History of World War II podcast, and we'll cover the battles that shaped the war, from the deserts of North Africa to the frozen forests of the Ardennes.
0:19.9	Because history isn't just names and dates.
0:23.5	It's people, choices, and consequences at World War II podcast.net.
1:01.2	Music Welcome to the Welcome, everyone to another episode of the Most Notorious podcast.
1:04.6	Happy New Year, and thank you for being here.
1:07.7	My guest today is Dick Rputlian.
1:14.5	He is one of South Carolina's leading courtroom advocates with 30 years of trial experience as a prosecutor, defense attorney, and civil litigator. He served as a member of the
1:22.2	South Carolina Senate as well and district attorney for the Fifth Judicial Circuit of South Carolina.
1:30.0	And his book, which came out on December 16th, is called Dig Me a Grave, the Inside Story
1:37.0	of the Serial Killer who seduced the South. He co-wrote the book with Shauna Sale,
1:53.2	who, by the way, joined me nine years ago, gosh, to talk about the murder of boxer Sunny Liston.
1:55.7	Great meeting you. Thank you for joining me.
1:57.5	Well, thank you for inviting me.
2:04.6	And Sean is an extraordinarily talented writer and storyteller and was wonderful to work with him. Can I ask you about that?
2:06.6	What was the process like writing this book with him?
2:11.6	Well, the process, first of all, this happened, the events happened in 1982, 83, and peewee was executed in 91 so it's been
2:22.3	40 years basically since all this happened but i've been over the years i tell maybe a bar
2:29.8	meeting and tell a story or two and oldly everybody, you ought to write a book. So stop and start
2:36.1	until around the pandemic. And then when the pandemic came, there was no, no court. I was in
2:43.3	the Senate at the time, no Senate. And so I thought that was an opportune time to begin that process.
2:48.4	I got an agent and the agent came up with five or six people for me to
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 15 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Erik Rivenes, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Erik Rivenes and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.