Cinderella

Once there was a widower who married a proud and haughty woman as his second wife. She had two daughters who were equally vain. By his first wife, he had had a beautiful young daughter who was a girl of unparalleled goodness and sweet temper. The Stepmother and her daughters forced the first daughter to complete all the housework. When the girl had done her work, she sat in the cinders, which caused her to be called "Cinderella". The poor girl bore it patiently, but she dared not tell her father, who would have scolded her; his wife controlled him entirely.
One day the Prince invited all the young ladies in the land to a ball so he could choose a wife. As the two Stepsisters were invited, they gleefully planned their wardrobes. Although Cinderella assisted them and dreamed of going to the dance, they taunted her by saying a maid could never attend a ball.
As the sisters swept away to the ball, Cinderella cried in despair. Her Fairy Godmother magically appeared and vowed to assist Cinderella in attending the ball. She turned a pumpkin into a coach, mice into horses, a rat into a coachman, and lizards into footmen. She then turned Cinderella's rags into a beautiful gown, complete with a delicate pair of glass slippers. The Godmother told her to enjoy the ball, but return before midnight for the spells would be broken.
At the ball, the entire court was entranced by Cinderella, especially the Prince, who never left her side. Unrecognized by her sisters, Cinderella remembered to leave before midnight. Back home, Cinderella graciously thanked her Godmother. She then greeted the Stepsisters who enthusiastically talked of nothing but the beautiful girl at the ball.
When another ball was held the next evening, Cinderella again attended with her Godmother's help. The Prince became even more entranced. However, this evening she lost track of time and left only at the final stroke of midnight, losing one of her glass slippers on the steps of the palace in her haste. The Prince chased her, but outside the palace, the guards had seen only a simple country wench leave. The Prince pocketed the slipper and vowed to find and marry the girl to whom it belonged. Meanwhile, Cinderella kept the other slipper, which had not disappeared when the spell had broken.
The Prince tried the slipper on all the women in the kingdom. When the Prince arrived at Cinderella's villa, the Stepsisters tried in vain. When Cinderella asked if she might try, the Stepsisters taunted her. Naturally, the slipper fit perfectly, and Cinderella produced the other slipper for good measure. The Stepsisters begged for forgiveness, and Cinderella forgave them for their cruelties.
Cinderella returned to the palace where she married the Prince, and the Stepsisters also married two lords.

Snow White

Once upon a time, as a queen sits sewing at her window, she pricks her finger on her needle and three drops of blood fall on the snow that had fallen on her ebony window frame. As she looks at the blood on the snow, she says to herself, "Oh, how I wish that I had a daughter that had skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony". Soon after that, the queen gives birth to a baby girl who has skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony. They name her Princess Snow White. As soon as the child is born, the queen dies.

Soon after, the king takes a new wife, who is beautiful but also very vain. The queen possesses a magical mirror that answers any question, to whom she often asks: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land is fairest of all?" to which the mirror always replies "You, my queen, are fairest of all." But when Snow White reaches the age of seven, she becomes as beautiful as the day, and when the queen asks her mirror, it responds: "Queen, you are full fair, 'tis true, but Snow White is fairer than you." Though in another version, the mirror simply replies: "Snow White is the fairest of them all."

The queen becomes jealous, and orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the woods to be killed. She demands that the huntsman, as proof of killing Snow White, return with her heart. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest, but after raising his knife to stab her, he finds himself unable to kill her. Instead, he lets her go, telling her to flee and hide, He then brings the queen the heart of a young deer, which is prepared by the cook and eaten by the queen.

In the forest, Snow White discovers a tiny cottage belonging to seven dwarfs, where she rests. There, the dwarfs take pity on her, saying "If you will keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep everything clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have everything that you want." They warn her to take care and let no one in when they are away delving in the mountains. Meanwhile, the Queen asks her mirror once again "Who's the fairest of them all?", and is horrified to learn that Snow White is not only alive and well and living with the dwarfs, but is still the fairest of them all.

Three times the Queen disguises herself and visits the dwarfs' cottage while they are away during the day, trying to kill Snow White. First, disguised as a peddler, the Queen offers colorful stay-laces and laces Snow White up so tight that she faints, causing the Queen to leave her for dead. However, Snow White is revived by the dwarfs when they loosen the laces. Next, the Queen dresses as a different old woman and brushes Snow White's hair with a poisoned comb. Snow White again collapses, but again is saved by the dwarfs. Finally, the Queen makes a poisoned apple, and in the disguise of a farmer's wife, offers it to Snow White. When she is hesitant to accept it, the Queen cuts the apple in half, eats the white part and gives the poisoned red part to Snow White. She eats the apple eagerly and immediately falls into a deep stupor. When the dwarfs find her, they cannot revive her, and they place her in a glass coffin, assuming that she is dead.

Time passes, and a prince traveling through the land sees Snow White. He strides to her coffin. The prince is enchanted by her beauty and instantly falls in love with her. He begs the dwarfs to let him have the coffin. The prince's servants carry the coffin away. While doing so, they stumble on some bushes and the movement causes the piece of poisoned apple to dislodge from Snow White's throat, awakening her. The prince then declares his love for her and soon a wedding is planned.

The vain Queen, still believing that Snow White is dead, once again asks her mirror who is the fairest in the land, and yet again the mirror disappoints her by responding that "You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you."

Not knowing that this new queen was indeed her stepdaughter, she arrives at the wedding, and her heart fills with the deepest of dread when she realizes the truth.

As punishment for her wicked ways, a pair of heated iron shoes are brought forth with tongs and placed before the Queen. She is then forced to step into the iron shoes and dance until she falls down dead.

Donald Henry "Pee Wee" Gaskins, Jr.

Donald Henry "Pee Wee" Gaskins, Jr. (March 13, 1933 - September 6, 1991) was an American serial killer

Early life

Donald Henry Pee-Wee Gaskins was born on March 13, 1933, in Florence County, South Carolina. Gaskins spent much of his youth in reform school. In adulthood, Gaskins' small, slight build (5' 4" tall, hence his nickname) would make him a target for physical and sexual abuse in prison.

As a youth, Gaskins was both a poor scholar and a criminal, committing a number of petty thefts. During one burglary, he hit a woman on the head with a hatchet and left her for dead, though she survived. For this crime, Gaskins served his first custodial sentence at a reform school. Gaskins married for the first time in 1951, at eighteen, and fathered a daughter the following year. Upon his release from reform school, Gaskins took to committing insurance fraud, and was arrested for attacking a teenage girl with a hammer whom he claimed had been insulting him and was charged with attempted murder. Gaskins was sentenced to six years' imprisonment at the South Carolina State Penitentiary. During this incarceration, Gaskins' wife divorced him.

First Murder

Gaskins committed his first murder whilst serving this first prison sentence in 1953, when he slashed the throat of a fellow inmate named Hazel Brazell. Gaskins claimed he committed this murder to earn himself a fearsome reputation amongst his fellow inmates. He was judged to have acted in self-defense, and sentenced to a further three years' imprisonment. Gaskins escaped from prison in 1955 by hiding in the back of a garbage truck and fled to Florida, where he took employment with a traveling carnival. He was rearrested, remanded to custody, and paroled in August, 1961.

Second Arrest and subsequent murders

Following his release from prison, Gaskins remarried but soon reverted to committing burglaries and fencing stolen property. Two years after his parole, Gaskins was arrested for the rape of a twelve-year-old girl; he absconded whilst awaiting sentence, but was rearrested in Georgia, and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. Gaskins was paroled in November, 1968. Upon his release, Gaskins moved to the town of Sumter and began work with a construction company. In September 1969, Gaskins began killing a series of hitchhikers he picked up whilst driving around the coastal highways of the American South, he classified these victims as Coastal Kills: people whom he killed purely for pleasure, both male and female, whom Gaskins killed on average approximately once every six weeks, when he went hunting to quell his feelings of "bothersome-ness". He would torture his victims and mutilate them, but attempt to keep them alive for as long as possible; he confessed to killing these victims using a variety of methods including stabbing, suffocation and mutilation, and even claimed to have cannibalized some of them. He later confessed to killing ' eighty to ninety ' such victims, although this figure has never been corroborated.

In November, 1970, Gaskins committed the first of his Serious Murders: people whom he knew and killed for personal reasons. Gaskins' first Serious Murder victims were his own niece, Janice Kirby, aged 15, and her friend Patricia Ann Alsbrook, aged 17, whom he beat to death after attempting to sexually assault them in Sumter, South Carolina. Other Serious Murder victims were killed for a variety of reasons: because they had mocked Gaskins, attempted to blackmail him, owed him money, because they had stolen from him, or because Gaskins had been paid to kill his victim. Unlike his Coastal Kills, Gaskins simply executed these victims, usually by shooting them, before burying them around the coastal areas of South Carolina.

Final Arrest

Gaskins was arrested on November 14, 1975, when a criminal associate, named Walter Neeley, confessed to police that he had witnessed Gaskins having killed two young men named Dennis Bellamy, aged 28, and Johnny Knight, aged 15. Neeley confessed to police that Gaskins had confided in him to having killed several people who had been listed as missing persons over the previous five years, and had indicated to him where they were buried. On December 4, 1975, Gaskins led police to land he owned in Prospect, where police discovered the bodies of eight of his victims.

Imprisonment

Gaskins was tried on eight charges of murder on May 24, 1976, found guilty on May 28 and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life in prison, when the South Carolina General Assembly's 1974 death sentence ruling was changed to conform to the United States Supreme Court guidelines for the death penalty in other states.

On September 12, 1982, Gaskins committed another murder, for which he earned the title of the "Meanest Man in America". Whilst incarcerated in the high security block at the South Carolina Correctional Institution, Gaskins killed a death row inmate named Rudolph Tyner, who earned his sentence for killing an elderly couple named Bill and Myrtle Moon during a bungled armed robbery on the store they owned in the Burgess community.

Gaskins was hired to commit this murder by Tony Cimo, son of Myrtle Moon. Gaskins initially made several unsuccessful attempts to kill Tyner by lacing his food and drink with poison before he opted to use explosives to kill him. To accomplish this, Gaskins rigged a device similar to a portable radio in Tyner's death row cell and told Tyner this would allow them to communicate between cells. When Tyner followed Gaskins' instructions to hold a speaker (laden with C-4 plastic explosive, unbeknownst to him) to his ear at an agreed time, Gaskins detonated the explosives in his cell and killed him. Gaskins later said, "The last thing he [Tyner] heard was me laughing."

Gaskins was tried for the murder of Rudolph Tyner and sentenced to death.

Final Truth

Whilst on death row, Gaskins told his life story to a journalist named Wilton Earle, confessing to having committed between 100 and 110 murders, one of them being that of Margaret "Peg" Cuttino³ (1957-70), the 13 year old daughter of then SC state senator James Cuttino, Jr. of Sumter, SC, near Florence, SC, (about 130 miles from the "Fort Sumter" of Civil War fame). However, law enforcement sources found it impossible to verify all of his claims. In his autobiography, Final Truth (published posthumously), Gaskins wrote that he had "a special mind" that gave him "permission to kill."

Execution

Gaskins was executed on September 6, 1991 at 1:10 a.m. He was the fourth person to die in the electric chair after the death penalty was reinstated in South Carolina in 1977. Reportedly, his final words were "I'll let my lawyers talk for me. I'm ready to go".