Robert Garrow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Garrow (March 4, 1936–September 11, 1978) was an American serial killer who was active in New York in the early 1970s.
Born in the Upstate New York village of Dannemora, Garrow grew up in a poor family of farmers. Garrow later said that his parents were severe, violent disciplinarians who regularly physically abused their children with whatever was handy, even bricks. (His accounts have been confirmed by his siblings.) The police were called several times throughout the years to break up violent fights between Garrow and his alcoholic father; after a particularly brutal episode when Garrow was 15, he was sent to a reform school. He joined the Air Force upon his release, but was court-martialed a year later for stealing money from a superior officer and spent six months in a military prison in Florida. After a failed escape attempt, he spent a year in another stockade in Georgia.
Garrow also later reported a long history of sexual dysfunction and paraphilias; he committed several acts of bestiality with the farm animals he worked with throughout childhood and adolescence, and would often perform sadomasochistic masturbation with milking machines.
Garrow returned to New York in 1957, married and fathered a son. His life did not improve, however; he was fired from a series of menial jobs, including from a fast food restaurant he burglarized, and was involved in an abusive homosexual relationship with a man he later described as a sadist. He was arrested for rape in 1961 and spent seven years in prison. Soon after he was released, he committed a series of rapes; many of his victims were children. His crimes soon escalated to murder.
He murdered three people in July 1973, including a young woman whom he kidnapped and repeatedly raped before killing. He was arrested weeks later for the rape of two prepubescent girls, but jumped bail and became a fugitive. He murdered a high school-aged camper in the Adirondacks a few days later, spurring on a statewide manhunt. After murdering four other teenagers, Garrow was tracked down, cornered and shot several times by state police. He survived, but was partially paralyzed.
Garrow pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury rejected it and found him guilty of first-degree murder, sentencing him to a term of 25 years to life in prison. Garrow's lawyers (Francis Belge and Frank Armani), with whom he had shared the location of two victims' bodies, were accused of withholding evidence from the court, but were exonerated by a jury who thought they were merely obeying attorney/client privilege.
Garrow escaped from prison on September 8, 1978, taking with him a guard's automatic handgun. He was spotted by guards three days later a few hundred yards away from the prison walls and shot at his pursuers, but was killed when they returned fire.
