Pee Wee Gaskins: Serial killer who murdered another killer on death row

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On September 2, 1982, Gaskins committed another murder, for which he earned the title of the "Meanest Man in America". While incarcerated in the high security block at the South Carolina Correctional Institution, Gaskins killed a death row inmate named Rudolph Tyner, who had received his sentence for killing an elderly couple named Bill and Myrtle Moon during a bungled armed robbery of 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, unbeknown to him) to his ear at an agreed time, Gaskins detonated the explosives from his cell and killed Tyner. 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. He is the only man to have ever killed an inmate on death row.

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