Gerald Stano: The serial confessor.

 Serial killer or not? 

Gerald Eugene Stano was born on September 12th, 1951. His birth name was actually Paul Zeininger. When he was 6 months old his mother decided to give him away for adoption, because she was unable to take care of him. Paul was very malnourished and was surviving on his own feces. They said that 6 months old Gerald had been functioning at an 'Animalistic level'. 

A nurse at the orphanage, named Norma Stano and her husband Eugene Stano decided to adopt Paul and they named him Gerald Eugene Stano. They knew Gerald wasn't the perfect child, he had many problems really, bad temper, little to no friends, bad grades etc. But they loved him regardless. 

As a teen Gerald was constantly getting in trouble. He was even arrested couple of times. At the age of 15, his family moved to Pennsylvania. 

Now he didn't get his GED until he was 21. Then he went to a computer school. He later on got a job at a hospital but it didn't last because he was caught stealing from a coworker. 

Gerald was kind of having an existential crisis. He just didn't know where he belonged or what he was meant to do with his life. His parents suggested him to move to Florida and take care of his grandmother. 

After moving to Florida, Gerald just moved from one job to another. In the 70's he married a woman by the name of Terresa. She was a hairstylist and she managed to give him a job at her fathers gas station. 

However, in 1976 Terresa filed for divorce because Gerald was constantly physically abusing her. 

In 1980, a 20 year old woman was hitchhiking home and looking for a ride. At that moment Gerald spotted her and offered her a ride home. Now it is unclear what actually happened in that car, but it is said that, Gerald asked the woman for sexual favors and she just laughed at him. This pissed Gerald off, so he stabbed her to death in his car. Then he disposed of  her body. Police found her body 2 weeks later.

On 25th March, 1980 Gerald took a sex worker to a local hotel and attacked her. He took money from her and stabbed her, cut her with a bottle opener and because it wasn't enough, he threw acid on her. Fortunately, she was able to escape from the hotel room. Once she was out, she was spotted by the police, she told them everything. Gerald Stano was finally arrested. 

Interrogation of Gerald Stano:

After Gerald was brought in for interrogation, police knew something was wrong with him. They decided to ask him about the other unsolved cases that were going around. 

The main officer in this case was a man by the name of Paul Crow. After interrogating for a while Paul decided to become friends with Gerald to get information out of him. Gerald loved him, he told him anything and everything. Paul's method had worked, and he was able to receive several confessions. 

Here are a few:

• Gerald picked up a college student named Mary Carol one night in Daytona, Florida. Gerald offered her a ride, they stopped for beers at one point. Gerald stated that for some reason she pissed him off, so he pulled out a knife and started stabbing her.
• Once Gerald picked up a woman from a bar. Her name was Cathy and she was only 17. They drove around for a while then he pretended to have car troubles. When Cathy got out of the car he shot her multiple times. 
• Gerald picked up a woman by the name of Cheryl from a hotel. They drove around, smoked some weed. When Gerald made sexual offers, she declined. So he strangled and stabbed her. Then he disposed her body in a swamp area. 

So Gerald was just confessing to all these murders without hesitation. According to his statement, from 1973-1980 he claimed to kill 33 women. The ages ranged from 13-30's. He even claimed to strangle a 12 year old girl that he used to play with growing up. 

The psychiatrist found it very odd how none of his victims were sexually assaulted. They assumed he committed those murders just for the thrill of it all. 

Gerald was only found guilty for 9 of the murders and received the death penalty for only one of them. On March 23rd, 1998 he was executed by the electric chair.

AFTERMATH:

Even though the police found many evidence against him, some things were just not adding up. There were a lot of plot holes in his story and the timeline wasn't accurate.

Many believed that Gerald was a serial confessor and not a serial killer. They said he just liked the attention that he was receiving from everyone. 

Some people looked into the case, and they realized that Gerald was almost being "spoon fed" the answers by Paul, the main investigator. They said he gathered a bunch of unsolved cases and blamed it all on Gerald. It was almost as if he was leading him to the answers he wanted to hear. In 1995, Paul Crow was removed by a grand jury for corruption. 

Some believe that Gerald only committed a few of the murders, and the corrupt cop blamed the rest on him. Where some others believe that he committed none of those murders and everything was blamed on him.