Arthur Gary Bishop American child molester, pedophile and serial killer Date of Birth: 10.1951Год Country: USA

Biography of Arthur Gary Bishop

Arthur Gary Bishop was an American child molester, pedophile, and serial killer. Born in 1951 in Hinckley, Utah, he was the oldest of six brothers. Raised by devout Mormon parents, Bishop was awarded the prestigious title of Eagle Scout, which signified that a boy who had proven himself to be an eagle would always be an eagle in life. He excelled academically and at the age of 18, served as a missionary in the Philippines.

In February 1978, Bishop was arrested for fraudulent appropriation of property and was sentenced to five years of probation. However, he violated the terms of his probation and fled to Salt Lake City, where he started a new life under the pseudonym Roger Downs. In October 1978, he was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In Salt Lake City, under his new identity, Bishop participated in the popular reality show "Big Brother". Initially, no one suspected Downs of being a pedophile, but after his arrest for murder, numerous children came forward and revealed that he had made advances towards them.

Bishop's first victim was a 4-year-old boy named Alonzo Daniels, whom he lured from his backyard with the promise of sweets. He drowned Daniels in the bathtub and buried his body in an empty field on October 14, 1979. In November 1980, Bishop committed his second murder. He met an 11-year-old boy named Kim Petersen at a roller rink and lured him to his home under the pretense of buying roller skates. Witnesses described a white man with dark hair, aged 25-35 and weighing approximately 90 kg, whom they had seen with Petersen the day before his disappearance. Bishop beat Petersen to death and buried his body next to Alonzo Daniels' outside the town of Cedar Fort.

On October 20, 1981, Bishop abducted 4-year-old Danny Davis from a supermarket located less than a block from his home. Several shoppers remembered a smiling man standing next to the child but could only provide a vague description. Following the abduction, the police initiated one of the largest search operations in Salt Lake County's history. Search teams scoured the surrounding area, combing fields and nearby mountains, while divers searched the bottoms of ponds and lakes. Shoppers from the supermarket agreed to undergo hypnosis to retrieve any additional information about the kidnapper from their subconscious. Reward posters offering $20,000 for information about the missing boy were printed, and the FBI was enlisted. However, no traces of Davis were found.

Nearly two years later, on June 23, 1983, Bishop struck again. He abducted 6-year-old Troy Ward from a park near his home on the day after his birthday. Bishop beat the boy and drowned him in the bathtub. A month later, on July 14, he claimed his final victim: 13-year-old Graeme Cunningham. The boy was supposed to go camping with a friend under adult supervision but disappeared without a trace. The "adult" accompanying him was Arthur Bishop. Police reviewed all previous reports and discovered that Bishop (Roger Downs) lived in close proximity to all four murder locations and was acquainted with the parents of the fifth child. Using the pretext of seeking Bishop's assistance in the investigation of Cunningham's disappearance, the police invited Downs for questioning. During the interrogation, they obtained his true identity and eventually elicited a confession to the murders. The methods employed to extract the confession remain unknown.

The next day, Bishop led the police to the burial sites of three of his victims near Cedar Fort and two near Big Cottonwood Creek. The killer told the officers that he experienced excitement while dismembering the children and proclaimed, "I would do it again." Bishop stood trial on February 27, 1984. During the hearing, he claimed that his addiction to child pornography had fueled his deviant sexual fantasies, which ultimately led to his actions. The trial lasted six weeks, and on March 19, 1984, Bishop was found guilty on five counts of aggravated kidnapping and one count of sexual assault on a minor. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection. After the verdict was announced, Arthur apologized to the families of his victims and requested that a lethal injection be administered in his case.

In a later letter, he wrote: "I'm a convicted murderer, homosexual-pedophile, and pornography was a determining factor in my downfall. Somehow, I developed a sexual attraction for boys, and I began visualizing them naked in my fantasies. Some bookstores sell books on sex education or art which sometimes contain pictures of naked boys. I would buy these books and use them for my fantasies... The pursuit and acquisition of arousing material became my obsession. In my view, pornography activated the explosive mechanism. I would excite myself – and had to satisfy my excitement or explode. All boys became sexual objects. My conscience became insensitive, and my sexual appetite completely controlled my actions."

Arthur Gary Bishop was executed by lethal injection on June 10, 1988. Prior to his execution, he expressed remorse for his crimes.