While Bishop’s body count is not as impressive as the other serial killers we’ve profiled, his story is every bit as sick. (That’s “sick” as in “bad.”)

Arthur Gary Bishop
1951 – 1988

Bishop was a devout Mormon. He even served a two-year mission in the Philippines. He was executed in 1988 for molesting and killing 5 young boys. As a disclaimer, Bishop wasn’t gay, per se, but rather a pedophile obsessed with young boys. Think it’s wrong of us to include a pedophile in our list of gay serial killers? Well get off your high horse. We were playing doctor in pre-school. The difference is that rather than moving on to Justin Gaston like we have, Bishop continued to feed his sordid urges between 1979 and 1983, when he ultimately confessed his crimes.

CLUES THAT THIS GUY WAS FUCKED UP

Appearance: Very serial-chic. With glassy unfocused eyes, greasy hair, sardonic eyebrows and a pleasant smile, this guy was a walking warning sign. But it’s his thin, fussy mustache that creeps us out the most.

Relationship History: With a face that only a dead, blind mother could love, Bishop was understandably single for his entire life. In addition to being kind of fugly, Bishop was anti-social and nerdy. A former classmate of Bishops recalled, decades later, that Bishop was “a geek, rarely if ever finding someone who would accept the rare offer of a date.”

Jail Time: The boys who Bishop killed, and the many more that he likely molested, all lived within blocks of his apartment in a tiny Utah town 100 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.  Apparently running out of strangers to kill, Bishop went on to murder a young child whose parents he was friends with. The police grew suspicious of this man who seemed so randomly related to each killing. Their suspicions were confirmed when Bishop confessed, in detail, just days after his last murder. When prosecutors played Bishop’s tape-recorded confession in front of the jury, his defense attorneys knew Bishop stood no chance. At some points in the recording, he would break out into giggles, occasionally adopting a high-pitched voice to imitate a dying boy’s plea for mercy. Jurors either wept or sat there stone-faced. Naturally, he was sentenced to death. Utah is the only state that allows felons on death row to choose between death by fatal injection or death by firing squad. Bishop chose fatal injection. Good call!  In the final days leading to his execution, Bishop expressed remorse and a readiness to die.

What Got Him Off: Young boys. Bishop blamed child pornography: ” Finding and procuring sexually arousing materials became an obsession. For me, seeing pornography was lighting a fuse on a stick of dynamite. I became stimulated and had to gratify my urges or explode. All boys became mere sexual objects. My conscience was desensitized and my sexual appetite entirely controlled my actions.” The innocent children he killed are pictured below. From left to right: Alonzo Daniels, Kim Peterson, Danny Davis, Troy Ward and Graeme Cunningham. Cunnigham was the oldest, at 13; Daniels was the youngest at 4.

Not Really That Nice: “You can offer [children] anything and they’ll go with you,” Bishop reportedly told the detective who interrogated him. It appears that Bishop initially wanted “only” to molest his victims, not murder them. But after he had undressed and fondled them, their threats to tell the authorities drove Bishop to silence them by striking them with a hammer, then drowning them in his bathtub. Eventually, the thrill of killing became an end in itself. He continued to kill his victims with the same hammer that was later presented to the jury as evidence.

Not that all Mormons are haters, or pedophiles. But anyway, thanks a lot, Mormons.

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All About Arthur Bishop (TruTV)