. . Gary Michael Heidnik did not have the best start to his life. He was born in November 1943 in Eastlake which is a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. His brother Terry was born 18 months later and shortly after the Heidnik’s marriage broke up and ended in divorce. For a while the boys lived with their mother and her new husband. However, she was an alcoholic and, feeling she was unable to look after her two young boys, packed them off to live with their father and his new wife. They were not happy times, for their father was a true disciplinarian and also a heavy drinker which was not helped by their constant arguing with their stepmother. Gary started to wet the bed and became the subject of his father’s ridicule, even to the point that his stained sheets would be hung out of the window so that everyone could see what he had done.Gary also received ridicule from school due to the fact that his head was somewhat misshapen following a fall out of a tree. It was possibly this fall that was the root to Gary’s bizarre behaviour later in his life.When Gary left school he was desperate to join the army, an ambition that was so strong that his father arranged for him to study at the Staunton Military Academy in Virginia.
