Gerald Stano

Gerald Eugene Stano (born Paul Zeininger; September 12, 1951 – March 23, 1998) was an American convicted serial killer.

Stano murdered at least 22 young women and girls, confessed to 41 murders and the police say the number of his victims may be closer to 88.

Stano was born as Paul Zeininger on September 12, 1951, in Schenectady, New York, the fifth child born to his mother, and the third she put up for adoption.

His biological mother neglected him to such an extent that when she gave him up for adoption at six months old, county doctors declared that he could not be adopted.

They said Zeininger was functioning at "an animalistic level", even eating his own faeces to survive.

Zeininger had four biological siblings who were given up for adoption.

A nurse named Norma Stano eventually adopted Zeininger and legally changed his name.

Despite his foster parents being described as loving, Stano continued to have behavioral problems.

He was a bed wetter until the age of 10.

In school, he earned Cs and Ds in all subjects except music at which he excelled.

He lied compulsively, and was once caught stealing money from his father's wallet to pay members of the track and field team to finish behind him, so he would not be viewed as a complete failure.

During his youth, Stano was often bullied.

At the age of 14, he was arrested for a false fire alarm and later for throwing rocks at cars from a highway bridge.

Stano did not graduate high school until he was 21.

After receiving his diploma, he enrolled in a computer school, graduated and began working in a local hospital.

Soon after, he was fired for stealing from co-workers.

After moving with his parents to Ormond Beach, Florida, he was fired from one job after another, mostly for theft or tardiness.

He also once impregnated a mentally disabled girl.

Stano's parents paid for her abortion.

Stano admitted to committing his first murder in New Jersey in 1969.

He also confessed to having killed six other women in Pennsylvania.

After moving to Florida, he may have murdered 30 or more women.

Most of Stano's victims were women in vulnerable circumstances, all except two were Caucasian and most of his known victims were between the ages of 16 and 25.

By his twenty-ninth birthday, Stano was in prison for allegedly murdering 41 women.

Officially, Stano admitted that he began killing in the early 1970s, when he was in his twenties; however, he also claimed to have begun killing in the late 1960s, at the age of 18.

Several girls had gone missing in Stano's area of residence at that time, but insufficient physical evidence was found when these claims were investigated almost twenty years later, and Stano was never charged.

He was most active in Florida and New Jersey.

Stano admitted to several murders across Florida from 1973 to 1980.

Stano was arrested on March 25, 1980, after attacking a woman named Donna Hensley, who escaped a hotel room and contacted authorities.

Hensley told police that she was a prostitute, and had been approached by a man requesting her services.

Once at her motel room, the two began to argue and the man ended up stabbing her thirty times with a knife before insulting her and fleeing.

Stano was known to Hensley and local sex workers, and she was able to identify him to authorities.

He was housed with fellow serial killer Ted Bundy until the latter's execution in 1989.

Stano was found guilty of nine murders and received eight life sentences and one death sentence, the latter of which was carried out by electric chair on March 23, 1998, in Florida State Prison.

For his final meal, Stano requested Delmonico steak, a baked potato with sour cream and bacon bits, salad with blue cheese dressing, lima beans, a half gallon of mint chocolate-chip ice cream, and 2 litres of Pepsi.

Stano's final statement proclaimed innocence and directed blame for his false confessions at the lead investigator, Paul Crow.

He stated: "I am innocent. I am frightened. I was threatened, and I was held month after month without any real legal representation. I confessed to crimes I did not commit."