Real Life Silence of the Lambs: Gary Heidnik and Philadelphia's House of Horrors

Buffalo Bill--the unhinged villain of Silence Of The Lambs, not the greatest showman of the wild west--feels too evil to be real. However, the most frightening thing about this character who keeps women in a pit until he skins them is that he's based on a real person. Gary M. Heidnik carried out a series of grisly crimes that inspired the nightmarish actions of Thomas Harris's famous character, but the truth is so much worse than fiction. He built and designed a torture...
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Buffalo Bill--the unhinged villain of Silence Of The Lambs, not the greatest showman of the wild west--feels too evil to be real. However, the most frightening thing about this character who keeps women in a pit until he skins them is that he's based on a real person. Gary M. Heidnik carried out a series of grisly crimes that inspired the nightmarish actions of Thomas Harris's famous character, but the truth is so much worse than fiction.

He built and designed a torture chamber in the basement of his home in North Philadelphia where he lured both prostitutes and mentally challenged adults, holding them captive for sex.
Heidnik constructed this house of horrors over the course of several months. He dug up the basement, bought chains to hold down the women and bars for the windows.
Experts are split on the verdict of whether Gary was pure evil or simply insane. What is certain, was that his goal was to have his own harem. A place where he could have his own "farm" of women who would give birth to his children.
He realized that no woman would undergo this voluntarily so he decided to begin abducting them, one by one, in the winter of 1986...