Long lost bones of victim of SC serial killer Pee Wee Gaskins found in box

The long lost bones of one victim of South Carolina serial killer Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins have been found in a box in a storage closet at the College of Charleston.

The bones belong to Martha Ann Dicks, a 19-year-old woman who disappeared in the summer of 1971, according to Sumter County Coroner Robert “Robbie” Baker, who now has the remains.

“I did a lot of research on Pee Wee and when I opened up the box, I said, ‘Oh my god, what am I dealing with?’ “ Baker said.

Baker contacted Dick Harpootlian, the Columbia attorney and former Gaskins prosecutor whose book on Gaskins’ life and crimes will be published in December, about the bones’ discovery.

“While Pee Wee didn’t refuse to die, his story refuses to die,” said Harpootlian, who in 1983 was one of the prosecutors who convinced a Richland County jury to send Gaskins to the electric chair for his 14th and final known killing. “Pieces of his story continue to bubble up.”

Baker said he was given the brown cardboard box of bones at a recent coroners’ conference in Myrtle Beach by Charleston County Coroner Bobbi Jo O’Neal. Baker took the box to his car and opened it. Another box he retrieved had Dicks’ skull, Baker said.

The outside of the larger box had “Sumter,” “FA,” for forensic autopsy,” and “77,” for 1977, Baker said.

Paperwork with the bones — portions of a skull and arm and leg bones, along with numerous small bone fragments — led him to believe the bones belonged to Dicks.

But he only became convinced after researching Gaskins’ murders and files — including old newspaper articles — at the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office where he was a longtime deputy and homicide investigator. That made him certain the remains were those of Dicks’, said Baker.

“She knew Pee Wee, she knew his family, she frequented Pee Wee’s niece and another girl who were both murder victims of Pee Wee,” Baker said. “She was commonly known on the street as Clyde.”

Dicks was last seen after telling her sister that she was going out, Baker said.

“She was supposed to be going to a nightclub, but she never showed up and never came back home,” Baker said.

Although Gaskins was a serial killer, he had a stern moral code in some areas. He likely killed Dicks because she was supposedly selling or providing drugs to his niece and another girl, both of whom he also wound up killing, Baker said.

“Pee Wee told her (Dicks) he had a surprise for her. He got a hold of some liquid that a photographer uses to develop pictures. The man told him .... his stuff will kill you, so be careful around it,” Baker said..

“Pee Wee put some of it in her Coca-Cola, and after she drank it, she succumbed and died.”

Gaskins then took the body to a remote rural area in the Concord section east of Sumter, dropped her in a 10-foot ravine ditch, which was not even a mile from where he disposed of one of his other homicide victims, Baker said.

In 1977, during a legal proceeding, Gaskins confessed to the killing and ultimately led law enforcement officers to the spot where he had put Dicks’ body. All that was left was her bones.

College of Charleston

The bones were taken to Charleston to be examined by pathologist Joel Sexton and then to the College of Charleston to be studied by an anthropologist, Baker said.

“About 99.9 percent of the people involved in this case are deceased,” Baker said.

Baker said an entry he looked at on Wikipedia said that Dicks’ “skeletal remains were lost after they were sent to a college to be studied.”

In a statement, the College of Charleston said that many years ago, “a College of Charleston professor received human remains from a University of South Carolina professor presumably for academic research purposes. Both professors are now deceased.

“Approximately five years ago, the remains were transferred from the College of Charleston to the Charleston County Coroner’s Office.”

O’Neal, Charleston County coroner, said that back in the 1970s, any unidentified bones found in the state would be sent to Ted Rathbun, a legendary forensic anthropologist who died in 2012, to be studied.

In the early 2000s, when Rathbun was retiring, any remains still in his possession wound up with an anthropologist at the College of Charleston, O’Neal said. That anthropologist later died. The remains were in different boxes from different counties.

Meanwhile, an adjunct anthropology professor at the College of Charleston, Suzanne Abel, also was a forensic anthropology consultant with the Charleston County Coroner’s Office. She approached O’Neal about the remains at the college, which were sent to the Charleston County Coroner’s Office.

“That’s how coroner Baker ended up with the remains, going from College of Charleston to us and now we are getting them back to the counties where they originated,” O’Neal said.

Coroner knew Pee Wee

“I’m gonna tell you a story that’s honest to God truth, put my hand on the Bible,” said Baker, who has lived in Sumter County nearly all his life.

When he was 12, a friend and next door neighbor lived right behind him. The two boys would play ball in his friend’s yard.

“His dad was best friends with Pee Wee,” Baker said.

One day, while visiting his friend, he saw Gaskins who at that time was driving a black hearse. “I was old enough at 12 to know that was a funeral home car. My friend’s dad said, ‘Hey boys, let me introduce you to my best friend, Pee Wee Gaskins’.”

Baker was struck by how little Gaskins was. “I’m a big guy, and at 12 years old, I was bigger than Pee Wee.”

Baker said Pee Wee noticed him peeking into the hearse and said, ‘Let me show you inside, boys’ and we opened it up, and he had a pick, a shovel, and an ax in the back of his hearse.”

“I said, ‘Mr. Pee Wee, what are you doing with the pick and the shovel?’ and he said in his little wiry voice, ‘Well, boys, you never know when you have to bury somebody’.

“And he just laughed.”

Baker was shocked to learn years later he’d been talking with a serial killer.

Gaskins sent to chair

Harpootlian, a former Richland County state senator whose book about Gaskins — “Dig Me a Grave” — will be published in December, said the story about the long missing bones is sadly par for the course when it comes to the serial killer.

In 1983, when he and former Solicitor Jim Anders convinced a jury to give Gaskins the death penalty, Dicks’ murder was an aggravating circumstance the prosecutors used to persuade the jury to give Gaskins the death penalty, Harpootlian said.

Gaskins died in the state’s electric chair in 1991.

Gaskins was born into an environment marked by abuse, low income and low culture, Harpootlian said.

“His story is the story you see of a number of these folks who become killing machines in later life. They don’t jump out of the womb as homicidal maniacs, they are shaped into that.”

The bottom line, said Harpootlian: “Pee Wee Gaskins’ conduct continues 50 years later to shock and amaze us with its twists and turns.”

‘Silver lining’

At first Baker did not know if Dicks had any relatives.

But since word got out that Dicks’ remains were found, relatives have come forward.

“I’ve spoken with three nieces, one nephew and her baby brother,” Baker said.

The Sumter Casket Co. is donating an infant’s casket. Sumter County Sheriff Anthony Davis is looking for a cemetery plot, Baker said.

“There’s a silver lining in every tragedy, and in this one, this is a way for these people to reach out and talk to cousins they haven’t seen or spoken to in 50 years.”

An official death certificate is being prepared. A memorial service is in the works.

“She was lost, and now she’s found,” Baker said.

This story was originally published June 23, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Long lost bones of victim of SC serial killer Pee Wee Gaskins found in box."