Arthur Shawcross

Arthur John Shawcross (June 6, 1945 – November 10, 2008) was an American serial killer, also known as the Genesee River Killer in Rochester, New York. He claimed most of his victims after being paroled early following a conviction in the manslaughter of two children, which led to criticism of the justice system. Michael H. Stone, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and an authority on violent behavior, identified Shawcross as "one of the most egregious examples of the unwarranted release of a prisoner."

Early life

Shawcross was born in Kittery, Maine, the first of four children of Arthur Roy Shawcross and Elizabeth (née Yerakes) Shawcross. His family moved to Watertown in New York State when he was young. While several later tests showed Shawcross' intelligence to be sub-normal or even "borderline retarded", he received As and Bs in his first two years of grade school, but was later tested to have an I.Q. of 86, signifying low average intelligence. However, when tested in the army, Shawcross scored just above average in intelligence tests, scoring 105 upon entry and 108 at discharge. This was also the case with the intelligence tests he underwent while on trial in 1990, scoring 107. Shawcross said throughout his childhood, he was a frequent bed-wetter. He later claimed his mother would stick foreign objects in his anus, that his aunt performed oral sex on him when he was 9, and that during junior high school he had sexual relations with his sister. Shawcross had a reputation at school as a bully and would frequently act out violently. He dropped out of high school in 1960.

Genesee River

The Genesee River is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York in the United States.

The river provided the original power for the Rochester area's 19th century mills and still provides hydroelectric power for downtown Rochester.

Geology

The Genesee is the remaining western branch of a preglacial system, with rock layers tilted an average of 40 feet (12 m) per mile. It begins in the Allegheny Plateau conglomerate, sandstone, and shale rocks of the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian subperiods. The river also often exposes older rocks such as shales (some rich in hydrocarbons), siltstones and some limestones of the Devonian period at Letchworth and, at a canyon with three more Niagara Escarpment waterfalls at Rochester, limestones and shales of Silurian age.

History

Serial killer

A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people, usually due to abnormal psychological gratification, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant break (a "cooling off period") between them. Some sources, such as the FBI, disregard the "three or more" criterion and define serial killing as "a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone".

Although psychological gratification is the usual motive for serial killing, and most serial killings involve sexual contact with the victim, the FBI states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill, financial gain, and attention seeking. The murders may be attempted or completed in a similar fashion, and the victims may have something in common: age group, appearance, gender, or race, for example.

Serial killing is not the same as mass murdering, nor is it spree killing, in which murders are committed in two or more locations in a short time. However, cases of extended bouts of sequential killings over periods of weeks or months with no apparent "cooling off period" or "return to normalcy" have caused some experts to suggest a hybrid category of "spree-serial killer".

Arthur

Arthur is a common masculine given name. Its etymology is disputed, but its popularity derives from its being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur.

Art and Artie are diminutive forms of the name. A common spelling variant used in many Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages is Artur.

Etymology

The origin of the name Arthur remains a matter of debate. Some suggest it is derived from the Roman nomen gentile (family name) Artōrius, of obscure and contested etymology (but possibly of Messapic or Etruscan origin). Some scholars have noted that the legendary King Arthur's name only appears as Arthur, or Arturus, in early Latin Arthurian texts, never as Artōrius (although the Classical Latin Artōrius became Arturius in some Vulgar Latin dialects). However, this may not say anything about the origin of the name Arthur, as Artōrius would regularly become Art(h)ur when borrowed into Welsh.

Another possibility is that it is derived from a Brittonic patronym *Arto-rīg-ios (the root of which, *arto-rīg- "bear-king" is to be found in the Old Irish personal name Art-ri) via a Latinized form Artōrius. Less likely is the commonly proposed derivation from Welsh arth "bear" + (g)wr "man" (earlier *Arto-uiros in Brittonic); there are phonological difficulties with this theory—notably that a Brittonic compound name *Arto-uiros should produce Old Welsh *Artgur and Middle/Modern Welsh *Arthwr and not Arthur (in Welsh poetry the name is always spelled Arthur and is exclusively rhymed with words ending in -ur—never words ending in -wr—which confirms that the second element cannot be [g]wr "man").

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern United States and is the United States' 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border in the Atlantic Ocean with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the west and north. The state of New York, with an estimated 19.8 million residents in 2015, is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City, the state's most populous city and its economic hub.

With an estimated population of nearly 8.5 million in 2014, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York City Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City is a global city, exerting a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York City is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% live on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th century Duke of York, future King James II of England. The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany.