Shawcross biography
Arthur Shawcross
(1945-2008)
Who Was Arthur Shawcross?
Arthur Shawcross' parents dispute his claims that he was molested as a child, but it's clear that he was troubled. In 1972, he confessed to killing two children and went to prison. His records were sealed so he could settle in a new town without causing a panic. But from 1988 to 1990, Shawcross killed 11 women in upstate New York, earning the nickname "Genesee River Killer." He died in prison.
Early Life
Shawcross was born on June 6, 1945, and died on November 10, 2008, while serving a life sentence for the murder of 11 women. From his birthplace of Kittery, Maine, his family moved to Watertown, a small town near Lake Ontario in New York State, when he was still a child. Shawcross claims that his adolescence was turbulent, and cites a difficult relationship with both parents, particularly his domineering mother, for his later troubles. He says he also exhibited behavioral problems at an early age, including bed-wetting and bullying.
Shawcross also made extreme reports about his early sexuality. He claimed his aunt sexually molested him when he was 9, and that he had sexual relations with his younger sister. He also admitted to his first homosexual encounter at the age of 11, which he says was followed by experimentation with bestiality.
In contrast to these claims, however, his parents and siblings maintain that he had a normal childhood, and the described events were largely the product of his imagination. There is no way of knowing whose version represents the reality of his upbringing, but what became clear, later on, was that Shawcross would change his stories at will, as he was interviewed by various professionals in the course of their investigations.
From school records it can be independently verified that he was an inveterate truant, with a particularly low IQ, a tendency to bullying and violence and that he came under suspicion for a series of juvenile arson attacks as well as
Arthur Shawcross
American serial killer
Arthur Shawcross | |
|---|---|
Mug shot of Shawcross | |
| Born | Arthur John Shawcross (1945-06-06)June 6, 1945 Kittery, Maine, U.S. |
| Died | November 10, 2008(2008-11-10) (aged 63) Albany Medical Center, Sullivan Correctional Facility, Fallsburg, New York, U.S. |
| Other names |
|
| Height | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) |
| Conviction(s) | |
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment without parole (or a term amounting to 250 years) |
| Victims | 14 |
Span of crimes | May 7, 1972 – December 28, 1989 |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | New York |
Date apprehended | January 5, 1990 |
Arthur John Shawcross (June 6, 1945 – November 10, 2008), also known as The Genesee River Killer, was an American serial killer active in Rochester, New York from 1972 through 1989. Shawcross's first known murders took place in his hometown of Watertown, New York, where he killed a young boy and a girl. Under the terms of a plea bargain, he was allowed to plead guilty to one charge of manslaughter, for which he served 14 years of a 25-year sentence.
Shawcross killed most of his victims in 1988 and 1989 after being granted an early parole, which later led to controversy. A food service worker, Shawcross trawled the streets of Rochester in his girlfriend's 1984 Dodge Omni (later using her 1987 Chevrolet Celebrity), looking for prostitutes to kill. Shawcross died on 10 November 2008, while serving a prison sentence of 250 years for his crimes, at the age of 63. Dr. 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" in his book The Anatomy of Evil.
Early life
Arthur John Shawcross was born in Kittery, Maine, the first of four children of Arthur Roy Shawcros British Artist Conrad Shawcross (B. 1977) first came to public attention for his piece 'Nervous System' in 2003, which went on to be shown at the Saatchi Gallery 'New Blood' exhibition in 2004. Since then his work has been internationally exhibited and is included in important private and museum collections around the world. Shawcross is best known for his sculpture inspired by the relationship between philosophy, physics, and mathematics. In recent years, Shawcross has developed the scale of his practice, taking on architectural spaces with sculptures that explore the borders of geometry, philosophy, physics and metaphysics.'Timepiece' was an installation commission for the Roundhouse in 2013 in which Shawcross transformed the iconic main space of this historic London building into a vast timekeeping device. British writer, lecturer, and broadcaster Sir William Hartley Hume ShawcrossCVO (born 28 May 1946) is a British journalist, writer, and broadcaster. He is the incumbent Commissioner for Public Appointments. From 2012 to 2018 he chaired the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Shawcross has written and lectured on issues of international policy, geopolitics, Southeast Asia and refugees, as well as the British royal family. He has written for a number of publications, including Time, Newsweek, International Herald Tribune, The Spectator, The Washington Post and Rolling Stone, in addition to writing numerous books on international topics: the Prague Spring, the Vietnam War, the Iranian Revolution, the Iraq War, foreign assistance, humanitarian intervention, and the United Nations. His works Sideshow (1979) and The Quality of Mercy (1984) were among The New York Times Book Review's books of the year. The eldest of three children, William Shawcross was born on 28 May 1946 in Sussex, to the barrister Hartley Shawcross and his second wife Joan Mather. At the time of his birth, his father was the LabourMP for St Helens, the Attorney General for England and Wales, the first British principal delegate to the United Nations, and the Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom at the Nuremberg trials. His mother died in a riding accident on the Sussex Downs in 1974. His father died at the age of 101 in 2003. Shawcross was educated at St Aubyns Preparatory School in Rottingdean, followed by Eton College, and University College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1968. After leaving Oxford, he attended Saint Martin's School of Art to study sculpture and became a freelance researcher for The Sunday Times. Unable to obtain a permanent position at the newspaper, he wrote his first book, a biography of the Czechoslovakian leader Alexander D
Conrad Shawcross British, b. 1977
In 2015, the artist created a new series of permanent sculptures entitled; 'Three Perpetual Chords'. The work was unveiled in Dulwich Park, London, following a commission by Southark Council to replace works by Barbara Hepworth that were stolen in 2011. In the same year the artist also unveiled a new site-specific installation for the Royal Academy's Annenberg Courtyard as part of the Summer Exhibition. The immersive installation consisted of five steel, cloud-like forms comprised of thousands of tetrahedrons, standing over six metres high and weighing five tonnes each.
In 2019 Conrad’s work 'Paradigm – B (Structural)' was installed in the Jardin Arnaud Beltrame in Paris to celebrate the grand opening of Galerie Marguo – a new gallery in Paris’s historical Le Marais district. This initiative was made in collaboration with the artist and Château La Coste, who included this work in 'Escalations', a solo exhibition by Shawcross in the summer of 2020.
In recent years, Shawcross has had a number of solo exhibitions including 'Stac William Shawcross
Early life and education