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george banksOne of America’s most notorious mass murderers has died.
Banks, 83, died Sunday afternoon surprise State prison in Pennsylvania, the state Department of Corrections said. Banks died of complications from renal neoplasm or kidney cancer. montgomery county Coroner Dr Janine Darby.
Banks had been in prison since he shot and killed 14 people and killed 13 others, including his own children, during a 1982 rampage in Wilkes-Barre. At the time, it was considered one of the worst mass murders in American history. He was convicted of 12 counts of first-degree murder and one count of third-degree murder.
Banks had been drinking at a late-night party before using an AR-15 rifle to rampage through his home.
The five victims were his children, aged 1 to 6 years. Four others were the mothers of his children. The other victims were bystanders, including an 11-year-old boy who sometimes stayed with his family, a 7-year-old child, and a teenager who saw Banks leaving his house armed with a rifle and recognized him.
Authorities say Banks murdered three women and five children at his home. Then, dressed in green army fatigues with ammunition bandoliers across his chest and shoulders, walked to the bank when he saw four teenagers walking toward their car from a nearby friend’s house. Authorities say he shot one fatally, and the other survived.
He stole a car and drove to the Heather Highlands Trailer Park where police found the bodies of Banks’ son and the child’s mother, as well as his mother and his nephew.
From there, Banks went to the home of his mother, who told police that Banks told her, “I killed them. I killed them all,” court records say.
Banks finally surrendered after a four-hour standoff at a friend’s house, when police tried to convince him that his victims had survived.
Ultimately, state courts halted his execution, ruling that he was not mentally competent. As a result, Banks was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Jim Olson, the teenager who survived Banks’ shooting, later expressed disappointment in 2012 that Banks was not executed, saying, “What’s the point of having the death penalty if you don’t use it or enforce it?”
Defense attorneys had argued that Banks was insane when he went on the shooting spree.
After his arrest, Banks, who is biracial, claimed that he had killed his children to spare them the pain of growing up in a racist society. During his trial, he overruled his attorney over strategic decisions, and instead argued that the prosecutor, judge, and mayor of Wilkes-Barre were conspiring against him.
Banks also showed the jury photographs of his victims, even though his lawyer successfully had the photographs banned on the grounds that they were gruesome and prejudicial.