Arthur Gary Bishop (September 29, 1952 – June 10, 1988) was an American convicted sex offender and serial killer. In 1983, as a result of a routine police investigation, he confessed to the murders of five young boys between 1979 and 1983.
Early life
Arthur Gary Bishop was born in Hinckley, Utah, the eldest of six brothers. Bishop was raised as a devout Latter-day Saint, and was an Eagle Scout and an honor student. When he was 19, Bishop served as a missionary in the Philippines.
Bishop was arrested for embezzlement in February 1978 and given a five-year suspended sentence, but he skipped his parole and fled to Salt Lake City, living under the alias "Roger Downs." In 1979, he was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
While in Salt Lake City, he joined the Big Brothers program, where he was a "big brother" to a 10-year-old boy for nearly a year. Bishop was forced out of the program, before his first murder, after directors discovered he was molesting other children.
Victims
Alonzo Daniels, age 4, October 14, 1979. Claude Kimley Peterson, age 11, November 8, 1980 Danny Davis, age 4, October 20, 1981 Troy Ward, age 6, June 22, 1983 Graeme Cunningham, age 13, July 14, 1983
Murders
Bishop killed his first victim, a four-year-old named Alonzo Daniels, on October 14, 1979. He lured the boy from the courtyard of his apartment complex to his own apartment with the promise of free candy. After attempting to sexually assault Daniels, Bishop took him to the bathroom, hit him on the head with a hammer, and drowned him in the bathtub. He fondled the boy's dead body and mutilated his genitals. He put Daniels into a box and carried him out, walking past the boy's mother, who was frantically calling her son's name. He then buried the body in Cedar Valley. Bishop relived the experience in the following months by buying and killing puppies, stating, "It was so stimulating. A puppy whines just like Alonzo did. I would get frustrated at the whining. I would hit them with hammers or drown them or strangle them."
On November 8, 1980, Bishop was introduced to 11-year-old Kim Petersen at a skating rink by a young boy, "John," who Bishop was molesting in exchange for money and expensive toys. Bishop told "John" he wanted photographs of Petersen, and "John" agreed to contact Petersen on the pretext of buying a pair of roller skates the boy was trying to sell. When they called Petersen, Bishop took the phone and asked him to meet them at a pool parlor. He asked Petersen if he wanted to go out to Cedar Valley and hunt rabbits. Peterson said yes, and after convincing him to take photos in the car, they got out and started walking. Bishop, walking behind Petersen, shot him in the back with a .38 caliber revolver. Petersen began crying and Bishop shot him twice more in the head. He molested the boy's corpse, mutilated him in a fit of anger, and buried him, close to the body of Alonzo Daniels. Bishop was routinely questioned, but was not considered a suspect in Petersen's disappearance. Witnesses described the man Petersen had talked with at the roller-skating rink the day before his disappearance as being white, aged 25–35, around 200 pounds, and with dark hair.
On October 20, 1981, Bishop lured 4-year-old Danny Davis from a supermarket to his home half a block away. After playing with toys at Bishop's house, Davis became bored and started to cry. Concerned about the noise, Bishop put his hand over the boy's nose and mouth and suffocated him. Some other boys were coming over to Bishop's house, so he put the body in a couple of garbage bags and placed it in the corner of the kitchen. The next morning, after breakfast, Bishop took the body to Cedar Valley. Davis is the only child that Bishop did not molest. Several shoppers recalled a smiling man standing near the child but could only give vague descriptions of his appearance. Police launched one of the biggest searches in Salt Lake County history: teams of searchers scoured neighborhoods, divers dredged ponds and lakes, shoppers at the supermarket where Davis vanished agreed to undergo hypnosis to dislodge greater details of the abductor, fliers were printed offering a $20,000 reward, and the FBI were contacted, but were unable to find any trace of the boy.