Born in 1929 and raised in the Chicago suburbs, William Heirens turned towards a life of crime at an early age. He enjoyed creeping through houses and burglarizing them, logging his first arrest at the age of only thirteen for carrying a loaded gun. He admitted to a string of petty burglaries and was sent to a school for wayward boys for several months. He was soon arrested again at a hotel and was sent to St. Bede's academy in Peru, Illinois for three years. Heirens impressed the staff there enough that they pushed to allow him to enter the University of Chicago at the age of only sixteen.

Heirens continued his burglaries throughout his time in Peru and the year at University of Chicago. During this period he also began his infamous killings on June 5, 1945, when he entered the north side apartment of Josephine A. Ross, which she shared with her two daughters. The 43-year-old Ross was sleeping late that morning and awoke to find Heirens rifling through her things. The young burglar reacted by viciously slashing her throat and then wrapping the bloody wound in a dress. Blood-soaked items of Ross' clothing were found in the bath tub and the bedroom was sprayed with droplets of blood from the savage attack. One of Ross' daughters narrowly avoided the same fate, arriving just moments afterward and finding her mother's corpse. The daughter had passed Heirens as he exited the building.

Next came Francis Brown, left alone in her home when her housemate left overnight on December 10, 1945. A man had asked the deskclerk if Brown was home during that day but left when told she was not in. The next morning her body was discovered by a maid when she found Brown's door open and music blaring. Brown had been shot twice in the head and stabbed with a butcher knife, which was left protruding from her corpse. Heirens had dragged her into the bathtub and wrapped her head with towels. Then he left his infamous message on a mirror (pictured at left). Written in lipstick it read, "For Heaven's Sake catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself." The cryptic scrawling is what Heirens is most remembered for to this day.

But Heirens most disturing murder was certainly his next, and last, murder. Heirens broke into the Chicago apartment of Jim and Helen Degnan on January 6, 1946. During that night Mrs. Degnan thought she had heard her six-year-old daughter Suzanne cry out and an upstairs neighbor had heard the child speaking to someone around 1:00 AM. When Suzanne family awoke the next morning their child was gone. A ransom note was soon found on the girl's bedroom floor demanding $20,000 in cash for the child's safe return and warning that no police were to be involved.

Heirens had no intention of returning the girl safely. Instead he took her to a secluded place and killed her. He then dissected her body and dumped it piece by piece through nearby sewer gratings. Witnesses recall seeing a man matching Heirens descriptions strolling about the area in the early morning of January 7 carrying a small shopping bag. Two police detectives driving on Winthrop Avenue on that very evening discovered Suzanne's head after noticing a displace Sewer grate. Before the night was out her torso and legs were also found in other nearby sewers. Her arms were not found until a few weeks later. Blood and tissue were discovered in a basement bathtub in a close by apartment house.

A manhunt was quickly launched for the unknown slayer but it was not until June 26 that Heirens was apprehended prowling a North Side apartment house. After a struggle, during which Heirens attempted to shoot at the detective leading the inquiry into the Degnan murder, he was arrested and taken in for questioning. Given a truth serum (which Heirens had reportedly previously injected himself with in order to build an immunity to it) the youthful killer confessed to the three homocides. However, he did try to deflect responsibility onto an alter-ego he called George Murman, probably nothing but a ploy for sympathy. He wasn't even creative enough to fashion a very well-thought name for his other personality (Murman=Murderman). Regardless, Heirens was sentenced to three consecutive life terms withough the possibility of parole.

A rather large movement has gained some steam over the years, claiming that Heirens is innocent of the three murders. Indeed handwriting experts have cast some doubt on the lipstick and ransom messages attributed to Heirens. Some say those were planted by overzealous police or newspaper reporters. Heirens does, however, display continuing signs of sociopathic behavior and was a very serious collecter of stolen women's undergarments judging by the large stash found after one of his previous arrests. He himself claims to still believe that George Murman exists and that the two of them speak occasionally to this day. His fingerprints were also present at all three crime scenes so it does appear that these attmepts to clear Heirens name are doomed to failure.