Marvin Gray

Marvin Gayle Gray (August 7, 1954 – July 23, 2013) was an American serial killer who gained fame in the 2000s due to his deviant behavior.

Being a powerlifter, Gray, while imprisoned, achieved incredible results in powerlifting, almost breaking world records.

Marvin Gayle Gray was born on August 7, 1954, in Princeton, Caldwell County in rural Kentucky.

His panic attacks ended in 1965, when his father suffered from a heart attack, after which the main responsibilities for raising children and running the family's budget fell on the shoulders of Marvin's mother.

At the same time, having freed himself from excessive parental care, his behavior changed dramatically, with his grades and discipline plummeting.

Marvin was first arrested at the age of 12, and subsequently convicted of infiltrating into foreign property and theft, and was sent to an institution for juvenile offenders.

According to Gray, an informal hierarchy of minors reigned in the institution, where the youngest and most physically weak were subjected to sexual violence and all kinds of humiliation.

Being in this institution, Gray's psycho-emotional state changed a lot, he learned self-defense, and also acquired destructive feelings such as rage, hatred towards elders and representatives of the law, as well as moral-psychological traits such as cruelty and callousness.

When he was released in 1968, he began his criminal career.

On the first day of school, he was expelled for carrying deadly weapons and threatening school officials.

In 1970, Gray burst into a neighbor's garage and stole a weapon from a car.

Within a few days, he made several more thefts and attacks, threatening his victims with a pistol.

After being arrested, Gray was accused of robbery, burglary, illegal possession of weapons and the threat of murder.

In 1971, at the age of 17, Gray received 5 years in prison.

He was transferred to the Kentucky State Prison, a 100-year-old stone prison called "The Castle" in the city of Eddyville.

During his incarceration, Gray first took up powerlifting, developed a tattoo addiction, and became an ardent supporter of the concept of white supremacy.

Released in early 1975, he weighed more than 100 kilograms (220 lbs.) with a height of 1.90 metres (6'2") and possessed impressive muscles and physical strength. At the insistence of his elder brother Eugene, he soon moved to Denver, where he found a job at the O'Neal Hotel, located in the city center. In the summer of 1975, Gray and his friend William Felder were arrested on charges of assaulting police officer James Datsman, who had received a gunshot wound.

Datsman had been investigating the murder of 26-year-old Joseph Didier, who had been killed earlier that day in the vicinity of the hotel.

Found near the crime scene, Gray and Felder opened fire at the police officer.

Datsman survived, and pointed at Felder as the shooter.

At trial, Marvin Gray said that he shot, but the court considered the officer's testimony as a priority.

Gray was accused only of theft and complicity of the crime and received only 4 years imprisonment, while William Felder received 20 years.

Subsequently, the ballistic examination showed that the bullets that killed Didier and injured Datsman were from the same weapon, but the charges of Joseph Didier's murder were not brought against either of the criminals.

While in custody, according to the investigation, Gray committed his first crime against an inmate.

Inmate David Cook was found beaten and strangled at the end of 1977 in his cell.

Gray was pointed at as a suspect by several witnesses.

Subsequently, these prisoners changed their testimonies, and even despite allegations that Gray threatened many in prison with physical violence, he was never charged with the murder of Cook.

In 1978, Gray was released early and returned to Kentucky where he met 17-year-old Sheila Olsbrook.

They had a son in 1979.

Gray scoffed and beat Olsbrook during their relationship which only ended after his next arrest in 1979 for stealing a car.

He was helped in this crime by accomplice William Purdue.

On March 16, 1980, Gray, Purdue and another inmate named Jerry Keller escaped from prison.

They hijacked a van, but quarreled along the way, as a result of which Gray beat Keller to death and disposed of his body in the city.

A few days later, Gray reached Denver, and was identified by acquaintances and soon rearrested.

Since 1992, relying on his physical strength, he committed several rapes and murders of fellow inmates, which resulted in taking exceptional measures against Gray by putting him in a high-security prison's solitary confinement cell, restriction of movement within the prison and others.

In the 2000s, he was considered the most dangerous prisoner in the state of Colorado, being convicted of 3 murders and suspected in several others, personally confessing to killing 41 people across 8 different states from 1971 to 1992.

However, the credibility of his testimony continued to be disputed until his death.

He was the 7th child in a family of 10 children.

From the age of 4 years, Marvin began to suffer from panic attacks, and as a result of which he had to spend the next 7 years taking drugs containing methamphetamines.

Since early childhood, Marvin was attracted to work in the tobacco fields and labor discipline industries.