After their parents divorced in 1946, Heidnik and his brother were raised by their mother for four years before being placed in the care of their father and his new wife.

He suffered a lifelong problem of bedwetting and reported his father would humiliate him by forcing him to hang his stained sheets from his bedroom window, in full view of neighbors.

However, Heidnik did not stay in San Antonio for long and was transferred to the 46th Army Surgical Hospital in Landstuhl, West Germany.

In August 1962, Heidnik began complaining of severe headaches, dizziness, blurred vision and nausea.

A hospital neurologist diagnosed Heidnik with gastroenteritis and noted that he also displayed symptoms of mental illness, for which he was prescribed trifluoperazine.

Shortly after his discharge, Heidnik became a licensed practical nurse and enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, only to drop out after a single semester.

He worked at a Veterans Administration hospital in Coatesville, but was fired for poor attendance and rude behavior towards patients.

In 1970, his mother, who had been diagnosed with bone cancer and was suffering the effects of alcoholism, took her own life by drinking mercuric chloride.

[5] Heidnik used a matrimonial service to meet his future wife, Betty Disto, with whom he corresponded by mail for two years before proposing to her.

[10] Unknown to Heidnik until his ex-wife requested child support payments in 1987, he had impregnated Disto during their short marriage.

Shortly after Maxine's birth, Heidnik was arrested for the kidnapping and rape of Anjeanette's sister, Alberta, who had been living in an institution for the developmentally disabled in Penn Township.

In 1976, Heidnik was charged with aggravated assault and carrying an unlicensed pistol after shooting at the tenant of a house he offered for rent, grazing the man's face.

Heidnik was arrested, charged, and convicted of kidnapping, rape, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, and interfering with the custody of a committed person.

Heidnik dismembered her body, but had problems dealing with the arms and legs, so he put them in a freezer and labeled them "dog food."

Police officers came to his house after his neighbors complained that a nauseating odor was emanating from his residence, but they left the premises after Heidnik explained: "I'm cooking a roast.

"[6][17] Several sources state that Heidnik ground up the flesh of Lindsay, mixed it with dog food, and fed it to his other victims.

[10][18] His defense attorney, Chuck Peruto, said that upon examination of a Cuisinart and other tools in his kitchen, they found no evidence of this.

The fact that Heidnik had successfully amassed approximately $550,000 through his brokerage account was used to prove that he was an astute investor, and therefore not insane.

Testimony which was given by his Merrill Lynch financial advisor, Robert Kirkpatrick, was also used to prove Heidnik's mental competence.

[29] He was executed by lethal injection on July 6, 1999, at the State Correctional Institution – Rockview, in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania and his body was cremated.

[33] Heidnik was one of three real-life murderers upon whom author Thomas Harris based Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb, the villain of his 1988 novel The Silence of the Lambs.