The Mormon Monster #truecrime

Arthur Gary Bishop

Young boys were being hunted from 1979 to 1983 in SALT lake City, Utah. A monster used a fake name to join the big brother program to gain access to the children while he hunted others in braid daylight. 5 boys were murdered and many more were abused before the creature was finally stopped.

Arthur Gary Bishop, the devil of Salt Lake City.

Arthur Gary Bishop was born on September 29th, 1952 in Hinckley Utah. The bishop family was Mormon and Arthur served the church faithfully as a young man. In addition to becoming an Eagle Scout, when he was 19 he went to the Philippines to work as a missionary.

When he returned to Utah, Bishop studied accounting at Steven Henager College and graduated with honors. However the facade of an honest man soon faltered. In 1978 he was charged with embezzling money from his job at a used car dealership.

Arthur agreed to pay back the money in return for a suspended sentence. But instead of paying restitution, he fled to Salt Lake City and began using a different name. As a result an arrest warrant was issued and he was excommunicated from the church.

It was in Salt Lake City, Bishops true evil nature was revealed. He registered with the Big Brother program under the name Roger Downs. After his arrest dozens of the kids the program was meant to help came forward with allegations of abuse.

Arthur Bishop killed his first victim soon after his arrival in Salt Lake City. On October 14 1979, he used the promise of candy to lure 4 year old Alonzo Daniels into his apartment. Daniels family lived across the hall from the man they knew as Roger Downs.

After assaulting the child, Bishop beat him with a hammer and drowned him. He loaded the body into a cardboard box and carried it out to his car, walking right past Alonzo’s mother as she looked for her son. He took the boy and buried him in the desert near a town called cedar Fort.

After the first murder, Arthur Bishop sought out an alternate way to act out his sadistic impulses. He would later tell investigators that he visited animal shelters and adopted roughly 20 puppies that he would then kill. But the animals did not satisfy the monsters desires.

Just over a year later on November 9th 1980, the killer killed for the second time. He came across an 11 year old boy named Kim Peterson at a skating rink the day before. Peterson was selling a pair of roller skates and went to Bishops apartment the following day where the monster said he had money for the skates.

Witnesses saw him talking to the boy and gave investigators a description. Unfortunately police were not able to save Peterson. Once the killer got him back to his apartment, Bishop abused Peterson then beat him to death. He buried the body near his first victim.

Once again the creature waited nearly a year before he struck again. On October 20 1981 Bishop lured 4 year old Danny Davis from a grocery store nearby his apartment. The boy had been with his grandfather when he was taken.

Once again witnesses saw a man talking to Davis and police launched a massive manhunt and a 20 thousand dollar reward. Bishop was interviewed as he had been in regard to the disappearance of Daniels, but it was routine and police did not find anything suspicious about the answers he gave.

After his second interview with investigators, Arthur Bishop waited twice as long before he killed again. 6 year old Troy Ward was playing in the park on June 22 1983 when Bishop approached him. He was last seen leaving the park with a man around 4 pm. Bishop assaulted Ward in his apartment, bludgeoned him then drowned him in his bathtub and buried his body near Cottonwood Creek.

The final victim was known to spend time around the man known as Roger Downs. 13 year old Graeme Cunningham disappeared on July 14, just 2 days before he was scheduled to go on a camping trip with some friends and an adult named Roger Downs who had agreed to chaperone the boys.

When Cunningham vanished, police interviewed those involved in the trip. When they realized that the chaperone was not a parent they became suspicious and checked out his background. They found that he lived near where all of 4 of the other victims had been taken.

When police brought him in for questioning for the 3rd time they finally had some success in removing the mask from the monster. First he gave them his true identity. Then as of the dam had broken, Bishop confessed to all 5 murders. The next day he led police to the bodies he had buried.

As police investigated they found that Bishop had abused dozens of children while he was part of the Big Brother program. Disturbingly, they learned that some parents had known of his misdeeds yet had not informed the authorities despite the fact that children were going missing.

Inside Bishops home, police found the hammer he had used to bash in the boys heads as well as a pistol. They also found photos he had taken of his victims and used them to identify the boys abused by the killer. And to make matters worse, while Arthur was incarcerated, his brother was arrested for abusing children though there was no connection between their crimes.

The trial started on February 27 1984. The courtroom heard the recorded confession the killer had given. The creature giggled at some points as the jury listened to the horrific recording, bishop also imitated the boys final words in a high pitched voice mocking their deaths. He stated “I am glad they caught me, because I’d do it again.

On March 19, Arthur Bishop was found guilty 5 counts of 1st degree murder, kidnapping, and abusing a minor. After he recieved a death sentence, he apologized to the families of his victims. There were attempts at an appeal but they failed and on June 8th 1988, Arthur Bishop met with his family for the last time and on June 10th he was executed by lethal injection.
#serialkiller #crime #evil #scary #horror