Dawn Staley, coach of the women's basketball team at USC, and former Sen. Dick Harpootlian discuss Harpootlian's newly released book in Columbia, S.C., on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — One thing the Gamecocks women’s basketball coach and a former prosecutor have in common is a deep knowledge of true crime.
Dawn Staley professed her love of the genre to former Sen. Dick Harpootlian in Columbia on Tuesday, as the two discussed Harpootlian’s newly released book, “Dig Me A Grave.”
The 225-page book tells the tale of Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins, a serial killer who confessed to killing at least 13 people during the 1970s, and Harpootlian’s story as the prosecutor who sent Gaskins to death row.
“It’s a true story, but it feels very much like a Hollywood movie,” Staley, the University of South Carolina’s three-time national championship coach, told a room of about 200 people during the 40-minute conversation.
Gaskins first received a death sentence in 1976, but a U.S. Supreme Court decision led the state courts to overturn it and instead give him life in prison.
Gaskins received nine more life sentences, one from a jury and eight from a judge following his confession.
Prosecutor who sent SC serial killer to death row tells his story in upcoming book
He might have lived out his days in prison if he hadn’t agreed to kill death row inmate Rudolph Tyner as part of a murder-for-hire plot by the son of the couple Tyner killed. Instead, Gaskins ended up back in court, with Harpootlian as his prosecutor.
Gaskins was executed in 1991.
Harpootlian, who later became a defense attorney, didn’t want the book to feel salacious in recounting the gory details of Gaskins’ killings, which he based on autopsy reports, Gaskins’ confessions, witness accounts and crime scene evidence.
At the same time, he wanted people to understand the horror Gaskins inflicted on the Florence County town of Prospect during the 1970s, he said.
Harpootlian and his co-writer, journalist and author Shaun Assael, went back and forth on how much to include, especially from the autopsy report describing the damage Gaskins did to 2-year-old Robin Dempsey while beating her to death.
In the end, they decided to use those details, Harpootlian said.
“That’s sensationalism,” Harpootlian said. “It’s also, I think, necessary to really describe the evil that we’re trying to describe.”
Also at odds in the book was Harpootlian’s own opinion about the death penalty.
When Harpootlian was first assigned the case as a prosecutor in the 5th Circuit solicitor’s office, which oversees Richland and Kershaw counties, he grappled with sending a man to the electric chair.
Harpootlian opposed the death penalty as a young man, but years of seeing the worst people had to offer during his years trying criminal cases wore on him.
In Gaskins’ case, Harpootlian saw the decision as one of self-defense, since Gaskins proved prison walls wouldn’t stop him from killing.
“If not Pee Wee, who?” Harpootlian said.
The title of the book, which mirrors a moment when Gaskins tells a friend to start digging graves, could also seem to reflect that idea, Staley said.
“Did it have anything to do with digging you a grave for your stance on the death penalty?” Staley asked of the title.
“Wow,” the former state Democratic Party chairman responded to laughter from the audience, before adding that it wasn’t his intention, though perhaps it was a subconscious influence.
For friends, Harpootlian’s telling of Gaskins’ story was a long time coming, former Gov. Jim Hodges told the audience in introducing Harpootlian and Staley.
“We are all thrilled,” Hodges said. “Many of us heard Dick tell stories of Pee Wee Gaskins over the years — a really fascinating case for those of us who are old enough to remember that.”
Among those old enough to remember were Diane Welch, who drove to Columbia from her home in Elgin on Tuesday out of curiosity about Harpootlian’s side of the story.
As a young newspaper reporter for The Weekly Observer in the 1980s, Welch often drove between her hometown of Hemingway, a town of about 500 in Williamsburg County, and Lake City in Florence County, where the paper’s printer was located.
Between the two was Prospect, Gaskins’ hometown and the site of a mass grave where investigators dug up multiple victims’ bodies. Although Gaskins was in prison during the early 1980s, cruising down the empty highways alone in the early morning still gave Welch the creeps, she said.
She followed the story, which dominated the headlines at the time, and even read the book Gaskins dictated to a writer during his time in prison, which gave gruesome details and made claims to killings investigators never confirmed.
(“Final Truth” was published in January 1992, four months after Gaskins’ execution.)
“It was a long time ago, but it was big news,” said Welch, who started reading her preordered copy of the book as soon as the event ended.
Although the book was just released Tuesday, Staley was already asking for a sequel.
“We want more,” Staley said.
Harpootlian hinted that he might have other stories to tell in his future, possibly including that of Alex Murdaugh.
Murdaugh was convicted in 2023 of killing his wife and son two years prior. The case caught the attention of millions of people, with Harpootlian on the other side of the courtroom as Murdaugh’s defense attorney.
As for a sequel on Gaskins, Harpootlian ruled nothing out. Not everything made the final cut, since Harpootlian and Assael probably had around 600 pages of material, he said.
“Will there be a market for that? We’ll see,” Harpootlian said. “We’ll see what the market is for this (book). It looks pretty good so far.”
