Bernard Giles

Bernard Giles
Born	Bernard Eugene Giles (1953-04-09) April 9, 1953 (age 68) Titusville, Florida, U.S.
Conviction(s)	First degree murder
Criminal penalty	Life imprisonment
Details
Victims	5
Span of crimes	September–November 1973
Country	United States
State(s)	Florida
Date apprehended	December 11, 1973

Bernard Eugene Giles (born April 9, 1953) is an American serial killer and rapist who killed five girls and women in Titusville, Florida between September and November 1973. Following his arrest, he fully admitted his guilt and was sentenced to several life imprisonment terms in 1974.^[1]

Early life[]

Giles was born on April 9, 1953, in a Titusville family with three other children. His parents led a law-abiding lifestyle and were described as good, caring parents, thanks to which Giles had a happy childhood and grew up in a stable home. Most of his friends described him in a very positive manner. He attended Titusville High School, where he took an interest in visual arts. He achieved some success in this field, but soon lost interest in studying as a whole. Due to chronic absenteeism and poor academic performance, he was forced to leave school at age 16, after which he mastered the trade of an electrician and began working. In 1972, he married 17-year-old Leslie Jo Ann, who gave birth to a daughter in July 1973.^[2]

Crimes[]

As victims, Giles would choose young girls who hitchhiked. After luring them into his car, he drove them to orange groves, where he raped them at gunpoint before killing them. Between September and November 1973, his victims were: 18-year-old Nancy Gerry, who went missing on September 26 and was found with a gunshot wound to the head on December 10; 22-year-old Paula Hamric, who went missing on November 17 and was found strangled eight days later; 17-year-old Carolyn Bennett, whose skeletal remains were found on December 25; 14-year-old Sharon Wilmer, whom he killed in November and whose remains were found on December 26; and finally 14-year-old Kristy Melton.^[3][4][5]

Arrest[]

On December 10, 1973, Giles lured two underage hitchhikers into his car and drove them to the woodlands outside Titusville, where he attempted to attack them. The victims fiercely resisted, which caused Giles to draw his gun to shoot them, but his pistol malfunctioned and misfired, and the girls managed to escape. They went to police, where they provided a description of their attacker's appearance, his car, and even his name, which they had glimpsed at in a book while riding in his car. On the next day, Giles was arrested and his car was examined, during which investigators seized a 22-caliber pistol. He was charged with assault and attempted rape.^[6] Following Giles' arrest, he was investigated as a suspect in the disappearances of more than 11 girls who had been reported missing since August 1973 and the murders of several others, but in January of the following year, most of the missing girls were located, and Giles was no longer suspected.^[7][8]

Court[]

While sifting through the cases, a forensic ballistic examination confirmed that Gerry had been killed with a revolver belonging to Giles, and he was subsequently charged with her murder. He insisted on his innocence, and in early 1974, his lawyers filed a motion for a forensic medical examination, which was granted. In the spring, two independent examinations were conducted, which determined that Giles did not suffer from any mental illnesses or abnormalities. He was declared sane, and a trial date was scheduled for April 29, 1974.^[9]

The Brevard County State Attorney's Office said that if convicted, they would seek the death penalty against Giles. Unable to withstand the moral pressure, shortly before the opening of the trial, Giles made a plea bargain with the investigators. He confessed to the murder of Hamric, and during the trial, pled guilty to the murders of the three remaining girls, as well as a series of non-lethal attacks and attempted murders against others. Giles admitted that he had been prone to violence from the age of six, often playing games in which he imitated killing the other participant. He claimed to have enjoyed pretend-strangling his childhood friend, who played the role of a witch in one of the games, which was confirmed by a number of acquaintances from that period. According to his testimony, he began to make his first attempts to attack girls in 1969, after dropping out of school, but was unsuccessful. Due to the plea bargain terms, he was spared the death penalty, and on August 13, 1974, was given several terms of life imprisonment.^[10][11]

Aftermath[]

After his conviction, Giles was transported to serve his sentence at the Florida State Prison in Bradford County. In October 1979, Giles escaped with two other prisoners. With the help of a few hand-made smoke grenades, he and his accomplices managed to distract the guard dogs and the prison guards, after which, using locksmithing tools, they managed to make a small gap in several rows of wire through which they escaped. In the subsequent search, police staked out his ex-wife's house, as they had received a tip that Giles was planning to kidnap his daughter from his ex-wife, but he was found five miles away from the prison, 26 hours after escaping. He was found guilty of escape and given an additional 15 years imprisonment.^[12][5]

Since then, Giles has been moved around various penitentiaries around the state. In 2019, he received a second wave of fame after British journalist and TV host Piers Morgan visited Giles in prison to conduct an interview for one of his new segments.^[13]

See also[]

• List of prison escapes
• List of serial killers in the United States

External links[]

• Confessions of a Serial Killer with Piers Morgan - Bernard Giles

References[]