The Associated Press
CHICAGO — A man convicted in one the most shocking crimes in Chicago history who spent more years in an Illinois prison cell than anyone in state history has died.
The Cook County Medical examiner’s office says 83-year-old William Heirens died Monday at a Chicago hospital after he was found unresponsive in his Dixon Correctional Center cell. An autopsy will be conducted Tuesday or Wednesday.
Heirens was dubbed the “Lipstick Killer” after a message was found scrawled in lipstick at one of his victims’ homes.
Heirens was a 17-year-old University of Chicago student and petty burglar when he was arrested in 1946. He confessed to killing two women the year before and to a slaying that terrified the city: that of a 6-year-old girl whose body was dismembered.