Genesee River Killer Arthur Shawcross drew blood on the outside and pictures behind bars

His paintings were big splashes of primary colors, butterflies, flocks of brilliant blue and yellow birds, and wildlife around a water hole, a peaceable kingdom. So placid were these images that they would seem the work of a gentle nature lover. Yet, when the paintings came up for sale in April 2001, one lawman described them as “sickening.” Gov. George Pataki had the artist banned from any other exhibitions. Arthur Shawcross, 55, the artist, was also an inmate at the maximum-security Sullivan Correctional Facility where he was serving a sentence of more than 250 years for his other hobby — serial killing. It’s not clear when he took up his paints, but his other pastime had started some 30 years earlier with the slaughter of two children. He went to prison, was paroled, and started again. At least 13 victims would die at the hands of this jailhouse Rembrandt, known throughout the community around upstate Rochester, as the Genesee River Killer.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/serial-killer-jailhouse-artist-article-1.1762308