George Banks Suffered Massive Delusions That Contributed to the Deaths of 13 People

According to the Times Leader, George Banks committed his first violent crime back in 1961. He had just been discharged from the Army when Banks shot and injured an unarmed tavern-keeper during a robbery. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison but had more tacked on after an attempted escape in 1964. He was out in six and married by August 1969, per the Associated Press.

Banks's childhood was made more difficult by the unforgiving times during which he was raised. He had a Black father and a white mother, which made him a target for bullies. During the trial that sent Banks away for life, his lawyer argued that the "torment and agony" of being the product of an interracial relationship drove him to violence. What did he do? Here's what we know.

After Banks's divorce in 1976, he began dating several women simultaneously. At one point, he was living with three of his girlfriends, all white, in a single home. He would go on to sire five more children with these women. It's important to note that Banks's wife was Black. Having interracial children allegedly played into what Banks would go on to do.

In the early morning hours of Sept. 25, 1982, Banks consumed large quantities of gin and prescription pills before using his M-16 rifle and AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to murder his four girlfriends at the time, the five children they shared, and three relatives of two of his partners. Upon exiting his house in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Banks shot two people across the street. One died from his injuries, bringing the total number of deaths to 13.

Banks fled to a different house, where he was engaged in a standoff with police for six hours. At the time of the shootings, Banks had been on leave from his job as a guard at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill. He locked himself in a tower and threatened to kill himself. He had also been telling coworkers about an impending race war and the fear he had for his interracial children who would surely suffer during it.

Banks's trial lasted just under two weeks, and in June 1983, he was found guilty of 12 counts of first-degree murder and one count of third-degree murder. The following day, Banks was handed 12 death sentences and one life sentence. While in prison, the delusions Banks labored under only intensified. He grew to believe that God, Jesus, and former President George W. Bush overturned his sentence, but he was trapped behind bars due to an Islamic conspiracy that kept him from spreading God's word.

After winding through the legal system for decades, in 2006, a judge ruled that Banks was incompetent to face the death penalty, per the Death Penalty Information Center. Five years later, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously decided he would not be put to death. In November 2025, The New York Times reported Banks passed away from kidney cancer at the age of 83.