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Wilkes-Barre mass murderer George Banks dead at 83

George Banks
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
George Banks

Mass murderer George Banks, who killed 13 people in a 1982 shooting rampage in the Wilkes-Barre area, has died in prison.

He was 83.

Pennsylvania Department of Corrections spokeswoman Maria Bivens confirmed that Banks died of natural causes on Sunday at State Correctional Institution at Phoenix in Montgomery County.

Banks killed 13 people, including five of his children, on Sept. 25, 1982 on Schoolhouse Lane in Wilkes-Barre and in a Jenkins Twp. trailer park.

Banks was convicted and sentenced to death the following year. Decades of legal maneuvering followed, culminating in a 2010 ruling which found Banks was mentally incompetent and therefore could not be executed. That ruling was later upheld by the state Supreme Court.

— WVIA News staff report