George Cvek was a congenial drifter and hitchhiker who roamed up and down US Highway 1 from Maine to Washington until he was apprehended in March 1941. Cvek attacked, raped and strangled at least 14 women and perhaps more than 30. A native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania George Joseph Cvek was the son of Yugoslav and Hungarian immigrants. He was in trouble by the time he was 12. Sent to the Philadelphia Protectory on several occasions Cvek was eventually confined to a penitentiary in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. He was only 24 when he became a serial attacker of women whose husbands were traveling on business or out of town for some other reason.