John Wayne Gacy, Jr.

(March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994) was an American serial

killer.
He was convicted and later executed for the rape and murder of 33 boys and
young men between 1972 and his arrest in 1978, 27 of whom he buried in a crawl
space under the floor of his house, while others were found in nearby rivers. He
became notorious as the "Killer Clown" because of the many block parties he
threw for his friends and neighbors, entertaining children in a clown suit and
makeup, under the name of "Pogo the Clown".

Early life
John Wayne Gacy, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, the second of three children,
to John Wayne Gacy, Sr. (June 20, 1900 – December 25, 1965), a machinist, and
Marion Elaine Robinson (May 4, 1908 – December 14, 1989). Cook County
marriage records provide his mother's name as Marion E. Robertson.
He was of Polish and Danish heritage. He had a troubled relationship with his
father, an alcoholic who abused him and called him a "sissy". He was close to his
sisters and mother, who affectionately called him "Johnny".
When Gacy was 11, he was struck on the forehead by a swing. The resulting head
trauma formed a blood clot in his brain that went unnoticed until he was 16, when
he began to suffer blackouts. He was prescribed medication to dissolve the clot.
After attending four high schools, Gacy dropped out before completing his senior
year and left his family, heading west. After running out of money in Las Vegas,
Nevada, he worked long enough to earn money to travel back home to Chicago.
Without returning to high school, he enrolled in and eventually graduated from
Northwestern Business College.
A management trainee position with the Nunn-Bush Shoe Company followed
shortly after graduation, and in 1964, Gacy was transferred to Springfield, Illinois.
There he met coworker Marlynn Myers, and they married in September 1964. He
became active in local Springfield organizations, joining the Jaycees and rising to
vice-president of the Springfield chapter by 1965.

Marlynn's parents, who had purchased a group of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)
franchises, offered Gacy a job as manager of a Waterloo, Iowa KFC, and the
Gacys moved there from Springfield.
Imprisonment, divorce, parole

The Gacys settled in Waterloo and had two children, a son and a daughter. Gacy
worked hard at his KFC franchise but still found time to again join the Jaycees.
[13] Rumors of Gacy's homosexuality began to spread but did not stop him from
being named "outstanding vice-president" of the Waterloo Jaycees in 1967.[14]
However, there was a seamier side of Jaycee life in Waterloo, one that involved
prostitution, pornography, and drugs, in which Gacy was deeply involved. Gacy
was cheating on his wife regularly. At the same time, Gacy opened a "club" in his
basement for the young boys of Waterloo, where he allowed them to drink alcohol
and made sexual advances towards them.

Gacy's middle class idyll in Waterloo came crashing down in March 1968 when
two Waterloo boys, aged 16 and 15, accused him of sexually assaulting them.
Gacy professed his innocence and it appeared he might beat the charges, but in
August of that year he hired another Waterloo youth to beat up one of his
accusers. The youth was caught and confessed all, and Gacy was arrested. Before
the year was out, he was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to 10 years in the
Iowa State Penitentiary.

Gacy's imprisonment was rapidly followed by his wife's petition for divorce,
which was final in 1969. He never saw his children again. During his
incarceration, Gacy's father died from cirrhosis, on Christmas Day 1969. He was
paroled in 1970, after serving 18 months. After Gacy was released, he moved
back to Illinois to live with his mother. He successfully hid this criminal record
until police began investigating him for his later murders.

Businessman and political activist

Gacy moved in with his mother and got a job as a chef in a Chicago restaurant. In
1971, with his mother's financial assistance, he bought a house at 8213 West
Summerdale Avenue, in an unincorporated area of Norwood Park Township,
Cook County, which is surrounded by the northwest side Chicago neighborhood
of Norwood Park. The house had a four-foot deep crawl space under the floor.
On February 12, 1971, Gacy was charged with disorderly conduct; a teenaged boy
claimed that Gacy picked him up and tried to force him into sex. The complaint
was dropped when the boy did not appear in court. The Iowa Board of Parole did
not learn of this, and Gacy was discharged from parole in October 1971.
On June 22, 1972, Gacy was arrested again and charged with battery after another
young man said that Gacy flashed a sheriff's badge, lured him into Gacy's car, and
forced him into sex. Again charges were dropped.
In June 1972, Gacy married Carole Hoff, an acquaintance from his teenage years.
Hoff and her two daughters moved into the Summerdale Avenue house. In 1975,
Gacy started his own business, PDM Contractors, a construction company. At the
same time, his marriage began to deteriorate. The Gacys' sex life came to a halt,
and John Gacy would go out late and stay out all night. Carole Gacy found wallets
with IDs from young men lying around. John Gacy began bringing gay
pornography into the house. The Gacys divorced in March 1976.
Gacy became active in the local Democratic Party, first volunteering to clean the
party offices. In 1975 and 1976, he served on the Norwood Park Township street
lighting committee. He eventually earned the title of precinct captain. In this
capacity, he met and was photographed with First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who was
in town for the annual Polish Constitution Day Parade, held on May 6, 1978.
Gacy was directing the parade that year, for the third year in a row. Carter posed
for pictures with Gacy and autographed the photo "To John Gacy. Best Wishes.
Rosalynn Carter". In the picture, Gacy is wearing an "S" pin, indicating a person
who has received special clearance by the United States Secret Service. During
the search of Gacy's house after his arrest, this photo caused a major
embarrassment to the Secret Service.

Murders

In July 1975, one of Gacy's employees, John Butkovich, disappeared. Butkovich

had recently left Gacy's employ after an argument over back pay Butkovich was
owed. Butkovich's parents urged police to check out Gacy, but nothing came of it
and the young man's disappearance went unsolved.
In December 1976, another Gacy employee, Gregory Godzik, disappeared, and
his parents asked police to investigate Gacy, one of the last people known to have
spoken to the boy. In neither case did the police pursue Gacy nor did they
discover his criminal record.
In January 1977, John Szyc, an acquaintance of Butkovich, Godzik and Gacy,
disappeared. Later that year, another of Gacy's employees was arrested for
stealing gasoline from a station; the car he was driving had belonged to Szyc.
Gacy said that Szyc had sold the car to him before leaving town, and the police
failed to pursue the matter further.
Gacy then started getting tired of digging holes in his crawlspace, he wanted space
that was available at all times. He hired one of his employees David Cram to
make more space. Cram also stayed in the spare bedroom in his boss' house. One
night, Cram came home from work and found Gacy drunk and in his clown
costume. They had a few drinks and then Gacy tricked Cram into the handcuffs.
Gacy then started growling and began spinning Cram around the room screaming
"I'm going to rape you". Cram pushed Gacy down and some how grabbed the key
and escaped to his room.
Not all of Gacy's victims died. In March 1978, Gacy lured Jeffrey Rignall into his
car. Gacy chloroformed the young man, took him back to the house on
Summerdale, raped and tortured him, and dumped him in Lincoln Park. Police
drew a blank, but Rignall remembered, through the chloroform haze of that night,
a black Oldsmobile, the Kennedy Expressway, and some side streets. He staked
out the exit on the Expressway until he saw the black Oldsmobile, which he
followed to 8213 West Summerdale. Police issued a warrant, and arrested Gacy
on July 15. He was facing trial on a battery charge for the Rignall incident when
he was arrested in December for the other murders. In December 1977, a 19-year-
old man complained that Gacy had kidnapped him at gunpoint and forced him
into sex. Yet again, Chicago police took no action.
Robert Piest, a 15-year-old boy, disappeared on December 11, 1978 from the Des
Plaines pharmacy where he worked after school. Just before he vanished, Piest
told a co-worker he was going to a house down the street to talk to "some
contractor" about a job. Gacy had been at the pharmacy that night discussing a
remodeling job with the owner. Gacy denied talking to Piest when Des Plaines
police called him the next day, but the Des Plaines police did what Chicago police
failed to do and checked Gacy's record, discovering that he had done time for
sodomy.
A search of Gacy's house on December 13 turned up some suspicious items: a
1975 high school class ring, drivers' licenses for other people, handcuffs, a two-
by-four with holes drilled in the ends, a syringe, clothing too small for Gacy, and
a photo receipt from the pharmacy where Piest worked. Detectives noticed an
offensive odor coming from the crawlspace beneath the house.
Further investigation revealed Godzik's disappearance. The high school ring was
traced to Szyc. From Gacy's second wife, they learned of Butkovich.
On December 21, 1978, one of Gacy's employees told the police that Gacy had
confessed to more than 30 murders. Shortly thereafter, Gacy was arrested for
marijuana possession. Police took out a second warrant, went back to the house on
Summerdale, and found human bones in the crawlspace.
After being informed that he would now face murder charges, Gacy confessed to
some 25-30 murders, telling investigators that most were buried in the crawlspace
and on his property, and that he threw the last five bodies, after the crawlspace
was full, off the I-55 bridge and into the Des Plaines River, including that of Piest.
Gacy drew police a diagram of his crawlspace to show where the bodies were
buried.
Gacy told the police that he would pick up male teenage runaways or male
prostitutes off the streets, and take them back to his house with either promising
them money for sex, or just grab them by force. He picked up at least one of his
victims at the bus station. Once they got back to his house, he would handcuff
them or tie them up in another way. Gacy would often stick clothing in their
mouths to muffle their screams. After this, he would choke them with a rope or a
board as he sexually assaulted them. Gacy would also keep the bodies with him
for as long as decomposition would allow.
The police had already gone back to the house to search for more remains, mostly
under the crawlspace. For the next four months, more and more human remains
emerged from the house, as reporters, TV news crews, and astonished onlookers
watched. Twenty-nine bodies were found in Gacy's crawlspace and on his
property between December 1978 and March 1979.
The youngest identified victims were Samuel Stapleton and Michael Marino, both
14 years old; the oldest were Russell Nelson and James Mazzara, both 21 years
old. Eight of the victims were so badly decomposed that they were never
identified. Robert Piest's body was discovered on the banks of the Des Plaines
River on April 9.

Trial and execution

On February 6, 1980, Gacy's trial began in Chicago. During the trial, he pleaded
not guilty by reason of insanity. However, this plea was rejected outright; Gacy's
lawyer, Sam Amirante, said that Gacy had moments of temporary insanity at the
time of each individual murder, but regained his sanity before and after to lure and
dispose of victims.

While on trial, Gacy joked that the only thing he was guilty of was "running a
cemetery without a license." At one point in the trial, Gacy's defense also tried to
claim that all 33 murders were accidental deaths as part of erotic asphyxia, but the
Cook County Coroner countered this assertion with evidence that Gacy's claim
was impossible. Gacy had also made an earlier confession to police, and was
unable to have this evidence suppressed. He was found guilty on March 13 and
sentenced to death.
On May 10, 1994, Gacy was executed at Stateville Correctional Center[60] in
Crest Hill, Illinois, by lethal injection. His last meal consisted of a dozen deep
fried shrimp, a bucket of original recipe chicken from KFC, a pound of fresh
strawberries and French fries. His execution was a minor media sensation, and
large crowds of people gathered for "execution parties" outside the penitentiary,
with numerous arrests for public intoxication, open container violations, and
disorderly conduct. Vendors sold Gacy-related T-shirts and other merchandise,
and the crowd cheered at the moment when Gacy was pronounced dead.

According to reports, Gacy did not express remorse. His last words to his lawyer
in his cell were to the effect that killing him would not bring anyone back, and it
is reported his last words were "kiss my ass," which he said to a correctional
officer while he was being sent to the execution chamber.

Before the execution began, the lethal chemicals unexpectedly solidified, clogging
the IV tube that led into Gacy's arm, and prevented any further passage. Blinds
covering the window through which witnesses observed the execution were
drawn, and the execution team replaced the clogged tube with a new one. Ten
minutes later, the blinds were reopened and the execution resumed. It took 18
minutes to complete.

Anesthesiologists blamed the problem on the inexperience of prison officials who

were conducting the execution, saying that proper procedures taught in "IV 101"
would have prevented the error. This apparently led to Illinois' adoption of a
different method of lethal injection. On this subject, the chief prosecutor at Gacy's
trial, William Kunkle, said "He still got a much easier death than any of his
victims."

After his execution, Gacy's brain was removed. It is currently in the possession of
Dr. Helen Morrison, who interviewed Gacy and other serial killers in an attempt
to isolate common personality traits of violent sociopaths; however, an
examination of Gacy's brain after his execution by the forensic psychiatrist hired
by his lawyers revealed no abnormalities.

Victims

Known Gacy victims, with date of disappearance.

Timothy McCoy, 18, January 3, 1972
John Butkovitch, 17, July 21, 1975
Darrell Sampson, 18, April 6, 1976
Randall Reffett, 15, May 14, 1976
Sam Stapleton, 14, May 14, 1976
Michael Bonnin, 17, June 3, 1976
William Carroll, 16, June 13, 1976
Rick Johnston, 17, August 6, 1976
Kenneth Parker, 16, October 25, 1976
Michael Marino, 14, October 25, 1976
Gregory Godzik, 17, December 12, 1976
John Szyc, 19, January 20, 1977
Jon Prestidge, 20, March 15, 1977
Matthew Bowman, 19, July 5, 1977
Robert Gilroy, 18, September 15, 1977
John Mowery, 19, September 25, 1977
Russell Nelson, 21, October 17, 1977
Robert Winch, 16, November 10, 1977
Tommy Boling, 20, November 18, 1977
David Talsma, 19, December 9, 1977
William Kindred, 19, February 16, 1978
Timothy O'Rourke, 20, June 1978
Frank Landingin, 19, November 4, 1978
James Mazzara, 21, November 24, 1978
Robert Piest, 15, December 11, 1978

Unidentified victims
Eight of Gacy's victims are still unidentified. It is also believed that there may
have been other victims never identified or found who were buried at other
locations.

The ninth unidentified victim, case file, 959UMIL was identified in June 2007
as Timothy McCoy from Nebraska. McCoy was Gacy's first known and
identified victim.

In film

Brian Dennehy starred as Gacy in the television film To Catch a Killer, aired
in
1992.[79] The feature film Gacy, starring Mark Holton as John Gacy, was
released
in 2003.

Gacy as an artist

During his 14 years on death row, Gacy took up oil painting, his favorite
subject being portraits of clowns. He said he used his clown act as an alter
ego, once sardonically saying that "A clown can get away with murder". His
paintings included pictures of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and his
fellow serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein. They are among the most
famous examples of serial killer art.

Many of Gacy's paintings were sold at auction after his execution. Nineteen
were put up for sale, prices ranging from $195, for an acrylic painting of a
bird, to $9500 for a depiction of dwarfs playing baseball against the Chicago
Cubs. Some bought Gacy's paintings to destroy them. A bonfire in
Naperville, Illinois in June 1994 was attended by 300 people, including family
members of nine victims who watched 25 of the paintings burn.

The privately owned National Museum of Crime & Punishment exhibits two
Gacy paintings including “Baseball Hall of Fame”, signed by 46 members of
the Baseball Hall of Fame including Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Joe
DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Sandy Koufax, Yogi Berra, and
Roy Campanella. President Richard Nixon also signed the work. All signers
were unaware that Gacy was the artist.