John Wayne Gacy

American serial killer

• Born: March 17, 1942
• Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
• Died: May 10, 1994
• Place of death: Joliet, Illinois

Major offenses: Sodomy and murder

Active: September, 1968; January, 1972–December, 1978

Locale: Des Plaines and Chicago, Illinois

Sentence: Life imprisonment for twenty-one victims murdered between January 1972, and June 1977; death by lethal injection for twelve victims murdered between July 1977, and December 1978

Early Life

John Wayne Gacy (GAY-cee), Jr., was born on St. Patrick’s Day, 1942, and was raised Roman Catholic by his parents, John Wayne Gacy, Sr., and Marion Gacy. His father, who frequently drank alcohol, was physically and psychologically abusive. At age eleven, Gacy was struck on the head with a playground swing, causing periodic blackouts until doctors discovered and treated a blood clot. After dropping out of high school, Gacy drifted to Las Vegas but eventually returned to Chicago and graduated from business college. At age twenty-two, Gacy married and moved to Waterloo, Iowa, taking a position as manager of a restaurant belonging to his new wife’s family.

To the shock and dismay of his family, Gacy was arrested in May 1968, for coercing a young employee into homosexual acts. He pleaded guilty to sodomy and was sentenced to ten years in prison. After serving only eighteen months of the sentence, Gacy was released on parole. While incarcerated, Gacy’s wife divorced him and left with their two children.

Gacy returned to the Chicago area and bought a new home in Norwood Park Township. Shortly thereafter, he established his own business, called PDM Contracting, Inc. Gacy, now a well-respected businessman, held elaborate parties at his home for neighbors and entertained children as “Pogo the Clown.” He also held an office in the Democratic Party.

Criminal Career

Gacy’s serial crimes began to surface when he was arrested on February 12, 1971, for disorderly conduct and attempted rape. However, Gacy’s accuser, a young male, failed to appear in court, and Gacy’s charges were subsequently dismissed. According to Gacy’s estimate, his first murder victim was a teenage boy whom he picked up at a bus depot in January 1972. Between January 1972, and December 1978, Gacy killed more than thirty young men. Gacy’s primary modus operandi was to troll the streets of Chicago for young boys and prostitutes and bring them (through coercion or by force) to his house, where he would sexually assault, torture, and strangle them. He then buried the corpses around his house.

Legal Action and Outcome

In early December, 1978 the Des Plaines police department, investigating the disappearance of Robert Piest, confronted Gacy while executing a search warrant at his home. Gacy denied any knowledge about Piest’s disappearance. On December 22, 1978, facing mounting physical evidence against him from subsequent searches of his home, Gacy confessed that he had killed thirty-three young men and boys and buried most on his property. Police summoned the coroner, and when digging was finished on Gacy’s property, twenty-nine bodies were unearthed from the crawl space, the garage floor, and the patio. Five additional bodies were later recovered from the Des Plaines River. Of the victims recovered between December 1978, and April 1979, eight remained unidentified.

Gacy’s trial began on February 6, 1980, in Chicago. Gacy pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The defense was ultimately unsuccessful when, on March 13, Gacy was found guilty on all thirty-three counts of murder. Gacy was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994, in the Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois.

Reopening the Case

In 2011, Cook County sheriff Tom Dart made the decision to reopen the cold case pertaining to the eight unidentified victims of Gacy's murder spree. The hope of solving some of those mysteries revolved around the newer capability of DNA testing that had not existed at the time of the investigation. By November, the team's renewed efforts led to the identification of Gacy's nineteenth victim, nineteen-year-old William Bundy. While nameless victims of other unrelated crimes have also been identified, some believed to have been victims have been found alive, and Gacy's DNA has been tested in attempts to link him to other atrocities—possibly committed during years of travel—as of 2015 Bundy remains the sole victim identified in this ongoing process.

Impact

Dubbed the Killer Clown, John Wayne Gacy lived a double life for years: successful entrepreneur and popular neighbor by day, sexual predator and murderer by night. Gacy’s notorious criminal career drew considerable attention. “There’s been eleven hardback books on me, thirty-one paperbacks, two screenplays, one movie, one off-Broadway play, five songs, and over five thousand articles,” Gacy boasted in one of his last interviews. After his execution in 1994, Gacy’s original oil paintings of clowns, made while on death row, were sold at auction to collectors. Some of these paintings were intentionally destroyed in a bonfire attended by hundreds of people, including members of victims' families. In 2011, the Las Vegas gallery Arts Factory hosted a charity sale of several of Gacy's paintings, priced at thousands of dollars. Author Stephen King reportedly used Gacy as a model for the character of the murderous clown in his novel It (1986). In 2022, Netflix released the limited docuseries Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes, which depicts Gacy's murder spree through archival audio footage taken while he was incarcerated and interviews with persons close to the case.

Bibliography

Babwin, Don. "John Wayne Gacy's Blood May Solve Old Murders." Huffington Post. HuffingtonPost.com, 3 Dec. 2012. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.

Cahill, Tim. Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer. New York: Bantam, 1986. Print.

Linedecker, Clifford L. The Man Who Killed Boys: The John Wayne Gacy, Jr., Story. New York: St. Martin’s, 1993. Print.

Mendenhall, Harlan H. Fall of the House of Gacy. West Frankfort: New Authors, 1998. Print.

Sullivan, Terry, and Peter T. Maiken. Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders. New York: Kensington, 2000. Print.