John Wayne Gacy

    John Wayne Gacy, one of America's most famous murderers, is accountable for the murders of 33 young men and boys between 1972 and 1976, shocking the neighbourhood of suburban Chicago where he was well known for his friendliness.

    Gacy, a contractor and municipal politician from Chicago who became known as the Killer Clown because of his work as a party clown was sentenced to death for his murders in 1980.

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    In 1968, When Gacy was found guilty of sodomizing two young boys, it was the first indication that something was wrong with him. Gacy was detained and imprisoned for 18 months. In order to start over anew in Chicago, Gacy had already resolved to be divorced by the time he was released.

    Gacy established a prosperous construction company in Chicago, went to church, got remarried, and served as the Democratic Precinct Captain for his neighbourhood as a volunteer. He organized extravagant block parties during this time, becoming well-known in his neighbourhood. Friends, neighbours, and police officers all had admiration and respect for Gacy.

    During July 1975, a teenager who worked for Gacy disappeared. Although his parents begged Chicago police to look into Gacy, they never did. It wouldn't be the last time concerned parents pleaded with authorities to look into Gacy as a suspect, but their requests were ignored. Gacy divorced again in 1976, and this time it seemed to give him a sense of independence. Gacy started raping and killing young men at the time, which no one else was aware of. 

    Police looked into Gacy after the December 1978 disappearance of 15-year-old pharmacy employee Robert Piest. Police were informed that the boy's mother last saw him at the drugstore he worked at before he left to meet Gacy to talk about a potential construction job. Gacy later admitted to killing about 30 people after a protracted period of police surveillance and investigation, declaring that he had been "the judge, jury, and executioner of many, many people," and saying that Robert Piest was no longer alive. He also revealed to them that he had disposed of five of his victims in the Des Plaines River and buried many of his victims, whom he referred to as "male prostitutes" and "liars," in his crawl space.

    He murdered 33 people within a short period of time, 29 of whose dead were discovered beneath Gacy's house—26 in the crawlspace and 3 more in different locations. According to Terry Sullivan and Peter T Maiken's Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders, Gacy would tempt many of his victims off the streets, from the Greyhound Bus station or Bughouse Square, with the promise of a job at his contracting company, or drink, drugs, or money for sex. With other victims, he would falsely represent himself as a police officer. Before handcuffing his victims when they were at his house, he would offer to demonstrate a magic act he had mastered while working as a clown.

    On February 6, 1980, Gacy was found guilty of 33 killings, setting a new record for the most murder convictions in US history. He was given the death penalty. On May 10, 1994, at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois, Gacy was executed by lethal injection.

Sources and Further Reading

What happened to John Wayne Gacy? What Conversations with a Killer on Netflix misses out

John Wayne Gacy's Biography

Crime Library: John Wayne Gacy

Written by David

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