Inside the Mind of John Wayne Gacy: The Real-Life Killer Clown

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Suspecting Gacy might be holding Piest at his home, Des Plaines police obtained a search warrant on December 13. [139] This search revealed several suspicious items, including several police badges; a starter pistol; a syringe and hypodermic needle; handcuffs; books on homosexuality and pederasty; [140] [141] [142] pornographic films; capsules of amyl nitrite; a dildo; [143] a two-by-four with two holes drilled into each end; bottles of Valium and atropine; several driver's licenses; a blue hooded parka; [139] and underwear too small to fit Gacy. [142] They also found a class ring engraved with the initials J.A.S. [144] and a Nisson Pharmacy photo receipt in a trash can, alongside a 36-inch (91cm) section of nylon rope. [69] Surveillance Cahill, Tim; Ewing, Russ (1986). Buried dreams: inside the mind of a serial killer. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-05115-5. This book will appeal to those who remember the Gacy case and would like to know more about the victims. If you are as fascinated by the case as I am, you will want to read Inside the Mind of John Wayne Gacy. Kneeland, Douglas E. (January 10, 1979). "Suspect in Mass Deaths Is Puzzle to All". The New York Times . Retrieved July 7, 2011. (subscription required)

Shortly thereafter, Gacy enrolled at Northwestern Business College, despite having failed to complete high school. He graduated in 1963 and took a management trainee position with the Nunn-Bush Shoe Company. [12] [16] In 1964, the company transferred him to Springfield, Illinois, to work as a salesman, and eventually promoted him to department manager. [8] In March of that year, he became engaged to Marlynn Myers, a co-worker. [16] Carole observed Gacy bringing teenage boys into his garage in the early hours and also found gay pornography and men's wallets and identification inside the house. When she confronted Gacy about these items, he informed her angrily that it was none of her business. [41] In October 1975, after a heated argument, Carole asked Gacy for a divorce. [51] He agreed although, by mutual consent, she continued to live at the West Summerdale house until February 1976. On March 2, the Gacys' divorce—decreed on the false grounds of Gacy's infidelity with women—was finalized. [46] [52] [53] [f] PDM Contractors The made-for-TV movie Dear Mr. Gacy was released in 2010, starring William Forsythe as John Wayne Gacy. The movie is based upon the book The Last Victim, written by Jason Moss. [29] The television show South Park features a depiction of Gacy as a minor character in their 150th episode. [31] The author makes you understand that Gacy really thought he could get away with his behavior – not just at the beginning, but at the end. Taking teenager Robert Piest from his workplace could have been a plea to get caught, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Gacy really thought his brains and reputation with cops and politicians would get him off the hook once again. Fortunately, he was wrong.Cook County medical examiner Robert Stein supervised the exhumations of the victims buried on Gacy's property. [220] The crawl space was marked in sections and each body was given an identifying number. The first body recovered from the crawl space was assigned a marker denoting the victim as Body 1. [112] He was identified as Jon Prestidge on January 6, 1979. [121] No cause of death could be determined. On February 18, Robert Stein testified that all the bodies recovered from Gacy's property were "markedly decomposed [and] putrefied, skeletalized remains", and that of all the autopsies he performed, thirteen victims had died of asphyxiation, six of ligature strangulation, one of multiple stab wounds to the chest and ten in undetermined ways. [48] [178] [r] When Gacy's defense team suggested that all 33 deaths were caused by accidental erotic asphyxia, Stein called this highly improbable. [54] [180]

After his incarceration, Gacy read law books and filed voluminous motions and appeals, although he did not prevail in any. His appeals related to issues such as the validity of the first search warrant granted to the Des Plaines police on December 13, 1978, and his objection to his lawyers' insanity plea defense. Gacy contended that, although he had "some knowledge" of five of the murders (those of McCoy, Butkovich, Godzik, Szyc and Piest), the other 28 murders had been committed by employees who had keys to his house while he was away on business trips. [22] Although Gacy remained gregarious and civic-minded, several neighbors noticed behavioral changes after his 1976 divorce, including seeing him keeping company with young males, hearing his car arrive or depart in the early morning, or seeing lights in his home switch on and off in the early hours. [52] One neighbor later recollected that, for several years, muffled high-pitched screaming, shouting, and crying had repeatedly awakened her and her son in the early morning. She identified the sounds as emanating from a house adjacent to theirs on West Summerdale Avenue. [80] 1976When John Wayne Gacy was convicted in 1980, he had the dubious distinction of boasting the largest number of murder convictions for a single individual in United States history. Between 1972 and 1978, Gacy killed at least 33 men and young boys, burying the bodies of 26 of his victims in the crawlspace of his home in a Chicago suburb.

The jury deliberated for one hour and fifty minutes. [186] Gacy was found guilty of thirty-three charges of murder; he was also found guilty of sexual assault and taking indecent liberties with a child, both in reference to Robert Piest. [167] [187] [188] At the time, his conviction for 33 murders was the most for which any person in U.S. history had been convicted. [189] [190] In the sentencing phase of the trial, the jury deliberated for more than two hours before sentencing Gacy to death for each murder committed after the Illinois statute on capital punishment came into effect in June 1977. [167] [191] His execution was set for June 2, 1980. [192] Death row A feature movie, Gacy, was released in 2003. This movie cast Mark Holton in the role of John Gacy and focuses on Gacy's life from 1971 until his arrest in 1978. [28] Gacy would then rape and torture his captive before killing them by either asphyxiation or strangulation with a garrote; at least one victim was stabbed to death. Twenty-six victims were buried in the crawl space of his home, and three were buried elsewhere on his property; four were discarded in the Des Plaines River. Gacy had previously been convicted in 1968 of the sodomy of a teenage boy in Waterloo, Iowa, and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, but served eighteen months. What I found most enjoyable about this book was the section on the exhumation and identification of Gacy's victims. As a kid, I was really into those tv shows on forensic anthropology and archaeology, and I loved the technical details on how investigators linked the bodies with a person's face and humanized them. Gacy's father was an alcoholic. Growing up, John Gacy, Sr. would verbally and physically abuse his children. [4] :22 Gacy also had health problems in his youth. For example, in 1953, while playing on a swing set, Gacy hit his head off a swing and suffered a blood clot. The clot was not treated until he was 16. [5] chapter one

Gisela does a great job of not showing sympathy for Gacy, while also showing that Gacy had a tough childhood. I know a lot of the discussion, especially following the Dahmer Docuseries on Netflix was that creators were trying to gain sympathy for these killers. Gisela does not do that. In this book there is a whole section dedicated to each victim, their families, and even what their families might be up to today. The Forensics Library: John Wayne Gacy". aboutforensics.co.uk. June 30, 2012 . Retrieved February 14, 2017. In the hours leading up to Gacy's execution, a crowd estimated at over 1,000 gathered outside the correctional center; a vocal majority were in favor of the execution, although a small number of anti-death penalty protesters were present. [197] [210] [211] Some of those in favor of the execution wore T-shirts hearkening to Gacy's previous community services as a clown and bearing satirical slogans such as "No tears for the clown". [212] In October 2011, Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart announced that investigators, having obtained full DNA profiles from each of the unidentified victims, were to renew their efforts to identify all of them. At a press conference held to announce this intention, Sheriff Dart stated investigators are actively seeking DNA samples from individuals across the United States related to any male missing between 1970 and 1979. [18] Test results thus far conducted have confirmed the identification of three victims, ruled out the possibility of numerous other missing youths as being victims of Gacy, [19] [20] and solved four unrelated cold cases dating between 1972 and 1979. [21] [22] [23] [n 1] Popular culture [ change | change source ] Movies [ change | change source ]