John Wayne Gacy- An American serial killer and sex offender known as the Killer Clown who assaulted and murdered at least 33 young men and boys. Gacy regularly performed at children's hospitals and charitable events as "Pogo the Clown" or "Patches the Clown". Gacy was convicted of the sodomy of a teenage boy in Waterloo, Iowa, in 1968 and was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, but served 18 months. He murdered his first victim in 1972, had murdered twice more by the end of 1975, and murdered at least 30 subsequent victims after his divorce from his second wife in 1976. The investigation into the disappearance of Des Plaines teenager Robert Piest led to Gacy's arrest on December 21, 1978. His conviction for 33 murders was the most by one individual in United States history at the time. Gacy was sentenced to death on March 13, 1980. On death row at Menard Correctional Center, he spent much of his time painting. He was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994.
Gacy typically murdered his victims by placing a rope tourniquet around their neck before progressively tightening the rope with a hammer handle. He referred to this act as the "rope trick", frequently informing his captive, "This is the last trick." In at least one instance, he had read part of Psalm 23 as he tightened the rope around his victim's neck. Occasionally, the victim had convulsed for an "hour or two" before dying, although several victims died by asphyxiation from cloth gags stuffed deep into their throat. Except for his two final victims, all were murdered between 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. After death, Gacy usually stored the victims' bodies under his bed for up to 24 hours before burying his victim in the crawl space, where he periodically poured quicklime to hasten the decomposition of his victims. Some victims' bodies were taken to his garage and embalmed prior to their burial.
Born on March 17, 1942 in Chicago Illinois, John Wayne Gacy was born by Danish and Polish parents. During Gacy's abusive childhood he faced a drunken father, John Stanley Gacy, who would beat his children with a razor strap if they possibly misbehaved. Gacy and his siblings were never allowed to cry during the beatings from their father. In addition, his father physically assaulted Gacy's mother, Marion Elaine Robinson. At school Gacy's faced bullying by classmates because of a heart condition that he had. His father accused him of faking his heart pains to gain sympathy from him. When Gacy was nine years old he was molested by a family friend, who would drive him around in his truck and then caress him.
When Gacy returned home he enrolled in Northwestern Business College. He got his first business job with Nunn-Bush Shoe Company. He was transferred down to Springfield Illinois where he became engaged to Marylnn Myers. They married in September of 1964, and they both moved to Waterloo Iowa where Marylnn's father owned multiple KFC restaurants for Gacy to manage. Once in Iowa, Gacy joined the Jaycees and one of his colleges and him got drunk and performed oral sex on him. This was the second time that he had homosexual encounters. He was later appointed vice-president of the Jaycees and "named third most outstanding Jaycee in the State of Illinois."
Gacy and Carole Hoff and her two daughters. On June 1, 1972 Gacy married his second wife Carole Hoff, a newly divorced mother of two daughters. The couple divorced on March 2, 1976.
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".
While in Anamosa State Penitentiary, on Christmas day, Gacy's father died of cirrhosis of the liver. Two days later when Gacy found out, he wept and hat to be "supported by prison staff." Gacy asked to go to his father's funeral but the request was turned down. In 1975, Gacy told his second wife that he was bisexual and would never have sex with her again and they later divorced the following year.
Gacy later joined a Moose club where members all wore clown costumes and performed at events for children. Gacy enjoyed this so much that he created his own clown character which he called Pogo the clown. Gacy performed multiple times a children's parties, events, and parades as Pogo.
The site of Gacy's home in Des Plaines, where Gacy buried the bodies
of 28 of the known 33 teenage boys he murdered.
The law caught up with Gacy late in 1978. The mother of a young man who disappeared after applying to Gacy for a job notified the police. A search warrant allow police to search Gacy's home. Authorities eventually discovered the remains of 27 corpses underneath the house, plus 2 more under the garage and driveway. Eventually Gacy told police he had thrown 4 other corpses into the DesPlaines River. Gacy was indicted for 33 murders. The bodies of most of the victims were unearthed in the crawl space under Gacy's middle class home in the Chicago suburbs.
In 1968, Gacy was convicted of sexually assaulting two teen boys and given a 10-year prison sentence. He was released on parole in the summer of 1970, but was arrested again the following year after another teen accused Gacy of sexual assault. The charges were dropped when the boy didn't appear during the trial. By the middle of the 1970s, two more young males accused Gacy of rape, and he would be questioned by police about the disappearances of others. Gacy referred to this period of his life as his “cruising years,” when he committed most of his murders. On December 11, 1978, 15-year-old Robert Piest went missing. It was reported to police that the boy was last seen by his mother at a drugstore where he worked before he headed out to meet Gacy to discuss a potential construction job. Ten days later, a police search of Gacy's house in Norwood Park, Illinois, uncovered evidence of his involvement in numerous crimes, including murder. It was later discovered that Gacy had committed his first known killing in 1972, taking the life of 16-year-old Timothy McCoy after luring the youth to his home. After a lengthy period of police surveillance and investigation and the discovery of several trenches filled with human remains in the crawl space beneath his house Gacy eventually confessed to killing about 30 people.
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 crawl space beneath the house.
Some of the evidence found at John Gacy House.
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.
Gacy's sketch of burial locations in his basement . Twenty-six bodies were unearthed from Gacy's crawl space over the next week; three more were also unearthed elsewhere on his property.
This is the actual entrance to the crawlspace inside of John Wayne Gacy’s home, it was cut out and then used as evidence in his 1980 trial. It now sits inside of the Cook County Sheriff’s warehouse in Cicero along with other relics from the Gacy case.
Gacy muddy black Oldsmobile.
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 crawl space 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 crawl space 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.
Cleaning up the crawlspace.
Lifelong Des Plaines resident Augie Schwiesow, who worked for the police department at the time, took dozens of photos of the crime scene.
Investigators tore apart the floorboards to uncover the bodies.
The basement where Gacy buried the bodies. Gacy’s defense team attempted to raise the possibility that all 33 murders were accidental erotic asphyxia deaths.
The basement where Gacy buried the bodies. Gacy’s defense team attempted to raise the possibility that all 33 murders were accidental erotic asphyxia deaths.
Gacy stated he had lost count of the number of victims buried in his crawl space and had initially considered stowing bodies in his attic before opting to dispose of them off the I-55 bridge into the Des Plaines River. Investigators tore apart the floorboards to uncover the bodies.
John Wayne Gacy was convicted of 33 murders of mostly teenage boys. He was sentenced to death for 12 of those murders (12 proved to have been committed after Illinois had passed post-Furman death penalty), and to natural life in prison for the others.
The bodies of most of the victims were unearthed in the crawl space under Gacy's middle class home in the Chicago suburbs. Evidence showed that the defendant led a double life, engaging in charitable and political activities at the same time he was committing a series of sadistic torture murders. He enticed many young men to his home for homosexual liaisons, tying or handcuffing his partners then strangling or choking them. Gacy was a successful contractor, was active in the community, and often dressed up as a clown for parties.
On December 11, 1978, a 15-year-old Des Plaines high school sophomore, Robert Piest, disappeared shortly after leaving work at a pharmacy where Gacy had recently completed a remodeling job.
Police put Gacy under surveillance, and when it was learned that two teenage employees of Gacy, Gregory Godzik and John Butkovich, also had recently disappeared, the police obtained a search warrant for Gacy's home. A roll of film belonging to Piest was seized in the ensuing search. A second search warrant was executed and three lime-covered bodies were found in the crawl space. Gacy pointed officers to the precise locations of certain bodies in the crawl space and stated that he had lured the victims to his home, either expressly for sex or through the promise of employment, and then strangled them. A total of 29 bodies were recovered on the property and 4 more were discovered in a nearby river.
Gacy recanted his confession and did not testify at trial, where he asserted an insanity defense unsuccessfully.
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.
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.
Gacy returned to his house on December 22 and showed police the location in his garage where he had buried the bodies. The police then drove to the spot on the I-55 bridge from which he had thrown the body of the five victims.
Between December 22 and December 29, 1978, 27 bodies were recovered from Gacy’s property, 26 of which were found buried in his crawl space, with one additional victim, being found buried beneath the concrete floor of his garage.
Police set to re-search basement of John Wayne Gacy's mom's apartment block where the serial killer was spotted 'at odd hours doing odd jobs. Records show Gacy, a contractor, had done handyman work at the complex where his mother used to live a search warrant for the complex in the 6100 block of West Miami Avenue on Chicago's Northwest side.
In an interview after his arrest, Gacy stated that immediately after killing McCoy, he felt "totally drained", yet noted that he had experienced orgasm as he killed the youth. In this 1980s interview, he added: "That's when I realized that death was the ultimate thrill."
On May 9th, 1994 Gacy had a nice picnic with his family at the Mernard Correctional Facility in Crest Hill and then had a private meeting with a catholic priest. Following this he was escorted to the execution chamber where he was executed by lethal injection. He died 18 minutes after the injection was given.
Dr. Helen Morrison, an expert on serial killers, displays slices of John Wayne Gacy's brain April 29, 2004, in Chicago. Gacy, who was interviewed by Morrison many times in prison before he was executed, agreed to let the forensic psychologist examine his brain.
Timothy Jack McCoy 16January 3, 1972 Body 9 Crawl space.
John Butkovich 18July 31, 1975 Body 2 Garage
Darrell Julius Samson 18April 6, 1976 Body 29 Dining room
Randall Wayne Reffett 15May 14, 1976 Body 7 Crawl space
Samuel G. Dodd Stapleton 14May 14, 1976 Body 6 Crawl space
Michael Lawrence Bonnin 17June 3, 1976 Body 18 Crawl space
William Huey Carroll Jr. 16June 13, 1976 Body 22 Crawl space
James Byron Haakenson 16August 5, 1976 Body 24 Crawl space
Rick Louis Johnston 17August 6, 1976 Body 23 Crawl space
Kenneth Ray Parker 16October 24, 1976 Body 15 Crawl space
Michael M. Marino 14October 24, 1976 Body 14 Crawl space
William George Bundy 19October 26, 1976 Body 19 Crawl space
Francis Wayne Alexander 21c. December 1, 1976 Body 5 Crawl space
Gregory John Godzik 17December 12, 1976 Body 4 Crawl space
John Alan Szyc 19January 20, 1977 Body 3 Crawl space
Jon Steven Prestidge 20March 15, 1977 Body 1 Crawl space
Matthew Walter Bowman 19July 5, 1977 Body 8 Crawl space
Robert Edward Gilroy Jr. 18September 15, 1977 Body 25 Crawl space
John Antheney Mowery 19September 25, 1977 Body 20 Crawl space
Russell Lloyd Nelson 21October 17, 1977 Body 16 Crawl space
Robert David Winch 16November 10, 1977 Body 11 Crawl space
Tommy Joe Boling 20November 18, 1977 Body 12 Crawl space
David Paul Talsma 19December 9, 1977 Body 17 Crawl space
William Wayne Kindred 19February 16, 1978 Body 27 Crawl space
Timothy David O'Rourke 20June 16–23, 1978 Body 31 Des Plaines River
Frank William Landingin 19November 4, 1978 Body 32 Des Plaines River
James Mazzara 20November 24, 1978 Body 33 Des Plaines River
Robert Jerome Piest 15December 11, 1978 Body 30 Des Plaines River
Unidentified victims
Five victims still remain unidentified, four of whom had been buried beneath Gacy's crawl space, and one buried approximately 15 feet (4.6 m) from the barbecue pit in his backyard. In the fall of 1979, forensic expert Betty Pat Gatliff used the skulls of the remaining unidentified victims to create facial reconstructions.
Facial reconstructions of the unidentified victims, released to the media in 1980. Depicted left to right are Body 5 (later identified as Francis Alexander), Body 9 (later identified as Timothy McCoy), Body 24 (later identified as James Haakenson), Body 19 (later identified as William Bundy), Body 21, Body 28, Body 13, Body 26, and Body 10.
Based on Gacy's confession, the location of the victims buried in the crawl space, and forensic analysis, police determined the most likely dates for when his unidentified victims were killed.
January 3, 1972 – July 31, 1975. Body 28. Backyard. Male aged 14–18.
June 13 – August 5, 1976. Body 26. Crawl space. Male aged 23–30.
August 6 – October 5, 1976. Body 13. Crawl space. Male aged 17–22.
August 6 – October 24, 1976. Body 21. Crawl space. Male aged 15–24.
March 15 – July 5, 1977. Body 10. Crawl space. Male aged 17–21.
Danny Broderick holds a suit which notorious killer John Wayne Gacy wore to court. One pocket of the suit still holds butter scotch candies.
After unexpectedly finding three vials of Gacy’s blood stored with other Gacy evidence, Moran learned the state would only accept the blood in the crime database if it came from a coroner or medical examiner.
Moran thought he was out of luck. But then Will County Coroner Patrick O’Neil surprised him with this revelation: In his office freezer were blood samples from Gacy and at least three other executed inmates.
The reason they were there is because after the death penalty was reinstated in Illinois in the 1970s, executions were carried out in Will County – all between 1990 and 1999, a year before then-Gov. George Ryan established a moratorium on the death penalty.
So it was O’Neil’s office that conducted the autopsies and collected the blood samples.
Francis Wayne Alexander would have been 21 or 22 when he was killed by John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted of killing 33 young men and boys.
Authorities in Illinois said on Monday they had identified another victim of John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted of killing 33 young men and boys in the 1970s.
Francis Wayne Alexander, a North Carolina man who moved to Chicago, would have been 21 or 22 when Gacy killed him some time between early 1976 and early 1977, the Cook county sheriff, Tom Dart, told reporters.
In a statement, Alexander’s sister, Carolyn Sanders, thanked the sheriff’s office for giving the family some level of “closure”.
“It is hard, even 45 years later, to know the fate of our beloved Wayne,” Sanders said. “He was killed at the hands of a vile and evil man. Our hearts are heavy, and our sympathies go out to the other victims’ families … We can now lay to rest what happened and move forward by honoring Wayne.”
See Also
Commentaires