The full story of John Wayne Gacy

Childhood:

John Wayne Gacy was born March 17th, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois. His father was John Stanley Gacy who was a WWI Veteran and then an auto repair machinist at a local Chicago factory. His mother, Marion Elaine Robison, was the homemaker, who took care of John and his 2 sisters. John was always close with his mother and sisters but had severe problems with his father, who was an alcoholic and extremely verbally and physically abusive to John. John’s earliest memory of his father was being whipped with a leather belt after rearranging his father’s car parts. His mother would try to step in, but this only caused his father to verbally abuse John, calling him a “sissy” and a “mama’s boy” who would “probably grow up queer”.

John would go on in life struggling with his own sexuality. Being in an abusive household, being ridiculed by his father and obviously growing up in the period where being gay wasn’t acceptable yet, led to John never coming out to his parents or any of his friends, only ever admitting his bisexuality to his second wife. This assumingly made John have internal conflicts with his OWN sexuality that was exhilarated by his father’s torment. Later John would degrade his victims calling them “prostitutes,” “hustlers,” and “worthless little punks and queers,” showing that John was (possibly) trying to “kill” part of himself that he deemed undesirable.

In 1949, John and one of his high school friends were found fondling a little girl which caused his father to severely beat John with a razor strap. During that year, John was molested multiple times by a family friend but never had the courage to tell his dad, thinking that his father would blame him instead.

John suffered from an undiagnosed heart condition, meaning he wasn’t allowed to participate in school sports. This caused John to feel even more of an outcast from society because he couldn’t do the fun things all the other kids did. We really see this later in life when psychiatrists in his trial speculated John suffered from antisocial personality disorder. This condition is usually misunderstood severally, but basically it means that John had no regards or empathy for people in society. It’s a very impulsive condition that makes people lash out and usually commit petty to severe crimes. An article from the National Library of Medicine states that about 47% of incarcerated inmates suffer from this disorder.

Now, in 4th grade John was hit in the head by a swing which caused a blood clot to form in his brain which was missed my medical staff for 5 years. This led John to experience severe blackouts and seizures. In 1957, John was hospitalized for a burst appendix, and John’s father would openly mock him in the hospital telling John and staff members that he was faking his condition to gain sympathy and attention. This and all previous incidents led John to always try to gain the approval he desired from his father.

Early Adulthood:

John turned 18 in 1960, and he joined the local democratic party as an assistant precinct caption, where he helped a local candidate. And this caused his father to disapprove of his son even more, calling him a “Patsy.” John later speculated that he made this decision to gain the acceptance of others that he didn’t from his father. This same year though, John’s father bought him a car and had John pay monthly car payments and would take the keys if John didn’t obey his father, which gave him control. John’s father removed the distributor cap after John made a second set of keys for when his father took the original set. After several day his father replaced the cap and John immediately left home and headed to Los Vegas, Nevada.

When John arrived in Los Vegas, he quickly found a job in the ambulance service but was quickly transferred to work at a mortuary. Since John had just left home, he didn’t have much money and had nowhere to stay. This led to him having to sleep on a cot behind the embalming room and this is where John was heavily exposed to dead bodies. This is an incidence where John’s dark fantasies start to solidify in his brain, because later he felt he needed to be close with his victims and bury them under and around his own home. But his visit to Los Vegas didn’t last long because John went as far as to sleep with and caress one of the younger male corpses at the mortuary, which freaked him out so much that he packed up and headed back to live with his parents in Chicago.

Apon returning home, John enrolled in the Northwestern Business College and after graduating he applied to work as a management trainee at a Shoe Company. He was then transferred to work in a sales position for the company in 1964 in Springfield, Illinois and then was quickly promoted to manager of his department. This is where he met Marlynn Myers who would become his first wife. During this time John also joined the local Jaycees. The Jaycees are a leadership training service and civic organization that helps young adults learn business development, management skills, community service and international connections. He quickly rose the ranks to Vice President at the Jaycees and at this point John had his first homosexual experience with another Jaycee. After having drinks with man and being invited to stay on his sofa, the man performed oral sex on John while he was drunk.

In September of 1964, John married Marlynn Myers and her father also purchased several KFC restaurants with the thought of John managing them for about 15k a year (about 144K in 2023). So, John and his new wife hurried to Waterloo to manage the restaurants. John opened a “club” in his basement where teen employees could come smoke, drink and play pool. This is where John started making sexual advances towards only the young men and boys, however if any of them refused John, he would play it off like he was just joking or simply “testing their morals.” This time in John’s life he described it as perfect. His son was just born in 1966 and his daughter in would be born later in 1967 and when his parents came to visit in 1966 John's father personally apologized to his son for all the abuse and torment, he put John through as a child, even saying “Son, I was wrong about you.”

During all this, John joined the local Waterloo Jaycee chapter and again quickly rose the ranks, soon being called the outstanding vice president. He dedicated many hours to the organization's fundraiser work and brought fried chicken to meetings, insisting he be called “The Colonel.” John and other Jaycees were heavily involved in wife swapping, hiring prostitutes and throwing wild parties and of course, John was the host. These parties got so wild and fun that John managed to recruit 20 new members in one night.

We see here in both the managerial position at KFC and the host and vice president at the Jaycee organization, that John is putting himself in a place of power and control. Like most serial killers, John sought both things in his life to be happy. And if this personally didn’t make him happy, he ultimately created a fake American dream family man façade that would be his shield for his horrible acts on young men that did make him happy.

John’s First Crime

In 1967, John sexually assaulted Donald Voorhees Jr., the son of fellow politician and Jaycee member. John persuaded the boy with pornography and alcohol before he assaulted the boy. John would also assault several other young boys around this time telling them “You have to have sex with a man before you can have sex with women.” Voorhees kept silent for a few months but eventually told his father who informed the police. John was immediately arrested and he denied all wrongdoing and even failed a polygraph test that he insisted he could pass. John was indicted on oral sodomy charges on May 10, 1968. While in jail, John hired another young boy to physically assault Voorhees to prevent him from testifying but the boy was soon arrested and told police that John hired him to partake in the beating for 300 dollars and John was also charged with the attack. In November of 1968, John plead guilty to the sodomy charge but nothing else. His story that the act was consensual was not believed and he was sentenced to 10 years in the Anamosa State Penitentiary. That day John’s wife, Marlynn, filed for divorce, sole custody of the child and alimony, which she was granted. John never saw her or his children again.

While in prison, John quickly established himself as a model prisoner. He joined the Jaycee chapter in prison and recruited 600 people in 18 months. He also became head chef, was involved in several projects to help improve prison conditions and even oversaw the construction of a mini golf course in the rec yard. He even completed high school classes that got him his diploma, however on Christmas Day 1969, John’s father passed away which left John devastated. John later said that he thought his father died from disappointment. He was denied his request to attend the funeral. However, after a short 18 month stay in prison, John was paroled on June 18, 1970, and was given one-year probation and was sent to live with his mother in Chicago.

Within a year, John was charged with two different counts of sexual crimes against young boys but both cases were dropped when complications arose. The Iowa Board of parole was never notified, even though this was a HUGE violation of his parole and in October of 1970 his parole ended, and his criminal records were sealed. We can only play the “what if” game for so long, but this is absolutely insane. I’ve seen a lot of screw ups in cases, but this is a big one. If one word was mentioned to the Parole Board, we probably wouldn’t be talking about the infamous killings of John Gacy.

John’s Second Chance at Life

This same year, 1970, John and his mother purchased a ranch style home which was 8213 West Summerdale Avenue which would be the ground for all of John’s gruesome murders. He again quickly established himself in the community and held a great reputation amongst neighbors and friends.

The next couple years there's a lot of different events that happen, so I will be going through them in order from year to year.

In 1971, John met and got engaged to his soon-to-be second wife Carole Hoff who had two daughters from a previous marriage. She and her daughters quickly moved in after their engagement was announced. This same year John also established his construction company, PDM Contractors which stood for “Painting, Decorating and Maintenance.” He was simultaneously working as a line cook at a local restaurant, making his day quite long.

The Murder of Timothy McCoy

In 1972, John and his wife had their wedding and officially got married. John also committed his first known murder. Now this story is told from John’s perspective years after his arrest so we must take this story with a grain of salt. Here’s his story: After a family party on January 2, John went riding around and spotted a young man who just missed his bus connection at the Chicago Greyhound Bus Station. His name was Timothy McCoy. John pulled up to the young man and asked if he would like to go sightseeing in the area and possibly come spend the night until his bus came the next morning. Timothy agreed and got in the car with John Gacy. The following morning John awoke to Timothy standing in his bedroom doorway with a knife. Startled, John leapt at Timothy when he raised the knife in surrender which cut John’s arm. John saw this as Timothy’s attack and eventually wrestled the knife out of Timothy’s hand and stabbed him in the chest multiple times. John ran to wash the knife and realized that the table was set for two and there were unprepared breakfast items like eggs and uncut bacon in the kitchen, indicating that Timothy was only cooking breakfast to say thank you to John for his hospitality. As John listened to Timothy gasp and gurgle for air, John said that he experienced a “mind numbing orgasm” which made him realize that “death was the ultimate thrill.” He buried Timothy in the crawl space under his garage and later covered him with concrete.

Now again, I must note that this is John’s retelling of the story so this could be true or more than likely not. This seems to be a false story of what actually happened that night. It could be that John made up this story in his head to justify his actions of murder, like he knew that this deep-rooted sadistic desire to harm others was inevitable. So, he blamed an accidental killing as his starting gun.

Between Life and Murder

Now in 1973 John quit his cooking job to start working full-time in his business. The business was growing steadily and at this point John was doing bigger jobs like interior design and remodeling. This made it so John wasn’t at home as often and even led to him traveling out of the state on many occasions. On one of these trips to Florida with a teenage employee, John raped the young man in their hotel room. Apon returning to Chicago, the young man spotted John outside his house and beat up John in his own front yard. John told his wife it was because the boy was upset about not getting paid for poor quality work.

In 1974, John started hosting his annual block parties that each had a specific theme. These parties had up to 400 people and some of them were local politicians. This again shows that John wanted to gain a good reputation as a local, established, business and family man. We see this a lot in John’s life where he wanted people to see him as “one of them.” This would always become his cover for his horrible actions, and later after his arrest people would still believe that John couldn’t possibly have been involved. Again, as a serial killer with a clear mental illness he sought power and control, which he achieved by gaining the respect and appreciation from high up politicians and neighbors.

Early in 1974, John committed his second known murder. The victim remains unidentified to this day, but John said he strangled the boy and put the body in closet until he buried him in the crawl space. While in the closet the body seeped bodily fluids that stained John’s carpet. This is when John realized to put cloths, rags, or even the victim’s own underwear in the later victim’s mouths to prevent this from happening again.

The Transitional Year

Now 1975, a lot of major things and transitions happened in John’s life. Firstly, after having sex with his wife, Carole, on Mother's Day of 1975, John told her that he was bisexual and that would be the last time they would ever have sex again. Carole stayed with John until a heated argument in October 1975 ensued and a mutual divorce process was started. It was finalized in October of 1976. This had to be the biggest change in John’s life in 1975, mainly because he worked so hard to build his reputation as a neighborly family man, that it seems weird that John would so easily give that up. However, looking at his actions in the following three years, it makes sense that John was so willing to leave his wife, because it gave him freedom to do and go wherever he wanted. It also gave him free reign over the house and the horrible things he did there. John still appeared as an upstanding citizen and in this year, he was named the director of the Polish Constitution Day Parade in Chicago, meaning he still had connections with higher up politicians and leaders. Also, this year, along with directing the parade, he experienced rapid growth with PDM Contractors, and he started working 16-hour days and over the next three years John would grow his business to making over 1 million dollars a year in today’s money.

The Killer Clown

And then along with both things before, John also joined the local Clown Club and created his own iconic characters. “Pogo the Clown,” which he said was a happy clown, and “Patches the Clown,” who he said was more serious. He would work for fundraisers and perform for hospitalized children. He really took on this identity, even wearing his clown costume to local bars and events.

Now we come to the creepy topic of clowns and why this was such an odd thing in Gacy’s case... Now we’ve been talking about John’s many struggles he’s had in his life; from his father’s abuse and disapproval of him, to struggling with his sexuality, and of course his mental illness that led to his horrific actions. When someone puts on clown makeup, shoes and a costume, they essentially can become a different person; change their identity. So, in John’s instance, he felt comfort in his acts as a clown, possibly because he’s always struggled with his own identity. He wished he could’ve been a better son and a straight, heterosexual man. These things he struggled with his whole life, but when he put on his clown costume, he could be free, he could express himself, and possibly even give kids joy in their crappy situations, like hospitals patients, that he never got as a struggling child himself. He also could’ve been doing this to try to change the fact that he was a sick-minded individual. He knew he was ill and couldn’t help these horrible fantasies he had, so he dressed as a clown to possibly try to escape this horror movie he was living in. He even said later during the investigation that “Clowns can get away with murder.”

Handcuffs and Ropes

Now we come to another murder in 1975 as well. John’s third victim John Butkovich was murdered while he was confronting Gacy about a paycheck he didn’t receive yet. Butkovich’s car was found with his jacket and wallet inside with the keys in the ignition. Gacy later confessed that he saw Butkovich near his car when he asked to talk. Gacy told him to get in his car and drove them both back to the Gacy house. Gacy gave Butkovich a drink before conning him into handcuffs, “sat on the kid’s chest for a while,” and strangled him to death. Butkovich’s parents called the police over 100 times over the next three years accusing Gacy of the crime, but nothing was ever done.

Now, when John would lure and murder his victims, he would use a method called the “handcuff and rope trick.” He would usually lure unsuspecting victims to his house with the promise of alcohol, drugs, and money for sexual acts. He would then get the victims to put on handcuffs after explaining that it was a magic trick. He always started by handcuffing himself and freeing himself with the unknown key. He would then handcuff the victim and reveal his magic trick secret saying, “The trick is, you have to have the key.” He would then proceed to rape, torture and strangle the victims. He had several means of torturing and tormenting his victims. He would use various instrument such as an 18-inch dildo (which was found later by investigators), various types of liquor and prescription bottles, and even lit candles. He even built his own torture board where he could have his victim handcuffed, but also have their feet secured by handcuffs as well. He also later used a pillory type device, which is a board with 3 holes in it where a victim's head and hands could be restrained. After torturing his victim’s John would proceed to his “rope trick.” This is where John would wrap a rope around the victim’s neck, use a hammer handle and twist it to slowly tighten the rope around the victim's neck until they died from suffocation.

The Cruising Years

So, after explaining the overarching brutal theme of Gacy’s murders we can talk about John’s “cruising years,” when most of his murders were committed, now having his whole house to himself following his finalized divorce in 1976. Obviously, there was at least 30 murders that happened during John’s cruising years but I'm not going to go into detail about all of them. I will, however, go in detail about the more in-depth victim stories. I would like to point out that I have full respect for all the victims and their families, but it will get repetitive if I tell all 30 murder stories.

In July of 1976, John picked up a young hitchhiker named David Cram. John offered him a job with his company, and he started his work immediately. A month later Cram moved into John’s home, and they also had drinks to celebrate his 19th birthday. John dressed as Pogo and donned Cram into handcuffs. John swung Cram around holding onto the handcuffs and said he wanted to rape him. Cram fought back, kicking John in the stomach and freeing himself. A month later, John attempted to attack and rape Cram again but just as before, Cram resisted and won. He moved out of Johns house in early October but worked for John here and there for the next couple years. After this, another young man named Michael Rossi moved into John’s house.

In January 1977, John murdered 19 years old John Szyc. Gacy said he would sell Szyc his Plymouth Satellite, but he instead strangled him while Rossi was in the other room. John then sold Szyc’s car to Rossi for $300. Rossi never fully questioned how John came into procession of the car, however in August of 77, Rossi stole gasoline, and the police were notified of the license plate number. This led the police to John’s house, and he explained that Szyc sold him his car in February, and he subsequently sold it to Rossi for a profit. The police never investigated the matter further, but they did notify Szyc’s mother about the car. This is only one of many times that John was questioned by the police or had close encounters with being caught but managed to talk his way out of it without consequences.

Back in December of 1976, a young man named Gregory Godzik was last seen leaving his girlfriend’s home. He worked for PDM Contractors for only three weeks, and even dug trenches in John’s crawl space. His car was found abandoned and Godzik’s parents contacted John about the situation. He told the family that Godzik’s ran away after telling him he planned on doing so and that he left John a voicemail which he had already erased.

Also, back in May of 1975, John had an employee named Anothony Antonucci who was working on a construction site with him. Antonucci had stepped on a nail that went right through his foot and had to go get a Tentis shot with John at the hospital. The next day John arrived at Antonucci’s front door, knowing that his parents were out of town. He invited John into his home, and they started drinking some wine. John handcuffed Antonucci and John left the room, however he made a critical mistake and didn’t put the handcuffs on tight enough and Antonucci was able to free himself, wrestle John to the ground and handcuff him. John aggressively fought the restraints, but he later calmed down and Antonucci agreed to free John if he left immediately which he did. Antonucci later testified that John said, “not only are you the only one who got out of the handcuffs, but you got them on me.” One call to the police and he potentially would’ve been under investigation. However, we know that John had a history of intimidating victims into silence so maybe this was at play in this situation too.

On December 30th, 1977, John kidnapped Robert Donnelly at gunpoint and forced him back to John’s house. There John raped, tortured and waterboarded Donnelly until he passed out. Donnelly was in so much pain he asked John to kill him, which John replied, “I’m getting round to it.” John let Donnelly live and dropped him off at his workplace telling him if he told the police they wouldn't believe him. Donnelly did end up going to police and on January 6th of 1978 John was questioned. John stated that he had a “Sex Slave” relationship with Donnelly, and it was consensual. No charges were ever filed for this incident. This really goes to show how confident and charming John Gacy must’ve been, which made him that much scarier.

On March 21st, 1977, John lured 26-year-old Jeffrey Rignall into his car where he chloroformed him into unconsciousness. John brought him back to his home and again tortured, raped and repeatedly chloroformed Rignall for hours. Again, John let Rignall go and dumped him in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. Rignall managed to find his way to his girlfriend’s house, and she notified the police. Once again, nothing was done by the police. However, Rignall managed to recall the difference landmarks to get to John’s house and recognized John’s Oldsmobile and he was arrested and charged with battery.

After this incident John started throwing his murdered victims' bodies into the Des Plaines River, because he ran out of room in the crawl space of his home. There was a total of 5 victims that John threw into the river from what John stated later, but only 4 bodies were recovered because John thought that one of the bodies landed on a passing barge.

The Murder of Robert Piest

Now we come to the murder of Robert Piest. On the afternoon of December 11th John visited the Nisson Pharmacy to discuss a remodeling deal with the pharmacy owner. John took note of Piest and discussed with the owner that he too liked to hire teenagers for a much higher wage compared to what Piest was making. John finished up the conversation and left the store. Piest finished his work and was about to leave when John returned to the store claiming he had forgotten his appointment book. Piest mother was there to pick him up at that time, but John wanted to discuss a potential job opportunity with Piest. He went out to his mother’s car and asked her to wait for him while he discussed a better paying job with a contractor. Piest never returned to his mother’s car, and she went home on her birthday of all days, and celebrated, wondering where her son was. Piest was taken back to John’s house where John gave him a soda and asked what Piest would do for money. Piest responded saying he would work hard. John suggested that he could make some good money hustling to which Piest dismissed the idea. John then duped the handcuffs onto Piest telling him he intended to rape him. At this point Piest started to cry and after John raped and tortured him until using his rope trick to murder him.

The Downfall

After Piest didn’t return the following day, this family filed a missing person's report and Lieutenant Joseph Kozenczak started investigating. He looked into John’s background and found he had a current battery charge in Chicago and a prison sentence for sodomy. John told the investigators that he did not talk to Piest about a job. John promised to come down to the police station later and give an official statement. Hours after John agreed to visit the police station, he arrived covered in mud, claiming he had been in a car accident which he actually was... after he threw Piest’s body off the I-55 Bridge. John then told the police that he returned to the pharmacy for this appointment book because the owner, Phil Torf, had called him about it. Investigators already talked to Torf, who denied calling John. They were suspicious of John and were worried Piest was being held captive by John in his home. Because of their suspicions, police obtained a search warrant for John’s home on December 13th. Police went through the house and found many suspicious items such as the various instruments of torture I’ve mentioned above and homosexual pornographic films and books; one of those books' titles being “The great white swallow.” Gross. But what really hit home for the police was a receipt from the Nissan Pharmacy he went to the day Piest disappeared and a 3ft piece of nylon rope beside it in John’s trash can. They also found a blue hooded parka coat and a Maine West High School class ring with the letters J. A. S. engraved on the side. Investigators would later find it to be the class ring of the missing John Alan Szyc.

After this the Des Plaines Police Department set up a 24-hour surveillance of John while they continued to investigate his background. They were given information by Michael Rossi and David Cram about suspicious things they saw during both of their stays with John. And during the recovery of damning evidence being found John would invite the investigators into his home and restaurants for meals and would vehemently deny any involvement in Piest’s disappearance. On one of these visits to John's house, one of the officers attempted to gather further evidence in the home but was unsuccessful. He then excused himself to the bathroom, where the heat kicked on and the officer could smell the undeniable smell of a human body coming from the heating vent. On December 18th John filed a civil harassment suit against the Des Plaines Police Department for the constant surveillance of him and his home. At the same time, the police matched the serial number from the receipt found in John’s trash bag to a colleague of Piest named Kimberly Byers. Byers told police that she had borrowed Piest’s coat prior to him leaving and placed the receipt in the coat pocket’s before returning it to him. This corroborated that John was in fact lying about being in contact with Piest on the day of his disappearance.

On the evening of December 20th John drove to his lawyer's office to discuss the civil suit. When John arrived, he appeared intoxicated and asked for more alcohol. The lawyers asked what John needed to talk about and John picked up the Daily Harold which covered Piest’s disappearance, and said “this boy is dead, he’s dead, he’s in a river.” John then went in a drunken ramble about this murder spree and told his lawyers that he had “been the judge, jury and executioner of many many people.” Going into the early hours of December 21st John finally passed out and awoke several hours later. He then ignored his lawyer's advice of him going to a psychiatric appointment they had scheduled during his confession. He left his lawyer’s office and went into his day knowing that his arrest was inevitable. He drove to a local gas station to fill up his rental car when he slipped a small bag of weed into the attendant’s pocket. The attendant subsequently told the supervising officers. He then drove to a friend's house to say his final goodbye to him and left to talk with Cram and Rossi. Cram drove John to his lawyer's office and then proceeded to have Cram drive him to the cemetery where his father was buried. During John’s ride, the surveillance officers were told that John might commit suicide and they decided to arrest him on possession and distributing charges to hold him in jail. During this Judge Marvin J Peters granted the second search warrant and detectives and crime scene analysists went to John home to search the crawl space. John had allowed his crawl space to flood to destroy the evidence, but they drained it and started digging. Evidence technician, Daniel Genty, began digging in the southwest corner of the crawl space and quickly found human flesh and an arm bone. He called to the detectives saying, “you can charge Gacy with murder, I think this place is full of kids.” After three more bodies were found John was informed that bodies were discovered, and he asked to “clear the air.” On December 22nd alongside his lawyers, Gacy made a formal confession to murdering 30 victims. The next day John was taken to the I-55 Bridge to show detectives where he had disposed of Piest and the 4 other victims he had thrown into the river. Then John was taken to mark his garage floor where he buried his first known victim, John Butkovich. Over the next few months, recovery efforts were made to exhume and find all the victims. And in April 1979 after finding all the bodies, John house was demolished.

Trial and a Served Sentence

John was taken to trial on February 6th, 1980, and after weeks of testimony, on March 11th the jury deliberated for an hour and 55 minutes (doing paperwork) before finding him guilty of all 33 murders, and sexual assault. The jury then took a little over 2 hours to sentence John to death for all murders committed after June 1977, because that’s when Illinois reinstated the death penalty. John was then taken to death row at Menard Corrections Center to live out the rest of his life. He appealed as much as he could unsuccessfully, but his final execution date was set for May 10th, 1994, 14 years after his conviction. On the afternoon of May 9th John was given a private picnic with his family members where he ate his last meal of a bucket of KFC Chicken, Fried Shrimp, French Fries, Strawberries and a diet Coke. That evening he observed prayer with a Catholic Priest and was given his last rites before being led to the execution chamber. John’s last words were supposedly “Kiss my ass.” The drugs were administered into his bloodstream, and he was pronounced dead at 12:58 am on May 10th, 1994, and his sentence... was served.