204 Facts About John Wayne Gacy

John Wayne Gacy became known as the Killer Clown due to his public performances as "Pogo the Clown" or "Patches the Clown", personas he had devised, prior to the discovery of his crimes.

John Wayne 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.

John Wayne Gacy murdered his first victim in 1972, had murdered twice more by the end of 1975, and murdered at least thirty subsequent victims after his divorce from his second wife in 1976.

John Wayne Gacy was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10,1994.

John Wayne Gacy was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, on March 17,1942, the second of three children and only son of John Stanley Gacy and Marion Elaine Gacy, nee Robison.

John Wayne Gacy's father was an auto repair machinist and World War I veteran, and his mother was a homemaker.

John Wayne Gacy was of Polish and Danish ancestry, and his family was Catholic.

John Wayne Gacy was close to his mother and two sisters, but endured a difficult relationship with his father, an alcoholic who was physically abusive to his family.

The elder John Wayne Gacy frequently belittled his son, calling him "dumb and stupid" and comparing him unfavorably with his sisters.

John Wayne Gacy's father whipped him with a razor strop as punishment.

John Wayne Gacy never told his father about this, afraid that his father would blame him.

John Wayne Gacy was hospitalized on occasion because of these episodes and, in 1957, for a burst appendix.

John Wayne Gacy later estimated that between the ages of 14 and 18, he had spent almost a year in hospital and attributed the decline of his grades to missing school.

John Wayne Gacy's father suspected these episodes were an effort to gain sympathy and attention and openly accused his son of faking the condition as Gacy lay in a hospital bed.

On one occasion in 1957, he witnessed John Wayne Gacy's father emerging drunk from the family basement to begin belittling, then hitting his son for no apparent reason.

John Wayne Gacy's mother attempted to intervene as her son simply "put up his hands to defend himself".

In 1960, at age 18, John Wayne Gacy became involved in politics, working as an assistant precinct captain for a Democratic Party candidate in his neighborhood.

John Wayne Gacy later speculated his decision to become involved in politics was actually to seek the acceptance from others that he never received from his father.

John Wayne Gacy kept the vehicle's title in his own name until Gacy had finished paying for it.

John Wayne Gacy recalled he felt "totally sick" and "drained" after this incident.

Hours after his father replaced the distributor cap, John Wayne Gacy left home and drove to Las Vegas, Nevada, with $136 to his name in the hope of residing with a female cousin who had relocated to the city after severing ties with her family two years prior.

John Wayne Gacy alternately slept in his car or cheap motels over the course of three days as he traveled to the city.

John Wayne Gacy found work within the city's ambulance service before he was transferred to work as an attendant at Palm Mortuary.

John Wayne Gacy worked there for three months, observing morticians embalming dead bodies and occasionally serving as a pallbearer.

John Wayne Gacy later confessed that one evening, while alone, he had clambered into the coffin of a deceased teenage male, embracing and caressing the body before experiencing a sense of shock.

John Wayne Gacy's father agreed, and the same day he drove back to Chicago.

On returning home, John Wayne Gacy enrolled at Northwestern Business College, despite having failed to graduate from high school.

John Wayne Gacy graduated in 1963 and took a management trainee position with the Nunn-Bush Shoe Company.

The couple moved there so John Wayne Gacy could manage the restaurants, with the understanding that they would move into Marlynn's parents' former home, which had been vacated for the couple.

The offer was lucrative: John Wayne Gacy would receive $15,000 per year, plus a share of the restaurant's profits.

John Wayne Gacy opened a "club" in his basement where his employees could drink alcohol and play pool.

John Wayne Gacy's wife gave birth to a son in February 1966 and a daughter in March 1967.

When John Wayne Gacy's parents paid a family visit in July 1966, his father privately apologized for the physical and emotional abuse he had inflicted throughout his son's childhood and adolescence before happily saying, "Son, I was wrong about you," as he shook John Wayne Gacy's hand.

In Waterloo, John Wayne Gacy joined the local Jaycees chapter, regularly offering extended hours to the organization in addition to the 12- and 14-hour days he worked managing the three KFC restaurants.

At meetings, John Wayne Gacy often provided fried chicken and insisted on being called "Colonel".

John Wayne Gacy lured Voorhees to his house upon the promise of showing him heterosexual stag films regularly played at Jaycee events.

John Wayne Gacy tricked several teenagers into believing he was commissioned to conduct homosexual experiments in the interests of scientific research, and paid them up to $50 each.

John Wayne Gacy vehemently denied the charges and demanded to take a polygraph test.

The results of these tests were "indicative of deception" when John Wayne Gacy denied any wrongdoing in relation to both young men.

However, on May 10,1968, John Wayne Gacy was indicted on the sodomy charge.

Police arrested John Wayne Gacy and laid an additional charge of hiring Schroeder to assault and intimidate Voorhees against him.

On November 7,1968, John Wayne Gacy pleaded guilty to one count of sodomy in relation to Voorhees, but not guilty to the charges related to other youths.

John Wayne Gacy claimed Voorhees had offered himself to him and that he had acted out of curiosity.

That same day, John Wayne Gacy's wife petitioned for divorce, requesting she be awarded the couple's home and property, sole custody of their two children, and alimony.

John Wayne Gacy joined the inmate Jaycee chapter and increased its membership from 50 to 650 men in less than eighteen months.

John Wayne Gacy secured an increase in the inmates' daily pay in the prison mess hall and supervised several projects to improve conditions for inmates in the prison.

On Christmas Day 1969, John Wayne Gacy's father died from cirrhosis of the liver.

When informed of his father's death, John Wayne Gacy collapsed to the floor, sobbing.

John Wayne Gacy was granted parole with twelve months' probation on June 18,1970, after having served eighteen months of his ten-year sentence.

However, within 24 hours of his release, John Wayne Gacy had relocated to Chicago.

John Wayne Gacy resided at the address, 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, until his arrest in December 1978 and, according to Gacy, committed all his murders there.

John Wayne Gacy was active in his local community and helpful towards his neighbors; he willingly loaned his construction tools and plowed snow from neighborhood walks free of charge.

John Wayne Gacy's mother moved out of the house shortly before the wedding.

John Wayne Gacy began spending most evenings away from home, only to return in the early hours of the morning with the excuse he had been working late, or conducting business meetings.

Carole observed John Wayne Gacy bringing teenage boys into his garage in the early hours and found gay pornography and men's wallets and identification inside the house.

John Wayne Gacy agreed to his wife's request although, by mutual consent, she continued to live at the West Summerdale house until February 1976, when she and her daughters moved into their own apartment.

In 1971, John Wayne Gacy established a part-time construction business, PDM Contractors.

In mid-1973, John Wayne Gacy quit his job as a cook so he could commit fully to his construction business.

Between PE Systems and PDM, John Wayne Gacy worked on up to four projects simultaneously and frequently traveled to other states.

In late 1975, John Wayne Gacy joined the clown club and created his own clown characters "Pogo the Clown" and "Patches the Clown", devising his own makeup and costumes.

John Wayne Gacy described Pogo as a "happy clown", whereas Patches was a "more serious" character.

John Wayne Gacy seldom earned money for his performances and later said that acting as a clown allowed him to "regress into childhood".

John Wayne Gacy performed as both Pogo and Patches at numerous local parties, political functions, charitable events, and children's hospitals.

John Wayne Gacy told his wife he had been attacked for refusing to pay him for poor quality painting work.

One cuff was loose and Antonucci freed his arm while John Wayne Gacy was out of the room.

John Wayne Gacy wrestled Gacy to the floor, obtained possession of the handcuff key, and cuffed Gacy's hands behind his back.

At first, John Wayne Gacy threatened Antonucci, then calmed down and promised to leave if he would remove the handcuffs.

On July 26,1976, John Wayne Gacy picked up 18-year-old David Cram as he hitchhiked on Elston Avenue.

John Wayne Gacy offered him a job with PDM, and he began work the same evening.

The next day, Cram and John Wayne Gacy had several drinks to celebrate his 19th birthday, with John Wayne Gacy dressed as Pogo.

John Wayne Gacy conned Cram into donning handcuffs, his wrists cuffed in front of his body rather than behind.

Rossi sometimes assisted John Wayne Gacy in clowning at grand openings of businesses: John Wayne Gacy as Pogo and Rossi as Patches.

John Wayne Gacy entered local Democratic Party politics, initially offering use of his employees to clean party headquarters at no charge.

John Wayne Gacy was rewarded for his community service with an appointment to serve on the Norwood Park Township street lighting committee, subsequently earning the title of precinct captain.

In 1975, John Wayne Gacy was appointed director of Chicago's annual Polish Constitution Day Parade, an event he would supervise until 1978.

John Wayne Gacy murdered at least 33 young men and boys, and buried 26 of them in the crawl space of his house.

Some victims were grabbed by force; others conned into believing John Wayne Gacy was a policeman.

John Wayne Gacy typically cuffed his own hands behind his back, then surreptitiously released himself with the key which he hid between his fingers.

John Wayne Gacy then offered to show his intended victim how to release himself from the handcuffs.

John Wayne Gacy frequently began by sitting on or straddling himself above his victim's chest before forcing the victim to fellate him.

John Wayne Gacy then inflicted acts of torture including burning with cigars, making his captive imitate a horse as he sat on their back and pulled upon makeshift reins around their necks, and violation with foreign objects such as dildos and prescription bottles after he had sodomized his captive.

John Wayne Gacy verbally taunted many of his victims throughout their continued abuse, and was known to have dragged or forced several victims to crawl into his bathroom, where he partly drowned them in the bathtub before repeatedly reviving them, enabling him to continue his prolonged assault.

In instances when a victim had pleaded to be killed as opposed to continuing to endure torture, John Wayne Gacy would make a statement to the effect he would kill his victim when he wanted to.

John Wayne Gacy typically murdered his victims by placing a rope tourniquet around their neck before progressively tightening the rope with a hammer handle.

John Wayne Gacy then lured a 16-year-old named Timothy Jack McCoy from Chicago's Greyhound Bus Terminal into his car.

John Wayne Gacy took McCoy on a sightseeing tour of Chicago and then drove him to his home with the promise that he could spend the remainder of the night and be driven back to the station in time to catch his bus.

John Wayne Gacy claimed he woke early the following morning to find McCoy standing in his bedroom doorway with a kitchen knife in his hand.

John Wayne Gacy then jumped from his bed and McCoy raised both arms in a gesture of surrender, tilting the knife upwards and accidentally cutting Gacy's forearm.

John Wayne Gacy buried McCoy in his crawl space and later covered his grave with a layer of concrete.

John Wayne Gacy said the second time he committed murder was around January 1974.

John Wayne Gacy strangled him and then placed the body in his closet before burial.

John Wayne Gacy later stated that bodily fluids leaked from the victim's mouth and nose, staining his carpet.

Butkovich's father, a Yugoslav immigrant, called John Wayne Gacy, who claimed he was happy to help search for his son but was sorry Butkovich had "run away".

When questioned by police, John Wayne Gacy said Butkovich and two friends had arrived at his house demanding the overdue pay, but they had reached a compromise and all three had left.

John Wayne Gacy later admitted to encountering Butkovich exiting his car at the corner of West Lawrence Avenue, waving to attract his attention.

At his home, John Wayne Gacy offered Butkovich a drink, then conned him into allowing his wrists to be cuffed behind his back.

John Wayne Gacy later confessed to having "sat on the kid's chest for a while" before he strangled him.

John Wayne Gacy stowed Butkovich's body in his garage, intending to bury the body later in the crawl space.

When his wife and stepdaughters returned home earlier than expected, John Wayne Gacy buried Butkovich's body under the concrete floor of the tool room extension of his garage in an empty space where he initially intended to dig a drain tile.

John Wayne Gacy often referred to these jaunts as "cruising".

John Wayne Gacy committed most of his murders between 1976 and 1978, as he largely lived alone following his divorce.

John Wayne Gacy identified the sounds as emanating from a house adjacent to theirs on West Summerdale Avenue.

One month after his divorce was finalized, John Wayne Gacy abducted and murdered 18-year-old Darrell Samson.

John Wayne Gacy was last seen alive in Chicago on April 6,1976.

John Wayne Gacy buried him under the dining room, with a section of cloth lodged in his throat.

John Wayne Gacy was last seen by his grandmother later that afternoon.

John Wayne Gacy disappeared while traveling from Chicago to Waukegan.

John Wayne Gacy strangled Bonnin with a ligature and buried him under the spare bedroom.

Ten days later, John Wayne Gacy murdered a 16-year-old Uptown youth named William Carroll and buried him in a common grave in the crawl space.

John Wayne Gacy is thought to have murdered two further unidentified males between August and October 1976.

Between November and December 1976, John Wayne Gacy murdered a 21-year-old named Francis Alexander.

Alexander was buried in the crawl space directly beneath the room John Wayne Gacy used as his office.

John Wayne Gacy had informed his family that Gacy had had him "dig trenches for some kind of tiles" in his crawl space.

John Wayne Gacy claimed that he had run away from home, having indicated before that he wished to do so.

John Wayne Gacy claimed to have received an answering machine message from Godzik shortly after he had disappeared.

John Wayne Gacy later confessed to strangling Szyc in his spare bedroom, claiming Rossi was asleep in the house the following morning.

John Wayne Gacy was buried in the crawl space above the body of Francis Alexander.

John Wayne Gacy murdered one additional unidentified youth and buried him in the crawl space in the spring or early summer of 1977; the exact time of this murder is unknown.

Ten days after Gilroy was last seen, 19-year-old former US Marine John Wayne Gacy Mowery disappeared after leaving his mother's house to walk to his apartment.

John Wayne Gacy strangled Mowery and buried his body beneath the master bedroom.

John Wayne Gacy murdered him and buried him beneath the guest bedroom.

Less than four weeks later, John Wayne Gacy murdered a 16-year-old Kalamazoo teenager named Robert Winch and buried him in the crawl space.

John Wayne Gacy admitted to having had a "slave-sex" relationship with Donnelly, but insisted everything was consensual, adding that he "didn't pay the kid" the money he had promised him.

Kindred was the final victim John Wayne Gacy buried in his crawl space.

Shortly after Rignall entered the car, John Wayne Gacy chloroformed him and drove him to his house, where his arms and head were restrained in a pillory device affixed to the ceiling and his feet locked into another device.

John Wayne Gacy explained to Rignall he had complete control over him and that he intended to do whatever he wanted to him, when he wanted, and how he wanted.

John Wayne Gacy then drove Rignall to Chicago's Lincoln Park, where he was dumped, unconscious but alive.

John Wayne Gacy faced trial for assault and battery against Rignall at the time of his arrest.

John Wayne Gacy later confessed to police that he considered stowing bodies in his attic initially, but had been worried about complications arising from "leakage".

John Wayne Gacy stated he had thrown five bodies into this river in 1978, one of which he believed had landed on a passing barge; only four bodies were ever found.

John Wayne Gacy was last seen alive walking in the direction of Bughouse Square, carrying a suitcase.

Shortly after John Wayne Gacy left the pharmacy, Piest's mother arrived at the store to drive her son home so the family could celebrate her birthday together.

John Wayne Gacy later stated that at his house, he gave Piest a soft drink before asking whether there was anything he "wouldn't do for the right price", to which Piest replied that he did not mind working hard.

John Wayne Gacy stated that as he placed the rope around Piest's neck, the boy was "crying, scared".

John Wayne Gacy admitted to having received a phone call from a business acquaintance as Piest lay dying, suffocating on his bedroom floor.

John Wayne Gacy promised to come to the station later that evening to make a statement confirming this, indicating he was unable to do so at that moment as his uncle had just died.

On returning to the police station later that day, John Wayne Gacy denied any involvement in Piest's disappearance and repeated that he had not offered him a job.

John Wayne Gacy repeatedly denied that he had anything to do with Piest's disappearance and accused the officers of harassing him because of his political connections or because of his recreational drug use.

John Wayne Gacy informed them Gacy had sold Szyc's vehicle to him, explaining that he had bought the car from Szyc because he needed money to move to California.

One dog approached John Wayne Gacy's Oldsmobile and lay on the passenger seat in what the dog's handler informed investigators was a "death reaction", indicating Piest's body had been present in the vehicle.

That evening, John Wayne Gacy invited detectives Albrecht and Hachmeister to a restaurant for a meal.

John Wayne Gacy had placed the receipt in the parka pocket just before she gave the coat to Piest as he left the store, claiming a contractor wanted to speak with him.

John Wayne Gacy informed detectives that in the summer of 1977, at Gacy's behest, he had spread ten bags of lime in the crawl space of Gacy's house.

That afternoon, John Wayne Gacy invited the surveillance detectives inside his house again.

John Wayne Gacy denied any involvement in Piest's disappearance, denying any knowledge of his whereabouts.

John Wayne Gacy soon refused to continue the questioning, and Rossi's "erratic and inconsistent" responses to questions while attached to the polygraph machine rendered Kozenczak "unable to render a definite opinion" as to the truthfulness of his answers.

John Wayne Gacy then proceeded to give a rambling confession that ran into the early hours of the following morning.

John Wayne Gacy said he had murdered "at least thirty" victims, most of whom he had buried in his crawl space, and had disposed of five other bodies in the Des Plaines River.

John Wayne Gacy had buried their bodies in his crawl space as he believed they were his property.

John Wayne Gacy later recollected his memories of his final day of freedom as being "hazy", adding he knew his arrest was inevitable and that he intended to visit his friends and say his final farewells.

John Wayne Gacy then had Cram drive him to Maryhill Cemetery, where his father was buried.

On hearing from the surveillance detectives that, in light of his erratic behavior, John Wayne Gacy might be about to commit suicide, police decided to arrest him on a charge of possession and distribution of cannabis in order to hold him in custody, as the formal request for a second search warrant was presented.

Some victims were referred to by name, but John Wayne Gacy claimed not to know or remember most of the names.

John Wayne Gacy claimed all were teenage male runaways or male prostitutes, the majority of whom he had buried in his crawl space.

John Wayne Gacy claimed to have dug only five of the victims' graves in this location and had his employees dig the remaining trenches so that he would "have graves available".

When shown a driver's license issued to a Robert Hasten which had been found on his property, John Wayne Gacy claimed not to know him but admitted that this license had been in the possession of one of his victims.

John Wayne Gacy's vehicle had slid off an ice-covered road and had to be towed from its location.

John Wayne Gacy had buried this victim in the northeast section of the crawl space directly beneath the room he used as his office.

The head and upper torso of several bodies unearthed beneath John Wayne Gacy's property had been placed into plastic bags.

Stein concluded 12 victims recovered from John Wayne Gacy's property died not of strangulation, but of asphyxiation.

John Wayne Gacy was brought to trial on February 6,1980, charged with 33 murders.

John Wayne Gacy was tried in Cook County, Illinois, before Judge Louis Garippo; the jury was selected from Rockford, because of extensive press coverage in Cook County.

At the request of his defense counsel, John Wayne Gacy spent over three hundred hours with doctors at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester in the year before his trial.

John Wayne Gacy underwent a variety of psychological tests before a panel of psychiatrists to determine whether he was mentally competent to stand trial.

John Wayne Gacy attempted to convince the doctors that he had multiple personality disorder.

John Wayne Gacy claimed to have four personalities: the hard-working, civic-minded contractor, the clown, the active politician, and a policeman called Jack Hanley, whom he referred to as "Bad Jack".

When John Wayne Gacy had confessed to police, he claimed to be relaying the crimes of Jack, who detested homosexuality and who viewed male prostitutes as "weak, stupid and degraded scum".

John Wayne Gacy's lawyers opted to have Gacy plead not guilty by reason of insanity to the charges against him.

Three psychiatric experts at John Wayne Gacy's trial testified they found him to be a paranoid schizophrenic with multiple personalities.

The prosecutors presented the case that John Wayne Gacy was sane and in full control of his actions.

Amirante then urged the jury to put aside any prejudice they held against his client and asked they deliver a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, adding that John Wayne Gacy was a danger to both himself and to others, and that studying his psychology and behavior would be of benefit to science.

Kunkle referred to the testimony of one of the doctors who had examined John Wayne Gacy in 1968 and had concluded he was an antisocial personality, capable of committing crimes without remorse and unlikely to benefit from social or psychiatric treatment, stating that had the recommendations of this doctor been heeded, John Wayne Gacy would not have been freed.

At the close of his argument, Kunkle removed photos of John Wayne Gacy's 22 identified victims from a display board and asked the jury not to show sympathy but to "show justice".

John Wayne Gacy's execution was set for June 2,1980.

On being sentenced, John Wayne Gacy was transferred to the Menard Correctional Center, where he remained incarcerated on death row for 14 years.

The information John Wayne Gacy divulged to Ewing regarding the circumstances of his first murder would prove instrumental in establishing the identity of his first victim.

John Wayne Gacy contended that, although he had "some knowledge" of five of the murders, the other 28 murders had been committed by employees who had keys to his house while he was away on business trips.

John Wayne Gacy filed an appeal against this decision, which was denied by the Supreme Court of the United States on March 4,1985.

John Wayne Gacy's final spoken words were reported to be "Kiss my ass", although prosecutor William Kunkle stated in 2020 that these words were spoken to a prison official, and were not part of any official statement prior to Gacy's execution.

Two months later, on March 17,1979, the twenty-second victim recovered from John Wayne Gacy's property was identified using dental records as William Carroll.

In May 1986, the ninth victim exhumed from John Wayne Gacy's property was identified as Timothy Jack McCoy, John Wayne Gacy's first victim.

Results of tests conducted thus far have confirmed the identification of three victims, ruled out the possibility of numerous other missing youths as being victims of John Wayne Gacy, and solved four unrelated cold cases dating between 1972 and 1979.

John Wayne Gacy had not been reported missing by his family, who believed he had relocated from Chicago to California shortly after his final contact with his mother in November 1976.

John Wayne Gacy was buried near Gacy's barbecue pit, possibly in 1975.

John Wayne Gacy was almost certainly murdered between June 13 and August 5,1976.

John Wayne Gacy had long, dark brown, wavy hair and was between 17 and 22 years old.

John Wayne Gacy had suffered a fractured left collarbone months or years before his disappearance and had received more than one tooth filling in life.

Statements made by John Wayne Gacy following his arrest suggest this unidentified victim may have been murdered as early as 1974.

Shortly after his arrest, John Wayne Gacy informed investigators that after he had assaulted and then released Jeffrey Rignall in March 1978, he began to throw his murder victims into the Des Plaines River.

John Wayne Gacy confessed to having disposed of five bodies in this manner; however, only four bodies recovered from the Des Plaines River were linked to him.

However, Des Plaines authorities had contacted Freeport during their investigation into John Wayne Gacy, and were told Hattula had fallen to his death from a bridge.

When Dorsch confronted him, John Wayne Gacy said he was doing work that he was too busy to do during the day.

Dorsch said that several other residents of West Miami Avenue stated they had seen John Wayne Gacy digging trenches in the grounds of the property in the early to mid-1970s; one of these residents said that John Wayne Gacy later placed plants in the elongated trenches he had dug.

At the time these actions were observed, John Wayne Gacy was still married to Carole Hoff.

One of the first things John Wayne Gacy told investigators after his arrest was that he had not acted alone in several of the murders: he asked whether "my associates" had been arrested.

John Wayne Gacy later claimed Cram and Rossi were involved in several of the murders.

Some criminal defense attorneys and investigators researching the possibility John Wayne Gacy had not acted alone in several of the murders have said there is "overwhelming evidence John Wayne Gacy worked with an accomplice".

Ressler believed there were unexplained avenues to the case and that John Wayne Gacy had killed more than 33 victims in multiple states.

An anxious John Wayne Gacy was observed walking with the two out of earshot of the surveillance officers to talk privately before returning closer to the officers.

John Wayne Gacy claimed that he was not in Chicago when sixteen of the identified victims had disappeared.

For example, John Wayne Gacy had flown to Pittsburgh via Allegheny Airlines three days before the disappearance of Robert Gilroy, and returned to Chicago only the day after he disappeared.

Mowery's roommate was a PDM employee who formerly lived with John Wayne Gacy and had moved into Mowery's apartment less than one week before Mowery's disappearance.

John Wayne Gacy drew inspiration from a wide range of sources for his artwork, with his paintings depicting subjects as diverse as Christ, birds, skulls, his own home, and John Dillinger.

Many of John Wayne Gacy's paintings have been displayed at exhibitions; others have been sold at various auctions, with individual prices ranging between $200 and $20,000.