John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (1942 – 1994) was convicted and later executed for the rape and murder of 33 boys and young men, 28 of whom he buried in the crawl space under his house. He became notorious as the "Killer Clown" because of the many block parties he attended, entertaining children in a clown suit and makeup.
LIFE:
In 1971 he bought a house by the northwest side Chicago neighborhood of Norwood Park, lived there with his widowed mother, and established his own construction business. He married a woman he had known since high school, she and her two daughters moved in with him, and his mother moved out. He became a prominent and respected member of the community. In addition to his clown act, he became a committee member for the Democratic Party.
It was also during this time that he claimed his first known victim, a teenage boy he picked up at a bus depot. His marriage fell apart and his wife divorced him in mid-1976. Gacy began a double life: respected member of the community by day, sexual predator and murderer by night.
No suspicion fell on him until December 12, 1978, when he was investigated following the disappearance of 15-year-old Robert Piest, who was last seen with Gacy. A search of his house revealed a number of incriminating items related to other disappearances. On December 22, Gacy went to his lawyers and confessed. He claimed he had first killed in January 1972. He confessed to 33 murders, indicating where the bodies were in 28 of the cases—buried under his house and on his property. The other 5 he said were thrown into the nearby Des Plaines River after he ran out of space beneath his house. Most of the victims were young male prostitutes or teenage runaways or boys hired through his contracting firm. The youngest victim was nine years old, oldest was around 20. Nine of the victims' bodies were so badly decomposed that they were never identified.
TRIAL:
On February 6, 1980, Gacy's trial began in Chicago where he made a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. However, this plea was rejected outright—his lawyer made the claim that Gacy had moments of temporary insanity at the time of each individual murder, but before and afterwards, somehow regained his sanity to properly lure and dispose of victims. Also, Gacy had made an earlier confession to police, and was unable to have this evidence suppressed. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.
On May 10, 1994, Gacy was executed at Stateville Penitentiary in Crest Hill, Illinois, by lethal injection. Gacy did not express remorse. In an unusual display of gallows humor, the so-called "Gacy's Day Parade" (a parody of the "Macy's Day Parade") ensued. Vendors sold T-shirts and Gacy merchandise, and the people cheered at the moment when Gacy was pronounced dead.
Gacy's execution proved problematic when the chemicals used in the lethal injection were mixed in a way that caused them to solidify, and as a result, he reportedly took 27 minutes to die. This led to Illinois' adoption of a different method of lethal injection.
LAST WORDS: "You can kiss my ass".
MOTIVATION:
Some have pointed to his poor relationship with his abusive, alcoholic father, his head trauma and subsequent blackouts as some basis for his acts. There has also been some speculation that murdering men and boys was Gacy's subconscious expression of self-hatred for his own homosexuality. However, his victims were mostly heterosexual males. Their most common attributes were youth and good looks.
After his execution, Gacy's brain was removed. It is currently in the possession of Dr. Helen Morrison, who interviewed Gacy and other serial killers in an attempt to isolate common personality traits held by such people. However, an examination of Gacy's brain revealed no abnormalities. She has said Gacy did not fit into any psychological profile associated with serial killers, and the reasons for his rampage will probably never be known.
During his time on Death Row, Gacy took up oil painting, and his favorite subject was painting portraits of clowns. He claimed to have used his clown act as an alter ego, once sardonically saying that "A clown can get away with murder."
FILMS / TV:
TO CATCH A KILLER
GACY
XPW PRO WRESTLING
SOUTH PARK
CRIME LIBRARY:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/gacy/gacy_1.html
