Through his membership in a local Moose Club, Gacy became aware of a "Jolly Joker" clown club, whose members regularly performed at fundraising events and parades in addition to voluntarily entertaining hospitalized children. [51] In late 1975, Gacy joined the clown club and created his own characters "Pogo the Clown" and "Patches the Clown", devising his own makeup and costumes. He described Pogo as a "happy clown", whereas Patches was a "more serious" character. [57] The police ended up looking kind of foolish,” in the wake of the Gacy case, a University of Louisville criminologist told the Tribune in 1994 after Gacy’s execution. The criminologist, Robert C. Crouse, called Gacy “the No. 1 event” that changed how police departments operate. Other than a parent making a missing person report on a juvenile or another person, (we’d take) as much information as we could and we’d put it out to other departments,” Bettiker said. “But as far as an active pursuit of trying to locate them, there wasn’t that much done, unless they were a fragile youth or something like that. But for the ages of most of the Gacy victims, if they’re runaways, they’re runaways. We try to locate them … but there wasn’t an awful lot we could do.” Gacy, shown in front of his home in unincorporated Norwood Park Township in 1976, entertained children as a clown named Pogo. (Martin Zielinski photo) 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] 1976 In the shadow of O’Hare International Airport, the winding, looping streets and small-town character of unincorporated Norwood Park Township look much the way they did in December 1978.

Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of Gacy’s case wasn’t the body count — it was that the portly, unassuming man killed 33 able-bodied young men and boys. On June 3, Gacy killed 17-year-old Michael Bonnin, who disappeared while traveling from Chicago to Waukegan. Gacy strangled Bonnin with a ligature and buried him under the spare bedroom. [101] [102] [103] Ten days later, Gacy murdered 16-year-old William Carroll and buried him in a common grave in the crawl space. Carroll seems to have been the first of four victims known to have been murdered between June 13 and August 6, 1976. [99] Three were between 16 and 17 years old, and one unidentified victim appears to have been an adult. Gacy entered local Democratic Party politics, initially offering use of his employees to clean party headquarters at no charge. He was rewarded with an invitation to serve on the Norwood Park Township street lighting committee, subsequently earning the title of precinct captain. [41] [44] [54]Attorney Sam Amirante likes to joke that he was 6-foot-4 before he began representing an acquaintance named John W. Gacy and wound up 5-foot-2 after being ground down by the immense and horrifying details of the case. Amirante, who later became a Cook County judge, wrote about his experience and how his infamous former client made a drunken confession to being “judge, jury and executioner of many, many people.” A model prisoner, Gacy was released on parole in the summer of 1970 after serving 18 months of his sentence. However, Gacy was arrested again the following year after another teen claimed he lured him into his car and drove him to his house, where Gacy tried to force him into sex, according to John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster. The charges were dropped when the boy didn’t appear during the trial. With financial assistance from his mother, Gacy bought a house on 8213 West Summerdale Avenue in Norwood Park, Illinois, where all of his future murders would take place, according to Buried Dreams. I turned in the direction of the voice and was startled to see a clown sitting on the stairwell's balcony, laughing at me. I particularly remember the big red smile on his face. At that point, I'd always wake up.

He’d have parties at his residence where he’d invite maybe 200 people. He’d be the center of attraction,” he recalled. "One-on-one, or in a group setting, he would be the last person that you’d think was a serial killer and is as devious as he was.” A photo used as evidence in the 1980 trial shows the excavation in Gacy's crawl space. (Cook County Circuit Court)When 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. Despite not graduating from high school, Gacy attended and graduated from the Northwestern Business College in Chicago, then worked as a salesman and manager at a shoe company. In 1964, he met and became engaged to Marlynn Myers, whose father owned three KFC restaurants in Waterloo, Iowa. Gacy relocated there to manage the restaurants, and he and Myers had two children together, according to Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer by Tim Cahill and Russ Ewing. Bettiker recalls being given the responsibility of going over an endless number of missing persons reports from agencies across the state. Moran has also traced some of Gacy’s travels across the country, looking for missing men and boys along the way. Sam, could you do me a favor?" Thus begins a story that has now become part of America’s true crime hall of fame. It is a gory, grotesque tale befitting a Stephen King novel. It is also a David and Goliath saga—the story of a young lawyer fresh from the Public Defender’s Office whose first client in private practice turns out to be the worst serial killer in our nation’s history.

I’ve solved more non-Gacy victims,” Moran said grimly. He has also helped isolate a DNA profile for Gacy that can be used in a law enforcement database to be matched with any as-of-yet undiscovered or unidentified skeletons that may still hold traces of the killer’s DNA. Gacy was imprisoned at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester for 14 years, appealing the sentence and offering contradictory statements on the murders in interviews. Although he had previously confessed, Gacy later denied being guilty of the charges and had a 900 telephone number set up with a 12-minute recorded statement declaring his innocence. As McCoy lay dying, Gacy claimed he washed the knife in his bathroom, then went to his kitchen and saw the makings of breakfast on the table. McCoy had set the table for two; he had walked into Gacy's room to wake him while absentmindedly carrying the knife. [22] Gacy buried McCoy in his crawl space and later covered his grave with a layer of concrete. [48] In an interview several years after his arrest, Gacy said that immediately after killing McCoy, he felt "totally drained", yet noted that as he stabbed McCoy and as he listened to the "gurgulations" and gasping, he had experienced a mind-numbing orgasm. He added: "That's when I realized that death was the ultimate thrill." [22] Second murder In the years since Gacy’s arrest, there have been lingering concerns that Gacy might have been responsible for the deaths of other people whose bodies have yet to be found. And when police uncovered human remains in Gacy’s house in 1978, eight bodies couldn’t be identified. In July 2017, Cook County authorities used DNA evidence to identify one of these unidentified victims as 16-year-old James “Jimmie” Byron Haakenson, who had been reported missing since 1976. In October 2021, DNA testing identified another of Gacy’s victims as 21-year-old Francis Wayne Alexander, who also disappeared in 1976. Movie about John Wayne GacySerial killer John Wayne Gacy, left, and victim Francis Wayne Alexander. Photo by HANDOUTS / COOK COUNTY SHERIFF On December 19, investigators began compiling evidence for a second search warrant for Gacy's house. The same day, Gacy's lawyers filed the civil suit against the Des Plaines police. The hearing for the suit was scheduled for December 22. That afternoon, Gacy invited the surveillance detectives inside his house again. As officer Robinson distracted Gacy with conversation, officer Schultz walked into Gacy's bedroom in an unsuccessful attempt to write down the serial number of the Motorola TV set they suspected belonged to John Szyc. While flushing Gacy's toilet, the officer noticed a smell he suspected could be that of rotting corpses emanating from a heating duct. The officers who had searched Gacy's house previously had failed to notice this, as the house had been cold. [145] Due to the subject matter this book is loaded with gruesome and disturbing details. While not for everyone, it is an excellent book for those who study or are intrigued by true crime. Gacy didn't look like a monster but he truly was. Books like this which focus on the victims are incredibly important. He looked at his victims like he was taking out the trash. He had no feelings about them,” Amirante said, sitting in a private office at his Barrington home nearly 40 years after hearing the famous confession. “He could talk about a child who's dying of cancer and cry like a baby about this child he didn't even know or never met and feel authentically sad about this child. Then he'd talk about another child that he murdered and have no feelings whatsoever.”