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On November 7, 1968, Gacy pleaded guilty to one count of sodomy in relation to Voorhees, but not guilty to the charges related to other youths. Gacy claimed Voorhees had offered himself to him and that he had acted out of curiosity. His story was not believed. Gacy was convicted of sodomy on December 3 and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, to be served at the Anamosa State Penitentiary. [8] [33] [34] That same day, Gacy's wife petitioned for divorce, requesting she be awarded the couple's home and property, sole custody of their two children, and alimony. [35] [36] The Court ruled in her favor, and the divorce was finalized on September 18, 1969. Gacy never saw his first wife or children again. [8] From the publisher: Brad Hunter has spent over thirty years writing about some of America’s most horrific crimes. In this new book he enters the mind of John Wayne Gacy, the real-life Killer Clown, often said to be the inspiration for Stephen King’s evil Pennywise in It. Drawing on his many years’ experience investigating and interviewing perpetrators of terrible crimes, Hunter seeks to understand what drove Gacy to unleash a reign of terror in suburban Chicago. Gacy’s psychosexual history began between the ages of 6 and 10, when a teenage daughter of one of his mother’s friends reportedly undressed and played with him, according to Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders by Terry Sullivan. Gacy was molested at a young age by a family friend and contractor, and between ages 10 and 12, Gacy and a friend were accused of sexually fondling a young girl, according to Sullivan. At times this book felt more like an article written for a sensationalistic rag. The author constantly used new terms to describe Gacy. At first I found this odd and distracting but I got used to it. Descriptive terms included “corpulent killer,” “nondescript businessman,” “rotund contractor,” and “apex predator.” 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.
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) Moran has also traced some of Gacy’s travels across the country, looking for missing men and boys along the way. Phil Bettiker, a retired Cook County sheriff's officer, talks this month about his experiences as a lead investigator on the Gacy case. He was one of the first officers to hear Gacy’s confession. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune) Twenty-six were buried in the crawl space beneath his home; others were buried elsewhere on his property, while a handful were dumped in the Des Plaines River.After the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Gacy’s final appeal in October 1993, an execution date was set for May 10, 1994 at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois. Before his death, Gacy said the victim’s families would get no comfort from his death and accused the state of murdering him. His last words were reportedly “Kiss my a––,” but the prosecutor who tried the case and attended his execution said Gacy didn’t speak in his final moments. Gacy was executed by lethal injection. Rignall managed to stagger to his girlfriend's apartment. Police were informed of the assault but did not investigate Gacy. Rignall was able to recall the Oldsmobile, the Kennedy Expressway and particular side streets. He and two friends staked out the Cumberland exit of the Expressway and, in April, Rignall saw the Oldsmobile, which he and his friends followed to 8213 West Summerdale. [54] Gacy was arrested on July 15; he faced trial for assault and battery against Rignall. [67] John Wayne Gacy was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, [1] on March 17, 1942, the second of three children and only son of John Stanley Gacy and Marion Elaine Robison. [2] [3] His father was an auto repair machinist and World War I veteran, and his mother was a homemaker. [4] [5] Gacy was of Polish and Danish ancestry, and his family was Catholic. [6] [7] For much of the book, Amirante writes in a "you are there" narrative, even describing the thoughts and feelings of Gacy and his victims. Supposedly this is based on copious notes from interviews with Gacy, but some of it (like when Amirante writes parts of the opening chapter from the POV of Robert Piest) seemed a bit embellished. A 1992 television movie titled To Catch a Killer explored the efforts to find out what happened to the missing teenage boys who were later discovered to be among Gacy’s victims. The movie starred Brian Dennehy, Michael Riley, and Margot Kidder, and Dennehy, who played Gacy, was nominated for an Emmy award. According to Dennehy, Gacy wrote a letter to him from prison, protesting his portrayal in the film and proclaiming his innocence.
Gacy was a member of a Chicago-area “Jolly Joker” clown club and frequently performed in clown attire and makeup at children’s parties, charity fundraisers, and other events as his alter egos “Pogo the Clown” or “Patches the Clown.” Years later, during a conversation with detectives while he was under surveillance, Gacy discussed his work as a clown, remarking, “Clowns can get away with murder.”Moss later said that he formed the strongest relationship with Gacy. Their exchange of letters led to regular Sunday morning phone calls, during which Gacy reiterated his innocence. In his book, Moss explored the development of his correspondence with Gacy, shortly before the killer was executed. Moss asserted that he became Gacy's "last victim" during their face-to-face meeting. While he understood that he had deliberately lured Gacy, he felt overpowered and manipulated by him, in the same way that he might have manipulated and controlled his victims. Moss felt that his overall experience allowed him to gain an understanding of how a serial killer's mind works.
Gacy pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and he went to trial on 33 murder charges. The prosecution argued Gacy was sane and in control of his actions, pointing to the elaborate steps Gacy took to both prepare for and conceal his murders. “These were certainly the acts of a man capable of premeditation, acting in his own best interest under duress, and recollecting the details of his criminal activities,” said chief prosecutor William Kunkle, according to Killer Clown. Mental health professionals testified for both sides about Gacy’s mental state. Suspecting Gacy might be holding Piest at his home, Des Plaines police obtained a search warrant on December 13. [139] This search revealed several suspicious items, including several police badges; a starter pistol; a syringe and hypodermic needle; handcuffs; books on homosexuality and pederasty; [140] [141] [142] pornographic films; capsules of amyl nitrite; a dildo; [143] a two-by-four with two holes drilled into each end; bottles of Valium and atropine; several driver's licenses; a blue hooded parka; [139] and underwear too small to fit Gacy. [142] They also found a class ring engraved with the initials J.A.S. [144] and a Nisson Pharmacy photo receipt in a trash can, alongside a 36-inch (91cm) section of nylon rope. [69] SurveillanceThere's a little strip mall in an older, residential area in Las Vegas, far from the chaos of the other, more famous Strip. From the university, it's a straight shot down Flamingo Road, a major artery of the city named after Bugsy Siegel's original resort. Amirante said he believed a killer with Gacy’s personal demons would be less likely to exist today. By 1978, Gacy’s crawl space had no more space for bodies, according to Killer Clown, and he started to dispose of his victims in the Des Plaines River from a bridge off Interstate 55. Gacy had everybody fooled, and people don’t like it — they don’t like that they were friends with an evildoer,” Moran said.
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