Gacy, John Wayne (1942-1994), was an American serial killer . A serial killer is someone who murders two or more victims in separate events. Gacy was convicted of murdering 33 teenage boys and young men from 1972 to 1978.
John Wayne Gacy was born in Chicago on March 17, 1942. His father is described as having been an abusive alcoholic. Gacy dropped out of high school during his senior year. He later graduated from a business college.
As an adult, Gacy was married twice. He had two children, who lived with his first wife in Iowa. After working several different jobs, Gacy became a building contractor. In 1970, he moved into a ranch-style house near the far northwest side of Chicago, where he began to lead a double life.
Gacy was active in local organizations and politics. He frequently visited hospitals dressed as a clown to entertain sick children. At the same time, Gacy targeted teenage boys and young men. He brought them to his house, where he tortured , raped , and murdered them. Gacy buried the remains of nearly all of his victims in the crawl space beneath his home. The remains of his last few victims were buried in other areas of his property or dumped into local rivers, because he had run out of burial space under his house.
Gacy used various methods to lure victims to his house. Sometimes, he posed as a plainclothes police officer and threatened young runaways with arrest if they did not go with him. He pretended to consider other victims for jobs. Gacy was eventually arrested in 1978, when a teenage boy told a friend that he was on his way to see Gacy about a job. The teen was never seen alive again. Police investigating the teen’s disappearance searched Gacy’s house. There they found jewelry and pieces of identification belonging to other missing persons. Soon, police began searching the area under Gacy’s home, which gave off a terrible odor. They eventually found 29 bodies on Gacy’s property.
At his trial in February 1980, Gacy claimed he had a multiple personality disorder. A person with such a condition has two or more personalities, each of which controls the person’s actions at certain times. Gacy also pleaded that he was not guilty by reason of insanity . The jury rejected both of these defenses. Gacy was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.
By the early 2000’s, several of Gacy’s victims had still not been identified. A new effort was launched, as a result of advances in technology, to identify the remaining victims.
