In December 1978, Chicago police were just
beginning to uncover the evidence of one of the most heinous crimes their city had ever seen.
As body after body was pulled out from under the floorboards of a seemingly ordinary suburban
home, investigators realized that they were dealing with America’s most evil serial killer.
John Wayne Gacy, also known as the Killer Clown, had murdered more people than any one person
in U.S. history at that point in time. John Wayne Gacy was a well-known and well-liked
figure in his suburban community North of Chicago. He owned a successful construction business,
attended church faithfully, and was involved in the local Polish community. He was married to his
second wife and seemed to be a devoted stepfather to her 2 daughters. Through his position as
a precinct captain for the Democratic Party, Gacy had the opportunity to meet and be
photographed with First Lady Rosalynn Carter in early 1978 - the very same year that
his horrific crimes would become public. At that time, though, Gacy was loved and admired
by his neighbours, friends and the police, and had been known for hosting elaborate parties
for his entire neighborhood. Gacy’s alter-ego, Pogo the Clown, was often a feature of these
parties, and neighbours recall that he seemed to enjoy dressing up in his clown costume
and makeup and entertaining local children. But underneath Gacy’s idyllic suburban life,
he was hiding a dark past. Prior to moving to Chicago, Gacy had been living in Iowa, where he
was arrested for assaulting 2 young men while his first wife was in the hospital giving birth to his
child. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but after serving 18 months in jail, a now-divorced
Gacy was released on parole and he received permission from the courts to relocate to Chicago
for a fresh start. Soon, though, Gacy’s community and the world at large would learn that these
secrets paled in comparison to the sadistic double life that Gacy had been leading for years. After
telling his second wife that he was bi-sexual, the two divorced in 1976, and Gacy, now free
to indulge his most sick and twisted fantasies, soon learned that killing was more
satisfying to him than anything else, and he would spend the next several years trying
to get his “fix” in the most horrific ways. It all started to unravel for Gacy with the
disappearance of Robert Piest. On December 11th, 1978, Robert’s mother arrived to pick him up
from his shift at the pharmacy where he worked. When his shift ended, Robert told his mother
that he was going to talk to a man about a potential construction job that would pay more
than double what he was making at the pharmacy. He told her it would only take a few minutes, and
then they could go home and enjoy his mother’s birthday celebration. She waited outside
the pharmacy, but Robert never came back. His panicked mother went home and returned to
the pharmacy with her husband, other children, and the family’s 2 German Shepards, but
they could find no sign of Robert. The worried family then drove immediately to the
police station to report their son missing. Lieutenant Kozenczak, whose son attended the
same high school as Robert, took their report. One of the first calls he made was to John Wayne
Gacy. Gacy’s friends and neighbors may have been oblivious to his dark past, but the police
were not. Not only were they aware of his past convictions, but they had also received numerous
complaints about Gacy in recent years. In 1975, after an employee of Gacy’s construction
company went missing, the man’s family pleaded with police to investigate Gacy,
but their pleas were ignored. In 1976, police had run surveillance on Gacy’s home related
to the disappearance of a 9 year old boy, but they were unable to build a case against him. In 1977,
a young man complained to the police about Gacy, alleging that Gacy had kidnapped him at gunpoint
and assaulted him. Gacy was arrested, and even admitted to his encounter with the young man, but
he claimed that it was consensual and prosecutors declined to press charges. Police were also
beginning to suspect that Gacy was behind a string of complaints about a man named John who had been
cruising local parks and picking up young men, many of whom seemed to disappear after their
encounter with John. Despite these incidents, Gacy had managed to stay one step ahead of the
law so far, but his luck was about to run out. After Robert’s family made their missing person’s
report, officers quickly realized that the man he had gone to see about a construction job must have
been John Wayne Gacy - his construction company had just recently finished a renovation job at
the very pharmacy where Robert had worked. The coincidence was too much to ignore, and this time
the police seriously considered Gacy as a suspect in the disappearance of Robert Piest. Little did
they know that this particular crime was just the tip of the iceberg, and they were about to uncover
one of the most gruesome crime sprees in history. Lieutenant Kozenczak contacted Gacy and asked him
to come into the police station for an interview. Gacy was cordial and agreed to come in, telling
officers he could be there within a half an hour. Hours went by with no sign of Gacy. Officers
were beginning to get suspicious when, at 3 a.m., Gacy suddenly appeared at the station. His arrival
did little to calm their suspicions - Gacy was more than 4 hours late to his interview, and
when he arrived he was covered in mud and grime. The officer that Gacy had come to see wasn’t
available, so he was sent on his way. Later, officers would learn that Gacy’s car had been
towed from a snowbank near the Des Plaines River at 2 a.m., immediately before he
arrived at the police station. Armed with this information, officers served
Gacy with a search warrant when he returned the following day for his interview. He reluctantly
handed over his keys and was detained at the station while officers searched his home. There,
they found a receipt for a roll of film that Robert’s family confirmed belonged to him - police
concluded that Robert had been in Gacy’s home, but they could find no evidence of a crime, and so
Gacy was released and placed under surveillance. The next day, officers found a ring
that they linked to another missing boy, and employees of Gacy’s construction
company told police about 2 different employees of Gacy’s who had mysteriously gone
missing in recent months. A few days later, Gacy had the audacity to invite the officers
on surveillance duty outside of his home inside for a cup of coffee. Once inside his home, both
officers noticed the unmistakable stench of death. That same day, Gacy’s lawyers filed a lawsuit
against the police department for harassment, but before long Gacy would have much
bigger legal issues to worry about. While he was under 24-hour surveillance, officers
witnessed Gacy selling marijuana to a gas station clerk, and they jumped on the opportunity
to arrest him. While Gacy was in custody for drug-related charges, police officers threaten to
tear up the floorboards in his home, prompting him to admit to murder. He tells officers that yes,
he did kill a man in his home, but claims that it was self defense. He shows police the exact spot
under his garage where he buried the body, and during their search for this body, officers find
a trap door leading to a crawl space under Gacy’s home - inside, amid the terrible stench of decay,
officers find parts of at least 3 other bodies. Once he realized that police had found the
first bodies, Gacy cracked. In a rambling, hours long confession in which he
referred to himself in the 3rd person, Gacy told police that “John” or “Jack” had killed
at least 32 young men, and that he had buried 27 of the bodies on his property and had disposed
of the rest, including the body of Robert Piest, in the Des Plaines River. In fact, Gacy had been
dumping Robert’s body in that same river on the night he was towed out of the snowbank before he
showed up at the police station covered in mud. Gacy was charged with the murder of Robert
Piest, although police had yet to find his body. By January 8th, 1979, police had
uncovered the remains of 29 bodies, but only 7 had been positively identified. Gacy
was charged with the murders of 7 young men as police continued their efforts to identify the
rest of his victims. Parents of missing boys from around the world contacted the Chicago police to
find out if their sons among Gacy’s victims, and forensic specialists and dentists were called in
to help identify the bodies using dental records, which, in the time before DNA testing, was the
most reliable method of identifying victims. In April 1979, a Grand Jury indicted
Gacy on a total of 33 murders - the largest number attributed to one
person in U.S. history at that time. Throughout this, Gacy continued to give interviews
to the police, and even described his first murder to officers in gruesome detail. He admitted that
he had stabbed his victim to death in his bedroom, before burying him in the crawlspace, and police
found a large blood stain on the underside of the bedroom carpet that matched his story.
Investigators also found a red light and a police radio in Gacy’s car, prompting them to conclude
that he had posed as a police officer in order to kidnap his victims. As the trial date loomed,
police still had not found Robert Piest’s body, but they had found his jacket under
the floor of Gacy’s laundry room. In January 1979, during the height of the
investigation into the Killer Clown, the Chicago Metropolitan Clown Guild held a press conference,
stating that the Gacy investigation was negatively impacting the city’s professional clowns. Parents
were too afraid to have their children near a clown after the details of Gacy’s crimes and his
alter-ego Pogo the Clown were made public. Gacy’s friends and neighbours recalled that he frequently
joked about how “clowns can get away with murder”, though at the time they thought he was referring
to his tendency to grope women while in costume. Gacy’s trial began on February 6th, 1980. Due to
the graphic nature of the crimes and the evidence, the judge banned anyone under the age of 16 from
the courtroom. Gacy, who was facing the death penalty, pled not guilty to the charges and his
lawyers attemptted to launch a defence based on insanity, but after a 5 week trial, it took the
jury just 2 hours to find John Wayne Gacy guilty of the heinous murder of 33 young men. State
Attorney Bernard Carey was quoted as saying “He certainly qualifies for the death penalty.
If he doesn’t, who does?” Gacy was sentenced to death by lethal injection, and sent to Menard
Correctional Center to await his execution. Gacy would spend the next several years on death
row while his automatic appeals were exhausted. During his time on death row, Gacy took
up art, painting numerous creepy pictures of, of course, clowns. Several of Gacy’s
paintings were auctioned off along with other inmates’ art to raise money
to buy art supplies for prisoners. Years later, after Gacy’s death, two local
businessmen purchased 30 of these paintings, and invited the families of his victims
to destroy them in a public bonfire. After nearly 15 years on death row, all of Gacy’s
appeals were exhausted, and his execution date was set for May 10th, 1994. Gacy’s last meal consisted
of fried shrimp, a pound of fresh strawberries and a bucket of KFC chicken with fries - prior
to his murder spree and subsequent incarceration, Gacy had actually managed 3 KFC restaurants owned
by his former father-in-law. As he was strapped to the gurney awaiting his execution, Gacy was
asked if he had any last words. He snarled at his executioners: “Kiss my ass”, and at 12:58
a.m., he was executed by lethal injection. At the time of Gacy’s execution, only 26 of
his 33 victims had been positively identified. The advent of DNA testing helped police
identify more of Gacy’s unknown victims, including the 2011 identification of William
George Bundy, a Chicago man who told his family he was going to a party, and was never seen
again. To this day, 6 victims of the killer clown remain unidentified. As a direct result
of Gacy’s unthinkable crimes, Chicago police spearheaded the creation of a computerized
database of missing and murdered children and youths to make it easier for various police
departments across the country to communicate and share information in the hopes that
similar crimes could be avoided in the future. John Wayne Gacy brutally murdered 33 young men
and buried their bodies under the floorboards of his home. He had appeared to be a successful
businessman and a pillar of his community, but neighbours would soon learn
that appearances can be deceiving. Hiding behind the facade was America’s most evil
serial killer, John Wayne Gacy, the Killer Clown. Now go watch “Who Are the Most Evil Serial Killers
in America?”, or watch this other video instead!
