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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2008 (5:15 PM)

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John Wayne gacy

John Wayne Gacy, (March 17, 1942 - May 10, 1994) was an American serial killer. He was convicted and later executed for the rape and murder of 33 boys and men, 27 of whom he buried in a crawl space under the floor of his house, while others were found in nearby rivers, between 1972 and his arrest in 1978. He became notorious as the "Killer Clown" because of the many block parties he attended, entertaining children in a clown suit and makeup, under the name of "Pogo the Clown."

The wide publicity of Gacy's crimes is often presumed to have a strong influence on the idea of an evil clown.

Early life
Gacy had a very distant relationship with his stern, alcoholic father who described Gacy as a "sissy" and who physically abused Gacy's mother.

He worked briefly in Las Vegas before returning to Illinois. Gacy attended a business college and started a moderately successful career as a shoe salesman in Springfield, Illinois, where he became a prominent member of the Jaycees. In his study, Extraordinary Behavior: A Case Study Approach to Understanding Social Problems (2000), Dennis L. Peck, Professor of Sociology at the University of Alabama, writes: "John Wayne married in 1964. This also was the year a homosexual encounter was experienced for the first time." He moved to Waterloo, Iowa, where he managed a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant belonging to his wife's family.

However, Gacy's first marriage fell apart after he was convicted of child molestation in 1968. He was sent to prison for this crime, but he was a model prisoner and was paroled in 1970 after serving 18 months. After he was released, he moved back to Illinois. He successfully hid this criminal record until police began investigating him for his later murders.

In 1971 he bought a house in an unincorporated area of Norwood Park Township, which is surrounded by the northwest side Chicago neighborhood of Norwood Park, and established his own construction business, PDM Contracting. Gacy married a woman he had known since high school, she and her two daughters moved in with him. He became a prominent and respected member of the community. In addition to his clown act, he became active in the local Democratic Party, first volunteering to clean the party offices, eventually becoming a precinct captain. In this capacity, he was even able to meet and be photographed with future-First Lady Rosalynn Carter. Mrs. Carter even signed the photo: To John Gacy. Best Wishes. Rosalynn Carter. During the search of Gacy's house after Gacy's arrest, this photo caused a major embarrassment to the U.S. Secret Service, as the photo depicted Gacy wearing an "S" lapel pin, which meant the Secret Service had given him a high-level security clearance (Sullivan and Maiken, 1983).

It was also during this time that Gacy 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 a teenage boy, 15-year-old Robert Piest, who was last seen with Gacy. A search of his house, by Des Plaines detective Joseph Kozenczak, revealed a number of incriminating items related to other disappearances.

On December 22, 1978 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 five he said were thrown into the nearby Des Plaines River after he ran out of space beneath the crawlspace under his house. Most of the victims were young male prostitutes or teenage runaways. Some victims were also teenage boys whom Gacy had hired through his contracting firm. At least one of the victims was picked up at the bus station. The youngest victim was nine years old. The oldest was around 20. Nine of the victims were so badly decomposed that they were never identified. The bodies were uncovered from December 1978 to April 1979, when the last known victim was found downstream in the Illinois River.

On February 6, 1980, Gacy's trial began in Chicago. During the trial, he made a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. However, this plea was rejected outright—his lawyer, Sam Amirante, 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.

While on trial Gacy joked that the only thing he was guilty of was "running a cemetery without a license." At one point in the trial, Gacy's defense also tried to claim that all 33 murders were accidental deaths as part of erotic asphyxia, but the Cook County Coroner countered this assertion with evidence that Gacy's claim was impossible. Also, Gacy had made an earlier confession to police, and was unable to have this evidence suppressed. He was found guilty on March 13 and sentenced to death (Sullivan and Maiken, 1983).

On May 10, 1994, Gacy was executed at Stateville Penitentiary in Crest Hill, Illinois, by lethal injection, after finishing his last meal consisting of shrimp, fried chicken, fresh strawberries and french fries. His execution was a minor media sensation, and large crowds of people gathered for "execution parties" outside the penitentiary, with numerous arrests for public intoxication, open intoxicants, and disorderly conduct. 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.

According to reports, Gacy did not express remorse. His last words to his lawyer in his cell were to the effect that killing him would not bring anyone back, and it is reported his last words were "You can kiss my ass", which he said to a guard while he was being sent to the execution chamber.

After the execution began, the lethal chemicals unexpectedly solidified, clogging the IV tube that led into Gacy's arm, and preventing any further passage. Blinds covering the window through which witnesses observed the execution were drawn, and the execution team replaced the clogged tube with a new one. Ten minutes later, the blinds were then reopened and the execution process resumed. It took 18 minutes to complete. 31 anesthesiologists blamed the problem on the inexperience of prison officials who were conducting the execution, saying that proper procedures taught in "IV 101" would have prevented the error. This also apparently, led to Illinois' adoption of a different method of lethal injection.

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