Adamaris Duran 

Professor Toohney 

ENG 170-32

Research paper

7 May 2024

                                                       “ The Killer Clown”

On March 17, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, a serial killer and one of the worst monsters to ever exist was born. His name was John Wayne Gacy; however, many people have come to know him as the killer clown or Pogo the clown, which was his clown persona. He turned a character that many associate with joy and laughter into something that could be associated with fear and harm. Not only did he kill at least thirty-three people, but he was also known for sexually assaulting and torturing his victims, who were mostly innocent young teenagers who didn’t deserve what happened to them. Unlike a clown like Pennywise, John Gacy was a real person with real victims who struck fear into his community. So much to the point that many things changed after he was found guilty at his trial. 

His first crimes started much earlier than his days as his clown persona, Pogo the Clown. In fact, in “1968, Gacy was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy and attempting to assault another.” (McEvoy). And although he was eventually found guilty for this crime, what was supposed to be a 10-year sentence was greatly reduced because he displayed good behavior and was free “after serving 18 months of his sentence” (McEvoy). That was a grave mistake that many innocent people would soon suffer for, and that was only the start of what would eventually be his long list of crimes. He eventually moved on from sexually assaulting people to torturing and killing. On January 3rd, 1972, Gacy killed what would be known as his first victim, which was a 16-year-old teenage boy named Timothy McCoy. Gacy brought “the teenager home, where they drink and engage in sexual acts; Gacy stabs him to death and buries him in a crawl space.” (Ott). Putting aside the fact that Gacy raped Timothy since Timothy was drunk and underage and therefore wouldn’t be able to properly consent, stabbing him to death was a very brutal way of killing him, and he knew what he was doing since after killing him he decided to hide the body. Additionally, what Gacy had to say about this incident was, “That’s when I realized that death was the ultimate thrill” (McEvoy). Showing that he had no regrets or felt any sort of guilt about what he had done. Over time, he developed a pattern for how he killed his victims. Unfortunately for many families, Gacy was relentless in killing his victims, and for that reason, there are no victims who survived to recount what happened to them. However, from the state of their bodies, it was concluded that his tactics consisted of “luring his victims to his house, giving them alcohol, handcuffing them, and then strangling them” (Riley). After this point, he had already clearly developed a taste for raping and killing and wasn’t planning on stopping anytime soon, even though he knew that what he was doing was wrong. After that first crime, he became a monster. 

He didn’t stop once he took up the clown persona of Pogo the clown; instead, his killings seem to have become more frequent. Since he had easier access to his targets and what would be his future victims as his clown persona grew, the number of his victims grew. Most people wouldn’t think about having to keep their guard up with a clown, after all clowns are meant for entertainment and bringing joy to people, therefore it wasn’t weird that people let their guard down around him especially because he had a well known reputation within the community. According to Sam Amirante, who not only knew Gacy before the trial but was also Gacy’s criminal attorney, 

“Everybody from the neighborhood from the northwest suburbs of Chicago knew John Gacy, he had a construction business called Painting, Decorating, and Maintaining. He was also a democratic precinct captain in the Cook County Democratic Organization. The precinct captain takes care of the people in the neighborhood… Gacy was the best precinct captain in the Norwood Park Democratic Organization.” (Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes, 00:06:06–00:06:40)

With such a reliable person like that behind the clown mask, it’s no wonder that he gained the trust of so many people. Unfortunately for them, he chose to take advantage of that trust in order to fulfill his sick and twisted crimes. Therefore, when teenage boys started to accuse Gacy of sexually assaulting them and parents started to accuse Gacy of having something to do with the missing teenage boys, Gacy was able to evade the police’s suspicion for a long time—that is, until he messed up with his last victim, a fifteen-year-old named Robert Piest. “On December 11, 1978, when the mother of Robert Piest, Gacy’s last victim, reported her 15-year-old son missing, one of the first cops assigned to the case was James Pickell… who learned that Gacy had been arrested several times in Chicago for battery of young men but never convicted.” (Chicago Tribune). This eventually led to the police opening up an investigation into Gacy, which would lead them to discover all the heinous crimes he had been committing along with the bodies that he had been hiding. It is insane to believe that it took the deaths of at least thirty-three boys before he was caught, and if he didn’t get caught, he wasn’t planning on stopping anytime soon. 

Not only did Gacy keep most of the bodies hidden in the crawlspace under his house, but he also kept some of his victims personal belongings as if they were trophies, which is something no normal human being would possibly be able to do; instead, it was the actions of a monster. This was confirmed in a newspaper article from December 17, 1978, which stated that “Wallets containing papers that identify the Szyk and Godzik youths have been found in Mr. Gacy’s home” (DOUGLAS E KNEELAND). Although no one can fully know what was possibly going through his mind when he decided to keep the belongings of his victims, it is because of those belongings that those victims were some of the first bodies to be identified. However, this discovery left many parents in a panic, wondering if one of their own children could be buried in that crawl space and what their fate was. Unfortunately, as the investigation continued, they grew more worried as it was discovered that the crawl space was not the only place where Gacy hid the bodies. “Officers of the Cook County Sheriff’s Department found six more bodies today under the suburban ranch-style home of John Wayne Gacy. Mr. Gacy has reportedly told investigators that he murdered the youth and threw his body into the Des Plaines River.” (Bodies found at Illinois Suspect’s House Total 21: Digging to Continue). Therefore, not only did they have to worry that the bodies would be discovered in the crawl space, but they could also be in the river nearby. It seems as if there was nothing that would stop Gacy from killing, not even the fact that he ran out of space in his house’s crawl space, since he solved that problem by using the river as a second location. After this tragedy, the river would probably be associated with unpleasant memories. 

Gacy was also talented when it came to creating lies and deceiving people, which is another factor that many ignore when talking about him. The ability to come up with a lie and tell it to someone face-to-face with no hesitation at all and no feeling of guilt is truly something to fear. This is exactly what he did to the parents of many of his victims when they confronted him about their missing children, since they had a hunch he had something to do with it. A more specific example is with the parents of Gregory Godzik, whose family “contacted Gacy, who told them that Godzik had confided to Gacy that he planned to run away from home.” (McEvoy). This was a lie that he told, while the truth was that Godzik was buried in the crawlspace of Gacy’s house. However, the parents believed him, and no further investigation was made, allowing Gacy to continue killing for a couple more years. This wasn’t the only instance where he was able to come up with a lie on the spot, nor was it the only time he showed no remorse or guilt for the victims and their families. In the case of Robert Piest, even after there was evidence that Robert was at his house, “such as the receipt and the smell of decaying flesh, and yet Gacy was vehemently denying anything to do with this kid”. (Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes, 00:57:15–00:58:40) He continued to lie and kept up his act of being an innocent who was being wrongly suspected—that is, until he finally realized that he couldn’t hide the truth any longer and that his game of cat and mouse with the police was coming to an end. 

Once he was caught, he changed and confessed to everything that he had done with no hesitation. The first person he ever confessed to was his own lawyer. When he was asked why he did such a thing, his reasoning was because he claimed, “I’ve been a judge, jury, and executioner of many, many people. Now I want to be my own judge, jury, and executioner.”(Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes, 00:59:42–1:00:00). However, Gacy is a monster full of contradictions, which was demonstrated on January 10, 1979, when “his lawyer entered a not guilty plea for him in seven murder indictments.” (DOUGLAS E. KNEELAND). The audacity with which he had to plead not guilty was a thing of insanity. Clearly, there was a whole lot of evidence working against him, and yet he chose to plead not guilty, almost as if he truly believed that he wasn’t in the wrong and didn’t deserve to be locked away. But once again, he later changed his mind and admitted to killing the boys and even throwing some bodies into the river. Because of his often contradictory actions at times and switches in personality, he is an unpredictable individual, which is also why he is considered a monster. You can never truly figure out how a monster will act since they are the embodiment of the unknown, which is what humans fear most.

Finally caught and sentenced, he spent a lot of time in prison, and his time in prison was spent mostly trying to change his sentence. He tried various methods in order to reduce his sentence even during his trial, such as trying to take an insanity plea by confessing that “the killings were committed by his alter ego Jack” (Navin). In other words, he was trying to claim that he wasn’t completely sane when he was committing those crimes and had a personality disorder that made him act irrationally. Fortunately, he wasn’t believed by medical professionals and received the death sentence. Just because he was in prison doesn’t mean that he stopped trying to find a way out. He was persistent with various other arguments, such as claiming that “his construction employees had set him up and he did not commit any of the murders, stating that he was the 34th victim.” (Navin). Of course, this argument was also ignored, and he was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994. As a final act of showing that he felt no remorse for his actions, his final words weren’t any apologies or pleas for his life; instead, “Gacy’s last words were “Kiss my ass.” (Navin).

His crimes were so horrendous that even after his trial was over and he was locked away and sentenced to death, the fear he created within the community didn’t stop. After his trial, many legal and social issues started to arise, and the community was. Gacy’s trial took place on “February 6, 1980, and lasted a total of five weeks. And although his defense tried to argue the insanity plea for Gacy, they were unsuccessful since on March 13, 1980, he was given the death sentence” (Riley). Before Gacy’s killings, those within the community felt very safe and felt close enough to each other that there was a sense of trust that was built between everyone. However, after the killings, the community experienced “a renewed sense of caution and wariness towards strangers, heightened concerns about sex offenders in neighborhoods, and calls for improvements in missing persons investigations” (Riley). It is upsetting that all the trust that was once there was destroyed instantly because of the actions of a monster who managed to hide among them, but it was great that there were improvements in how missing person investigations were handled. Since before they weren’t taken as seriously and were just brushed off, it’s for the better of the community that the police would take them more seriously in the future. However, the suburban community was not the only one who was impacted by Gacy’s actions; the whole country was impacted by his actions. Some of the effects were 

“Changes in law enforcement practices, including more extensive background checks and the implementation of new investigative techniques; the establishment of missing children databases to help locate and identify victims; and the introduction of community notification laws for convicted sex offenders.” (Riley)

The impact that the trial had on the country overall seemed to be for the better. Extensive background checks help when people are trying to figure out who to hire to take care of their children, since they need to make sure that they are leaving them in the care of someone they can trust, which is what background checks can do. Additionally, being able to know if there are any sex offenders in the area is also a great tool, since a person would want to know how safe the community they decide to move into is and if any sexual assault crime happens, there is already a list of people to suspect from rather than having to investigate everyone one by one and wasting time.

Gacy was the unknown that everyone fears so much. He was a man who had gained both the respect and trust of everyone around him and abused it. A man full of contradictions and able to create lies almost as easily as breathing. And although he was deemed mentally sane, he refused to ever apologize for any of his crimes. The fear that he invoked created long-lasting impacts on the whole nation in order to make sure a monster like him could never go undetected again and a repeat of his crimes never happened again.

 

                                                                Works Cited 

Berlinger, Joe. “Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes | Netflix Official Site.” Www.netflix.com, 20 Apr. 2022, www.netflix.com/title/81298614. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.

“Bodies found at Illinois Suspect’s House Total 21: Digging to Continue.” New York Times (1923-), Dec 29 1978, p. 1. ProQuest. Web. 7 May 2024 .

Chicago Tribune. “The Final Act.” Chicago Tribune, 9 Aug. 2021, www.chicagotribune.com/1994/05/05/the-final-act/. Accessed 07 May 2024. 

DOUGLAS E KNEELAND Special to The NewYork Times. “4 More Bodies found Under House of Contractor, Bringing Total to 9: From 25 to 32 Bodies Possible Sight Indentification Impossible Godzik Missing since Late 1976 Battery Case Still Pending Suspect in Cook County Hospital Suspect Grew Up in Chicago.” New York Times (1923-), Dec 27 1978, p. 1. ProQuest. Web. 7 May 2024 .

DOUGLAS E KNEELAND Special to The NewYork Times. “Suspect Pleads Not Guilty to 7 Murder Counts at Hearing on Sex Attacks: 27 Bodies Recovered.” New York Times (1923-), Jan 11 1979, p. 1. ProQuest. Web. 7 May 2024 .

Navin, Sarah. “John Wayne Gacy: True Crime Background.” Serial Killers in Film, 5 Dec. 2017, scalar.usc.edu/works/serial-killers-in-film/john-wayne-gacy. Accessed 07 May 2024. 

McEvoy, Colin. “John Wayne Gacy – House, Clown & Victims.” Biography, 16 June 2023, www.biography.com/crime/john-wayne-gacy. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.

Ott, Tim. “John Wayne Gacy: A Timeline of the “Killer Clown” Murders, Trial and Execution.” Biography, 10 Aug. 2021.

Riley, Chris. “John Wayne Gacy Trial: A Deep Dive into the Infamous Case – MurderArchives.org.” Www.murderarchives.org, 10 May 2023, www.murderarchives.org/john-wayne-gacy-trial/. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.