John Wayne Gacy was just your regular friendly-looking neighbor, liked by everyone in the community, who also regularly performed at children's hospitals and charitable events. Everyone in the northwest suburbs of Chicago knew John Gacy in the late 1970s. He was, as people liked to call him, 'the life of the party'. However, nothing is ever as simple as it looks, is it?
A series of events unfolded upon the disappearance of a teenage boy named Robert Piest. What followed was the discovery of the most heinous concatenation of homicide ever witnessed by the state of Illinois, USA.
THE CRIME
Before moving to Chicago, Illinois, John Wayne Gacy lived for some time in Waterloo, Iowa. This was where the string of crimes manifested in the first place.
In August 1967, Donald Voorhees was hitchhiking and was given a ride by Gacy. He engaged in a conversation with the 15-year-old and took Donald to his house upon the promise of showing him stag films (pornography). The young teenage boy was made to have a lot of alcohol and watch those stag films, which rendered him defenseless. He was then forced into performing ‘mutual’ oral sex by John Gacy.
It wasn’t until March of 1968 that the incident was brought to the notice of the police. Gacy was immediately arrested under the charges of sodomy. He was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. Although on the account of model prisoner behavior, he was granted parole with a twelve-month probation period just after serving 18 months in prison.
Upon getting out, Gacy moved to Chicago.
This incident of sodomy was what made him the prime suspect in the disappearance of Robert Piest. A warrant was issued and his house was searched. A legion of items was uncovered during the search which was evidently suspicious. Identifications that weren’t of Gacy’s, handcuffs, sex toys, temporary driver’s licenses, and a high school ring among other things.
During the search, a secret crawl space was uncovered through a trapdoor inside a closet which led to a basement without any sort of flooring.
An extensive search was set off into the questionable space. The ground was dug and the discoveries shocked the entire world. The police found parts of the bodies of 26 different people within the crawl space. Three other bodies were unearthed from other places on his property.
The rest of his victims are said to be thrown in the Des Plaines River, from the bank of which Robert Piest’s body was recovered since Gacy claimed to have run out of space on his property to bury his victims.
Gacy was brought to trial on February 6, 1980, and charged with 33 murders. On May 9, 1994, John Wayne Gacy was executed. His final spoken words were reported to be "Kiss my ass".
THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND
‘My dad and I never really got along well while I lived in the house because I don’t know… I guess I… I guess I never lived up to his standards.’ -John Wayne Gacy
Childhood plays a major role in shaping a person’s personality. So even here, as we try to understand the mentality of a serial killer, knowledge about his childhood would be the first step in that direction.
John Wayne Gacy had a troubled childhood with a father who was an alcoholic and physically abusive to his family. Gacy had it the worst out of everyone in his family. He was frequently called 'sissy', 'mama's boy', and ‘probably would end up queer’ by his father whenever his mother tried to defend him.
But this wasn’t the only aspect of his complicated upbringing. He was raised a Roman Catholic and since his religion did not accept or acknowledge the queer community, he was in denial of his sexual orientation till the very end.
The urge to constantly prove himself worthy of his father’s love combined with the trouble of coming to terms with his sexuality would inevitably have an impact on his mental health.
While he was convicted of sodomy in Waterloo, Iowa, Gacy visited the University of Iowa Psychiatric Hospital for a mental health assessment. Over the course of seventeen days, two doctors assessed him and came to the conclusion that he had an antisocial personality disorder, was unlikely to benefit from therapy or medical care, and that his behavior pattern was likely to put him in conflict with society on a regular basis.
Gacy also held himself in very high regard. He bragged about his stature, and his wealth, even when he was arrested, he always believed that he had an alibi to prove his innocence and didn’t do anything wrong. While these can be the typical symptoms of antisocial personality disorder, they also hint at the presence of ‘Delusions of Grandeur’. Delusions of Grandeur are, in simple words, when a person believes that they have more power, wealth, smarts, or other grand traits than is true.
To summarize, Gacy’s psychological trauma from childhood, suppression of social identity, coupled with the breakdown of social controls, and antisocial personality disorder created the infamous monster that is more well known as 'the Killer Clown'.
CONVERSATIONS WITH A KILLER: THE JOHN WAYNE GACY TAPES
The documentary currently available on Netflix puts forth the entirety of the procedure of the arrest of the famous criminal along with giving adequate information about his victims, childhood troubles, marital and professional life, and the strategies that he used with his victims.
It’s a good short series for those interested in true crime and will keep you hooked from the get-go. To know more in detail about this terribly engaging case of a serial murderer, do give the documentary a watch.
References-
1. John Wayne Gacy. Crime Museum. (2021, August 13). Retrieved October 20, 2022, from https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/john-wayne-gacy/
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