Life and Crimes of John Wayne Gacy, The Killer Clown

John Wayne Gacy, also known as the Killer Clown, is a rapist and serial killer who is known to have committed over 33 murders of male young adults over a 10 year period. He was born in 1942 in a low-income neighborhood of Chicago to parents who were abusive and violent as he was beaten and taunted by his father to a great degree, even for the smallest infractions in behaviours and was brought done with the slightest academic failures as a child. He fed into trying to make his father happy from his performance in school but failed to please him ever. As he grew older, he was being beaten and often molested by his father – sometimes resulting in him losing consciousness – and by family friends for which his father would turn a blind eye to. This influenced behaviour in him as well, as when he was 7 years of age, he was caught fondling another little girl, for which he received a large beating. 

Through traumatic childhood experiences and previous conditions, Gacy was diagnosed with heart and appendix problems, as well as had numerous seizures throughout his time in high school. Because of this and his inability to be involved in sports, he was often beat and bullied in his school too. When he became 18 years old, he worked for a Democratic candidate in Chicago, aiding the campaign. Through this position, his father kept pestering him from the smallest of reasons. John Gacy worked his way to being largely involved in his community and eventually ran for Democratic party representative for his home district in Chicago, for which he did not win. In 1968, Gacy married Marlynn Myers, and moved to Iowa to work in her father’s KFC restaurant, at which time he also started a family. During his time at the restaurant, they hired numerous young male employees, and in the same year, he was arrested for sodomizing one of them. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, for which he was released in 1971, on good behaviour. Due to this, his wife Myers had left him, with their children, whom he never saw again. 

John Wayne Gacy returned to Chicago after being serving his time, and started a construction business, as well as ran for and became elected as a Democratic precinct Captain. In 1972, Gacy married his second wife, Carole Hoff. He had large philanthropic efforts, and was even once photographed with Rosalynn Carter. On the side, Gacy also dressed up as a clown and entertained children at birthday parties and such events. This would later be a source for some of his victims. He committed his first murder in the same year of 1972, when he brought a boy home he had met at a bus stop, after offering him a place to sleep for the night. The boy, Tim McCoy -15 years old – had woken up mid-night and started to make something to eat in the kitchen. He was going to go wake Gacy to see if he wanted to eat, but appeared with a knife in his hand. Gacy, startled as he had just woken, wrangled the knife out of the boy’s hand and had subdued him and proceeded to stab him twice in the stomach, effectively killing him. This was the only time when Gacy used a knife, as his modus operandi was getting victims to wear handcuffs, when he took the chance to rape, and then kill them. 

John Gacy stored most of his bodies in the attic and walls of his home in Chicago in a strategic manner, in efforts to maximize the bodies he could store. After his first murder, Gacy later admitted he had felt sexual pleasure while killing the boy, which triggered him to understand how he gained lust from his murders. After this, Gacy explored his homosexual pleasure and eventually told his wife we will stop engaging in sexual intercourse with her. Hoff later claimed she had found homosexual pornography in their garage, hidden away. In 1976, Carole divorced Gacy and left him, with their children. John Gacy then devoted more and more of his time to attracting, assaulting and killing young men. Through 1978, he kept going with his killing spree, killing boys he met through his construction company, those he picked up around the city, and children from parties he entertained at. Gacy was caught by the police when one victim’s mother called the cops after her son didn’t come home from an interview with Gacy at his construction company. Police easily obtained a warrant and found the collection of bodies in his home after being lead to it by the prominent deceased-body scent throughout the home. He was arrested in late 1978, at which point he admitted to over 33 encounters of rape and torture, leading to murder. He even revealed more encounters where he assaulted boys, but did not kill them. Some of these homicide and assault cases remain unsolved, and some victims remain unidentified.

During trial in mid 1980, John Wayne Gacy was sentenced to death and life in prison on 33 total counts of murder, sexual assault, sodomy and indecent liberties with a minor. Gacy attempted to appeal, but was executed on May 10, 1994.  

Works Cited

1. Sullivan, T. (2014). Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders. Pinnacle.