EP. 88 ILLINOIS - John Wayne Gacy (PT. 3): Arrest, Trial, & Execution
01:32:54 Share

He's the most terrifying serial killer you've never heard of. Haddon Clark has confessed to several murders, but investigators say he could have over 100 victims. At the center of the mayhem, a cellmate of Haddon's that was able to get key evidence into Haddon's murder spree across America,

because Haddon thought he was Jesus Christ. Born Evil, the Serial Killer and the Savior, an ID true crime event. Premieres Monday, September 2nd at 9. Watch on ID or stream on Max. Set your DVR.

At Grand Canyon University, we believe in equal opportunity and the American dream starts with purpose. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, GCU's learning environments are designed for supportive networking and collaboration. With over 330 academic programs, GCU provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams.

The pursuit to serve others is yours. Find your purpose at GCU. Private. Christian. Affordable. Visit gcu.edu.

Warning. The following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned.

In our last two episodes, we have covered the wild case of the infamous serial killer John Wayne Gacy, the killer clown who sexually assaulted and murdered 33 young men in Chicago back in the 1970s. In part one, we covered Gacy and his upbringing. Then in part two, we covered the murders.

By 1978, there were 29 bodies on John Wayne Gacy's property in total, and 26 of them were cramped below the floorboards of his small home. But even though his crawlspace was completely full, his desire to kill was stronger than ever. So starting in June of 1978, Gacy found a new method of disposing of his victims, throwing their bodies into the Des Plaines River.

At the end of last week's episode, Gacy had thrown three boys into the river, bringing his victim count to 32. But there's still one more life he would take before his reign of terror would come to an end. One more boy he would throw in the Des Plaines River. And this murder, the murder of 15-year-old Robert Piest, would finally lead to Gacy's downfall.

Soon enough, the police department would zero in on the man responsible for the missing boys around Chicago. And what they would find inside of his unassuming home would shock not only America, but the entire world. And that discovery would soon earn Gacy the title of the most prolific serial killer in American history. Join us on this episode as we walk you through Gacy's final murder and everything else that followed.

This is the story of John Wayne Gacy's arrest, trial, and execution. I'm Courtney Brown. And I'm Colin Brown. And you're listening to Murder in America. ♪♪

At the start of 1978, John Wayne Gacy was at the height of his career. Not only was he organizing parades for his community, shaking hands with the First Lady of the United States and climbing the political ladder in Chicago, but his construction company, PDM Contractors, was making more money than ever before. I went down to the police station around...

10, 11 o'clock in the morning. He said, Mr. Kozlizak wants to talk to you. I said, I'll wait a few minutes. 11 came, 12 came. I said, look, I've got to go because I've got things to do. And I don't know what they were waiting for.

At this point in his life, nearly everyone in the greater Chicago area knew who John Gacy was, and most people thought highly of him. He was the social, heavy-set, jovial guy who threw these elaborate barbecues, the guy who dressed up as Pogo the Clown for sick children.

The guy who was always giving jobs to young men in need. But what the public didn't know was that in his free time, John Wayne Gacy was taking to the streets and preying on vulnerable young men around Chicago. And he would do so by driving around the areas where transients were known to frequent. Then once he spotted someone, he would pull up next to them and offer them something appealing. Sometimes that would be drugs and alcohol. And other times it was something as innocent as food or a job.

But once these boys got into Gacy's car, that was it for them. They were never going to see the light of day again. You see, Gacy didn't view these boys as people. To him, they were merely just a component of a sick game that he needed in order to get off. When you're busier than hell, you want to satisfy yourself more. Could it be that through seeking out different people for sex, that I developed a hatred for them?

You brought them for an hour, you brought them for two hours, you brought their body to do what you want with it. They're, to me, they're not a human being.

It's like you going to the store. If you buy something, you bring it home and you decide you don't like it and you want to break it, it's yours to break because you paid for it. And once they made it back to his home on Somerdale Avenue, he would often play a friendly handcuff trick on the boys, quickly slipping the cuffs around their wrists when they weren't paying attention. Try to get out of those, he would tell them, knowing good and well that they wouldn't be able to.

And soon enough, these young men would come to the horrifying realization that they were about to die. In some cases, Gacy would tie these men to torture devices and he would rape them for hours on end. Others would come over and dig a hole for Gacy thinking they were getting paid for it, only to find out that the hole they dug was meant for them.

I'm sure every boy had a unique and horrifying experience while they were under Gacy's roof, but most of them died the exact same way. After Gacy was finished with the sexual assault, he would put a rope around their neck. Then he would use a tourniquet to tighten the rope, and he watched as the life slowly left their eyes. Once they were dead and Gacy was sexually satisfied,

he would throw their bodies into the crawlspace of his home. By 1978, there were 29 bodies on his property. The cold and wet crawlspace was now a mass grave, crowded with dozens of young men in all different stages of decomposition. And once the crawlspace was completely filled, Gacy started throwing his victims into the Des Plaines River. The first to be thrown in was Timothy O'Rourke, then Frank Landigen, and James Mazzara.

And even when their bodies were found, no one suspected that Gacy was responsible He had finally found a new method of disposing his victims that couldn't be traced back to him He even planned on pouring concrete into the crawlspace so his victims there could be a little secret forever

John Gacy had no plans of getting caught, and why would he? After years of murdering dozens of young men, he felt invincible. After all, he was well connected in Chicago. So, even if people were suspicious of him, he could just talk his way out of it, like he always did. But as we see with a lot of serial killers, when they start feeling invincible, they also start getting sloppy. And that's exactly what would happen on December 11th, 1978.

15-year-old Rob Piest was the youngest of two siblings and he came from a very tight-knit family. According to everyone that knew Rob, he was a great kid, a hard worker, and he was well-liked by everyone. Rob was also athletic and a very talented gymnast at his high school. And during this time in Rob's life, he was really just exploring his interests, figuring out what he liked.

At the time, he had recently discovered that he was into photography. But as we all know, cameras are expensive, so he decided to get a part-time job as a stock boy at a pharmacy so he could save up for a new camera. It was a cold and snowy day in Chicago on December 11th, 1978, and the employees at Neeson Pharmacy quickly ran inside of the store to get warm and start their shift.

15-year-old Kim Byers was working the cash register that day, but she couldn't seem to get warm as her register was right in front of the door where customers were coming in and out. So she walks over to her friend and co-worker, Rob Piest. Rob was near the back of the store, stocking the shelves when Kim approached him and asked if she could wear his jacket. And being the kind of person Rob was, he was happy to give it to her.

Kem then walked back up to the front, slipped on his blue jacket and continued working. Hours passed and it seemed to be an average day with many unassuming customers coming in and out of the store. But one of the people that stepped inside seemed to catch her attention. It was a middle-aged man wearing a flannel and he was just walking around taking a look at different parts of the building.

Curious, Kim turns to her boss and asks, "Who's that?" "Oh, that guy? That's just a contractor. He might be doing some remodeling for us here in the store." Kim shrugged it off and continued working at the register. And eventually she saw the man walk out of the pharmacy. Moments later, Rob Piest runs up to her and says, "Hey, can I have my jacket really quick? I'm gonna go talk to that contractor outside about a job."

Kim takes it off, hands it to Rob, and he quickly makes his way outside. And Rob's mom was actually waiting out in the parking lot to pick him up when he came up to her and told her that he was going to go talk to the contractor. And he said it would only be a few minutes. So she waited and waited, but Rob never came back. Confused, she went into the store thinking that maybe he just went back inside.

But as she strolled through the aisles looking for her son, she couldn't find him anywhere. So she walks up to Kem Byers, who was still working at the register. "Hey, do you know where Rob is? I can't seem to find him." Kem looks around a little and tells his mom, "No, I don't see him either, but earlier he went outside to talk to a contractor about a job." Rob's mom looked confused.

He wasn't out in the parking lot and he wasn't in the store either. So where could he have gone? He was pretty excited about it and I told him there'd be no problem, that I'd wait for him. And that was the last I saw of him. Robert's mother tells Ken, "Well, if you do see him, please tell him to call me and I'll come back to pick him up. It's my 46th birthday and we're having a celebration later."

But the store would eventually close and Rob never came back. And just when Kim was about to leave, she hears the store's phone ring. When she picks it up, it's Rob's mother. Hey, did Rob ever come back? Kim could tell that she sounded worried. And she had to tell her, no, Rob hadn't come back. And almost immediately, Rob's mother knew something was wrong.

he would have never skipped out on her birthday, especially without telling her. That's just not the kind of boy he was. And by 11:30 that night, when she still hadn't heard from him, she went to the police to file a missing persons report. We knew something was wrong. So from there we went to the police and filed a missing persons report. Rob's parents told the police that they were very concerned because

He would have never done something like this. Rob was responsible and a big family guy. He wouldn't have gone missing on his mother's birthday on his own free will. Well, we were just in shock. We couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. We didn't know what happened to him. We knew it was not of his own choosing because he loved us. He loved his home. If there was any way for him to come home, he would have.

So we knew something really had happened. We had no idea at that time that it would turn into something like this.

And unlike all of the other boys, the police actually decided to take this case seriously. Mostly because Robert came from a good family. So they didn't just automatically assume that he was a runaway. The very next day, a detective named Rafael Tovar from the Des Plaines Police Department was assigned to his case. And soon enough, there were missing persons flyers of Rob all over Chicago. The flyers read...

Missing youth, Robert J. Piest, DOB 031663, 5'8", 140 pounds, brown hair worn in shag style, slim build, wearing light blue hooded down-filled jacket, tan t-shirt, tan Levi pants, brown leather belt, brown suede type shoes. Last seen at around 9 p.m. on December 11, 1978. Any information, please contact the Youth Bureau immediately.

And the first step in finding a missing person is tracing their last steps. So an officer went out to Neeson Pharmacy to speak with the employees and get a list of everyone who had been in the store on the day of Rob's disappearance. The owner and the employees all got together and made a list of everyone they could remember.

The officer had a long list of people to go through and he spent the day looking through all of their criminal records to see if anyone stood out. And one of the last names on the list caught his eye. The name was John Wayne Gacy. According to the employees at the drugstore, he came by that day to get an estimate on the remodeling he wanted to do at the store.

On the outside, John Wayne Gacy looked like a successful businessman, harmless even. But his record showed otherwise. When the officer typed his name in, it showed that he served time in Iowa for sodomy. Immediately, the officers knew that this was the guy they needed to look into.

The head of the police department was a man named Joseph Kozinchak, and he decided to go by Gacy's home and ask him to come into the station for questioning. They knocked on his door for several minutes, but Gacy wouldn't answer. After a few minutes, they walked around back and saw him through a window, and eventually he came to the door to speak with them. Now, they did not search the house at that time or look through the house? No.

According, afterwards, they're claiming that they came to the front door of the house and knocked on the door and that I hid from them. Why didn't you let them in at that time when they were knocking at the front door?

There was no way I could have heard them. I was way in the back of the house, in the rec room, on the telephone. When they finally walked around the side of the house, I could look out the picture window, see them there, because I was on the phone. And they could see me clearly, too, sitting on the couch on the telephone, because I was talking to my sister in regards to a death in our family. So I told her that I would call her back, got up, went to the door, and he introduced himself as Cozen, Zach, and Piquel, and they wanted to come in and talk to me about...

Robert Peast. And I had told him that I had not had any conversation with him, but I said, if you want to talk to me, then come back there. Lieutenant Kozinsak, the asshole from Des Plaines Police Department, talked to me about the Peace Boy disappearance. He asked me if I'd come down and give him a witness statement. I told him I didn't have time, that I had just had a death in the family, that I'm waiting for a call from my mother in Arkansas.

Gacy almost seemed a little annoyed that the officers were wasting his time when he just had a death in the family. Gacy would later say, "Cousin Czach had no respect for the dead." I said, "You're very rude at a time of death." And I just told him, you know, when I got time, I'd get down there. I said, "I'll come down later." How much later? I don't know. When I get down there, I'll be down there. After this interaction, Joseph was suspicious to say the least, and he decided to assign a detective to keep an eye on Gacy at his home.

So, the detective goes out to Summerdale Avenue, and he's keeping his distance in this patrol car when, all of a sudden, he sees Gacy's car pulling out of the driveway and speeding off down the road. So, the detective follows him home, and it wasn't until they made it a few miles down the road when the detective realized that it wasn't Gacy driving the car, but one of his co-workers. So, he rushes back to his house, but by the time he arrives, Gacy is nowhere to be seen.

And I have to imagine that he's freaking out at this point. I mean, there are 29 bodies in his home, and the cops are not only wanting him to come into the station, but they're sitting outside of his house watching his every move. So did he pull this off so he could get rid of something? We don't know. What we do know is that Gacy did not want to talk to the police, and he tried to put it off, but he knew he had to get it over with eventually.

He finally ends up coming into the station later that next morning at around 3 a.m., but at that hour, the detectives aren't even working. The people that were working at the time, however, said that they couldn't help but notice that when Gacy walked through the doors, he was completely covered in mud.

It almost looked like he had just walked out of a swamp. There was also mud all over the tires, floorboards, and bumper of his car. So where had he been? Gacy tells the people working that he was there to talk to Kozenchak, but they informed him that he wasn't there at the moment, so he'd have to come back later. And with that, Gacy leaves the police station.

I drove over to the disciplines police station because I know they weren't waiting for me. Who'd you see there? I said, I'm here to see Lutero. He said, oh, he left hours ago. I says, well, okay. Tell him I'll be back in the morning.

I love iPhone games, and I have to tell you about one that I've been playing a lot lately. Never get tired of a good whodunit? Then you'll love June's Journey. In the game, you play as June Parker, an amateur detective on a quest to solve the murder of her sister and uncover her family's many secrets. You'll need to find objects devilishly hidden and intricate scenes full of little details before the timer runs out. A variety of game modes and puzzles await.

Whether you're craving a good mystery or you just need to get away from reality for a while, June's Journey is the perfect game for you. You can sit back, relax, and let your inner Sherlock escape to the glamorous, roaring twenties. In the game, you'll search for hidden clues to solve mystery after mystery across thousands of vivid scenes. With new chapters every week, there's always a new case waiting to be cracked. Now you can chat and play with or against other players by joining a detective club. You'll even get the chance to play in a detective league to put your skills to the test.

I love the game. It's a beautifully illustrated game. It really, really is fun. It can help pass the time. For me, I like playing at night before I go to bed because it helps me get away from all the other stressors in my life. And with 30 million fans across the world playing June's Journey, join the family today and download the game.

So, are you ready to solve this mystery? Find your inner detective today and download June's Journey. It's available on Android and iOS mobile devices as well as on PC through Facebook games. June's Journey. Now, let's get back to today's story. The next morning on December 13th, two days after Robert's disappearance, Gacy comes back into the police station but Kozenzak still isn't there.

I went down to the police station around 10, 11 o'clock in the morning. They said, Mr. Kozlizak wants to talk to you. I said, all right, I'll wait a few minutes. 11 came, 12 came. I said, look, I've got to go because I've got things to do. And I don't know what they were waiting for. Rafael Tovar, the detective working the case, however, is there.

So he keeps Gacy company while Kozenzak rushes over to the station. You see, Gacy wasn't under arrest, so technically he didn't have to be there. But these guys had a good feeling that he was responsible for Rob's disappearance. So Raphael does his best to play on Gacy's ego, talking with him all about his success and accomplishments until Kozenzak finally gets there.

But what Gacy didn't know is that while the investigators are questioning him, a search warrant is being executed at his house. The thing of it is, is that on that same day, they held me there for nine hours. And while holding me there for nine hours, they executed a search warrant. The first search warrant was executed on December 13th.

That is the search warrant where they claim they went through the house looking for Robert Peast. It was written up to be looking for Robert Peast, and Robert Peast wasn't there. The probable cause for this search warrant was that Gacy was one of the last people to interact with Robert Peast. And they were hoping that in searching the home, they would find him, or at least his body. But when they searched Gacy's home, there was no sign of Robert Peast.

Instead, they found a number of items that led them to believe that this case was a lot bigger than they originally thought. The first thing officers noted of Gacy's home was that it was very eclectic. He had lots of plants, nice furniture, art covering the walls, and lots of pictures of clowns. In the corner of one room, Gacy had a pool table and a tiki bar stocked with all different kinds of drinks.

His bedroom was covered in 1970s-style wooden panels, and there were pictures of clowns above his bed and around his room. But these clowns weren't fun and nice clowns that you see at local fairs. These were mean-looking clowns. On the walls of Gacy's office were pictures of him shaking hands with the mayor of Chicago. Alongside that was the picture of him and Mrs. Rosalind Carter.

He seemed to be pretty organized, with bulletin boards covered in future projects, house plans, and little reminders that read, plan ahead. At first glance, it seemed like Gacy was a normal and accomplished man, if you were to ignore those creepy clown pictures. But after a little digging, they would find that that definitely was not the case. By the pool table, hidden away was a large dildo, with his victim's DNA still crusted on it.

They found wallets of young boys, two different IDs, and a class ring with the initials JAS. Up in the attic, they found porn, shackles, handcuffs, and books that were titled The Gay Love Letters, Pretty Boys Must Die, Sex Between Men and Boys, and lastly, Pedophilia.

The investigators then went into the living room closet and they poked their head down into the crawlspace. They assumed that if Robert P's body was down there, they would see a fresh mound of dirt. The first search warrant was executed on December 13th. However, what is strange is you had 20 trained officers that came into the house, supposedly went down in the crawlspace, crawled around. There was no mounds of dirt. There was no odor. There was no nothing.

I never feared anybody going down to Crawl Space. But they didn't. So they closed the Crawl Space door and continued on with their search. Little did they know, there were 26 bodies down there, buried beneath the dirt. The last piece of evidence found in this search warrant was a receipt for Neeson Pharmacy, where Robert Piest worked. And it was dated on the very day Rob went missing.

And even though this receipt was something, it still didn't prove that Gacy killed him. And with that, they left Gacy's property with their evidence without ever finding the bodies in the crawlspace. And the investigators felt a little defeated. They were hoping to find something that could lead them to Rob P's body, but they didn't.

And back at the station, Gacy was denying ever even talking to the 15-year-old. I told him that I had left missions and I had never seen the boy. I left it at that. I never talked to him. After hours of questioning, Gacy was ready to leave the police station. And since they didn't find anything to arrest him during the search, they couldn't hold him any longer.

Eventually, Gacy tells them, charge me or let me go. Went into the police station finally on the next day. This was after Kozinski and Paquette were at the house. They had asked me to come in and give me an account of my whereabouts. So, they let him go. And if Gacy didn't feel invincible before, imagine how invincible he felt now. The police raided his home.

which was filled with the bodies of young boys. Yet, they didn't find anything. After this, the investigators did take the evidence that they had and they began to look through it. They knew they were on to something. They just needed to keep building their case against John Wayne Gacy. They also knew that they needed to keep a close eye on him from this point forward.

So they assigned four officers to keep a 24-7 surveillance on him. On December 13th, 1978, day three of their investigation, Kozenchak assigned Bob Schultz and Ron Robinson to watch Gacy from noon to midnight, while Dave Hochmeister and Mike Albrecht watched him from midnight to noon. And it was supposed to be an undercover surveillance, but it wasn't long until Gacy caught on that he was being followed.

So the police department decided to change it up, and instead of trying to be secretive about tailing him, they started making it very obvious that they were watching him at all times. The officers would later say that Gacy was known to drive very fast and erratic, so it wasn't easy keeping up with him. The police had focused in on you as being the suspect and the missing boy, and eventually... Well, they were following me around. Fouling you? Yeah, constantly. And on December 13th,

I had made a statement to the police department and from that date forward they had me under surveillance. The only trouble is that the Mickey Mouse way they were doing it, they had two cars following me day and night and they had trouble keeping up with me so I used to go out to the car in the morning and tell them where I was going so in case I got lost. Because at the time I was doing five construction jobs in five parts of the city.

And after a few days, Gacy almost befriended the officers. On December 15th, Gacy went to a bar called the Moose Lodge, and the officers surveilling him sat at a nearby table keeping an eye on him. They noted that, upon walking into the bar, everyone was really excited to see Gacy.

Many people even got up to give him a hug. It was clear that he was well liked by everyone. A few minutes after the officers sat down at their table, a waitress came up to them with beers and said, "The man over there just bought these for you," pointing to Gacy.

Afterwards, Gacy even invited the officers to have a meal with him at a nearby restaurant called The Pot and Pan. The officers would later say that it was strange because Gacy was honestly a really likable guy, and they had to keep reminding themselves that he was most likely a murderer. Gacy's attorney, Sam Amirante, would later say that at first, it seemed like Gacy kind of liked that the police were following him.

It was almost like a little game, and all of the attention was on him. Constantly, I was under surveillance. I could have ditched him any one of the number of times he got in the way. But I was constantly stopping and trying to help him. They were slowing me down. He said, well, goddammit, you never stop. I said, well, I got things to do.

I got a job going in Aurora, Illinois. I've got one in Waukegan, Illinois. I've got three in Chicago. And I says, "It takes time and I've got to move around all the time." And I think Gacy liked it because he genuinely thought he was untouchable. He liked the control he had over the situation. When he would notice that the officers were tailing him, Gacy would start driving erratically through the streets.

making left and right turns at the last minute and driving up to 50 miles an hour down these small neighborhoods. When they would get on the highways, Gacy would floor it, swerving between cars. He would drive so erratically that the officers following him had to drive on the shoulders just so they could keep up with him.

But Ron Robinson would later say that it didn't matter where he went, they were always right behind him. If Gacy stopped to get coffee, they would go inside and get a cup too. If he stopped at a bar, they were just a few seats down, keeping an eye on him. And eventually, people started noticing, and they would ask him, you know, John, why do you always have these cops following you?

But Gacy would play it off and he would say, "Oh, they're just the FBI and they're tailing me because they think I'm involved in the drug scene around Chicago." I guess that excuse sounded a lot better than that he was suspected of a murder. At one point, he even told people that the officers were his bodyguards.

But after a while, Gacy becomes annoyed with the police presence. At first, he was this jovial, smiling guy who thought he was invincible, but after a few days, it was clear that it was taking a toll on him. He looked disheveled and exhausted, and he even tells one of the officers that he's hired someone to start following them around to see how they like it. Gacy told them that all he had to do was give them one call, and they could all be taken out at a moment's notice. The

The officers knew Gacy was all talk, so they didn't take these threats seriously. After all, he was known to be a liar. At one point, he even tried convincing the officers that Rob Peast was in Wisconsin, and he had seen him with his own two eyes. He was safe, and the officers were wasting their time. It was clear that Gacy was breaking under the pressure, so much so that he even had his attorneys, Leroy Stevens and Sam Amirante, file a suit against the state's attorney's office and the Des Plaines Police Department for harassment.

His attorneys would later say that they did this because they genuinely thought Gacy was innocent. Now, something else that is important to note is that during their surveillance of Gacy, investigators questioned both Michael Rossi and David Cram, the two men in their early 20s who were Gacy's right-hand men. And during this questioning, they told investigators that Gacy often had them dig trenches down in the crawlspace of his home.

And they said that if they ever deviated from the place they were supposed to dig, Gacy would scream at them. They also said that they dumped hundreds of pounds of lime down into the crawlspace to help with the odor. Gacy would later claim that the reason he had them do that wasn't because of the bodies down there. It was from the flooding.

The subdivision where the Summerdale house is located is built on a clay field and when it rained the rain would come down from both ends and would flood from from one house to the other.

The crawl space would fill up with water. In 1976, I asked a landscaper, I said, what do you do for that sour odor of clay? And he said, spread white lime, just regular masonry lime. On the ground, he said, it'll sweeten up the clay and you won't have that odor. It's sort of like what charcoal does in filtering things. That's why the lime was spread in the crawl space. How much lime was spread down there eventually? I think 700 or 800 pounds of it.

When authorities heard that these boys had dumped 800 pounds of lime into the crawlspace, they knew they made a huge mistake by not digging it up during the first search warrant. So now, their main priority was to get a second search warrant of Gacy's home. But the issue with this is that they would need fresh probable cause to get another warrant.

And that probable cause was just around the corner. December 19th was a very cold day in Chicago, so Gacy decided to invite the surveilling officers into his house for a bite to eat. They'd never been inside of Gacy's home before, so they decided to take him up on the offer. After they stepped inside, one of the officers, Bob Schultz, excused himself, telling Gacy he needed to use the restroom.

And once he was in there, Schultz said that the heater kicked on. And as soon as it did, he was blasted with the unmistakable smell of death. Bob Schultz had dealt with many dead bodies in his line of work. So as soon as he left Gacy's house that day, he went straight to his supervisors to tell them about that smell. But the smell alone wasn't enough to get another warrant. So they decided to take another look at the evidence they received during the first search.

And they start with the receipt found in Gacy's home, the one from Neeson Pharmacy where Robert worked. The issue with this receipt is that, yes, it proved Gacy was there that day, but it still didn't connect him to Robert's disappearance. That was until they spoke with his co-worker, Kim Byers. If you remember, Kim borrowed Robert's blue jacket on the day he disappeared.

And she would later tell investigators that while she was in the pharmacy that night, she went to the back of the store to get some film developed. And once she was finished, she put the receipt inside of the pocket of Robert's jacket. This was huge news to investigators because that receipt was the one found in Gacy's trash can.

which proved that Robert Piest had been inside of Gacy's home. In addition to the receipt, investigators also found that the two IDs in Gacy's home belonged to two missing young boys in Chicago, and the class ring with the initials JAS belonged to yet another missing boy, John Sick.

And with all of this evidence, investigators were finally getting ready to get their second search warrant. In the meantime, Gacy knew that everything was about to come crashing down. He could feel it. That second search warrant was just around the corner, and his secrets were about to be exposed to the entire world.

Spiraling, he decides to call his lawyer and he tells him, "Hey, I want to get together. I have some stuff that I want to share with you." Gacy was ready to come clean, so he drives over to Sam Amirante's office with the surveilling officers right behind him. And when he walks inside, he tells them that he needs a drink. Sam pours Gacy a tall glass of wine and he chugs it all at once.

Sitting on the table in front of them was a newspaper with Rob P's picture on the front page. Gacy looks down at the photo for a few minutes and then looks back at Sam and says, "This boy is dead." There's a deafening silence that fills the room. Gacy continues and says, "I've been a judge, jury, and executioner for many, many people, and I'm ready to tell you everything."

Gacy's attorneys tried to prepare themselves for what they were about to hear, lining up their cigarettes and wine bottles. But what Gacy told them next was something they never expected. Over the next few hours, Gacy told them everything. The kidnappings, the rapes, the murders, the crawlspace. He said it all. His confession was coming out quickly, like he had been holding it in his entire life.

Then at the end, once he was finished, Gacy laid down on the couch and fell asleep. Almost as if he could finally rest now that his dark and heavy secrets were out in the open. Secrets that he no longer had to keep hidden inside. As Gacy slept on the couch, his lawyers, Sam and Leroy, looked at each other in disbelief. They couldn't believe what they had just heard from their client.

Sam Amirante was just 30 years old. He had just left the public defender's office and Gacy was his first private client. He would later say that this night took years off his life. Not knowing what to do next, Sam and Leroy find a psychiatrist to meet with Gacy the next morning. Then they invite these surveilling officers who are still waiting outside into their office.

They couldn't tell the officers exactly what had been discussed during Gacy's confession because of attorney-client privilege. But they were worried that Gacy was a flight risk. So they told the officers, whatever you do, do not let Gacy leave. If he tries to leave, shoot out his tires. The officers were confused. And they tell Sam, we can't just shoot out his tires for no reason. What happened last night?

But Sam is adamant. I can't tell you. Just, whatever you do, make sure he doesn't leave." Gacy wakes up the next morning at about 6:00 AM to find that he's still in Sam Amirante's office. He quickly sits up and starts grabbing all of his things, saying, "I gotta get out of here. I have things I need to take care of." And with that, he hops in his car and takes off down the road, with the surveilling officers right behind him. And they notice that Gacy is driving more erratically than ever before.

And the entire time that he's driving, he's popping Valium into his mouth like candy. The officers would later say that he was driving so erratically that they could have given him a citation right then and there. But they didn't because they were so close to getting their search warrant, and they didn't want that to interfere with the investigation.

Along the drive, Gacy eventually stops at a shell station, and while he's pumping gas, the officers watch as he strikes up a conversation with a young boy standing nearby. They then see Gacy hand the boy a bag of marijuana. I reached in my pocket, I had marijuana. Three row joints. I said, well, I got people following me, I said, I can't be carrying it. I slipped it into his pocket.

After giving the kid weed, Gacy gets back in his car and he decides to make his way over to the cemetery to visit his father. I don't know what's happening. I'm scared to death that something happens to me. I left here. I don't want to drive out to the cemetery to my dad's grave. While Gacy was making his way over to visit his dad, the surveilling officer told their supervisors about the marijuana exchange.

And because that was illegal at the time, they gave them the go-ahead to make an arrest. Soon enough, the cops warmed Gacy, guns drawn, ready to finally bring him to jail. As we were heading out into Niles, at Oakton, and Milwaukee Avenue,

As soon as Gacy was in handcuffs, he decided to crack a joke and he turned to Ron, one of the officers that had been following him, and he said, What's going on, Ron? I thought we were friends.

The officers were well aware that this was just a marijuana charge and they weren't going to be able to do much with that, but at least they had him in custody. And luckily for the police, because of the photo receipt found in Gacy's home and the decomposition smell inside of the bathroom, investigators were finally granted their second search warrant. And as soon as the warrant was signed off,

the investigators were instructed to quote, get that son of a bitch, end quote. Soon enough, the quiet working class neighborhood on Somerdale Avenue was about to be changed forever as crime scene investigators descended upon Gacy's home. And the first place they look is the infamous crawl space. The evidence technician who was in charge of getting down into the small cramped space was a man named Dan Gentee,

Dressed head to toe in protective gear, Dan gets down on his hands and knees and begins crawling around the two and a half foot space. The air down there was thick and moist and it smelled of death. Dan had no idea what he would find down there or even where to start looking. But up ahead of him, he notices a dip in the ground that is filled with muddied water. So he decides to start there.

Dan shines his flashlight into the muddied water and he sees hundreds of little red worms crawling around. Once the light hit the worms, however, they all scurried beneath the surface and continue feeding on whatever is down there. Dan then grabs his entrenching tool and shoves it down into the puddle and once it reaches the bottom, he hears a clink. He then pulls the tool upward to bring up what he found.

There was an eerie silence among the investigators, waiting to see what it was. After removing the mud from the object, it was clear that they were looking at a left femur with no flesh attached, meaning it had been there for a while.

Now, keep in mind they thought they were looking for the body of Robert Piest, but given the fact that this bone had no flesh, it definitely wasn't Robert's. He hadn't been dead long enough to be skeletonized. The crime scene investigators then moved to another corner of the crawlspace and start digging there, and it wasn't long until they found another left femur bone.

Now, obviously, one person can't have two left femurs, so they knew right then and there that they were dealing with multiple bodies. After this discovery, Dan called his sergeant and said, Don, I think we have a basement full of kids here.

Everyone that had been investigating this case was completely blown away by what they had found that day. And by the end of that first night, investigators had uncovered three bodies beneath the crawlspace. And soon enough, the entire world was following the case of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. In Des Plaines, Illinois, near Chicago, a man who served time in prison for sex crimes was let out.

Today they found the bodies of at least three young boys buried under his house. He is charged with murder. Here's Jim Cummings. Police have been watching John Gacy's suburban Chicago home for the past ten days. They became suspicious when 15-year-old Robert Peast disappeared after he allegedly was last seen with Gacy. This morning police searched Gacy's home and found the decomposed remains of three bodies in a dirt crawlspace under the house. They suspect there are several more bodies buried here.

It's suspected because of the looks of the area down in the crawl space. There are some other mounds and appears to be more there.

with courtney and i's schedules and how we're always on the go we don't have a lot of time to do the things we want to do like read but that's why we love audible audible offers an incredible selection of audiobooks across every genre from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs mysteries thrillers wellness and more listen to exciting new titles like monsters and how to tame them from kevin hart

Even if being a better you isn't something you regularly think about, Kevin Hart's signature real talk and wit will teach you how to tame your negative thoughts and patterns, knowing your death experience required. As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the bestsellers. And all Audible members get access to a growing selection of audiobooks, Audible originals, and podcasts that are included with every membership.

You can listen to all you want and more get added every month. I love the Audible app. It is so easy to use and I can take it with me on the go. I'm actually about to go on a bike ride later today and I'm listening to an audio book right now in honor of the spooky season. I'm listening to a book about ghost stories from Pennsylvania. And if you like reading, but you don't have time to read, Audible is a great way to catch up on some great literature. So check out Kevin Hart's Monsters and How to Tame Them today on Audible.

New members can try it for free for 30 days. Just visit audible.com slash state or text state to 500-500. That's audible.com slash state or text state to 500-500 to try Audible for free for 30 days. Audible.com slash state. And now, let's get back to today's story. While investigators were going through Gacy's crawlspace, he was back at the police station sitting in an interrogation room.

While he was in there, one of the surveilling officers walked into the room. Gacy had a look of defeat upon his face. And he asks, have y'all gone into the crawlspace? To which the officer responds, yes, John, we have. And to everyone's surprise, Gacy then says, I am never going to spend a day in jail for this. John Wayne Gacy thought he was invincible to the very end.

because of his connections, he still thought he would get away with this, even though they were currently pulling the bodies of children out of his home. And at this point, his attorney, Sam Amirante, was telling Gacy not to talk, but he didn't care. He was ready to tell his story. Gacy loved to control situations, and he was surely going to do that here. And the detectives are excited.

A lot of times people want to stop talking completely or lawyer up. But not Gacy. He was ready to tell them everything. And here is what he had to say. Well, do you want me to rationalize it and explain it to you? Okay. Greyhound busboy is number one. Gacy refers to his first victim, Tim McCoy, as the Greyhound busboy. Since I got over it with the first one, I just kept getting away with him. That's why I didn't stop.

Then one by one, he confesses to the murders, including the murder of Robert Piest, which we will talk about more in a little bit. But Gacy told the detectives all about how he would drive around Chicago and pick up boys in his black Oldsmobile. My encounters were always by happenstance. If you pull up at the stoplight and there's somebody standing there waiting for a bus, if you give them a ride, if you ask them whether, you know,

And he claimed that he never pretended to be a cop, but given they found around 50 realistic-looking police badges in his home, that's hard to believe.

which looked like a squad car, but I never impersonated a cop and never said I was a cop. However, there was occasions when I picked up people and they would say, "You're a cop, huh? I'll do anything you want. Just don't bust me." I got a lot of free sex just by letting them plant their own seed and letting them grow it. He also told them about how most of the boys voluntarily came home with him, wanting money or drugs.

Then once they were there, he would do the handcuff trick. And lastly, he told them about the last moments of their life.

when he would slip the rope around their neck and watch them as they were slowly strangled to death. Take a rope, tie it around your wrist, just with a slipknot. Okay, and when you put the first slipknot in, then lay a pencil on it, and then put another slipknot right over it.

And here's what he had to say about storing their bodies in his home.

To make the excavation process go by a little quicker, Gacy even drew investigators a diagram for where each of the bodies could be located in the crawlspace. He drew a big rectangle on a piece of paper, and within that rectangle, he started drawing even smaller rectangles, marking where they could find a body.

At the end of it, there were nearly 30 small rectangles covering the piece of paper, and Gacy's confession went on for hours. By the time that they looked at the clock, it was already 6 a.m. the following day. His lawyer, Sam, said that Gacy genuinely thought by telling the police everything and being honest with them.

that he could possibly get away with this thing. But that wouldn't be the case, obviously. After his confession, Gacy was booked into jail without bond. His mugshot shows a picture of him flashing a smile for the camera. And with that, he was taken away while investigators continued to unearth the bodies underneath his home.

Over the next few days, crime scene technicians were hard at work, wearing their jumpsuits and gas masks, looking at every inch of that house trying to find evidence. They were taking the walls down, lifting up the carpet, pulling up the floorboards, everything. And now that word got out that community leader John Wayne Gacy had several bodies in his home, there were hundreds of people on Summerdale Avenue, ready to watch as crime scene investigators pulled evidence out of the home. The curious lined the ropes around John Gacy's home.

Drawn to the scene by reports of bodies being dug out of the crawlspace. And boy, was there a lot to see. Day by day, just when it seemed like this nightmare was coming to an end, more and more bodies were found in that crawlspace. They found two more bodies today in Des Plaines, Illinois, in the house of a 36-year-old convicted sex offender.

And this miserable search will go on. Police investigators using sledgehammers, axes and chainsaws got at John Gacy's suburban Chicago home today. They have found bodies every place Gacy told them to look. Murder suspect has allegedly told police they will find the remains of 20 more young men and boys here. As soon as investigators finished pulling one body out, someone else was finding another. And one by one, spectators outside watched in horror

as dozens of bodies were carried out on a stretcher into a marked vehicle waiting outside. And because they were unearthing a mass grave of young boys inside of a small space, the smell inside of the home was unbearable. Everyone wore gas masks and many technicians had to take breaks so they wouldn't get sick.

If you look at the pictures from inside Gacy's home at this point, you'll see that the investigators ripped up nearly all of the flooring in his home, and most of the bodies they were pulling out were skeletons, meaning they had been there for a while. But some of the bodies were more fresh, with skin and tissue still attached.

Some of the bodies were found lying on top of each other. Others were found in what seemed to be sexual positions. And one thing to note is that none of the victims were dismembered, but they did find a number of them with their underwear shoved into their throats. Others still had the rope that killed them tied around their neck.

Here is some audio from the crime scene technicians working the scene. We got a couple more pads. We're going to need a body bag down here. Down here? You want it down there?

And as you can imagine, the community of Norwood Park was in complete shock that a member of their community, a leader in their community, could commit such heinous crimes. This was a working class neighborhood where good people lived. Things like that just didn't happen there. The idea that a serial killer was living amongst them was hard to fathom, especially since John Wayne Gacy was so well-liked. But there were some people watching the news that weren't surprised at all.

Some of Gacy's surviving victims, like Jeffrey Rignell, who was kidnapped after Gacy chloroformed him, was screaming at the television in disbelief. He would later speak to the public about his experience and the lack of attention police gave his case. I found myself about 5, 5.30 in the morning on the steps right by Lincoln Park, half-dressed, my face completely burned.

So police took the matter very, very lightly. And I felt that, you know, it wasn't a light matter. I'm just thankful that I woke up in the park instead of underneath his...

And as word spread about his arrest, people eventually started finding out about his past conviction. If you remember, Gacy was convicted of sodomy back in 1968, and he was supposed to be in prison for 10 years, meaning that if he would have served his full sentence, he would have still been in prison at the time of his arrest.

Instead, he only served 18 months. And when the public found out about this, they were furious. If he would have just served his full sentence, those young men would have still been there that day. A careful examination of police and other official documents by Eyewitness News reveals that John Gacy came into contact with authorities more than half a dozen times, allegedly involved in crimes ranging from kidnapping to rape and assault.

Days into the excavation, investigators were still pulling bodies out of the crawlspace. And every time they would find a body, they would mark it with a flag.

Sometimes they would have to put six flags down in a single day. Police found six more bodies today. That brings the total at the house to 21. And as more and more bodies were being discovered, families from all around America were calling in and coming to the scene to see if their missing loved one was among them. One of these families that stood outside of Gacy's home during the excavation was the family of Rick Johnston.

went missing in the summer of 1976. News of the multiple murders has brought scores of people to the scene, some interested in finding missing loved ones. My brother's been missing for a couple years. He went to a concert a couple years ago. And, well, when she saw this on television, you know, she wanted to come over here and talk to the police because there's a possibility that, you know, he may show up.

Little did they know at the time that Rick Johnson was one of Gacy's victims in the crawlspace.

As for Robert Piest's family, they knew that their son had been a victim of John Wayne Gacy, but his body was still nowhere to be found. So investigators bring Gacy in to try and figure out where he was located. And at first, for whatever reason, Gacy didn't want to talk about the case of Robert. So they ask him for a clue as to where his body would be. And with that, Gacy says, Well, he's not above ground and he's not below ground. The detectives were confused. What do you mean by that? They ask.

Then Gacy leans back in his chair and says this. Do you want to know something? It seems funny right now. I've had a couple of visions. There's a road and it leads to nothing. I've got a picture of the goddamn bank of the river where the road ends. It's like going up a ramp on a bridge. And then there's water. I can see something going into the water. There's something in the river. I just leave peace where he's at.

Robert Piest's body was somewhere in the Des Plaines River, and finding him would be difficult, especially in the middle of winter when the river was frozen over. But detectives were curious about what exactly happened to him. Usually Gacy abducted his victims off the streets in the middle of the night. But with Robert, Gacy had abducted him from his place of work with a ton of witnesses around. Gacy later admitted that he was sloppy with the murder of Robert.

He went on to tell the story of what exactly happened that day. According to Gacy, he was at the pharmacy that day because he was going to remodel their building. After taking a look around the store, Gacy goes back out into the parking lot, and just when he's about to leave, he sees Robert Piest running up to his car. So he rolls down the window, and Robert asks him about a job. As you can imagine, Gacy was more than happy to have Robert interested in working for PDM. So he tells him,

"Yeah, why don't you hop in the car and I can take you by my house to fill out an application." Robert was hesitant at first and he tells Gacy, "I would but my mom is actually waiting for me over there so I can't." But Gacy assures him that he lives just right down the block. It'll only take a few minutes. And with that, Robert decides to get in his car.

Once back at Gacy's house, he starts talking to Robert about how he's a clown and he knows a bunch of tricks. Here, let me show you one, he says, and he pulls out his infamous handcuffs. Gacy puts the cuffs around his own wrist, wiggles around a bit, and miraculously, he escapes. Then he says, why don't you try it? And he throws the cuffs to Robert.

Being polite, Robert puts the handcuffs around his wrists and he tries to get out of them but he can't when Gacy lets him know that he's not leaving that house alive. After sexually assaulting him, Gacy grabs a rope and puts it around his throat all while Robert is crying and pleading for his life. He was only supposed to be there to fill out a job application and now he was about to die on his mother's birthday.

In the next few moments, Gacy strangles Robert to death. Now keep in mind, Gacy didn't have any more room in the crawlspace. So before he went to bed that night, he put Robert's body up in the attic. And he literally described his body like it was laundry that he needed to move off the bed before he could go to sleep. I just took him off my bed and carried him up into the attic and got him out of the way so I could go to bed.

It's just like when you clear the bed off to go to bed, you know, a bunch of stuff is laying there. The next morning, after hearing that Robert was last seen talking to Gacy, the police decide to come by his house and ask him to come in for questioning regarding Robert's disappearance. Gacy tried to play dumb, pretending like he had never seen or even heard of Robert, all while his body was just feet away upstairs.

Knowing that the police were on to him, Gacy knew he needed to get rid of Robert's body. So later that night, he retrieved him from the attic, put him in the trunk of his car, and drove to the I-55 bridge. And you took him where? Out on the I-55 bridge. And that's where, how was he then taken from the car and placed into the river? Just opened up the trunk and got me in. Mm-hmm.

Now Gacy would later tell investigators that after he dumped Robert's body, he lost control of his car and got stuck in a ditch, which is why he showed up at the police station at 3 a.m. covered in mud.

Because of the temperatures in Illinois, it would be a while until the police would find Robert's body. In the meantime though, investigators were finally wrapping up the excavations at Gacy's home. Out in Des Plaines, 27 bodies have been found under John Gacy's house. Sheriff's deputies hope that's the end of the gruesome discoveries, but they're not sure. Gacy claims more bodies were thrown into the river.

Now, at the time, they hadn't yet found the body under the barbecue pit or the body near the garage, but soon enough, they too would be discovered, bringing the total number of bodies found on Gacy's property to 29.

In addition, there had been four thrown into the river. So, in total, John Wayne Gacy had 33 victims. After the excavation was completed, the site of Gacy's home was a horrible reminder of the horrors that occurred there within those walls. Many people in the community wanted it demolished, erased from the memory of Norwood Park. And so it was. As the roof and walls shattered, reporters and neighbors became witness to the stark frame covering to a mass grave.

At first, the demolition of John Gacy's home had gone slowly. As evidence, men searched, in vain it appeared, for additional clues. Then the order came, get it down as quickly and neatly as possible. Now it was a one-sided fight, man and machine against the wooden shell of a 20-year-old bungalow.

As the roof and walls shattered, reporters and neighbors became witness to what sheriff's investigators have been probing since a few days before Christmas. The stark frame covering to a mass grave. If you look closely, you'll see fluorescent orange markings on the cement walls that surround the crawl space, now open to the rain. Each marking indicates the spot where a body was disinterred.

But even though they bulldozed the home, investigators still didn't know where Robert Piest's body was. His family spent that Christmas devastated over the loss of their son, and even more so since his body still hadn't been found and it was somewhere in that cold river. That January, Illinois had what was called the "deep freeze of '79" with record-breaking temperatures, so they still weren't able to search the river because it was frozen over. It wasn't until that upcoming April when Robert's body was finally found.

Robert's brother would later say that he always wanted to do something big with his life. And even though Gacy took that from him, he found peace in the fact that his brother's murder is what put a stop to Gacy's reign of terror upon Chicago. We really feel that what happened...

And now that investigators had found all 33 of Gacy's victims, their new priority was identifying them. The process of identification is slow. It's similar to an archaeological dig where bones are tagged and catalogued.

The police ask relatives of missing teenagers to send dental records because in most cases those will be the only way to identify the dead. They assume they'd be deluged with phone calls, but it hasn't happened. Well, I think originally the case had a lot of sexual overtones and I think some people have shied away from thinking their children might be involved in this. Back in the 70s, they didn't have DNA technology like they do today.

And the only way you could really identify someone back then was through dental records. So over the next few months, families from all over America were calling in, sending over records, trying to see if their loved one was one of the victims. And many of their greatest fears would be confirmed.

But even though a number of families got closure, for lack of a better word, there were still nine young men who were unidentified. No one has identified nine of the teenagers. Chicago area funeral directors are furnishing caskets and burial services for the unidentified nine so that they won't be interred as paupers. But finding the unidentified young men's families wasn't easy.

You see, shortly after word got out about John Wayne Gacy and the bodies in his home, the media didn't treat the victims like victims. Oftentimes, they portrayed them as prostitutes or sex-crazed partiers.

Investigators tonight believe that many, if not most, of his alleged victims were either male prostitutes or other homosexuals. They came to him either paid or looking for a good time and got more than they bargained for. Some news headlines even read, quote, How many boy victims for the homo butcher? Gay sex murder count now at 17. Or bizarre sex slayings may hit 32.

So obviously, seeing how the media was portraying these victims, a lot of families didn't want to come forward. They didn't want their sons to be associated with a homosexual serial killer. And in their minds, the truth was better left unknown.

This show is brought to you by BetterHelp. Sometimes I wish that life came with a user manual. Honestly, it can be confusing trying to navigate through the stresses and the complications that come with just being alive. Sometimes life can just be overwhelming. I especially know that that's the case. I've experienced it firsthand. But if you're

That's why I love therapy and that's why BetterHelp has helped me so much. Because, like I said, navigating any of life's challenges can make you feel unsure whether it's a career change, a new relationship, or becoming a parent. But therapists are trained to help you figure out the cause of challenging emotions and learn productive coping skills.

which makes therapy the closest thing to a guided tour of the complex engine called you. BetterHelp has connected over 3 million people with licensed therapists, thus a lot of people with a lot of help. It's convenient and accessible anywhere and 100% online.

Like I said before, I've gone through therapy. I go to a therapist every single week. I'm just reaping the benefits from putting myself out there, opening up and learning about what I can do better and learning ways that I can cope with the stresses and changes that are happening in my life 24-7.

As the world's largest therapy service, BetterHelp has matched 3 million people with professionally licensed and vetted therapists available 100% online. Plus, it's really affordable. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to match with a therapist. And if things aren't clicking, you can easily switch to a new therapist anytime. It couldn't be simpler. No waiting rooms, no traffic, no endless searching for the right therapist. Learn more and save 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com slash MIA.

That's BetterHelp.com for 10% off your first month of therapy. We love BetterHelp. It is truly so much easier than in-person therapy. But yeah, BetterHelp. Go check them out. And now let's get back to today's story.

While John Wayne Gacy sat in a jail cell awaiting trial, the chief prosecutor, Bill Kunkel, began preparing for trial with his team. And of course, they were trying to pursue the death penalty. As for Gacy and his team, they were going to plead insanity. And we see this time and time again where a killer will try to plead insanity. And sometimes they truly should be considered insane. But something interesting to note is that when investigators searched Gacy's home back in '78, they found a book called Criminal Law and Procedure.

And one of the pages that was bookmarked was the insanity defense. Now, you may be thinking that this trial was an easy one for the prosecution, but that wasn't necessarily the case. And they were genuinely worried that the jury would think Gacy was insane. Here's Gacy's attorney, Sam, and his thoughts on the matter. Today on Noon Break with Lisa, Sam Amarante talks about the role of the defense lawyer. Do you believe that Gacy was insane at the time he committed the murders?

Now, Gacy would be evaluated by a number of psychiatrists before his trial, and they all came up with different findings. The defense's psychiatrist determined that he was insane during the murders, and the prosecution's psychiatrist claimed that he wasn't.

But now it was up to the jury to figure out who they believed. The first day of the trial was on February 6th, 1980, and it seemed like the entire world was tuning in.

The murder trial of John Gacy did indeed get underway today with opening statements from the prosecution and the defense. Prosecutor Robert Egan described the gruesome deaths of 33 men, all of them young, slight, blondish. The jury sat in stunned silence, barely moving. Gacy, he told them, is a thoughtful, rational, premeditated evil man, adding, there's another as evil among us. God help us all.

What is the major thing that's upsetting you so much? Because I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to be doing in that courtroom. And they haven't told me. Do I stand up and fight when I think I'm right or do I just keep my fucking mouth shut all the time?

It was a very difficult trial to sit through, especially for the victims' families. One by one, the witness described how they found the remains of the victims. Some buried on top of others, many with a piece of cloth in the mouth, and some with ropes tied around the necks. John Gacy sat erect in his chair today, showing no apparent emotion as the prosecution team continued to call parents of the alleged victims...

And here's what a few of the victims' mothers had to say after the first week of the trial. First was Lola Woods, whose son William Kindred was murdered by Gacy. She liked to see him, you know, suffer him like he had he suffered my son.

Next is Eugenia Godzik, whose son Gregory was also murdered by Gacy. What does a mother go through to have the boys bring him up right and then somebody comes along, snuffs their lives out?

By the fourth week of the trial, the defense brought in Gacy's mother, Marion, to testify that John didn't have the best upbringing and that he was raised by an abusive, alcoholic father. She even referred to him as "Little Johnny," hoping to gain sympathy from the jury. Later, she broke down and cried, saying, "I still don't believe any of it. I'd just like to erase everything."

During this week of trial, the defense also brought forward their psychiatrist, Dr. Rappaport, who told the jury that Gacy was a lot like an onion. You have to pull back the layers to find out who he really is. He also claimed that during the murders, Gacy was insane, but then afterwards, he would come to and be sane again.

And that's when he would cover up the murders, which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to us. This doctor also blamed Gacy's insanity on his childhood. And he said that when Gacy was murdering these boys, he was reverting back to when his dad would beat him in the basement of his home. It was also clear that Gacy was loving all of the attention he was getting from the trial. He was on the front page of every newspaper. And his case was all anyone could talk about.

And Gacy loved every minute of it. By March 10th, the case was coming to an end.

For the prosecution's closing arguments, Bill Kunkel brought the trapdoor of the crawlspace into the courtroom. He then took a picture of each of the identified victims and one by one threw their photos through the trapped door, telling the jury this is the respect he showed his victims. By the end of it, there were dozens of pictures scattered across the floor of the courtroom and there was an eerie silence that filled the air.

Gacy's attorney said that it was a very emotional closing argument. And at that moment, they knew their case was over. The jury was then dismissed. And after only two hours, they had come to a verdict. It took the jury of seven men and five women less than two hours to find John Wayne Gacy guilty of murdering 33 young men. Gacy was convicted of murdering more people than anyone else in US history.

When the verdict was read, Gacy stared blankly ahead, showing no emotion. The victim's families, however, were very pleased with the jury's decision. Here is what Robert P's father had to say. What went through your mind when you heard that verdict? Oh, I was just delighted. I was just delighted. We knew all along that he was guilty, but there's an area of doubt that you just have to hand back until the verdict actually comes in. It's just a relief to all of us that

And now that John Wayne Gacy was found guilty of his crimes, it was now time for sentencing. Here is Gregory Godsick's mother and her thoughts on the matter. I hope he does get the electric chair. Then it'll make everybody feel better. I'm sure it'll make the other mothers feel better too. Do you feel any relief now that it's over with, Jen? How can you feel relief for something that you still don't understand?

Three days later, on March 13th, 1980, John Wayne Gacy would be sentenced to death.

But as we all know, death penalty cases are tough and lengthy. Many of the victims' families wouldn't even live to see the day of his execution.

And during Gacy's time in jail, he had a lot of time to sit and think about his case. He would eventually come out and say that he was only responsible for two of the murders, and the other ones weren't even him. And because of this, he thought he didn't deserve the death penalty. Gacy tried to appeal his conviction throughout the next decade. And this process is expensive. So how did Gacy pay for it? Well, he picked up a new hobby in prison, painting.

Over the years, Gacy would spend his time painting pictures of himself dressed as Pogo the Clown. He would paint celebrities, skulls, the seven dwarves, you name it. And then he would sell them for thousands of dollars. Hey, your paintings have improved over the years. I think we've seen some... I think I've learned from each one of them. I guess it's the same reason why I relate to Michelangelo because he was a workaholic and Leonardo da Vinci...

You know, people always ask me who my favorite artists are and why. And I did not know that Michelangelo was homosexual. It doesn't make no difference to me. He was a workaholic. He was a sculptor. He was a painter and did a lot of other things. Da Vinci was an inventor in that. And of course, in my life, I've done painting, decorating, wallpapering. I've done mural work.

Now, Gacy ended up exhausting all of his appeals. But as you can imagine, they were all rejected. And soon enough, his execution date was set for May 10th, 1994.

Once the execution date was finally set, it seemed like the entire country was celebrating. There were even parades in Chicago where they chanted "Death to Gacy".

In a Chicago parade today, the call was death to Gacy. He's going to get what he deserves. For condemned serial killer John Wayne Gacy, it is almost time. So I say go ahead and pull the chain. And after 14 years, long overdue. The day after he was found guilty, he should have executed him. Now, something Gacy was really upset about was the fact that Illinois had actually changed their method of execution from the electric chair to lethal injection, which was pretty new at the time, so I guess it was intimidating.

Many death row inmates were scared that it would be more painful, and in some cases, it was. But by 94, when the public got a good look at Gacy, he didn't look like the same man that was convicted 14 years earlier. He was older now, in his 50s, with more wrinkles and a head full of gray hair. Prison had definitely aged him, and so did coming to terms with his execution.

On that day, May 10th, 1994, crowds of hundreds gathered outside of the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois. Many people were dressed in clown attire, with shirts that read, Death to Gacy, or No Tears for the Clown.

It was a huge celebration, and people chanted as they counted down the hours until his death. Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! The clown's gotta go! See you now! It's time to die. 14 years has been much too long. But inside of the prison was an entirely different energy.

John Wayne Gacy was well-liked among the inmates, much like he was his entire life. And on the day of his death, many inmates spent the day comforting him, expressing their gratitude and telling him that everything was going to be all right. For his last meal, Gacy ordered a bucket of fried chicken, much like the chicken at the KFCs he used to manage. And with that, he was led to the execution chamber.

Many of his victims' families were chanting and cheering in anticipation. Shortly before 1 a.m., John Wayne Gacy was set up on the execution table, and his last words were, And with that, the executioner administered his lethal injection.

And if you're wondering what Gacy thought about being executed, here's what he had to say. Hearing Gacy say that was infuriating, but you'll probably be happy to know that during his lethal injection, something malfunctioned.

causing the workers to quickly shut the curtains. No one really understood what was happening, but because of this malfunction, Gacy wasn't killed immediately. In fact, his cause of death was more than likely suffocation.

much like a number of his victims. John Wayne Gacy was pronounced dead at 1258, two minutes before one o'clock this morning. There will be a lot of questions to be asked yet about how this system worked. They began the injections at 1240. He wasn't pronounced dead for 18 minutes. Here is what Chief Prosecutor Bill Kunkel had to say about this malfunction. He got a much easier death than any of his victims did.

But even though the killer clown was finally dead, this case was far from over. For one, there were still hundreds of people affected by these murders, people who would never recover from their grief. Some of Gacy's surviving victims would go on to end their lives because of how much it ruined them. And then there are the victims, who were never identified, the ones who never got a name.

For decades, their families have had no idea that their loved one was in the crawlspace of John Wayne Gacy's home. In 2010, there were still 8 victims without a name. But by then we had advanced in DNA technology, so they decided to reopen the case. And with that came some answers. The police dug up the 8 sets of remains and sent them to this lab at the University of North Texas for DNA analysis.

Because of all of this work, victim number 19 is never going to be known by a number anymore. Victim 19 was William George Bundy.

Then in 2017, another person came forward hoping to get some answers in their missing loved one's disappearance. And after giving their DNA, another victim was identified: 16-year-old Jimmy Hackinson, who was visiting Chicago in 1976 when he came into contact with John Wayne Gacy. His family lived in Minnesota, so they never suspected he would have been one of the victims in the crawlspace. Then, just as recently as 2021, the Cook County Sheriff's Office identified another one of Gacy's victims.

His name was Francis Wayne Alexander, who was in his early 20s, living in Chicago at the time of his disappearance. And with the help of the DNA Doe Project, they were finally able to give him a name. But just when you thought this story was over, we are actually going to release an entire episode about how we think John Wayne Gacy was a part of something much bigger than what we mentioned in these past three episodes.

Join us next week as we talk about Gacy's alleged accomplices, the cover-up surrounding this case, and how some of his PDM employees would later go on to be cannibalistic serial killers or members of one of America's biggest pedophile rings.

We realize not everyone is into conspiracy theories, so we wanted to make it into its own episode, but the stuff we are going to discuss isn't even really considered conspiracies. They are straight up facts that more people should know.

So I'm telling you, you do not want to miss it. And then I promise we will be done with John Wayne Gacy forever. But I want to end on the fact that it's been nearly 50 years since Gacy operated throughout Chicago, preying on young men. And the effects of his actions are still being felt to this very day. Right now, as we speak, there are still five victims unidentified.

Five people who are simply referred to as a number. Victim 10, victim 13, victim 21, victim 26, and victim 28. All of these young men are sitting in unmarked graves until we can find out who they are.

So if you know of a young man who went missing in the United States from 1970 to 1979, please consider submitting a tip to the Cook County Sheriff's Office at cookcountysheriff.org.

Hey, everybody. It's Colin here. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Murder in America. As always, it's a pleasure having you all here. I want to shout out our new patrons for the week. I hope I once again.

Shifting my wardrobe from summer to fall is always a challenge, but luckily, Quince offers timeless and high quality items that I absolutely adore. Online shopping can be a little bit difficult, but Quince makes it so easy. When I was going through and adding items to my cart, there were so many options that I had to choose from and...

I was so obsessed with all of them. Every piece of clothing is so high quality. It will last you forever and everything is so cute.

Quince offers so many high quality products for all different types of people like cashmere sweaters from $50, pants for every occasion, washable silk tops, and so much more. The best part? All Quince items are priced 50-80% less than similar brands. So after ordering from Quince, I received the 100% European Linen Blazer, the Flo-Knit Breeze Performance Tee, and the Flo-Knit Breeze Performance Polo, and

I was absolutely stunned by the quality of the clothing and the European linen blazer is perfect. I mean, it fits me so unbelievably well. It's slimming and I can't tell you enough. It's just ridiculously high quality. So if you're having a hard time switching your wardrobe from summer to fall, I highly, highly recommend you shop at Quint.

It makes switching seasons a breeze with Quince's high-quality closet essentials. Go to quince.com slash america for free shipping on your orders and 365-day returns. That's quince, q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash america to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash america

Is your vehicle stopping like it should? Does it squeal or grind when you brake? Don't miss out on summer brake deals at O'Reilly Auto Parts. O-O-O'Reilly Auto Parts.

I don't know if I pronounced all of your guys' names correctly, but thank you all so much for being patrons and helping support the show on Patreon. If you don't know what Patreon is, you can get the ad-free versions of every episode on Patreon every week. It goes live on the Patreon website or app as soon as the episodes go live on all streaming platforms. So if you don't like the ads, sign up to become a patron today. We have some incredible, like I've been saying this whole time, episodes coming up, some stories that aren't well-known, but...

Honestly, researching for our John Wayne Gacy conspiracy episode has been one of the most enlightening and bizarre research journeys that I've ever embarked on. And honestly, like it's a passion project of mine, bringing this information to you.

light because I feel like nobody knows a lot of these facts that we're about to lay on you people on the internet. And it's like, I cannot believe that this is not discussed more frequently. So look forward to that final conclusion to the John Wayne Gacy story, because it's a very important piece of the puzzle that yeah, I think is really going to blow everyone's minds. But anyways, it's Colin here. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. We'll see you next week and yeah, have a great weekend.

Hey!

Sending money direct to her bank account is super fast and Aunt Tina gets more time to be the bingo queen. Western Union. Send money in-store directly to their bank accounts in the Philippines. Services offered by Western Union Financial Services, Inc. NMLS number 906983 or Western Union International Services, LLC NMLS number 906985. Licensed as money transmitters by the New York State Department of Financial Services. See terms for details.