John Wayne Gacy the "Killer Clown"

John Wayne Gacy was born on March 17, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. He was a Chicago area construction worker and was even a clown performer for kids parties called "Pogo the Clown".He was well liked by people in the community and most never would had suspected he was the reason boys were going missing in the Cook County, Illinois. No one expected him to be the monster he became.

Gacy was born to a blue collar family in Chicago, Illinois. Growing up Gacy had a troubled childhood. His father was a drunk who would beat the family with a razor strap if he believed they were misbehaving. Gacy also had issues coming to terms with his bi-sexuality.

Gacy was also isolated at school because of his congenital heart disease. He couldn't play with the other kids like he wanted. Even though Gacy was tested to be highly intelligent he had dropped out of high school.

After her dropped out of high school he moved to Las Vegas and became a janitor for a mortuary for a while before moving back to Chicago. When he returned he went to business school. After graduation his first job included management trainee for a Nunn Bush Shoe Company where within a year he excelled and managed a clothing store in Springfield, Illinois.

In 1966 He married his 1st wife and began to work for his father in law in Iowa. He began a family with his then wife. In 1968 Gacy was convicted of sodomizing a male employee. His wife filed for divorce. Upon hearing this he told his wife that her and the children were dead to him.

 He was sentenced 10 years in prison, but only spent 18 months . He was paroled in 1970 and moved back to Chicago to become a contractor and started his own construction business. In February of  1971 he was charged in the attempted rape of a young man. The young man didn't show up to court and the charges were dropped. In middle of the 1970's two more men accused him of rape.

By 1975 Gacy was married to his second wife. He had told her that he was bi-sexual and was going to stop having sex with her. She'd find homosexual magazines, and he'd bring home boys to his garage. In 1976 she took her two daughters and divorced Gacy. The two never had children together.

On December 11, 1978 15 year old Robert Piest had disappeared. He'd told his mother he was going to visit Gacy for some job opportunities. When he didn't return home. On December 21 police searched Gacy's home in Norwood Park Township, Illinois.

Gacy knowing that soon they will discover his secret admitted he killed 33 boys. He tried to claim that he had multiple personalities and one of the other personalities did it.

He sat on death row for 12 of the 21 life sentences.

He claimed to have dumped his last 5 bodies in the Des Plains River as he was running out of space in the crawlspace.

Gacy died on May 10, 1994 from lethal injection.

The Murders:

Gacy was considered "charming" and would tell boys that he had job opportunities or would pick up young prostitutes or runaways with the promise of money in exchange for sex. He would often pick up the boys from bus stations. His known victims ages range from 14 to 21 years old. Out of the 33 victims 6 still remain unidentified by July of 2018.

 Once he got the boys in his home he would trick the boys into trying a handcuff trick in which he would subdue the boys, sexually assault, torture, and murder them. At least 5 of the boys worked at Gacy's business.  A few made it out alive, but 33 didn't.

Gacy's first murder happened in 1972 where he'd stabbed to death teenager Tim McCoy. His next murder happened two years later in 1974 he killed an unidentified victim. Even though he stabbed his first victim, he chose to strangle the rest. By 1976 Gacy was already connected to two boys who he claimed to have runaway. The family's suspected Gacy of hurting them, but there was no evidence of it.

After Gacy's wife divorced him in 1976 he called them the "cruising years" as he was able to bring the boys home without worrying. That he was free to hunt for victims and this was when a majority of victims were killed.

SOURCES:
https://www.biography.com/people/john-wayne-gacy-10367544
http://murderpedia.org/male.G/g1/gacy-john-wayne.htm
https://www.historicmysteries.com/john-wayne-gacy/
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/07/24/john-wayne-gacy-victim-reconstructions-released-by-authorities.html
https://www.thoughtco.com/john-wayne-gacy-the-killer-clown-973164
http://crimemagazine.com/boy-killer-john-wayne-gacy