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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is a full-ass morbid.
🎵 It's part two of the John Wayne Gacy series.
Yeah, we are still hanging out with this big ugly bastard.
Gross. And I thought we were gonna be able to do it in two, but it's definitely gonna be a three-parter, everybody.
Whoop-diddy-whoop. We love a three-parter around Teal.
John Wayne Gacy, I mean, he killed 33 people, so it's a lot.
It's a lot to talk about and I don't want to just like gloss over certain things.
So, you know, one. the big parts of his case is how he got caught, the surveillance that the police did, his interviews after he got caught so it's I want that to be its own episode and I didn't want to just be like fluff over it No, that definitely should be its own episode.
I totally agree with that. Yeah. So today is going to be a whole ass discussion about all of his murders. so it's gonna be a real rough episode but we're gonna get through it together We'll do our best.
We will. We'll do our damn best. But first, we have a couple business orders to take care of.
So as always, I will start by reading the shows off.
So June 2nd at the Good Nights Comedy Club in Raleigh, North Carolina. which I think might be happening.
Either way, it's going to happen at some point.
So Raleigh. And I got the pants for it.
She's got pants. June 3rd at the Comedy Zone in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Come to Charlotte. We're coming for you.
October 11th two shows at Talia Hall in Chicago if you're confused about what show time is for you just ask your ticket person who you got tickets from Your ticket person.
You know that person. The ticket people.
You know them. And it's spooky season and it's spooky theater and we have a really fun case for you.
Y'all. July 8th at the Comedy Works South in Greenwood Village, Colorado.
Colorado. I think we will definitely see you in July.
July 11th at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston.
Come on, Wilbur Theatre, and make sure you're buying tickets to that show, guys, because regardless of when it happens, it's gonna happen.
Yes, the Patronus Eye that are able to use the Discord chat room have, or chat thing, have started a Boston chat group and it's amazing.
Yay! Love that. And all the other, there's chat groups for all these tours and it's really exciting.
So fun. Join the Patreon. August 11th at the Punchline Comedy Club in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia, I'm really excited to see you.
September 16th at the DC Improv in Washington, D.C.
All the monuments. September 23rd, Nashville, Tennessee at Zany's.
Zany's. We've heard good things about you.
Heyo. And then last but not least, September 24th, Huntsville, Alabama, go Roll Tide, go War Eagles.
Still don't remember that thing the person said, but I'm going to look into it. to it at Stand Up Live.
All of those things. It's really bothering me because I read it and I was like, oh, that's a really good idea.
And then I was like, shit, I can't I lost it.
I think I read the same one and I also forgot.
So at least we'll find it. We'll find it.
There's many sources of contact for everybody.
There is. We'll figure it out, guys. We're working on it.
Other than that, I think we are going to shout out some Patronuses.
So for Patronuses, we have Alexis Nopalello.
Alexis Nopalello. Hello. Yes. Hello. Alice Parker.
Alice Parker. We love you. Alice with a Y. Love that.
Love that. fancy and then we have c brendler c brendler thank you for being a patronus Candice Arnett.
Candice Arnett. You bet. I like that. Two Ericas.
We have an Erica Durst and an Erica... gudrin i'm gonna say erica durst and erica gudrin you make erica sound good You do.
We have Madison F. Lewis. Madison F. Lewis.
Thank you so much. Corinne Hanna. Corinne Hanna.
Two first names. I dig it. We love it. Lizzie Keenan.
Lizzie Keenan. You have a famous murderer's name.
Heyo. I've said heyo probably 45 times this episode.
And last but not least, our patron 99shadows.
Thank you. 99shadows. Thank you. and we've realized well I've realized you probably have too the best way to request no shout out because I am seeing some people that don't want a shout out If you could put that in your name somehow on Patreon, that would be a lot easier and there will be no accidental shout outs if you don't want one.
Yeah, because sometimes it's hard to keep track of all the various requests and all that.
So if you just put it right there, we'll see it and we won't have to worry about it.
Yeah, because I don't want to disrespect anybody that doesn't want their name to be shouted out.
I don't want to shout your ass out if you don't want it.
Can't be calling people out. Can't be calling people out.
My New Year's resolution was call them out 2020, but not if they don't want to be called out.
No, we don't want to do that. I'm kidding.
So I think we can just jump right into the case now.
But before we begin... I did get, we got an email that I just wanted to read part of really quick because it kind of gives a little more insight into one part of last. last week's episode that we were both a little confused on.
I don't know if I saw this email. Maybe not.
I don't know. But this is from Lindsay. And Lindsay... is a she works for her sheriff's office as the sex and violent offender registrar And her husband is a probation and parole officer for like 17 years now.
What a fucking duo. Right? So she was saying that last week we were questioning, you know... he kept getting these assault charges and he was on probation.
Why was he not getting, why was this not getting back to his probation officer?
And she was like, let me clear that up for you, because she was like, it absolutely should go back to the probation officer, but it doesn't a lot of times.
Oh, wow. And she was explaining why. So I just thought it was good to kind of read some of this so people could see.
This is interesting. She said in the John Wayne Gacy part one episode, you guys were discussing the sexual assault charge that Gacy picked up right after being released from prison.
And you both seem surprised by the fact that this information didn't make it back to his probation officer.
The fact of the matter is that sometimes it simply isn't reported to them.
If it didn't happen in the same area or jurisdiction that probation and parole officer is supervising, that would present a problem.
It would be difficult to know that Gacy picked up a new charge if he didn't sit in jail long and the law enforcement entity or DA's office who was bringing the charges didn't inform the probation or parole officer.
It would be wonderful if there was some kind of universal system that would report all that directly to them, but the reality is we just aren't there yet.
The probation officers have to spend a ton of time looking up things on their own, and they're responsible for so many probationers at a time.
It's an enormous amount of information to keep up with. and therefore they depend on those other agencies to report to them if they have contact with any of their probationers.
And Ash is right. It is most certainly a violation.
It is a violation of the rules of probation for the state to pick up a new charge.
However, it is just a rule violation, not a law violation.
So let's say that it's reported to his probation officer that he had picked up a new charge.
The probation officer then writes a violation report, sends it to the DA, who convicted Gacy of the original crime, that sent him to prison, informing the DA of the rule violation.
It is then up to the DA to issue an arrest warrant for the motion to revoke.
Prison time that is now on paper. based on that rule violation, and then they would have a bunch of hearings to decide if they want to revoke his probation and send him back to prison. damn yeah uh this end resulting in prison time rarely happens here unfortunately our prisons are overcrowded and the judges and district attorneys are under a lot of pressure from legislators to not send people back to prison unless it's a last resort. uh so she yeah so she was just kind of telling us like this is the reality of the situation which I appreciate it.
So I messaged her back and was like, thank you so... I like hearing from people who have like... first-hand experience with this stuff to be like here's how it works let me tell you So Lindsay, thank you and your husband for doing awesome stuff.
And thank you for letting me know that. Such a cool email.
That was, it was cool to hear how that works.
Yeah, because it just kind of cleared it up.
Because I remember both of us were like, why the hell wouldn't that get back to his probation officer?
Like I was even questioning, I'm like, I saw this in several sources, but like, is it real?
Is it like, or is this just like bullshit that I'm like, yo, let me tell you.
Yeah, it makes sense. So, when we last left off, he had already killed.
He had already done his first kill. And...
This is in 1972 when another serial killer, who we will cover in a future episode, he's a doozy, named Dean Corll was discovered.
Gacy was actually inspired by him to use his rack board that he made.
Gross. Because Dean Corll loved a wooden plank.
Oh, that's... I just... So... I know. I just broke.
So when we talked about it last time, we were saying how...
You know, John Wayne Gacy loved, he was a great neighbor.
People liked him. He was very jovial, very, you know, very talkative.
People thought he was funny. He seemingly was a family man, but on the inside, he was not at all.
But he gave a good facade to everybody around him.
When he was like super involved in politics and had like a ton of people in a circle, too.
Yeah, and he loved to do those block parties that we talked about, like he would throw theme parties. like the country western theme and all that.
So I found this quick quote of his that kind of explains the parties that he used to throw.
Throw. That he used to throw. I was going to correct you, and then I was like, I'm going to let it slide.
It's been a long day. I worked today, so I'm like, bleh.
He said, quote, they were huge parties that politicians and everyone would come to.
We would have hundreds of people, sometimes like 400 people.
400 people. And I had my self-made family.
I called it self-made family. I had two beautiful little daughters, Tammy and April.
They were Carol's kids, you know. but I loved them too.
They were like my kids too. In 1974, we had a luau party. a party with a luau theme grass skirts and shit like that hawaiian you know people dressed up hawaiian People dressed up Hawaiian.
Wow. John Wayne Gacy. The way he talks is just like, you know, fucking luau. luau theme you know luau theme dressed up as wine people dressing up as hawaiians they're hawaiian everything was hawaiian like he just keeps repeating and you're like are you okay sir He's like, Lays, flowers.
Every interview I've seen of him, you're like, you are a lot.
Yeah, he like re-says things. Yeah, and he's just like a goof.
So you can understand how if you didn't know what a fucking... evil pig monster he was that you would just be like this goofy bastard like just be like all right The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
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The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
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As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
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Well, it's like what we were talking about in the miniseries, a mini episode, how like people that knew Anders.
Yeah. Is it Anders or Anders? I'm sorry.
Anders. Anders, people that knew Anders were like, holy shit, like he did that.
I'm sure the same thing with John Wayne Gacy.
Exactly. serial killers and killers in general always have like two sides it seems yeah and i think it With John Wayne Gacy, it seemed like people definitely liked him.
They thought he was a good neighbor. They kind of had this view of him.
But then when he got caught, I think a lot of them were kind of like yeah okay really yeah it's like this weird because they knew he liked younger boys He was always surrounded with younger boys.
He had already been arrested for assault before.
So I think they were just kind of like...
Yeah, we didn't see it coming, but we kind of saw it coming now that it's happened.
We low-key turned a blind eye because the parties were good.
We looked at Luau. Yeah. So his home was at 8213 West Somerdale Avenue.
And neighbors of that home did say later, they were like, yeah.
We'd see him come in at like all hours a night and leave at all hours a night.
And like sometimes he had teen boys with him.
But, like, he had them work with him a lot so he didn't know.
And then they'd say, yeah, in the middle of the night we would sometimes hear, like, screaming and crying over there.
But, like... You know, nothing crazy. Like, people were just kind of like, you know, nothing crazy, just some screaming and crying.
Yeah, I'm like, that's not normal. So, last time we talked about that kid Donald, who he was arrested for sexually assaulting.
Donald's father was in the Jaycees with John Wayne Gacy.
So Edward Lynch was the 16-year-old that also went to the police with Donalds. and said he had also been sexually assaulted by Gacy.
He knew Gacy because he worked with him in one of the KFC restaurants.
One night, he said Gacy did the classic Gacy move of inviting him over, asking him if he wanted to watch some porn, because...
Obviously. What a casual fucking invite.
So casual. So casual. It's all about just... Come to my porn party.
You want to have a drink and watch some porn, bro.
And it's like... Is this normal? He says it like it's watching like a football game.
Yeah. I'm like, maybe I'm just like a sheltered person.
I don't know. Out of the loop. Had a friend of mine be like, so do you want to have like a glass of wine and like sit down and watch some porn?
Like it's never been a thing. I'm glad it's never been a thing, though.
I mean, not complaining. Strange to me. So during this, his wife was in the hospital after giving birth to their second child, by the way.
Oh, awesome. Yeah, that was like his first wife.
Gacy played a game where they play pool, and if the kid won, he would give him a blowjob.
Oh, yeah. You know, just normal fun. Like strip pool.
Yeah. The kid won. So Edward won. But he said, no, thanks, creep.
Like, I don't want that. Yeah, like we can just play regular.
Well, him refusing this reward for winning pissed Gacy off.
So he ended up grabbing a knife and cornered this kid in his bedroom.
They wrestled and Gacy cut the kid's arm.
And when he saw the blood, he suddenly started... profusely apologizing and bandaged his arm up for him.
Oh, that's weird. Yeah. So they went back down to the basement and the kid was like, I want to leave.
Like, I'm done. I'm good. And he tried to calm him down with some porn. you know okay um and afterwards he brought out a chain and padlock and he then chained the kid's arms behind his back and asked him can you get out of them Like it's a trick.
I use it as a clown. And he was like, nope, can't do it.
So he pushed him into a chair, straddled him and started trying to molest him.
So this kid kicks Gacy to the floor. Good.
And so Gacy got angry, brought out a cot. and shoved the kid down on it.
He chained his feet and then choked him.
Lynch pretended to black out because he was like, I didn't know what else to do.
And Gacy got concerned and kept asking if he was all right suddenly. and then he just drove him home oh my god that's horrific yeah like he is so imbalanced it's unreal Just the back and forth of doing something so evil and then seeing the blood and being like, oh, let me help you.
And then starting it all again and then being like, oh, let me help you again.
That's the thing. It's like... He is such an evil monster.
Like when you see how like predatory he is and that he goes out and looks for younger boys to like do this to like he picks them off the street and then like he gets in these weird situations where all of a sudden he's feeling like Like fatherly or something.
I don't even know. So when he was arrested the couple of times that he was at one point, he was evaluated for his mental state.
What was that? By Dr. Eugene F. Gorin. Yeah.
Dr. Garan said, quote, the most striking aspect of the test results is the patient's total denial of responsibility. for anything that has happened for him.
He can produce a quote, alibi for everything.
He alternately blames the environment while presenting himself as a victim of circumstance and blames other people while presenting himself as the victim of others who are just out to get him.
Although this could be construed as paranoid, I do not regard it that way.
Rather, the patient attempts to assure a sympathetic response by depicting himself as being at the mercy of a hostile environment.
To his way of thinking, a major objective is to outwit the other fellow and take advantage of him before being taken advantage of himself.
He does things without thinking through the consequences and exercises poor judgment.
He does not seem to have remorse over the admitted deeds which are part of his present difficulty.
So he's basically like he's remorseless and he doesn't take responsibility for anything.
Okay. Which we'll see later, probably in part three mostly, that he's totally like, no, I didn't do that.
And then he'll alternately give you details about each murder and then be like, oh, no, I didn't do that.
I had help and somebody else did it. Oh, he says that?
I didn't know that. Yeah, he likes to claim that he had people help him accomplish this.
Oh, that's interesting. So a 20-year-old man named Michael Reed met Gacy while Gacy was what he called cruising. in Chicago and cruising to him was going out and basically what like BTK like to do the hunt kind of thing.
Yeah. Right. um like oh btk called it trolling trolling because he was a fucking troll Because of course Dennis called it trolling.
Fucking troll. Because he had code names for everything.
He is a troll. So he was out cruising in Chicago and Gacy offered him work and also offered him to perform oral sex on him.
Because why not offer one without the other?
He agreed. And Reed ended up starting a business with Gacy at one point, doing maintenance work around the neighborhood.
Oh, wow. So they like started off fine. Reed moved into the home that Gacy and his mother bought together and he slept in Gacy's room.
One afternoon, Gacy asked Reed to get a fuse that had fallen under the workbench in the garage. and as he was stooping down to look under there he all of a sudden got slammed on the back of his head with something All of a sudden he sees blood like dripping down his face and he's like, what the fuck?
He turns and sees that Gacy's holding a hammer that he has just whacked him in the head with.
That happens. They recreated that in the Gacy movie.
Oh, yeah. I remember that. So Reed grabs Gacy and is like, why the fuck did you just hit me in the head with a hammer?
Like, what the hell's going on? I was trying to help you out, dude.
Yeah, like what? And Gacy was basically like, I don't really know, but I suddenly wanted to kill you.
He said that to him? Yeah, like he was like, I had a sudden urge to kill you.
I don't know. What? It's like a tick or something.
Yeah. But in the next day, Reed moved out, but nothing came of it.
Like he didn't go to the police. So he's probably too scared to because these people do go to the police, but nothing happens.
Exactly. So Gacy and Carol, who was his second wife, we talked about in the first part, They had a strained relationship from the start.
It wasn't blissful at all. Because Gacy was out at all hours of the night and she probably heard screaming and crying and Oh, yeah.
And they wouldn't speak for weeks at a time because Gacy was like having orgies in hotels and shit and spending all his time with young boys.
Just like... and Carol was constantly she started to constantly become suspicious of one what he was doing in that garage that he wouldn't allow her to come out to He would not allow her or the kids in the garage.
Which is bizarre. It's like his dad with the basement.
Exactly. It definitely goes right back to it.
And she was really getting suspicious of the horrific smell that was starting to emanate from the crawlspace.
Ew. There were also bugs that were suddenly coming into the main parts of the home and coupled with the smell, she was like, what is going on?
Like, you need to fix this. He spread quicklime to try to stop the smell, and eventually Gacy told her he poured some concrete to stop the smell. which he was saying was caused by water runoff from a broken sewer pipe.
That doesn't smell that bad. Yeah, like he was literally like, okay, so it's just everything's wet down there, so it's just smelling.
Yeah. She's like, it doesn't smell like molds, though.
Yeah. And it's like and eventually that was like basically unlivable at one point because there were like gnats and black bugs all over the house.
Like, and they were like concentrated in one hallway and this one bathroom, I guess, which was right over the crawl space.
Right. That's so horrific. And the fact that kids were there living through that.
Yeah. And this is really the beginning of like him picking up boys.
And it seems like he was almost like testing his limits.
Right. So he picks up a kid named David Edgecombe.
He had worked for Gacy several months before kind of quitting suddenly, like a lot of teenagers do.
And he quit suddenly to go on a trip with his friends.
So he just was like, bye. Late one night, Gacy knocked on his fucking bedroom window at his mom's house.
What? In Park Ridge and asked if he wanted to, quote, go party.
No, thank you. Like what? So David took his husky dog with him and he agreed.
Because he figured it was kind of a way to smooth over him, like, bailing on the job so quick.
He was like, I didn't want him to be mad at me.
So I was just like, you know what, I'll just do this.
So Gacy brought him to the Democratic precinct headquarters and offered him cash to drink a half pint of rum.
David ended up passing out and woke up in Gacy's garage handcuffed.
That's so terrifying. When he woke up Gacy was straddling him and choking him while saying quote you son of a bitch you'll never quit on me again.
Jesus Christ. Yeah. So David, of course, is like fighting him back, but he's handcuffed.
And he's screaming as loud as he can. Well, he had his husky dog with him who followed them to...
Gacy's house. So his dog tries to get through the door and is like flipping out.
Because he can hear him. So Gacy just stopped and brought him home like a psycho.
I'm so glad nothing happened to the dog.
I thought you were going to tell me something happened.
No, he just stopped and brought both of them home like nothing happened.
Can you imagine that ride home? Does he just hang out with you and shoot the shit?
Like, what? Well, and how much, like... ego and like just feeling of like invisible invincibility you have like the assurance you have no he's not gonna tell anyone and if he does nothing's gonna happen to me like because it happened to him before yeah it's crazy he thinks he's invincible yes So Gacy started, this is when he started having a long string of sexual assaults on young boys.
And he started using that handcuff trick over and over again.
He also had the rope trick, which was similar.
It's like that sounds horrific. He uses rope.
He tells you to try to get out of it. You can't get out of it.
He tightens it and you're at his mercy. When it almost starts in a sexual way.
Oh, it definitely does. Yeah. And it starts as him saying, you know, I'm a clown, you know, I'm a registered clown, right?
And then he'll show them the handcuffs. And I'm sure he had a... pair of like clown handcuffs that probably have like a little button that he could do a handcuff trick and like press the button and they'd open and that's it and he probably gives the kids these other handcuffs and it's like you can't get out of there now because what he would do was he would give them to them and be like can you get out of them And they'd be like, no, how do you do it?
And he'd be like, you want to know the trick?
And they'd say, yeah. And he'd go, you need the keys.
Whoa, that's so creepy. And then they'd just be like, what?
And he was like, yeah, now you're mine. Like, you can't move.
Hate it, hate it. Like he had all these moments of just being like, he has these fucked up statements.
He says to these kids that I say a couple of them here, but you're just like, he's a scary motherfucker.
Like sadistic. monster like these poor kids the fear that must have flashed through them like dealing with this fucking monster and he's also just like this huge disgusting that's the other thing that's so scary about him is he's so big and these are teen boys like you're not Yeah.
Usually as big as, like, however old John Wayne Gacy is.
Man, you know what I mean? And he's stout, too.
So he's short. Right. But he's, like... He's thick.
He is thick-a-ka. He is thick-a-ka. And so that's a lot of power and like squatted power coming at you.
Well, a lot of the times, like you're saying now, he is sitting on you.
So, yeah, any any time anybody sits on you, it's hard to.
Yeah, it's like dead weight. So, yeah, it's really scary.
This is really stressing me out. He would also use chloroform to incapacitate his victims.
So he would just use the chloroform rag over your face like...
I want to know where these people just find readily available chloroform.
They can always find them. You can always find anything you need.
But one of these boys that he was part of this whole string of sexual assaults that ended up living through the experience, unfortunately, still very much victims.
One of these boys was 16-year-old Tony Antonucci.
He was tall. He was athletic. He was also a wrestler.
Okay. Now, remember that. So he was volunteering cleaning up the Democratic precinct headquarters and he was kind of working under Gacy.
This was in 1975. Gacy made a pass at him while they were cleaning up one night.
And he was like, no, no, I'm good. And Gacy would not take no for an answer.
So finally, Tony picked up a chair and threatened him with it, was like, I will fucking beat you with this chair if you don't go like get away from me.
And so, of course, Gacy, when he starts doing that, he's like, dude, I'm just joking.
Like, why are you being so like, and like, he loved to use the F word.
Because John Wayne Gacy finally admits to himself that he is bisexual.
And he will say that out loud. I am bisexual.
I do like to have sex with boys. But to him, he will not see that as like...
That's not gay. That's not gay at all. And it's like... And to him...
It's bad if it's gay. He was raised to believe you are a man...
That's not what men do. So like his father drilled that into him.
So he's constantly being like, if he gets shut down by a guy, he's like, well, fuck you, you F word.
You know what I mean? Like, he's like, He starts calling him things and being like, what do you think of that?
You know, like, he's such... He's so... Like he hates himself so much.
It's very self-loathing. It is. It's very.
And that's part of his aggression, I think, is just he hates himself so much.
And he can only, I mean, I'm surprised he even came out. to say that he's bisexual i think that took him a long time to do but he will he just can't accept what his true desires are.
But he's also not only, he's not gay, he's a pedophile.
Right. And it's like he can't admit that to himself and get help for anything.
Like those are two very different things, sir.
Exactly. It's like, you are not just bisexual.
You are a pedophile. You don't just like other men.
That's fine. You cannot like children, sir. right like that's that's not allowed yeah that's not no no uh-uh no way So yeah, so he made it so Gacy's making it seem like he was joking.
I was just joking with you. Why are you getting so upset?
Why are you threatening me with a chair?
So he's like, whatever. So it just went away.
Well, a month later, Gacy just shows up at Tony's parents' place while they're out.
And is like, hey, Tony. Bye, Mr. Gacy. He was like, hey, Tony, I have some wine and some porn.
Do you want to party? No. I love that he's like, you want a party?
You want a party? Shut the fuck up. And if you look at a photo of John Wayne Gacy, like his mugshot photo when he just looks like this, like... greasy bag of just like leftover fry juice.
Sweaty. That comes from the bottom of a fast food restaurant toilet or something.
Like, it's just, he is so greasy. He is bacon grease.
Yucky. And he's got these beady eyes, and he's just like, and you can just picture him being like, wanna party?
And you're like, ugh! I picture him with like a weirdly high voice.
I don't know why. He kind of does, actually, now that I'm thinking about it.
He does kind of have like a little... Like a little party?
Yeah, it's not like a... It's like the voice that you gave David Berkowitz.
Yeah. It's like this little picture. Yeah. but he's just so gross but uh but yeah so he was like do you want to party with this wine and porn And he was like, all right, cool.
So he was like, sure, why not? Like, let's just have some wine and watch some porn.
I don't get it. It's just like, whatever.
And this is when Gacy, so he got in there.
So, or he brought, you know, he brought the kid to his place and he was like, okay, can I show you a trick?
Of course. And so he said he had a pair of trick handcuffs that he used as a clown.
And then he was like, you know, how can you get out of it?
He challenged him to figure it out. And Tony is like an athlete.
He's competitive. So he was like, fuck you.
I'm going to get out of these. So Tony agrees to do this, but Tony's also clever. because he doesn't snap one of the cuffs all the way ah so he was like all right i'll try to get out of this And he hides this from Gacy.
So when Gacy thought he was fully cuffed, he starts aggressively trying to undress him.
But Tony's like, oh no, no, sir. So he suddenly flips Gacy off of him and onto the floor.
Because he had like straddled him. And so he like pushes him onto the floor.
Snapped the free cuff on his wrist. And then he used a wrestling move to flip him on his belly and held a knee to the back of his head.
That's incredible. Isn't that incredible?
I was like, I love that. This is why we should all take karate or some form of self-defense.
Right? Because he just was like, fuck you, sir.
I'm just gonna use the wrestling move. So he's holding his knee to the back of his head.
And he flipped the other cuff on him. So he had him handcuffed on his belly in his own fucking house.
Incredible. And he so Gacy's flipping out.
He's screaming. He's yelling. He's like cursing.
And this and Tony's like, no, I'm not letting you free until you calm the fuck down.
Right. And so Geisu is basically like, well, shit, you're the first one to get out to like get to best me to figure this trick.
And he was like, okay. And he let him free and he just let him go.
And it was never spoken of again. What the fuck?
Now, Gacy had told his wife and kids, like I said, not to go into the garage because it was his workspace.
He had also openly begun to bring home magazines filled with photos of naked men, like porn magazines.
He just, like, left them about. Just leaving them about willy-nilly.
You know, like, that's whatever if that's what you're into.
But, like, when there's kids around, like, maybe let's not.
And it's like, and your wife. I don't know.
Maybe don't like flaunt that right in front of her face.
I'm saying like if you and your wife have an agreement, that's one thing.
But if you and your children don't. Yeah, like if you guys have discussed it, cool, but it doesn't sound like Carol had been, you know, informed of this.
And Carol also found some photos of naked men like Polaroids, one of which appeared to have blood on him.
So she... So she freaked out. She confronted Gacy.
And she was like, what the fuck is this?
He told her he was not going to. He was like, you know what?
I think we should just like make this a thing now that we don't have sex with each other anymore.
At that point, I'm dippin'. Well, and this was on Mother's Day.
That's so sad. But honestly, the best Mother's Day gift he could have given her.
I mean, truly. I feel like that's sad if it's like who you're married to because one part of her must have found him attractive.
Of course. That's a great Mother's Day gift if John Wayne Gacy gives it to you.
But they agreed together that they were not going to have sex with each other.
And that was that. And she later said, like when people talked to her, that she was like, he was never around.
Like he just he was working all the time.
And when he wasn't working, he was being really secretive.
And he only slept for like two hours at a time at night.
That's terrifying. And rarely in bed with her.
And he would leave at weird hours, come home at weird hours.
And she just didn't question him anymore.
So here's my deal. Whatever. He's. He's never around.
You're not like having fun in the sack anymore.
Like. Your house smells bad. There's pictures around that you don't want there.
Why are you staying? I think it's probably security.
She probably... But, like, do you feel secure?
Well, no, not emotional security. I mean financial and everything else security.
Because you have to remember, as shitty as Gacy is as a human being in every aspect, dude was bringing in money.
And he was he knew how to make money and he did financially have stability.
And I'm sure that was probably part of she had two kids.
She was just divorced. That is true. She's probably hanging on because she's like, well, you know, I got to do what I got to do, which sucks.
That is really sad. Yeah, it really sucks.
I would rather work like three jobs than have to deal with any of that.
For real. Well, in 1975, Gacy's mother moved out of the home finally, and she moved to Arkansas.
And when she moved there, she ended up falling and breaking her hip.
And Carol went out there to help Gacy's sister care for her.
That was really nice of Carol. Yeah, that was nice of Carol.
And you know what? Gacy did not repay her nicely while she was gone.
He did not just, you know. I believe that.
Yeah. So at this time, once she leaves, he had an 18 year old kid working for him by the name of John Butkovich.
Okay. And he was always with Gacy and actually everyone started calling them Big John and Little John.
Okay. So according to Gacy, he was over his house all the time.
Like little John was over their house all the time.
He had many dinners with his family. Carol liked him.
Little John played with the girls a lot, like he was a good kid.
He was like family. So Gacy says little John owed him money.
Because he used his PDM contracting. That's in case you forgot from the first one.
That's Gacy's contracting business that he has.
Right. He used his PDM account to pay for his apartment.
Okay. Gacy said he was fine with this, but he expected him to pay him back.
So he was like, you can use that account.
I just need you to pay me the money back.
And, you know, little John was doing that like slowly.
He got his bill down to like 300 bucks, according to Gacy, and then suddenly, July 31st of 1975, He said Little John showed up to Gacy's home demanding a paycheck that he said Gacy had not given him.
Because after eight months of working for Gacy, Little John had quit.
So now he's showing up to his house and he's like, you didn't give me my last paycheck.
And he's like, well, you owe me money. So this is what Gacy has to say about this whole scenario.
Which is probably not the truth. yeah i'm i can assure you that this was it it's it's weird because he gives like little variations of the you know there's nuggets of truth in there Yeah.
But, you know, it's definitely not the whole truth.
And this exchange came from a book called John Wayne Gacy Defending a Monster.
And it's actually from his defense attorney wrote this book.
Oh, that's interesting. His defense attorney was Sam L. Amorant.
And it's an odd book, but there's a lot of conversations with Gacy in it that are really interesting.
Yeah, I feel like that'd be a very interesting read.
Yeah. And there's a couple of other books I'll just mention now in case people want to know like where I got all my information because I went through.
Let's see. Four John Wayne Gacy books for this episode.
Very casual. The other one that I was looking through is called...
Killer Clown, The John Wayne Gacy Murders by Terry Sullivan.
The other one is called The Man Who Killed Boys, The John Wayne Gacy Jr.
Story by Clifford L. Linden, I think it is.
And then the other one I used was called Buried Dreams Inside the Mind of John Wayne Gacy by Tim Cahill.
So. We can post all those too. Yeah, I'll post them in the show notes just so you guys know, but I figured I'd shout them out.
Nice. So what John Wayne Gacy had to say about this little John exchange was quote, but John got it into his head that I owed him a couple of hundred bucks or something.
And this was bullshit. I tell you, pure bullshit.
But he comes over talking shit, brought a couple of buddies with him, yelling and screaming about how I better pay him or there's going to be trouble.
Like I'm going to get my ass kicked. I just got everyone high.
We smoked some pot, drank some beers. We calmed the whole thing right down.
No big deal, you know. Next thing I know, he's lying on my floor, dead. oh definitely some missing events there sir that escalated quite quickly He's like, we all got high and then he died.
Yeah, we all got high. Everything was real chill.
And then like, there he is. He's just dead on my floor.
And you're like, I... You're missing a large chunk of information.
I've never had an experience like that. Nobody's ever gotten high and all died.
No. Thank goodness. So what happened between the time that they got in a fight and he ended up dead on his floor?
Well, he said after he got them all high and drunk, he sent them on their way and he went cruising for other young boys to have sex with.
He was like, I didn't want anything to do with John.
Yeah. He was like, no, I'm just going to go find some other boys.
So he said he noticed little John. in uptown and he said little john jumped in front of his car yelling about how he still had to talk to him he was still mad about the money So John said he was still pissed and he was like, you know what?
Just get in the car, little John. And he brought him back to his house where, remember, Carol is not home.
She's visiting John's mom. And so he had the whole place to himself.
So he gives little John a ton more alcohol and gets him plastered.
Then he says the argument about the money just started up all over again and they were really heated.
So Gacy got nervous, according to him, because he has that heart condition and he didn't want to continue getting so upset because he was afraid he would pass out.
So he lightened the mood with the good old handcuff trick.
Little John couldn't get out of it, and Little John got real mad, obviously.
How do you just go from arguing to being like, hold up, you know what, let me show you a trick.
Like, you know what? I'm gonna lighten this mood real quick.
Let me show you some of my clown tricks.
I'd be like, no, sir. I'd be like, I'm still mad.
I'm mad. And I'd be like, actually, I'm now even more mad because you have just trivialized my argument.
Right. Right. So Gacy told him he wouldn't let him out.
So he did the handcuff trick. He couldn't get out.
And he was like, yeah, you need the keys, fucker.
And then he was like, you know what? I'm not going to let you out of those handcuffs until you sober up and you stop screaming.
So how Gacy told his defense attorney was, quote, now this is where it gets a little foggy.
I'm not exactly sure how this all happened, but I must have strangled him, you know, with this rope.
Must have. You know. And then he said, quote, yeah, he was lying on the floor when I woke up.
He was blue in the face, you know, like they say.
And he had a rope around his neck and the handcuffs.
He still had the handcuffs on. I don't remember everything, but I think I tricked him, you know, because that's what I did with a lot of the others.
I would use a rope, the rope trick, and I used it kind of like a tourniquet around their necks.
That's how I would do it. I can't imagine just speaking so callously like that about murdering people.
He is just like, and for him to just be like, yeah, I guess I must have just fucking murdered him and left him on my floor.
I guess. Like, I guess. Well, after killing Little John, he wrapped him in a tarp to deposit him into the crawlspace, but Carol arrived home.
So he was forced to bury him in the garage, which a couple of them were buried under the garage.
And what does John have to say about his lack of memory when it comes to murdering kids?
He said, quote, sometimes I wake up in the morning and find strangled kids in my house.
Dead strangled kids. And I have no idea how they got there.
No fucking idea what happened. do you believe that no Do I believe that there's times when he blacks out?
Yeah, I mean, that's what I mean. I do believe that, but I believe...
He treats it like, yeah, I'm not part of this.
Like, it just happens. I just wake up and there's dead kids in my house.
No, I don't believe that. I mean, do you believe that he blacked out is what I should have said.
I think he blacks out every, I don't think his whole, I think he blacks out far less than what he's claiming he's blacking out.
It's just convenient to be like, oh, I don't remember.
Well, and finally, now Carol is still smelling the smells.
She's seeing the bugs. She's seeing his odd ass behavior.
And even though they're not having sex anymore and they're pretty much like done-ski, she's like, I need to know what's going on here.
So Carol said she took a peek in his garage one night when he had left.
She was like, I have to look in there. She must have been so terrified.
Well, she said she was like, you know what?
I knew he was having sex with teenage boys.
Like, I knew that. I could see that happening because he was bringing them in all the time, bringing them out.
There was a magazine like I could tell that's what and he had basically admitted to me that he liked to have sex with boys.
But she's like, I had to see what was going on in the garage.
So she sees mattresses all over the floor.
Red lights. All red lightbulbs. Anything that's red-lit is terrifying.
And there was mirrors on the walls and ceilings.
Ew, that's so fucking creepy. It's like a weird porn room.
It's like a dungeon. Yeah, like this weird porn dungeon.
And she said she could smell the scent of decay so strongly there because he had just recently buried someone under there.
And so in October 1975, Carol filed for divorce.
Thank God. Yeah. This was after Gacy finally was like, yes, I like to have sex with young boys.
And she was like, peace. um so her divorce was final march 1976 and now this is when he really goes nuts well because there's nobody home it's so much easier for him and he's pissed that somebody left him again He's got the house all to himself.
Oh, no, he's not even pissed that Carol left him.
Didn't bother him at all. No, not at all.
No, he's psyched. Are you kidding me? He's got his whole, he's got a sex house now that he can literally do whatever the fuck he wants.
It's like, why did you even bother marrying this woman in the first place?
Because he wanted to impress his dad. yeah for appearance and i think it's because he wanted to keep up appearances that's all it was right um but now he's like it's on So within a month of his divorce, April 6, 1976, he killed an 18-year-old named Daryl Sampson.
There's not a lot of information on this or his abduction, but he was found in the crawlspace. oh no weeks later he killed randall ruffett um a 15 year old only 15
That's really sad. Who had disappeared May 14th, 1976.
His body was later found by police in the crawlspace under the front door of Gacy's house.
Oh my god. yeah um he was found on december 25th 1978
That's really haunting. It's like every time you open the front door, you're walking over someone's dead body.
He was identified by x-rays on April 11th, 1979, and they were able to determine that his cause of death was asphyxia. aviation.
Within hours of killing Randall, hours, not days, hours, he killed a 14-year-old named Samuel Stapleton.
So this is, I think, the first time. No, it's not the first.
Yeah, this is the first time that he's killed two in one day.
Right. So Samuel disappeared while he was walking home from his sister's house on May 14th, 1976.
He was immediately reported missing by his parents and he was later discovered in the crawl space. one distinctive clue that the family kind of like hung on to, to be like, that's definitely him. was that there was a bracelet found on his body, and that was his bracelet.
And that was confirmed on November 14th, 1979.
And they had to use x-rays of his head and teeth to identify him.
That's always, I think I've said it like so many times, but that's always the saddest thing.
It is. It's so sad. You can't even recognize them by their face.
Oh, and some of these kids weren't identified until like 2017.
Like so long. So in June 1976, 17-year-old Michael Bowman disappeared while waiting to catch a train to visit his stepfather's brother.
He never made it to his location and police would later find the teen's fishing license in Gacy's home.
And then later they found his body in the crawlspace, which had to be identified by dental records.
The ligature that was used to strangle him was still around his neck.
Oh, my God. The next one was William Billy Carroll.
He disappeared shortly after Michael Bowman. on june 13 1976 um billy had had kind of like a tough life he was a tough kid He got in a lot of trouble.
He had been in juvie a couple of times for things like stealing a purse and like possessing a gun.
He was only 16, though. By 16, he was still living that kind of lifestyle and was actually making extra money by... kind of running like a teenage boy escort service where he would basically put together meetings with older men and teenage boys and get paid for it.
So he was running with some scary people.
And he knew John Wayne Gacy probably because he was dealing with such shady shit.
He was probably involved in the shady shit.
Yeah. And on June 13th, he just disappeared.
And he was later found in the crawlspace.
July 1976, he employed 18-year-old David Cram to help him around the house in the contracting business.
David Cram has one of the scariest stories.
He survived, but holy hell. He actually had this kid move in with him for a time, which he did often.
He would have these boys move in. Can you imagine surviving that experience and living to tell the tale of living with John Wayne Gacy?
No. No. That's a whole different fucking kind of thing.
It really is. He moved in in August, and shortly after he moved in...
He came home one day to find John Wayne Gacy sitting on the couch dressed in complete Pogo the Clown getup.
Nope. Sorry. Makeup and everything. Nope.
Nope. Just drinking and he's like drunk off his ass just sitting there as Pogo the clown when he walks in.
That's horrific. That's absolutely horrific.
And he's like, hey, David, you want to do this cool handcuff trick that I have?
No, I do not, sir. And so he he did. David unfortunately fell for it and was like, sure, because he was like, you're weird.
And I'm just going to go with this. And he got locked in the cuffs.
And once he was in them, Gacy attacked him, telling him, and saying this to him, I want to rape you. like I'm going to rape you David fought him and actually got away to his room and somehow got out of the cuffs he stayed in the house After this.
I'm assuming... He must just not have had anywhere to go.
I think he had nowhere to go and I think he...
He's a young kid, so he's probably attributing it to, like, that dude's drunk.
That was probably just a crazy... So one month later, Gacy shows up at his bedroom door and is like...
And basically just says to him that he wants to rape him and then says, quote, Dave, you really don't know who I am.
Maybe it would be good if you just give me what I want.
What? And obviously David was like, no, and resisted him and fought him off.
And after fighting him for a minute, Gacy just got up and left the bedroom and said, you ain't no fun and just walked away.
And then David packed all his things and left.
Well, so this is when David left and stopped working for PDM.
But. He did help Gacy out some more for odd jobs later.
He did come back, so he must have needed money.
I was going to say, he's just a young kid that needs money.
That's really sad. Because John Wayne Gacy takes such advantage of like people's situations like that.
He very carefully picks his victims. Right.
It's that old adage that we've talked about a lot of times that he picks less dead people.
Because he's picking young boys, sure, but he's picking a lot of runaways, a lot of kids who, you know, don't have relationships with their families.
And actually... When he gets caught at the end of this, it is because he picks a kid who is very close to their family and is not a runaway. and that's so that was his like big fuck up Yeah, that's his big downfall.
So the next one to go missing and to be murdered is James Hackinson.
This was on August 5th, 1976. James was 16 years old.
He was known as Jimmy. He had run away from his home in St.
Paul, Minnesota, but he had called his parents on April 5th to let them know he was in Chicago.
It was the last they ever heard from him.
That's really sad. He was in the crawl space as well, and he wasn't identified until July 2017.
Wow. And they used DNA evidence to identify him.
The next one was August 6th. So this was a day later.
August 6, 1976, it was Rick Johnston. He was 17 years old.
He was last seen going to a rock concert at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.
After the concert he was supposed to call his mom for a ride home, but she never got the call.
His body was found in the crawl space stacked on top of Hackinson and an unidentified victim.
The fact that he got to the point of stacking people like that is horrific.
In fact, this is when he starts stacking people because he's running out of room. as you'll see he runs out of room eventually so the next ones that they could find were October 25th 1976 it was Kenneth Parker and Michael Marino.
They were friends. Parker was 16. Marino was 14.
They were hanging out together when they were last seen and they were reported missing by their parents immediately when they didn't show back up home.
Both of them were strangled and raped by Gacy and buried together.
The next one is the day after that, October 26, 1976, 19 year old William Bundy.
He had occasionally worked for PDM and he went missing one night after telling his family that he was just going to be going out to a party.
He was another one that wasn't identified until 2011.
And the way he wasn't identified is... Kind of what's happening now with like catching serial killers and shit.
His siblings provided DNA and he was able to be told from that.
I think it's so cool that we can do that.
Yeah. And like we said at the beginning, like it's so important to do that.
Yeah. Because it's. you know like that's how they're catching people now yeah it's true I mean I know a lot of people will not agree They don't want to give their DNA.
But like, yeah, it's good. I mean, like remember in this case how we started and you said like if you did know anybody that.
Oh, yeah. Like provide your DNA. That's what I meant by that.
Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. And then December 12th, 1976, 17-year-old Gregory Godzik disappeared.
He had gone out on a date with his girlfriend.
He had dropped her off at his at her house.
And then she said she watched him drive away like to go home.
He had been working for PDM and doing odd jobs for Gacy.
The day after he dropped his date off at our house, he still had not returned home.
So his parents were like, where the fuck did he go?
Police eventually found his car, which was a 1966 Pontiac.
His wallet was found during a search later of Gacy's home, and it was later confirmed that he was one of the bodies in the crawlspace.
Oh, man. So these are the ones that, like, you don't know what happened.
You just... You just know the name. You know Gacy did it because they're in his crawlspace.
You just... And they can tell like a lot of them, they could tell a lot of them were strangled or asphyxiated.
A few of them were stabbed, mostly strangled and asphyxiated.
January 1977, 19-year-old John Sizek went, or no, Sizek?
I think it's Sizek. I was like, that's Annie's last name.
Yeah, no. It's Szyzyk. S-Z-Y-C. 19-year-old John Szyzyk.
He was actually friends... with Gregory Godzik, which is creepy.
And he was last seen in his 1971 Plymouth satellite, and then he just disappeared.
So the story with that one is that Gacy was free to tell this one.
He said that Sizzik was going to be selling his car to Gacy.
But he was like, yeah, he came over and, you know, he was going to sell his car to me.
So we're talking price and we went over the whole thing.
I was looking at it. Then I just brought him inside and. bop bop a doo bop the i use the rope the rope trick on him and there he is So then you would think that they're like this missing kid's car is in John Wayne Gacy's possession.
Like it makes you wonder why that didn't happen.
Oh, don't worry. That did happen. Because I was like, what?
Like, how does that work? So like you were just saying, police are now on the lookout for this car.
Because they're like, okay, well, we got to find that car if we want to.
Because at this point, they don't know that he's dead.
Because all these he's later found in the crawlspace speak happens way later.
At this point, all these boys are just missing.
They're all just disappeared. So, police are on the lookout for this car and they suddenly spot it at a gas station.
So they spot it and a teenager named Michael Rossi is driving it.
And he's trying to leave the gas station without paying for the gas he just pumped.
Oh, that happened in the movie too, in the Gacy movie.
So when they approached him... He was like, yeah, I work for a guy named John and John can explain this all to you.
So the police are like, what the fuck? And they talk to Gacy.
And he's like, oh, yeah, that's John's car.
Car. And he sold it to me because he wanted to run away and he needed some cash to do so.
So he's like, so I bought his car from him to help him out.
And as for why Michael Rossi is driving the car.
He said, I gave Michael Rossi the car because he works for me.
And I told him that he could work off the debt, like he could just work for me and eventually would pay for the car.
Right. So Michael Rossi is the new teenager, teenage boy living in the Gacy home.
So the police are just like, okay. Sounds good.
Like the police at this point are like just useless.
Like they're like, well, and you have to think, too, this guy's like very involved in like the politics and his.
Oh, yeah. But it's like they're like, it's just John Gacy, you know.
But it's like, you know what? Look into it a little more, gumshoes.
Like maybe do some detective work here. So Michael Rossi, like I said, is living in the house with Gacy and David Cram, who was the one who walked in. to Gacy fully dressed as Pogo and he tried several times to sexually assault him.
David Cram and Michael Rossi were told by Gacy... to spread quicklime down in the crawlspace as much as they could to stop the smell.
So Gacy would force them down there like gagging and make them do it.
Meanwhile, one of them is probably like, I know exactly what this is because he tried to attack me.
Yeah, you know that these boys are like, I'm just going to do this because I don't want to be down here.
Like... I don't want to end up here. It's so sad to have been that close to so many deaths.
Oh, it's horrific. Well, the next one to go missing was John Prestige, and that was March 15th, 1977.
He was a 20 year old from Michigan. He was visiting friends in Chicago at the time.
He was later found in the crawlspace. Nobody really knows what the abduction was.
The next one was Robert Gilroy. That was September 15th, 1977.
He was 18 years old and he was actually the son of a sergeant on the Chicago Police Department.
Oh, so is that one this gets fucked up? No.
No. It's not. You would think that, wouldn't you?
Yeah. And they lived four blocks away from Gacy when he disappeared.
Wow. Yeah. You would really think that that's what the fuck up would have been.
And that's how, like... beyond reproach he was like he just was able to do this shit The next one was September 25th, 1977.
John Mowry. He was a 19 year old U.S. Marine.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Somehow he got involved with Gacy.
He ended up doing a little work for him.
He disappeared. The next one is Russell Nelson.
This was on October 17th, 1977. He was a 22-year-old University of Minnesota architecture student.
Oh, wow. He had traveled to Chicago with his friends.
He had gone to a dance club and he went missing that night.
He was later found in the crawlspace. The next one is November 10, 1977, Robert Winch.
He was only 16 years old. He was found in the crawlspace.
Not a lot is known about his death. November 18th.
And again, these are only like days apart.
November 18th, 1977, Tommy Bowling, a 20-year-old with one child...
Oh, that's so sad. He was found in the crawlspace.
He was killed with a ligature that was still around his neck.
December 9th, 1977, another 19 year old U.S.
Marine. Geez. Named David Talsma. He was found in the crawlspace as well.
So this is 1977 has been a busy year for him.
Yeah. He also briefly got engaged to someone.
I never knew that. Which I'm like... what the fuck exactly where do you fit all this into your fucking day-to-day schedule like holy shit that engagement ended really quick because He's John Wayne Gacy.
1978, that year he was also found to be syphilitic. so he had which is not shocking considering his uh leisure activities right um Now, he starts doing a couple of weird things, and I think the reason that he probably started doing this is because he didn't have any more room to throw bodies in his crawlspace.
Is this when he starts using the Des Plaines River?
Not yet. Or is that a lake? No. Well, we're not there yet.
Okay. You're like, slow down. He starts... releasing people like he starts doing his thing and then just releasing them So now he's just raping people.
Yeah, now it's very brazen because he's not covering his face.
Because he's just not scared. Why are you not afraid, dude?
No. And in January of 1978, a 19-year-old named Robert Donnelly contacted police and said, I have a fucking story to tell you.
So he said he was walking after midnight.
And he said Gacy had pulled up next to him in a car.
He had pulled a gun on him and threatened him saying he was a police officer. so he told him you're being detained he didn't tell him why he handcuffed him and threw him in his car he then brought him back to his home and raped him So during this whole thing, he's choking the boy into unconsciousness several times and then waking him up.
He also held his head underwater in a bathtub.
And at one point, this kid begged Gacy to kill him.
Because he said it was just too much. It's so torturous.
And Gacy responded, I'm getting around to it.
That was his response to that. That must have been the most night, because that's not what you expect when you say that.
Yeah. for hours and he said this went on and on the torture went on and on and then he just drove the boy to work the next morning To work?
Yep. Just dropped him off at work. And one of the really fucked up things he did while he was assaulting this kid was that he would hold a gun to his face the whole time.
Like he would like... While he was doing terrible things to him.
And he would spin the, what is it called?
The chamber of the gun. Is it a revolver?
And like in Russian roulette, he would like spin it and then he would pull the trigger a bunch of times.
So he was literally playing Russian roulette.
And eventually a blank cartridge fired. That just actually gave me like a bodily reaction.
Right? So the whole time he had a blank in there and he's fucking with this kid and eventually shoots and the sound comes.
And it's a blank. And a lot of times people say when they get shot, they don't even feel it because they're so scared.
This kid was probably like, was I just shot?
Right. And so this happened and again, this boy went to the police and was like, this is what happened and this is who did it.
That just made my heart beat faster. I'm not even joking.
It's no joke. The assistant state's attorney decided that When it came down to court, Gacy would appear more believable, so they dropped the charges.
What? Yep. So they were basically like, yeah, I don't think anyone's going to believe you.
So sorry. Like, can we just can we give it a shot at least?
Like, no, apparently not. So this one is crazy.
This one is a guy named Jeffrey Rignall. okay he was the second uh you know one that was released without being killed but wow did he go through some shit Trigger warning, this one's a tough one.
Oldest one? Yeah. Jeffrey was 26 years old, so he was one of the older ones.
He was walking to a bar in Rosemont, Illinois on May 22, 1978.
Gacy had rolled up next to him, offered him a ride and a joint.
And Jeffrey was like, cool, because it's the 70s.
He just got in. And when he got in, Gacy suddenly put a chloroform soaked rag over his face and he passed right out. oh god throughout the ride back to gacy's home jeffrey would wake up and gacy would just chloroform him again so he kept doing it over and over and over Later, Jeffrey had like severe liver damage from the chloroform.
I was going to say that would really fucking affect you.
Yeah. So when he woke up for the final time, he was in Gacy's den of torture.
He was locked in the rack, which was the wooden board suspended by chains to the ceiling and it has holes for your head and your hands.
He looked up and Gacy was standing there naked in front of him. to the ground and showed him that he had an array of dildos ranging from sizes you know different sizes different everything and And he just told him in graphic detail how he was going to use them and how long he would use them and where he would use them.
Jeffrey was then... brutally assaulted.
Raped, beaten, drugged, tortured. I mean beyond anything we can consider.
Gacy would put various items into various orifices. oh god uh other than dildos he would use like um i read something that said that he did he used pill bottles Oh, he would use candle wax and pliers.
He was a fucking monster. And he also so this guy also claimed later that he thought there might have been another person in the room. while this was going on.
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. And we'll explore that in part three.
That idea that he might have had an accomplice.
He was in and out of consciousness this whole time.
Like, while everything's going on. Because from sheer terror, pain, I mean, drugs, everything.
And when he woke up after hours, he was sitting fully dressed under a statue in Lincoln Park in Chicago.
So he just woke up completely in another place.
And he woke up and he was very severely injured.
I mean, of course. obviously he was literally like bleeding from his rectum like he was in a lot of in like severe internal damage So he was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and he had to stay there for six days.
I believe it. I'm surprised he didn't even have to stay there longer.
Yeah. And in the hospital, he told the entire experience to police.
He was like, I can tell you everything I can.
But they were skeptical of his story, which it's like you can't do that.
Who the fuck would make that up? And it's like, he has the injuries to prove it.
Like, what are you doing? How else do you think that fucking happened to him?
And also, I don't care if you're skeptical or not, you still have to investigate it.
That's literally what your job is. This is one of those, it's the 70s in Chicago, and it's like police are sitting there going, this is just a bunch of gay shit.
I was going to say, it's like the Jeffrey Dahmer stuff.
I was just going to say that. They would be like, these are just two gays that are having a quarrel and we're not going to get into it because that's gay stuff and we don't understand it. like that's literally what they're still alive and that they have to sit with the fact that they didn't do their job for real Well, later, Jeffrey literally would wait on freeways and overpasses just waiting to spot the vehicle.
Because he knew the vehicle in his head and he was like, I'm going to find this vehicle again and I'm going to get his license plate.
Good for him to have gone through that much trauma.
And to still be willing to fight. Sorry.
Oh, no, don't worry. He eventually spotted Gacy and he wrote down the license plate.
And he followed Gacy to his house to make sure that it was the house.
That's so brave. So he gave the police the address and the license plate and they did nothing with it.
Oh, my God. So later, when finally Gacy was caught, and it was shown that, yes, he did do this, Rignal testified against Gacy. in the people versus gacy um and he said he said that he was hoping that gacy was insane and not sane during that attack.
You would hope that. Because he said, quote, the beastly and animalistic ways he attacked me.
Just, it had to have been insane. Because you would assume that somebody would have to be out of their fucking mind to do that.
Well, and you want to know how bad it was when describing what happened to him on the stand?
He threw up. No, he threw up on the stand.
That's how badly he was like scarred. And this was years later.
I believe it. That's unimaginable torture.
So... The next one now, and remember that's like when he was caught later, but Jeffrey Rignall at this point was just released and nothing was done and he had to just live with this.
I can't imagine looking at the police and having them tell you, like, sorry, it's not a lot we can do.
Yeah, just be like, yeah, no, sorry. And you're just living your life now being like, cool.
So he's just walking around. Because at that moment, you're like, oh, cool.
Like, I'm never safe. Yeah, exactly. You have to look behind your over your shoulder forever.
So next on February 16th, 1978, 19-year-old William Kindred. was another one that disappeared and was later found in the crawlspace.
June 1978, 20-year-old Timothy O'Rourke He went missing.
He was actually the first of Gacy's murder victims to be dumped into the Des Plaines River.
Okay, so this is when like I said before I think those other two that he let go was literally because he didn't have any more room And I think he realized come up with that yet.
Yeah. And I think he realized through those two. that by releasing them he wasn't getting the full experience he wanted because remember he said before Death is the greatest, the most erotic thing to him.
And he was like, I need this person to die for me to jack off.
Like, ew. So so now he's like, oh, wait, I can just throw them in the river and I can still get my what I need to get.
So, Timothy O'Rourke was the first one that was thrown into the Des Plaines River.
The next one was November 4th, 1978. It was 19-year-old Frank Landegren.
He was found later in the Des Plaines River.
A pair of underwear had been stuffed down his throat.
They said he died of strangulation. The next one was November 24th, 1978.
20-year-old James Mazzara He went missing on Thanksgiving Day, and he was found in the Des Plaines River.
On Thanksgiving Day. That's horrific. Now, those are four victims that they found in the Des Plaines River, but Gacy claims he threw five over the bridge into the Des Plaines River.
So he says, according to him, he said one time I threw one over and I didn't hear a splash.
So I assume it hit a barge. Oh, and that's his claim.
But OK, you know, who knows? Maybe he's just like fucking with people.
So an asshole. Exactly. So I think earlier I'd said that the way that he finally got caught was his last victim. he decided to choose someone who had strong family ties bad idea right um this was that's i just why would you do that yeah it's just well because he can't control it it's just when he sees something he wants it and he doesn't care And this was Robert Piest.
This was December 11th, 1978. He was 15 years old.
Oh, my God. Which is a baby. That is a baby.
He was seen... So he worked at a pharmacy.
And Gacy approached him and was like, hey...
You know what? You look like you're a really good worker.
I've been watching you and like you look like you're in your strong.
And I could really use someone like you working at my contracting business.
Do you want a summer job? and he was like yeah i don't know and he was like i you know already have a job but like right and he was like but you know what you could earn a lot of extra money and he was like okay So Gacy was like, you just have to come back to my place and like sign some tax stuff and all that stuff and we'll get you rolling.
So Robert's mother's birthday was that night.
His mother's birthday. So he was like, he was a little hesitant and he was like, I want to make sure I get home for my mom's birthday.
And he had mentioned that he was saving for a Jeep.
Right. And so Gacy was like, oh, you know what?
Like I will give, you know, I'm going to pay you pretty good.
You're going to be able to get your Jeep.
Like this is, you know, this is a really good opportunity.
And like, I'm sure your mom will just be psyched that you got a new job.
Like happy birthday to her. Fucking douchebag.
Yeah. So Robert's like, all right. So he calls his mom and says, quote, some contractor wants to talk to me about a job.
And then he says he'll be home soon. Okay.
He was not. So when he got him back to his home, he offered him a drink.
He did the rope trick and Robert was strangled.
That's so sad. Thank God he called his mom and was like, this is where I'm going.
Yeah. What's awful is like, can you imagine his poor mother forever on her birthday?
Like your child was brutally murdered on your birthday.
That's the most horrific thing I can ever imagine.
No, I can't even. Well, and Gacy himself said he told Robert, quote, I'm going to rape you and you can't do anything about it.
Jesus Christ. And this is when he had him in the rope, like for the rope trick.
And he said Robert started to cry. oh and he said he put the garrotte around his neck and he said that he was quote crying scared and then he said after he killed him and he was lying on the floor dead He took a business call real quick while he's standing over his dead body.
So the next day, Robert was reported missing immediately because he didn't come home that night.
That poor family. All these poor families.
Yeah. Yeah. And he was obviously the last one that was thrown in the river.
And he was pulled from the river on April 9th, 1979.
This is where I'm going to stop for part two.
Okay. Because this was the turning point.
This is when the police do get involved.
This is when Gacy becomes public enemy number one and he is being tailed 24-7.
But this is not his last victim, right? This is his last victim.
Oh, okay. We definitely need to go into the surveillance and how brazen and cocky he was.
And then... Yeah, so in part three, we'll go through that.
We'll go through his arrest, his court appearances, his interviews, and his... prison sentence because he was executed and his last words are Notable.
Yeah. So she. So, yeah. So that is part two.
We got through all the murders and the horrific.
I'm glad we are done with that part. Yeah.
So now we can get into the cops and robbers part of it. everybody always gets mad at me for being like oh my god oh my god or like i'm glad we're done with that but i'm like why are you getting mad at me for that It's horrible.
This is horrible. But the episodes where we go through like the science behind it.
Yeah. I love doing this podcast and all the episodes, but I think part three is going to be really cool to talk about.
Yeah, part three... gets away from like the really like dark shit and gets more into like you know the aftermath which is interesting and the The surveillance part is really interesting because, I mean, it's just how brazen he is with the police is pretty insane.
Yeah. That's, like, my favorite part of true crime is just, like, the trials and stuff like that.
Yeah. And you find out, like... what makes people do certain things that's what i that's my favorite part of true oh yeah definitely and talking about his interviews and stuff he's a he's quite a dude yeah for sure well um if you want to follow us on instagram before you listen to part two you can go ahead and do that at Morbid Podcast.
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Do it. Spotify's rad. We hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it. Weird, but not so weird that you're a giant fucking asshole.
Yeah, that's a way that you're a gross clown that sits on your couch and just offers drinks and porn to little boys and then murders everybody.
Don't ever keep it that way. if i know you keep it that weird i'm gonna be real fucking mad at you yeah just don't do it bye you If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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