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The Infographics Show, America's Most Evil Serial Killer - John Wayne Gacy

America's Most Evil Serial Killer - John Wayne Gacy

In December 1978, Chicago police were just beginning to uncover the evidence of one of

the most heinous crimes their city had ever seen. As body after body was pulled out from under the

floorboards of a seemingly ordinary suburban home, investigators realized that they were

dealing with America's most evil serial killer. John Wayne Gacy, also known as the Killer Clown,

had murdered more people than any one person in U.S. history at that point in time.

John Wayne Gacy was a well-known and well-liked figure in his suburban community North of Chicago.

He owned a successful construction business, attended church faithfully, and was involved in

the local Polish community. He was married to his second wife and seemed to be a devoted stepfather

to her 2 daughters. Through his position as a precinct captain for the Democratic Party,

Gacy had the opportunity to meet and be photographed with First Lady Rosalynn Carter

in early 1978 - the very same year that his horrific crimes would become public.

At that time, though, Gacy was loved and admired by his neighbours, friends and the police,

and had been known for hosting elaborate parties for his entire neighborhood. Gacy's alter-ego,

Pogo the Clown, was often a feature of these parties, and neighbours recall that he seemed

to enjoy dressing up in his clown costume and makeup and entertaining local children.

But underneath Gacy's idyllic suburban life, he was hiding a dark past. Prior to moving to

Chicago, Gacy had been living in Iowa, where he was arrested for assaulting 2 young men while his

first wife was in the hospital giving birth to his child. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but

after serving 18 months in jail, a now-divorced Gacy was released on parole and he received

permission from the courts to relocate to Chicago for a fresh start. Soon, though, Gacy's community

and the world at large would learn that these secrets paled in comparison to the sadistic double

life that Gacy had been leading for years. After telling his second wife that he was bi-sexual,

the two divorced in 1976, and Gacy, now free to indulge his most sick and twisted fantasies,

soon learned that killing was more satisfying to him than anything else,

and he would spend the next several years trying to get his “fix” in the most horrific ways.

It all started to unravel for Gacy with the disappearance of Robert Piest. On December 11th,

1978, Robert's mother arrived to pick him up from his shift at the pharmacy where he worked.

When his shift ended, Robert told his mother that he was going to talk to a man about a

potential construction job that would pay more than double what he was making at the pharmacy.

He told her it would only take a few minutes, and then they could go home and enjoy his mother's

birthday celebration. She waited outside the pharmacy, but Robert never came back.

His panicked mother went home and returned to the pharmacy with her husband, other children,

and the family's 2 German Shepards, but they could find no sign of Robert. The

worried family then drove immediately to the police station to report their son missing.

Lieutenant Kozenczak, whose son attended the same high school as Robert, took their report.

One of the first calls he made was to John Wayne Gacy. Gacy's friends and neighbors may have been

oblivious to his dark past, but the police were not. Not only were they aware of his past

convictions, but they had also received numerous complaints about Gacy in recent years. In 1975,

after an employee of Gacy's construction company went missing, the man's family

pleaded with police to investigate Gacy, but their pleas were ignored. In 1976,

police had run surveillance on Gacy's home related to the disappearance of a 9 year old boy, but they

were unable to build a case against him. In 1977, a young man complained to the police about Gacy,

alleging that Gacy had kidnapped him at gunpoint and assaulted him. Gacy was arrested, and even

admitted to his encounter with the young man, but he claimed that it was consensual and prosecutors

declined to press charges. Police were also beginning to suspect that Gacy was behind a string

of complaints about a man named John who had been cruising local parks and picking up young men,

many of whom seemed to disappear after their encounter with John. Despite these incidents,

Gacy had managed to stay one step ahead of the law so far, but his luck was about to run out.

After Robert's family made their missing person's report, officers quickly realized that the man he

had gone to see about a construction job must have been John Wayne Gacy - his construction company

had just recently finished a renovation job at the very pharmacy where Robert had worked. The

coincidence was too much to ignore, and this time the police seriously considered Gacy as a suspect

in the disappearance of Robert Piest. Little did they know that this particular crime was just the

tip of the iceberg, and they were about to uncover one of the most gruesome crime sprees in history.

Lieutenant Kozenczak contacted Gacy and asked him to come into the police station for an interview.

Gacy was cordial and agreed to come in, telling officers he could be there within a half an hour.

Hours went by with no sign of Gacy. Officers were beginning to get suspicious when, at 3 a.m.,

Gacy suddenly appeared at the station. His arrival did little to calm their suspicions - Gacy was

more than 4 hours late to his interview, and when he arrived he was covered in mud and grime.

The officer that Gacy had come to see wasn't available, so he was sent on his way. Later,

officers would learn that Gacy's car had been towed from a snowbank near the Des Plaines River

at 2 a.m., immediately before he arrived at the police station.

Armed with this information, officers served Gacy with a search warrant when he returned the

following day for his interview. He reluctantly handed over his keys and was detained at the

station while officers searched his home. There, they found a receipt for a roll of film that

Robert's family confirmed belonged to him - police concluded that Robert had been in Gacy's home,

but they could find no evidence of a crime, and so Gacy was released and placed under surveillance.

The next day, officers found a ring that they linked to another missing boy,

and employees of Gacy's construction company told police about 2 different

employees of Gacy's who had mysteriously gone missing in recent months. A few days later,

Gacy had the audacity to invite the officers on surveillance duty outside of his home inside

for a cup of coffee. Once inside his home, both officers noticed the unmistakable stench of death.

That same day, Gacy's lawyers filed a lawsuit against the police department for harassment,

but before long Gacy would have much bigger legal issues to worry about.

While he was under 24-hour surveillance, officers witnessed Gacy selling marijuana to a gas station

clerk, and they jumped on the opportunity to arrest him. While Gacy was in custody for

drug-related charges, police officers threaten to tear up the floorboards in his home, prompting him

to admit to murder. He tells officers that yes, he did kill a man in his home, but claims that it

was self defense. He shows police the exact spot under his garage where he buried the body, and

during their search for this body, officers find a trap door leading to a crawl space under Gacy's

home - inside, amid the terrible stench of decay, officers find parts of at least 3 other bodies.

Once he realized that police had found the first bodies, Gacy cracked. In a rambling,

hours long confession in which he referred to himself in the 3rd person,

Gacy told police that “John” or “Jack” had killed at least 32 young men, and that he had buried 27

of the bodies on his property and had disposed of the rest, including the body of Robert Piest,

in the Des Plaines River. In fact, Gacy had been dumping Robert's body in that same river on the

night he was towed out of the snowbank before he showed up at the police station covered in mud.

Gacy was charged with the murder of Robert Piest, although police had yet to find his

body. By January 8th, 1979, police had uncovered the remains of 29 bodies,

but only 7 had been positively identified. Gacy was charged with the murders of 7 young men

as police continued their efforts to identify the rest of his victims. Parents of missing boys from

around the world contacted the Chicago police to find out if their sons among Gacy's victims, and

forensic specialists and dentists were called in to help identify the bodies using dental records,

which, in the time before DNA testing, was the most reliable method of identifying victims.

In April 1979, a Grand Jury indicted Gacy on a total of 33 murders - the

largest number attributed to one person in U.S. history at that time.

Throughout this, Gacy continued to give interviews to the police, and even described his first murder

to officers in gruesome detail. He admitted that he had stabbed his victim to death in his bedroom,

before burying him in the crawlspace, and police found a large blood stain on the underside

of the bedroom carpet that matched his story. Investigators also found a red light and a police

radio in Gacy's car, prompting them to conclude that he had posed as a police officer in order

to kidnap his victims. As the trial date loomed, police still had not found Robert Piest's body,

but they had found his jacket under the floor of Gacy's laundry room.

In January 1979, during the height of the investigation into the Killer Clown, the Chicago

Metropolitan Clown Guild held a press conference, stating that the Gacy investigation was negatively

impacting the city's professional clowns. Parents were too afraid to have their children near a

clown after the details of Gacy's crimes and his alter-ego Pogo the Clown were made public. Gacy's

friends and neighbours recalled that he frequently joked about how “clowns can get away with murder”,

though at the time they thought he was referring to his tendency to grope women while in costume.

Gacy's trial began on February 6th, 1980. Due to the graphic nature of the crimes and the evidence,

the judge banned anyone under the age of 16 from the courtroom. Gacy, who was facing the death

penalty, pled not guilty to the charges and his lawyers attemptted to launch a defence based on

insanity, but after a 5 week trial, it took the jury just 2 hours to find John Wayne Gacy guilty

of the heinous murder of 33 young men. State Attorney Bernard Carey was quoted as saying

“He certainly qualifies for the death penalty. If he doesn't, who does?” Gacy was sentenced to

death by lethal injection, and sent to Menard Correctional Center to await his execution.

Gacy would spend the next several years on death row while his automatic appeals were exhausted.

During his time on death row, Gacy took up art, painting numerous creepy pictures

of, of course, clowns. Several of Gacy's paintings were auctioned off along with

other inmates' art to raise money to buy art supplies for prisoners.

Years later, after Gacy's death, two local businessmen purchased 30 of these paintings,

and invited the families of his victims to destroy them in a public bonfire.

After nearly 15 years on death row, all of Gacy's appeals were exhausted, and his execution date was

set for May 10th, 1994. Gacy's last meal consisted of fried shrimp, a pound of fresh strawberries

and a bucket of KFC chicken with fries - prior to his murder spree and subsequent incarceration,

Gacy had actually managed 3 KFC restaurants owned by his former father-in-law. As he was strapped

to the gurney awaiting his execution, Gacy was asked if he had any last words. He snarled at

his executioners: “Kiss my ass”, and at 12:58 a.m., he was executed by lethal injection.

At the time of Gacy's execution, only 26 of his 33 victims had been positively identified.

The advent of DNA testing helped police identify more of Gacy's unknown victims,

including the 2011 identification of William George Bundy, a Chicago man who told his family

he was going to a party, and was never seen again. To this day, 6 victims of the killer

clown remain unidentified. As a direct result of Gacy's unthinkable crimes, Chicago police

spearheaded the creation of a computerized database of missing and murdered children

and youths to make it easier for various police departments across the country to communicate

and share information in the hopes that similar crimes could be avoided in the future.

John Wayne Gacy brutally murdered 33 young men and buried their bodies under the floorboards of

his home. He had appeared to be a successful businessman and a pillar of his community,

but neighbours would soon learn that appearances can be deceiving.

Hiding behind the facade was America's most evil serial killer, John Wayne Gacy, the Killer Clown.

Now go watch “Who Are the Most Evil Serial Killers in America?”, or watch this other video instead!

America's Most Evil Serial Killer - John Wayne Gacy Ο πιο κακός κατά συρροή δολοφόνος της Αμερικής - John Wayne Gacy El asesino en serie más malvado de Estados Unidos: John Wayne Gacy アメリカで最も邪悪なシリアルキラー - ジョン・ウェイン・ゲイシー O assassino em série mais malvado da América - John Wayne Gacy Самый злобный серийный убийца Америки - Джон Уэйн Гейси Amerika'nın En Kötü Seri Katili - John Wayne Gacy Найзліший серійний вбивця Америки - Джон Вейн Гейсі 美国最邪恶的连环杀手——约翰·韦恩·盖西 美國最邪惡的連續殺人犯-約翰·韋恩·蓋西

In December 1978, Chicago police were just  beginning to uncover the evidence of one of

the most heinous crimes their city had ever seen.  As body after body was pulled out from under the ||atrocious|||||||||||||||| 这是他们的城市所见过的最令人发指的罪行。当一具又一具尸体从下方被拉出时

floorboards of a seemingly ordinary suburban  home, investigators realized that they were 在一栋看似普通的郊区住宅的地板上,调查人员发现它们是

dealing with America's most evil serial killer.  John Wayne Gacy, also known as the Killer Clown, иметь дело с самым злым серийным убийцей Америки. Джон Уэйн Гейси, также известный как Клоун-Убийца,

had murdered more people than any one person  in U.S. history at that point in time.

John Wayne Gacy was a well-known and well-liked  figure in his suburban community North of Chicago.

He owned a successful construction business,  attended church faithfully, and was involved in

the local Polish community. He was married to his  second wife and seemed to be a devoted stepfather местной польской общины. Он был женат на своей второй жене и, похоже, был преданным отчимом.

to her 2 daughters. Through his position as  a precinct captain for the Democratic Party,

Gacy had the opportunity to meet and be  photographed with First Lady Rosalynn Carter 盖西有机会与第一夫人罗莎琳·卡特会面并合影

in early 1978 - the very same year that  his horrific crimes would become public.

At that time, though, Gacy was loved and admired  by his neighbours, friends and the police, Однако в то время Гейси любили и восхищались его соседи, друзья и полиция.

and had been known for hosting elaborate parties  for his entire neighborhood. Gacy's alter-ego,

Pogo the Clown, was often a feature of these  parties, and neighbours recall that he seemed

to enjoy dressing up in his clown costume  and makeup and entertaining local children.

But underneath Gacy's idyllic suburban life,  he was hiding a dark past. Prior to moving to

Chicago, Gacy had been living in Iowa, where he  was arrested for assaulting 2 young men while his Chicago, Illinois||||||||||||||||

first wife was in the hospital giving birth to his  child. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but

after serving 18 months in jail, a now-divorced  Gacy was released on parole and he received

permission from the courts to relocate to Chicago  for a fresh start. Soon, though, Gacy's community

and the world at large would learn that these  secrets paled in comparison to the sadistic double и весь мир узнает, что эти секреты меркнут по сравнению с садистским двойным

life that Gacy had been leading for years. After  telling his second wife that he was bi-sexual,

the two divorced in 1976, and Gacy, now free  to indulge his most sick and twisted fantasies,

soon learned that killing was more  satisfying to him than anything else,

and he would spend the next several years trying  to get his “fix” in the most horrific ways.

It all started to unravel for Gacy with the  disappearance of Robert Piest. On December 11th,

1978, Robert's mother arrived to pick him up  from his shift at the pharmacy where he worked. В 1978 году мать Роберта приехала забрать его со смены в аптеке, где он работал.

When his shift ended, Robert told his mother  that he was going to talk to a man about a

potential construction job that would pay more  than double what he was making at the pharmacy.

He told her it would only take a few minutes, and  then they could go home and enjoy his mother's

birthday celebration. She waited outside  the pharmacy, but Robert never came back.

His panicked mother went home and returned to  the pharmacy with her husband, other children,

and the family's 2 German Shepards, but  they could find no sign of Robert. The

worried family then drove immediately to the  police station to report their son missing.

Lieutenant Kozenczak, whose son attended the  same high school as Robert, took their report.

One of the first calls he made was to John Wayne  Gacy. Gacy's friends and neighbors may have been

oblivious to his dark past, but the police  were not. Not only were they aware of his past

convictions, but they had also received numerous  complaints about Gacy in recent years. In 1975,

after an employee of Gacy's construction  company went missing, the man's family

pleaded with police to investigate Gacy,  but their pleas were ignored. In 1976,

police had run surveillance on Gacy's home related  to the disappearance of a 9 year old boy, but they

were unable to build a case against him. In 1977,  a young man complained to the police about Gacy,

alleging that Gacy had kidnapped him at gunpoint  and assaulted him. Gacy was arrested, and even claiming|||||||||||||||

admitted to his encounter with the young man, but  he claimed that it was consensual and prosecutors

declined to press charges. Police were also  beginning to suspect that Gacy was behind a string

of complaints about a man named John who had been  cruising local parks and picking up young men, В полицию поступили жалобы на мужчину по имени Джон, который ходил по местным паркам и подкарауливал молодых людей,

many of whom seemed to disappear after their  encounter with John. Despite these incidents,

Gacy had managed to stay one step ahead of the  law so far, but his luck was about to run out. До сих пор Гейси удавалось оставаться на шаг впереди закона, но его удача вот-вот должна была иссякнуть.

After Robert's family made their missing person's  report, officers quickly realized that the man he

had gone to see about a construction job must have  been John Wayne Gacy - his construction company

had just recently finished a renovation job at  the very pharmacy where Robert had worked. The

coincidence was too much to ignore, and this time  the police seriously considered Gacy as a suspect

in the disappearance of Robert Piest. Little did  they know that this particular crime was just the

tip of the iceberg, and they were about to uncover  one of the most gruesome crime sprees in history.

Lieutenant Kozenczak contacted Gacy and asked him  to come into the police station for an interview.

Gacy was cordial and agreed to come in, telling  officers he could be there within a half an hour.

Hours went by with no sign of Gacy. Officers  were beginning to get suspicious when, at 3 a.m.,

Gacy suddenly appeared at the station. His arrival  did little to calm their suspicions - Gacy was

more than 4 hours late to his interview, and  when he arrived he was covered in mud and grime.

The officer that Gacy had come to see wasn't  available, so he was sent on his way. Later,

officers would learn that Gacy's car had been  towed from a snowbank near the Des Plaines River

at 2 a.m., immediately before he  arrived at the police station.

Armed with this information, officers served  Gacy with a search warrant when he returned the Вооружившись этой информацией, офицеры вручили Гейси ордер на обыск, когда он вернул

following day for his interview. He reluctantly  handed over his keys and was detained at the

station while officers searched his home. There,  they found a receipt for a roll of film that пока офицеры обыскивали его дом. Там они нашли чек на рулон пленки, который

Robert's family confirmed belonged to him - police  concluded that Robert had been in Gacy's home,

but they could find no evidence of a crime, and so  Gacy was released and placed under surveillance.

The next day, officers found a ring  that they linked to another missing boy,

and employees of Gacy's construction  company told police about 2 different

employees of Gacy's who had mysteriously gone  missing in recent months. A few days later,

Gacy had the audacity to invite the officers  on surveillance duty outside of his home inside |||boldness||||||||||||

for a cup of coffee. Once inside his home, both  officers noticed the unmistakable stench of death.

That same day, Gacy's lawyers filed a lawsuit  against the police department for harassment,

but before long Gacy would have much  bigger legal issues to worry about.

While he was under 24-hour surveillance, officers  witnessed Gacy selling marijuana to a gas station

clerk, and they jumped on the opportunity  to arrest him. While Gacy was in custody for

drug-related charges, police officers threaten to  tear up the floorboards in his home, prompting him

to admit to murder. He tells officers that yes,  he did kill a man in his home, but claims that it

was self defense. He shows police the exact spot  under his garage where he buried the body, and

during their search for this body, officers find  a trap door leading to a crawl space under Gacy's

home - inside, amid the terrible stench of decay,  officers find parts of at least 3 other bodies.

Once he realized that police had found the  first bodies, Gacy cracked. In a rambling,

hours long confession in which he  referred to himself in the 3rd person,

Gacy told police that “John” or “Jack” had killed  at least 32 young men, and that he had buried 27

of the bodies on his property and had disposed  of the rest, including the body of Robert Piest,

in the Des Plaines River. In fact, Gacy had been  dumping Robert's body in that same river on the

night he was towed out of the snowbank before he  showed up at the police station covered in mud. |||pulled out|||||||||||||||

Gacy was charged with the murder of Robert  Piest, although police had yet to find his Гейси был обвинен в убийстве Роберта Писта, хотя полиция так и не нашла его.

body. By January 8th, 1979, police had  uncovered the remains of 29 bodies,

but only 7 had been positively identified. Gacy  was charged with the murders of 7 young men

as police continued their efforts to identify the  rest of his victims. Parents of missing boys from

around the world contacted the Chicago police to  find out if their sons among Gacy's victims, and

forensic specialists and dentists were called in  to help identify the bodies using dental records,

which, in the time before DNA testing, was the  most reliable method of identifying victims.

In April 1979, a Grand Jury indicted  Gacy on a total of 33 murders - the

largest number attributed to one  person in U.S. history at that time.

Throughout this, Gacy continued to give interviews  to the police, and even described his first murder

to officers in gruesome detail. He admitted that  he had stabbed his victim to death in his bedroom,

before burying him in the crawlspace, and police  found a large blood stain on the underside

of the bedroom carpet that matched his story.  Investigators also found a red light and a police

radio in Gacy's car, prompting them to conclude  that he had posed as a police officer in order рация в машине Гейси, что позволило им сделать вывод о том, что он выдавал себя за офицера полиции, чтобы

to kidnap his victims. As the trial date loomed,  police still had not found Robert Piest's body,

but they had found his jacket under  the floor of Gacy's laundry room.

In January 1979, during the height of the  investigation into the Killer Clown, the Chicago

Metropolitan Clown Guild held a press conference,  stating that the Gacy investigation was negatively

impacting the city's professional clowns. Parents  were too afraid to have their children near a

clown after the details of Gacy's crimes and his  alter-ego Pogo the Clown were made public. Gacy's

friends and neighbours recalled that he frequently  joked about how “clowns can get away with murder”, Друзья и соседи вспоминали, что он часто шутил о том, что "клоунам может сойти с рук убийство",

though at the time they thought he was referring  to his tendency to grope women while in costume. even if|||||||||||||||||

Gacy's trial began on February 6th, 1980. Due to  the graphic nature of the crimes and the evidence,

the judge banned anyone under the age of 16 from  the courtroom. Gacy, who was facing the death

penalty, pled not guilty to the charges and his  lawyers attemptted to launch a defence based on

insanity, but after a 5 week trial, it took the  jury just 2 hours to find John Wayne Gacy guilty

of the heinous murder of 33 young men. State  Attorney Bernard Carey was quoted as saying

“He certainly qualifies for the death penalty.  If he doesn't, who does?” Gacy was sentenced to «Он определенно имеет право на смертную казнь. Если нет, то кто? " Гейси был приговорен к

death by lethal injection, and sent to Menard  Correctional Center to await his execution.

Gacy would spend the next several years on death  row while his automatic appeals were exhausted. Следующие несколько лет Гейси проведет в камере смертников, пока не будут исчерпаны все его автоматические апелляции.

During his time on death row, Gacy took  up art, painting numerous creepy pictures

of, of course, clowns. Several of Gacy's  paintings were auctioned off along with

other inmates' art to raise money  to buy art supplies for prisoners.

Years later, after Gacy's death, two local  businessmen purchased 30 of these paintings,

and invited the families of his victims  to destroy them in a public bonfire.

After nearly 15 years on death row, all of Gacy's  appeals were exhausted, and his execution date was

set for May 10th, 1994. Gacy's last meal consisted  of fried shrimp, a pound of fresh strawberries

and a bucket of KFC chicken with fries - prior  to his murder spree and subsequent incarceration, |||||||||||||||imprisonment и ведро цыплят KFC с картошкой фри - до совершения убийства и последующего заключения в тюрьму,

Gacy had actually managed 3 KFC restaurants owned  by his former father-in-law. As he was strapped

to the gurney awaiting his execution, Gacy was  asked if he had any last words. He snarled at

his executioners: “Kiss my ass”, and at 12:58  a.m., he was executed by lethal injection.

At the time of Gacy's execution, only 26 of  his 33 victims had been positively identified.

The advent of DNA testing helped police  identify more of Gacy's unknown victims, |arrival|||||||||||

including the 2011 identification of William  George Bundy, a Chicago man who told his family

he was going to a party, and was never seen  again. To this day, 6 victims of the killer

clown remain unidentified. As a direct result  of Gacy's unthinkable crimes, Chicago police

spearheaded the creation of a computerized  database of missing and murdered children

and youths to make it easier for various police  departments across the country to communicate

and share information in the hopes that  similar crimes could be avoided in the future.

John Wayne Gacy brutally murdered 33 young men  and buried their bodies under the floorboards of |||||||||||||under the floor|

his home. He had appeared to be a successful  businessman and a pillar of his community, его дома. Он слыл успешным бизнесменом и одним из столпов общества,

but neighbours would soon learn  that appearances can be deceiving.

Hiding behind the facade was America's most evil  serial killer, John Wayne Gacy, the Killer Clown.

Now go watch “Who Are the Most Evil Serial Killers  in America?”, or watch this other video instead!