John Wayne Gacy Outline

The name of the serial killer that I have chosen is John Wayne Gacy. He was born on March 17, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois and died on May 10, 1994. Growing up as a young boy, John lived in a very abusive environment where he saw his mother, siblings, and himself abused by his father. His dad would beat them with a razor strap if they were perceived to be misbehaving. Being that his father was an alcoholic, didn’t help matters at all. He always saw John as a failure. What also didn’t help was that when he was going through school, he couldn’t play with other kids due to a congenital heart condition in which his father looked at as another failure. Another struggle he faced during adolescence was his attraction to boys, which caused great turmoil

in his sexuality.
Although Gacy had some struggles during his youth, after high school, he started to live a seemingly normal life. In the 1960’s, he was a fast-food chain manager. Then in the 1970’s, he became a self-made building contractor and a Democratic precinct captain in the suburbs of Chicago. Gacy was a well liked individual in the community who was a clown performer at children’s parties and organized cultural gatherings. He was also married and divorced twice with having biological children and stepchildren between the marriages. This seems like a normal life right? Well, everything began to fall apart from here.
In 1968, John was convicted of his first crime with the sexual assault of two teen boys. He was given a ten year sentence but was released on parole in the summer of 1970. Just a year after his release, he was arrested again after another teenager accused him of sexually assaulting him. These charges were dropped because the boy never showed up for the trial. By the middle of 1970, two younger males accused Gacy of rape, which led to the questioning by the police of the disappearance of others.
On December 11, 1978, a teenager by the name of Robert Piest went missing and was last seen as he headed out to Gacy’s house to see about a job opportunity. The police searched Gacy’s house in Norwood Park Township, Illinois on December 21 and uncovered numerous horrific acts of violence. They determined he had killed thirty three boys and young men with which the majority of whom were buried under his house and garage while others were found near the Des Plaines River. Gacy’s method of killing consisted sexually assaulting his victims and then strangled most of them with a rope with sometimes dressing as his alter ego “Pogo the Clown” when he killed. He lured them into his house by either promising construction work, drugs or alcohol, or posing as a police officer.
John’s trial began on February 6, 1980 and he was prosecuted by William Kunkle. He confessed to all of the crimes; however, the argument was whether he was insane. Gacy told the police that the murders were committed by an alternate personality. His plead for insanity was cut short when the judge decided that he was legally sane and was sentenced to serve 12 death sentences and 21 natural life sentences.
When Gacy was at the age of 11, he was playing on a swing set and the swing came and hit him in the head.

This seems like a normal injury for younger kids, but he was hit with it so hard it caused a blood clot in his brain that he did not find until he was sixteen years old. During that five year span, he suffered many black outs that were not treated until he was put on medication once they found the blood clot. I believe this had an impact on his outcome later in life. If you would combine his early childhood, brain clot, sexual confusion, and divorce, I believe you could use these factors in explaining why everything went downhill. I believe all of these factors led to John having an antisocial personality disorder with also a multiple personality disorder. An antisocial personality disorder is classified as some who disregards or violates the rights of others without feeling guilt or remorse. Our book says that individuals with this disorder have the following characteristics: troubled childhoods, childhood problems that continue into adulthood, maladaptive or poor personal relationships, and abnormal behaviors. This definitely fits Gacy in many different ways. His childhood was not necessarily troubled but his dad was abusive and an alcoholic. I believe his poor relationship with his dad is what caused him to yearn for that love from a male figure. This is why I believe he turned out to be a homosexual. Also, his horrendous acts that he committed also fit under the

antisocial personality disorder. John also is classified under the dissociative identity disorder. I say this because he went from living totally normal and caring life, to a very messed up life. Our book’s definition of dissociative identity disorder is marked by the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states, each with its own pattern of perceiving, thinking about, and relating to the world. Whenever John was interviewed by police, he even told them the murders were committed by an alternate personality. Whenever you go from working as a clown at little kids parties to killing young boys, there is obviously a split personality there. I honestly believe the blood clot he had as a young kid that went unnoticed for a few years had an effect on his brain. These problems really showed in the courtroom where he showed little to no mercy for the thirty three people he had killed. He never really had much power in the court because they knew he had killed all of those people, it was just to see whether he was determined insane. Nothing was ever done to him during or after the court session because they knew drugs would have no impact on helping him.
On May 10, 1994, (after waiting 14 years to be executed on death row), he was executed by lethal injection with his last words being, “Kiss my a**”. He was unremorseful all the way until the end. One interesting fact about John was that when he was in jail waiting for death row, he became know as a prolific artist. He painted many paintings in which a lot of them were clowns. Some of these paintings can go for as much as $25,000 dollars at an art auction. Another interesting fact is that he escorted Jimmy Carter’s wife on one of her visits to Chicago.