5: The Chilling Truth Behind the Killer Clown Hype | John Wayne Gacy

He smiled, he waved, he seemed like the perfect neighbor. But behind closed doors, John Wayne Gacy was hiding a darkness so twisted it would shock the world. For years, he lived a double life, blending seamlessly into his Chicago community while hiding secrets no one could imagine. What drove a seemingly ordinary man to commit unspeakable acts? How did he evade capture for so long, and what finally brought his horrifying crimes to light? Step inside the mind of a man who fooled everyone… until the truth clawed its way out. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms🚩 Announcements Want to catch Annie LIVE on tour? 🎟 Grab your tickets now for a city near you! 📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected]📚 Episode Sources A&E | All That’s Interesting | BBC News | Biography | Britannica | Chicago Tribune | Cook County Sheriff’s Office | Crime Solvers Central | Death Penalty Information Center | Find a Grave | History | NBCUniversal Media Village | New York Times | Oxygen | People | The Faculty Lounge | ThoughtCo | Totheplace | Unidentified Awareness Wiki | WKOW News | WIMissing | Wikipedia••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

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• 1:07Annie Elise?

  It was supposed to be a birthday celebration, but instead it became the beginning of one of the darkest investigations in American history.

• 1:17Annie Elise?

  It all started on December 11th, 1978, a freezing winter night in Des Plaines, Illinois. Now, inside the Peast home, the plan was simple. Cake, candles, and family. Elizabeth Peast had just turned 46 years old, and all that she wanted for her birthday was a very quiet evening surrounded by the people that she loved the most. Now, her 15-year-old son, Robert, was finishing up his shift at Nissan Pharmacy, so the party was going to have to wait a little while until he got home. So at around 9:00 PM, Elizabeth bundled up, she threw on her coat and her gloves, and she drove through the icy streets to go pick up her 15-year-old son. Now, when she walked into this pharmacy, she immediately spotted Robert.

• 2:00Annie Elise?

  He was there restocking the shelves, preparing the store for the next day. He smiled when he saw her. He told her he would be out in just a second. He just needed to step outside to talk with a contractor who was actually offering him a summer job. And it was a job that was, quote, "double the pay," which he was really proud of. So Elizabeth laughed because only her son, Robert, would be thinking about a summer job in literally the middle of December. But he was like that. He was responsible. He was smart. He was thoughtful. The kind of kid who actually planned ahead. So she watched him walk out the door, feeling kind of that tug as moms feel when they realize their baby isn't really a baby anymore. And then she waited. Five minutes passed, then 10, then 20.

• 2:44Annie Elise?

  And at first, she thought that maybe Robert had caught a ride home with somebody else, which was strange since she was already there and he saw her. But again, not impossible. Until then, she got home and he wasn't there either. So that's when panic really started to set in. The Peas family knew instantly something was wrong here, something terribly wrong. Hey, guys. I'm Annie Elise, and today we're diving into one of the most infamous cases of all time. The horrifying story of John Wayne Gacy. Now, before we get into it, you've probably heard about the new Peacock series called Devil in Disguise,

• 3:24Annie Elise?

  which really does take a deeper look at Gacy's crimes and the years-long investigation that finally brought him down. But if you haven't seen it yet, it's absolutely worth adding it to your list. It is chilling but incredibly well-done. And we actually had the opportunity to sit down with both the showrunner, Patrick McManus, and the actor who portrays John Wayne Gacy, Michael Chernis. Now, you may recognize Michael because he was also in Orange is the New Black. He was in Severance, which I'm obviously obsessed with too. But he crushed this role. And he shares with us directly some really intense details about making this series. Also, what it was like stepping into such a dark character, a dark role.

• 4:09Annie Elise?

  And of course, he also shares with us more details about the man behind the many masks, John Wayne Gacy himself. So at the end of this episode, you will hear directly from them as they unpack who John Wayne Gacy really was, and also how the devil in disguise on Peacock really came together. But before that, we have to learn about John Wayne Gacy. And everything that you maybe thought you knew, there is more. And we are going to dive into all of it. So let's jump right in.

• 4:53Annie Elise?

  So at around 11:29 PM, Robert's family filed an official missing persons report. Robert had known how important that night was for his mom. He wouldn't have just up and left. It was extremely out of character for him. And his entire family felt confident about that, so they weren't going to waste any time. And honestly, the police weren't going to either. Right away, they took this call pretty seriously. There was no, you know, come back in 24 hours. We can't file an official missing persons report for that time. It wasn't that type of thing. They immediately took it seriously. Now, Robert had just gone missing at around 9:00 PM. So really, only a couple of hours had passed since anyone had last seen him.

• 5:34Annie Elise?

  And if anything, they thought that they were kind of ahead of the game a little bit here. And one of the officers who was there when the Pease family came in was named Lieutenant Joe Kozincheck. And he actually could attest to the kind of kid that Robert was. You see, his son went to Robert's school, so he knew a little bit about Robert in passing. And he knew that he was an honor roll student. He knew that his son had never had anything bad to say about Robert ever. And he knew that he never got into any trouble. He was just an all-around good kid. So Lieutenant Kozincheck felt like it was pretty unlikely that Robert had either, you know, run off and that he would just run away, especially right after his shift ended. I mean, it didn't really make sense.

• 6:18Annie Elise?

  What teenager is going to go to work, make sure that he stays in good standing with his job, just to then run away at the end of the night? Especially after he saw his mom while his mom was there waiting for him? It just did not make any sense. But what stood out to the lieutenant was what Robert had told his mom right before he went missing. Remember that he was meeting a random contractor regarding a summer job. So, once the lieutenant got involved in this case, the investigation really started to move quickly. Almost immediately detectives felt like they had a solid lead to work with here. Elizabeth told them that Robert had mentioned needing to meet with that contractor, which that meant that this contractor was likely the last person to see him before

• 7:03Annie Elise?

  he disappeared. Or, maybe, this person could have been responsible for Robert's disappearance altogether, but certainly somebody worth talking to. The investigators decided to get ahold of the owner of the pharmacy, so that with that, they could see if there was anybody specific that he could think of off of the top of his head. Someone who maybe came into the pharmacy often, did some construction contract work, things like that. And guess what? Someone came to his head almost immediately. Apparently, this guy named John Gacy had just done some major renovations to the pharmacy, and he was also a frequent customer. So, on December 12th, the day after Robert went

• 7:45Annie Elise?

  missing, the detectives decided to give John a call. And right away, I have to say, John seemed pretty cooperative. He admitted that yes, he had just been at the pharmacy that night before, they were right about that. However, he denied ever even talking to Robert in the store, let alone meeting him outside after hours about any sort of job. But the investigators weren't just gonna take John's word for it, they needed to do a little bit of digging here. Again, he was the one and only person that they even had that they could look into at this point. So the detectives dove deeper into who John was. And immediately when they started digging, there were some red flags. For example, they had discovered

• 8:25Annie Elise?

  that back in 1968, he had gotten into some trouble. Some major trouble. He had pleaded guilty to a charge of sodomy, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, he was paroled just two years into his sentence, and he had been a free man ever since. Now, coincidence that this man who had a sodomy charge against him was likely the last person to see this 15-year-old missing boy alive? Very unlikely. Now, they were pretty sure that he did have something to do with Robert's disappearance, but they weren't quite sure exactly what. So, because of that, they drafted up a search warrant. And on December 13th, two days now after Robert disappeared, the warrant was approved.

• 9:11Annie Elise?

  And John's house, it looked nice on the outside. It was a light colored brick home. These three big floor to ceiling windows right next to the front door that looked directly out of the house. There were these neatly landscaped bushes out front, a yard full of snow. It looked like a very picturesque home. And when the investigators arrived at John's front door, he seemed very casual, kind of like, "Come on in, guys. I've got nothing to hide." Now, obviously, they didn't need the invite. They had the warrant, but they went inside and the official search began. And during this search, they discovered a lot of weird stuff. Like, there were a lot of drugs. There was a lot of drug paraphernalia.

• 9:52Annie Elise?

  They then found some handcuffs, which, okay, not illegal by any means. Maybe he was just kind of into that sort of thing. But then they found things that just couldn't be brushed off or explained away. Because then they found all sorts of explicit material. Now, some of it was adults, but some of it involved children, more specifically, CSAM material. Then, they found two different driver's licenses. And neither one of them had John's name or John's picture on it, which was really weird, right? They also found clothes that looked to be men's style of clothes, but they never in a million years would have fit John, because these clothes that they found,

• 10:37Annie Elise?

  it was way too small, and John was definitely a heftier guy. They also found a high school class ring with the year 1975 and the initials J A S etched into the side. Now, John was born in 1942, so unless he was a 33-year-old high schooler in 1975, the ring definitely did not belong to him. Then there was also the fact that the initials J A S didn't belong to him either. He was J W G. Now, other things that they found inside the house were guns, ammo, a switchblade, and also a stained carpet. A lot of things that didn't necessarily mean anything, but they were things that were important to note regardless.

• 11:23Annie Elise?

  I mean, they could definitely be suspicious under the right circumstances, right? But then there was something bigger about this house that really stood out to the investigators. It had a smell about it, an odor that just was not normal. It wasn't the smell of dust, or dirt, or even mold. It was something almost sour, but way worse than just some spoiled milk that was still left in the fridge. And when the investigators asked John about the smell, he kinda just chalked it up to a sewage line leak, something that he had been dealing with for quite some time, and just kinda left it at that. Which, possible, yes, but suspicious? Definitely. The detectives then tried to find the source of this smell,

• 12:07Annie Elise?

  and they concluded that it seemed to be coming from underneath the house, in, more specifically, in the crawl space area. Which kinda felt like, okay, yeah, maybe that ties to the sewer. And for whatever reason, they decided that if the smell was coming from below the house, that it probably more than likely was some sort of sewage leak or problem. So with that, they didn't think too much into it, they didn't investigate really further, they just decided to move on. And at the end of the day, while they found, yes, some weird and questionable stuff, and maybe even smelled some weird things, the detectives hadn't found Robert. He wasn't hiding in some closet somewhere, he wasn't tied up or anything. It didn't seem that John had anything to do with it.

• 12:50Annie Elise?

  And they didn't really find anything in John's house to even connect him to Robert. They felt like the only confirmation that they even got from that search was that John was more than likely, probably, a child predator, based on the material that they found, which they already knew too, based on the charges that had been against him from not too long before, but nothing that tied to Robert. But finding the sea sand material, the class ring from not too long ago, and the men's clothing that was certainly too small for him, and probably small enough to fit a young boy, it kind of just solidified in their minds that he was a child predator. And not that that wasn't the issue in the grand scheme, I mean, that is very important, yes, but their current focus was on finding Robert.

• 13:34Annie Elise?

  And they hadn't found anything to say that he had kidnapped Robert, or even worse, that he had killed him. So unfortunately, it was a dead end. So the investigators left. And with every day that passed, Robert's family started to feel more and more hopeless. However, I will say, John still wasn't off the hook and the authorities did have 24/7 surveillance on him. On top of that, they were doing as much digging into John and John's past as they possibly could. Specifically, they were doing that by asking around and seeing what the people around town knew about him. And that's when they started learning something really off. Additionally, as they were gathering all of their information, one of the employees

• 14:18Annie Elise?

  at John's contracting company confided in the investigators with a detail that was very, very bizarre. He had said that John had once paid him to dig very big holes in the crawl space of his home. The same crawl space that had that odor and that, you know, quote, unquote sewage leak problem. And then the investigators were hit with maybe the biggest curve ball of all time. The investigators were interviewing Robert's parents again, trying to get any possible detail that could have been left out. Just making sure, you know, dotting all of their i's, crossing all their t's. And that's when Robert's mom, Elizabeth, mentioned something that changed the entire course of this investigation.

• 15:03Annie Elise?

  She recalled that when she arrived at the pharmacy that night, that she talked to Robert's coworker and fellow classmate, Kim Byers. And Kim had brought up in their conversation that she had forgotten her jacket that day and she was really cold during their shift. So because of that, being the nice guy he is, Robert gave her his jacket. It was a blue zip-up jacket, nothing super fancy, but something, you know, a nice gesture and something to keep her warm. Before the end of their shift, though, Kim gave it back to him and he actually had that jacket on when he went outside to go talk with this contractor. And Kim remembered all of this vividly. And she remembered it so well because apparently she had accidentally left a receipt inside

• 15:46Annie Elise?

  the pocket of the jacket, a receipt that she had meant to grab before giving the jacket back, but ultimately forgot. Now, why is this so important? Because during the search of John's house, the investigators had found a blue zip-up jacket, just like the one that Elizabeth and Kim had described. They also had taken it in as evidence. And as if that wasn't already enough, they checked that jacket pocket, and sure enough, there was the receipt that Kim had forgotten. Just like that, they had officially found a clue that proved that John and Robert's disappearance were somehow connected. And it was also a clue that proved that John had in fact been lying to the investigators all along.

• 16:29Annie Elise?

  He did have contact with Robert that night. So the investigators now strongly believed that John had done something to Robert. And finally, on December 22nd, they arrested him. And to be fair, it seemed like John knew that they were closing in on him. Because on the day of his arrest, people claimed that they saw him drinking, that he was going door-to-door, talking with his friends and his neighbors, almost like it was some kind of weird and twisted goodbye moment for him. Now, his actual arrest, it was a bit more unique than others, I have to say. Because detectives had been waiting until they either found more evidence to arrest him or caught him doing something illegal. And luckily, he had been doing the latter.

• 17:11Annie Elise?

  The surveillance teams that had been monitoring him and watching him, the ones that had been set in place, actually caught him selling weed to a local gas station clerk. So technically, that's why he was arrested. It was on a technicality. But the important thing was that now he was in police custody. So, his arrest was going to make getting a second search warrant that much easier. Especially since there was already so much suspicion surrounding him. Now this time, the investigators were not going to leave his home until they found what they needed. And they knew that all of the answers to their many questions likely were going to be found inside that crawl space. But when they finally went and searched it, they found something even more horrifying

• 17:55Annie Elise?

  than they could have ever imagined. Because that entire crawl space was filled with dead bodies.

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• 18:48Annie Elise?

  So when the authorities finally searched the crawl space under the home of John Wayne Gacy, although they knew some answers would be there, they hadn't expected that they would be hit with the overwhelming smell of death mixed with the heater that had been turned on inside the house. They also hadn't expected the piles of dirt that looked almost like makeshift graves. And most of all, they hadn't expected the sheer amount of bodies underneath John's home, all in various stages of decomposition. Too many people to even count on one hand. There were also bones everywhere. Each person had their own little spot, almost like a cemetery. Some spots even contained two bodies that were there together, placed head to foot.

• 19:32Annie Elise?

  Yet this was anything but a peaceful resting place for the dead. It was haunting and disgusting. They knew that the man that they were dealing with was an absolute monster, but they hadn't realized just how sick and cruel he truly was. The investigators learned that Robert was the fourth person to have gone missing after last having contact with John. Which, what are the odds of that? John not only was a child predator, but also a murderer. But they also learned he hadn't always been that way, or at least he had learned to hide it very well over the years. So let's go back a little bit to talk about who John Wayne Gacy was. John Wayne Gacy was born in 1942

• 20:16Annie Elise?

  to his World War I veteran father, John Stanley Gacy, and to his homemaker mother, Marion Robinson. Now, growing up, he never got along with his dad. Most of the time, John was with his mom and his two sisters, and that was perfectly fine with him. He just kind of kept to himself with them and didn't go around his dad. His dad was mean, he was very demeaning toward him. And apparently, he was also a raging alcoholic and was often verbally and physically abusive toward not only John, but the entire family. Anytime Marion ever tried to shield John from the near constant abuse, his father used it as an excuse to be awful to John, calling him a sissy and a mama's boy and just really tormenting him.

• 20:57Annie Elise?

  And in his father's eyes, John would never be good enough. He was just a disappointment, a constant disappointment. Despite this, though, John would spend the majority of his life trying to prove himself to his father. High school was also pretty rough for John. He was overweight, which of course, as you can imagine, earned him a lot of dirty looks and a lot of laughs. People liked to bully him. And for a short period of time, he tried to get into sports, you know, as a way to fit in with the other guys and make friends. But he was not only naturally pretty unathletic, he also had a heart condition that made long periods of exercise almost impossible. So that whole plan was pretty short-lived. And from ages 14 to 18, he was constantly in and out of the hospital because of his heart condition.

• 21:42Annie Elise?

  And because of that, his grades really took a hit. So eventually, he just dropped out. Now, even though he didn't have a high school diploma, John really wanted to make something of himself. For years, he would take whatever job he could get, and he was always known as being an incredibly hard worker. There was even an era where he got involved in politics as well. And then, when that didn't really pan out, he ended up working at the local morgue as an attendant, meaning that he was very up close and personal with dead bodies. This was daily, too. He would help with the embalming, getting the bodies processed in, doing all of the paperwork and the record-keeping, but that grew old after a while. And so he once again switched gears.

• 22:25Annie Elise?

  And eventually, he somehow got into business school, and he even finished and got his business degree. Then, at 22 years old, he married a woman named Marilyn Myers. And their relationship opened even more doors for John because Marilyn's dad owned a bunch of KFCs, and he let John manage the restaurants, which I saw one source that said that he was making about $15,000 a year, which in today's time, that would equate to about $152,000 a year, give or take. So he was making a killing in the fast food business. I mean crushing it. Now, all of that backstory to say that when people thought of John, they definitely thought of someone who came from very humble beginnings and had really worked his way to the top.

• 23:10Annie Elise?

  He was a successful businessman and he was seemingly a loving husband. And not too long into his marriage, they brought in two kids into the world together, a boy and a girl. So now he was also a father. And his life seemed to have turned out pretty well overall, especially considering his upbringing. Now, apparently in 1966, after he and his wife welcomed their first child into the world, a boy, John Senior, his dad, had come to visit. And he actually told John that he had had it all wrong about him. He told him he was proud of the man that he had become. Everything he had ever said about him, all of the name-calling, all of the, you know, torment, everything, it was wrong.

• 23:52Annie Elise?

  And it was like John had finally gotten his dad's stamp of approval on him, on his life. He had made him proud. But here's the thing, this perfectly curated facade that John showed to everyone on the outside, that was not the real John. The John behind closed doors, as well as the John to come, he was one who was much more calculated and way more sinister than your average family man and business owner. But still, John would later say that this time in his life was perfect. He had a wife, kids, a good career, pretty much everything a guy could ask for. But the truth is, he really wasn't valuing it or spending time savoring those moments with his family.

• 24:36Annie Elise?

  And if you look into John's life, there were a lot of different things that you could say were the beginning of red flags, signs of what he would become one day. For example, he did a lot of extracurricular activities. I'll just say that, ones that were pretty unique.

• 24:53Annie Elise?

  For starters, he had opened up what he called a club, and he opened this up in the basement of one of his KFCs that he managed. Now, this club wasn't like an actual club that you might be thinking of. It was just a place where all of his employees could come spend time after hours, just drinking, partying all night, just hanging out, kind of like, you know, an after-hours bar. Which I'm assuming HR at the time was probably pretty much next to none, because something like that, we know, would never fly in today's climate and world. So that in and of itself was pretty odd and different, for sure. But John's behavior at this so-called club was even odder, and what really kind of struck it as different. He had a pretty diverse work team, some men, some women, some young, some old.

• 25:39Annie Elise?

  But one thing really stood out above everything else. He only ever talked to the men. And the younger, the better. Not only did he just favor men, but he was also pretty mean to the women. And at first, you might be thinking, okay, sign of the times, right? Women weren't respected, and maybe John thought that he was too good to even talk to them. Possibly. But it was much deeper than that. Only talking to the men wasn't out of some kind of respect for his wife, or just a lack of respect toward the women. His MO was different, and it went a little something like this. He would provide alcohol to get his employees really, really drunk. Then he would play the part of like being the cool boss.

• 26:21Annie Elise?

  Then, once some of the employees, the male employees in particular, once they were pretty wasted, he would start hitting on them. And sometimes it was just flirting, which, obviously, was still crossing the line and a problem. But other times, he'd actually be making sexual advances toward them. And keep in mind, this era of John's life was during the 60s. So even if any of his male employees were gay, which I'm not saying that they were, I honestly have no idea, they probably weren't going to admit it, for obvious reasons. It was going to be hush-hush. And pretty much every guy that he flirted with or tried to come on to would kind of be like, "Yo, what the heck dude, get away." And then John would just play it off. He'd usually say like, "Hey, I'm not actually into you.

• 27:06Annie Elise?

  This was just a test. It was a test to see if you're gay. And as your employer, I just wanted to see where you stood morally. You know, good job, you passed." Like, kind of gaslighting them into thinking that it was all some sort of ruse to see where they sat with stuff. So again, just really, really weird stuff that would go down in the basement of this KFC. But that wasn't the only partying that John was doing. He was also part of something called the J.C.'s Chapter. And I'll be honest, I had never even heard of this until doing research for this case. But apparently, J.C.'s are nonprofit organizations for people who are between the ages of 18 years old and 40 years old.

• 27:45Annie Elise?

  Their main focus is allegedly supposed to be community service, also community leadership and business development. So, almost like an adult after-school club, or Boy Scouts, or something like that. And I'm sure that for a lot of people, community service was the main focus for joining this group. But for John, this was basically just another way for him to meet a bunch of people and to get into some trouble. Now, at the time, only men were allowed to be a part of this chapter. And he and all of his buddies were doing pretty much anything but the actual community service that it was allegedly rooted in. They were doing drugs, they were drinking, they were bringing in sex workers, they were watching porn together, and some of them were even wife-swapping with each other.

• 28:30Annie Elise?

  So John was regularly cheating on his wife, but he obviously didn't care. And for once in his life, he felt like he finally fit in with the cool guys, that he was running with the cool crowd. And it's also worth noting that a lot of these men who were a part of this club, they were successful businessmen in the area. They were politicians, or people in higher positions of power. So John had not only made a name for himself as far as business goes, but he had also wormed his way into this group of men who were kind of looked at by society as really good people. And that, truthfully, only helped him hide his true self even better. When John wanted something, he knew how to get it, and to eventually fulfill his most disgusting desires.

• 29:17Annie Elise?

  Now, wife swapping, watching porn with your buddies and hiring sex workers, that's one thing. It's not good. And if that's your vibe and everything is consensual between other adults, keyword adults, go crazy. Do what you want. I'm personally not gonna do it, but hey, not my business, not judging. But all that stuff really was not John's thing either, or at least it wasn't what he preferred to be doing. John was interested in young boys. Calling them men truly would be a disservice. And this was something that had been inside of John for years. But from what we know, he had never really acted on it until 1967.

• 29:57Annie Elise?

  One of John's fellow JC members had a 15-year-old son named Donald Voorhees Jr. And as disgusting as it is to say, John had had his eye on Donald for quite some time. Donald was very familiar with John too, since he was in that same group as his dad. And John had promised him alcohol, porn videos that the JC members apparently regularly watched together, all of the things, just eventually luring him into his home. And it was all too easy. He knew exactly what to offer him and how to get him in there. And it was kind of typical predator behavior when you look at it, right? Like, you're old enough to start doing what the adults do. You're so mature for your age. Come with

• 30:38Annie Elise?

  me. Like, it'll be our secret, stuff like that. But then, once John got Donald Jr. alone and got some alcohol into him, he sexually assaulted him. And like a lot of victims, Donald Jr. just felt a lot of shame with this. And for a while, he was too scared to speak up. He wouldn't end up confiding in anyone about what had happened until the following year. But by that time, John had already assaulted a handful of other minors. And that's not to say that any of that was Donald Jr.'s fault, certainly not. It was just that after John did that with Donald Jr., he escalated very quickly.

• 31:18Annie Elise?

  And what's even more twisted is that with a lot of these teen boys that John preyed on, he would offer them money to go along with his plans. Essentially so that they wouldn't fight back either. He told most of them that he had been hired to conduct homosexual scientific research, and that he would pay them to participate in this research. Which if you're not watching this on YouTube, you may not see the sarcasm in my face when I say that, because when I use the word participate, we obviously know you can't participate or consent as a minor. So I just want to throw that out, so we're all clear on that. But anyway, he would pay them fifty dollars for their participation, and basically letting him do whatever it was that he wanted to do to them.

• 32:00Annie Elise?

  It was just honestly some truly insane and twisted praying and manipulation. The truth was, his experience with Donald Jr. had opened the door to all of his deepest and darkest desires. It allowed him to now act on these things. But all of that was cut short when Donald Jr. told his dad what had happened, which that was in 1968. Now what happened next was a whole mess of events, because John was arrested, and he fought against the charges, and he claimed that they were all politically motivated, and that they had more to do with him and Donald Senior not getting along. It was kind of like this whole thing, but in the end, he was found guilty and he was sent to prison. Only for the assault against Donald Jr., though.

• 32:43Annie Elise?

  Not for any of those other poor boys who were also being preyed on. But like I mentioned near the beginning of this episode, his time in prison and his sentence, it was very short-lived. From the minute that he was put in prison, John was considered a model prisoner. He got promoted to head cook, he got along with all of the other inmates, got along with the correction officers. So by the summer of 1970, after serving only eighteen months of his ten-year sentence, he was released from prison, and he was put on a year-long probation. Now, in some alternate universe, this could have been the part in the story where John maybe learned the error of his ways and he realized his reputation was tarnished,

• 33:28Annie Elise?

  his wife divorced him, she took the kids after learning what he had done, he had a sodomy charge on his record, maybe it would have made him, you know, the light bulb go off to turn his life around. And maybe the model prisoner thing wouldn't just be a temporary role, maybe he would dedicate himself to becoming a better person. He even told his close friends that he would never go back to jail and that with time, he wanted to reestablish himself in society and get back to how things were before. But the truth was, all of that, it was a load of crap. By 1971, not even a full year after he was released, John was once again in trouble again for sexually assaulting a minor. Now,

• 34:09Annie Elise?

  the first incident was in February, but when it came time for the court date, the boy didn't show up, so the complaint was dropped because of that. Then, in June, John was charged with aggravated sexual battery and also reckless conduct, but the boy involved in that case apparently tried blackmailing John. So again, the charges were dropped. Now, what's truly insane is that at the time of both of these incidents, John was still out on parole, yet the parole board claimed that they never knew about either one of these incidents. So not only did both charges somehow miraculously get dropped, but John didn't even get in trouble with his parole officers. And then, his life actually started

• 34:51Annie Elise?

  going back to normal again, almost as if nothing had ever even happened. He bought a house, the same house I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, the beautiful, picturesque one. He met a woman named Carol, and he got married again. He even managed to weasel his way back into those social groups. He got back in with all of the political people in the area. They either just didn't know about his past, or they just didn't care. He even started his own construction contracting business, which was called PDM Contractors. Now get this, his primary workers for the company were all young, high school aged boys, boys probably just looking for an extra paycheck so that they could, you know,

• 35:33Annie Elise?

  buy their first car or take their girlfriend out on a date every once in a while. And that was great for John, because the truth was, he was still the same old John that he always had been. Being around young boys was exactly what he wanted. He was a master manipulator, promising these young men that if they just cooperated and just stayed quiet about his assaults, he would reward them with a raise, a promotion, or even the keys to his car. John's entire life was built on that kind of manipulation, just a constant performance of duality. Respected businessman and community volunteer by day, ruthless predator by night.

• 36:17Annie Elise?

  Now, the exact number of boys that John assaulted during this time is still one big question mark to this day, though if I had to guess, the number is probably a lot higher than we could ever even begin to imagine. I'm talking, think, 20 to 30 victims in total. That seems very possible. And as if it couldn't get any creepier or disgusting, it was during this time that he also started working as his alter ego, Pogo the Clown. He would paint his face white, he would put on a red nose, he even would use the whole multicolored puffy outfit that clowns do. And some days, he was a happy clown who would paint on a smile and be Pogo, but on other

• 37:00Annie Elise?

  days, he would paint a more straight mouth, acting as serious as possible, and he would go by Patches the Clown. Now, it's funny because this part of his life really was kind of insignificant compared to everything else, but it's also one of the main things that has really stuck with people when they think of the name John Wayne Gacy. It's also, just to be honest, a reason why I waited years to get involved in this case and research it because I knew about it at the surface level and it freaked me out to my core. Not because I have some weird phobia about clowns or anything like that, but just the thought of this creepy disgusting man preying on young boys dressed as some sadistic, sick, freaky clown.

• 37:45Annie Elise?

  It's like, it's too scary and terrifying even for my mind to go to that because it's real life, it's not fiction, and that's why it took me so long to even cover this case, if I'm being honest. There's just something so terrifying about a guy who was dressed up as a clown while also being as demented and homicidal as John was. And this whole Pogo the Clown bit, it wasn't even for actual work, it was for charity. Ironically, though, those charity events would primarily include going to fundraising events or the local children's hospital, which, I mean, usually it's not the adults who are entertained by clowns, I get that, but, and I get that it's the kids, but it's just so unnerving.

• 38:28Annie Elise?

  Then, in 1972, everything changed. It was January 2nd, to be exact, the start of a new year, but not a new John. That day, John had been drinking and he decided to go out and take a drive. Now, at some point during his drive, he pulled up to a Greyhound bus station, and that's where he saw 16-year-old Tim McCoy. Tim's family described him as being a very down-to-earth boy who was also the life of the party and, you know, a little mischievous. He came from a big family full of, you know, tons of cousins, yet he was always his grandma's favorite. And as soon as John saw Tim standing there alone, he knew that he had to talk to him.

• 39:11Annie Elise?

  So that's what he did. He went up to him and they talked. And Tim was pretty chatty. He admitted to John that he was from out of town and he told him that he had just spent the holidays with family in Michigan and that he was on a 13-hour layover before getting on the next bus to take him back home to Nebraska. And right away, this was like a light bulb going off in John's head.

• 39:33Speaker 06

  Having lots of choices sounds like it would be great. Who doesn't want more flavors of ice cream? It turns out, the answer is us. Too many choices can make us anxious, overwhelmed. I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of the Hidden Brain Podcast and YouTube channel. Each week, Hidden Brain brings you fascinating, science-backed insights about human behavior. So the next time you have to choose, choose Hidden Brain on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or hiddenbrain.org.

• 40:03Annie Elise?

  Not from the area, alone, young. I mean, the perfect victim in every sense. Now, it's really important to mention that what I'm about to share has been disputed. This is John's version of events, and Tim's family has since come out and has said that they don't believe it for a split second. They don't believe that this is true. But John claimed that after talking for a little while, he invited Tim back over to his house where the two of them hung out and drank together. Then, he claimed that the two of them had sex. And I'm not disputing the fact that it did or didn't happen. I'm more so disputing the way that he phrased it and framed it. Because a 16-year-old kid versus an almost

• 40:46Annie Elise?

  31-year-old man, they weren't having consensual sex, no matter how you look at it. Tim was another victim of assault at John's hands. But then, John claimed that Tim spent the night. All was well, everyone was getting along, but then John woke up in the middle of the night to Tim standing in his bedroom doorway, holding a knife, before then launching himself and the knife directly at John. John claimed that there was some sort of fight between the two of them. They fought over the knife, and that eventually, he was able to overpower Tim, pushing him to the ground. But what's interesting is that John's account isn't that he purposefully tried to stab him, but that he quote "twisted the knife in his hands",

• 41:31Annie Elise?

  which somehow then led to Tim stabbing himself with John's help. And I know that it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, I get that, but that's what John claimed happened. And sure enough, Tim's injury was bad enough that it killed him. Again, this is strictly John's version of events. He claimed that Tim's death was never anything intentional or malicious, that it was an accident because he was wrestling the knife out of his hand. But Tim's family has said they don't believe any of it. Not from willingly getting into the car with John, not having sex with him, and certainly not allegedly trying to kill him. It just didn't fit the Tim that they knew and loved. Now if you're asking me, do I believe that John

• 42:14Annie Elise?

  just so happened to accidentally overpowered him and then pushed him the wrong way, causing him to fall on a knife perfectly enough to kill him? No, I don't. But either way, Tim's death was monumental in a sense, because he was the first known person to ever die at the hands of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who would then later be dubbed, as maybe you have heard of him, "The Killer Clown". And meanwhile, John was still married to Carol during this entire time. They eventually got divorced in 1975, but they were still married when this happened. Now where exactly Carol was, I have no idea. Clearly she wasn't inside the home at that time, or at least I hope not.

• 42:58Annie Elise?

  But John himself had told his buddies that he had no intention of going back to prison. And he truly did mean that. He knew that he needed to get rid of the evidence, and he needed to do it quickly. But to be honest, he was also kind of stumped on what to do next. Sure, he could dump the body somewhere, but then what if there was an entire investigation and all signs pointed back at him? What if someone had seen them at the Greyhound station together? What if somebody could identify him as the last person to have seen Tim alive? So he didn't want to risk it. And because of that, he got creative. And he thought, what if he hid the body in his house? There'd be no moving the body place to place. There would be concealment.

• 43:42Annie Elise?

  But then again, Carol was an issue in this. He couldn't just keep Tim's body in a coat closet and let his wife just stumble upon it. Where was the one place that Carol would never go? Well, the answer was simple. Underneath the house, inside that crawl space. Because it was roughly forty feet by twenty-eight feet, and you could access it through a trap door in a closet right off the hallway in the home. And the idea was almost too perfect. Because what he had done would be quite literally hidden under their noses, and nobody would ever even know it. So, he got underneath the house, he dug this makeshift grave, put Tim's body in it,

• 44:26Annie Elise?

  and then he covered it with concrete. I mean, remember, he was in the contracting business after all. Yet John still swears up and down that he hadn't gone into meeting with Tim that night with the intention of him dying later that evening. However, when it did happen, Tim's death had unlocked something inside John, something evil, just like when he had assaulted Donald Jr. It was almost like he was unlocking his hidden desires and what he thought his true potential was. He said that Tim's death felt like the ultimate thrill, and that he knew that someone's life being taken from them right in front of his very eyes, it was something that he would crave for the rest of his life, almost like a drug.

• 45:11Annie Elise?

  And as horrifying as that sounds, it was maybe the most honest thing that John has ever said in his entire life. And each murder was a little bit different, but two things were pretty much always guaranteed. Number one being, the victim was either a minor or barely above that age. And number two, he would always lure them into his home promising either a drink or a good time. He even had a tiki bar inside his living room. So this was his own weird and twisted way of getting his victims to trust him. He would talk to them about drinking, partying, and sometimes after his victims had a drink or two and were tipsy, John would even offer to show them some magic tricks, you know?

• 45:55Annie Elise?

  I guess like, who doesn't love a good magic trick? I mean, but trust me, these tricks were not good. They were evil and they were barbaric and just kind of sadistic. He would grab his pair of handcuffs. He would put them on himself and then he would make it look like getting out of the cuffs was some sort of magic trick. Except that he had a key and he would unlock it and just be super sly about it. But then he would offer his victims to try it. And you know, a couple of guys hanging out, having drinks together, having fun together. Sure, let me try this magic trick. You just did it. But then, once they put the handcuffs on, they were trapped. There was no magic trick. There was no fun in games.

• 46:35Annie Elise?

  And then, once they were handcuffed and at a disadvantage, John would assault them. Some he would even take his time with. He would torture them. Wait with them and do sick and twisted things to them and then ultimately he would kill them. Now, his exact way of killing, it varied. Some victims were gagged, which it might not sound like a horrible death, but just think about that for a moment. These victims would have random pieces of cloth or even parts of their own clothing stuffed into their mouths. And they weren't just placed in their mouths to keep them quiet. They were literally shoved so far back into their mouths that it would essentially block their airways entirely. And those specific victims died of asphyxiation.

• 47:18Annie Elise?

  But other lives that were taken, were taken by John with what John called his rope trick. The rope trick would be done once the victim was already restrained. And before beginning his trick, John would tell the victim that this was their last trick. Basically taunting them and letting them know that they were about to die. Which I can't even begin to imagine that kind of fear. He would then take a rope tourniquet and he would put it around their necks. And he would use the handle of a hammer to tighten it every, you know, once in a while, every so often. Making it this very awful, very long, drawn out process. Sometimes he would even let them regain consciousness before then killing them.

• 48:01Annie Elise?

  Almost as part of this fantasy of his, this sick fantasy of ultimate control. Apparently, these victims could take up to one or two hours before actually passing away, which it's literally the stuff that nightmares are made out of. Now for most of the victims, John was living alone in the house by this point. But not for all of them. In the beginning, he was still married to Carol. And I mentioned earlier that by 1975, Carol and John were divorced. And this side note is actually kind of pretty interesting in and of itself. But I guess over the years, their relationship had just already began souring. Apparently, John wasn't present. He was always staying out late. He was spending time by himself in their garage.

• 48:44Annie Elise?

  And Carol said that they barely ever spent any time together. But it wasn't until Carol found some wallets of young men and also some porn magazines with naked men on the cover that things then apparently really went south with them. Instead of assuming, oh, my husband is a sexual predator and a murderer. She just assumed he's cheating. So because of that, they split up and that was kind of the end of their marriage. Now, I'm not sure if she was ever aware of the charges that he had against him for that previous sexual assault. But all of that to say, enough was enough for her and she was out. But when Carol divorced him and he was suddenly now living in this house all alone, it kind of became all the more easy to fulfill all of his fantasies.

• 49:27Annie Elise?

  There was nobody who was going to catch him or stop him or, you know, take him off course. So one by one, John killed his victims and began filling up that crawl space. And after Tim, over the next three years, he tested and he perfected his methods. Then from 1975 to 1977, he became more and more bold, increasing the frequency of murders. And at least 12 victims alone were murdered in 1977. And when he was at his horrifying peak, he would kill two or even three victims in the same night. In a few cases, he would keep one victim handcuffed in another room while he assaulted

• 50:12Annie Elise?

  or killed the first in a different room. And in the end, he confessed to the investigators that he had killed 33 young men and boys, all after assaulting them first. That is 33 victims in six years, all without being caught. I mean, that is just a staggering number. Can you imagine that? 33 victims in just a couple of years and horrifying methods. And you might be thinking, how did he manage to get away with this for so long? How did nobody see anything suspicious? It's a question that has haunted and fascinated people ever since. And the truth is, there are a bunch of reasons.

• 50:56Annie Elise?

  It's partly because, as we've discussed, John was very good at maintaining his image of this decent, upstanding member of the community, a business owner, someone who ran in the right social circles and knew the right people, even after being convicted of a sexual offense. But it's also because of who he killed. He specifically targeted runaways, hitchhikers, or teenagers. So the authorities, unfortunately, didn't always take their disappearances seriously. And as for the people he assaulted, this was the 1970s. Gay teenagers or gay young men might have worried about reporting these interactions because they didn't want to get looked at the wrong way or get in trouble. So after finding the crawl space, it took a long time for these investigators to get

• 51:41Annie Elise?

  an actual head count of every body that was under that house. Some bodies were just right under the dirt in shallow graves, but some bodies had been there so long that all that was left was scattered bones, making it even more difficult to identify the bones as being one complete person. And while John was in the mood to confess everything, he also told the investigators that there was one body that they wouldn't find in that crawl space. Robert's body. If they hadn't been so suspicious of him right from the very start, he likely would have put him down there and hidden him with the others. But like I mentioned earlier, John really was now feeling the pressure of this investigation.

• 52:23Annie Elise?

  So I guess the idea was that if Robert's body was as far away from the house as possible, that would be better in the grand scheme of things. So he dumped his body in a nearby river. He even confessed that Robert was actually the fourth body that he had dumped in that river. Now, the exact reason as to why he dumped some bodies in the river and not others. Well, according to him, it's because the crawl space was getting full. Disgusting. And even though John confessed to some major things after his arrest, a lot of the things that we know today didn't come from him. They just came from the investigators who were putting two and two together. We still don't know exactly what happened in Robert's final moments, which I would imagine that John either dragged him inside his car

• 53:08Annie Elise?

  or lured him back to his house to maybe show him something about the job that he was offering him as a contractor. Remember, it was double the pay. We don't know if Robert was suspicious of what was happening. We don't know if maybe he fought back. All we know is that he was strangled to death. Then he was dumped in the river like garbage while his family just tirelessly was searching for him. So Robert's body was finally recovered and his family was able to have some sort of peace and hold a funeral for him. But that was just one of the many recoveries that the investigators had to do. Because one by one, the investigators started recovering the bodies from underneath John's house.

• 53:50Annie Elise?

  And what that was going to reveal was only going to haunt this entire investigation and this entire case even more.

• 53:59Speaker 06

  Having lots of choices sounds like it would be great. Who doesn't want more flavors of ice cream? It turns out the answer is us. Too many choices can make us anxious, overwhelmed. I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of the Hidden Brain Podcast and YouTube channel. Each week, Hidden Brain brings you fascinating, science-backed insights about human behavior. So the next time you have to choose, choose Hidden Brain on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or hiddenbrain.org.

• 54:29Annie Elise?

  The thing is, some of John Wayne Gacy's victims would take years to identify. Some, to this day, still haven't even been identified. And if we talked about each and every victim, we would probably be here for three or four hours, maybe even more. But I do want to talk about a few of them, especially the ones who have been identified, because these are real people with real families, and their stories deserve to be told. Now, one victim was 14-year-old Samuel Stapleton. He disappeared on May 13, 1976, after walking home from his sister's school. His mom and stepdad had reported him missing, but the case went cold fairly quickly. When his body was first recovered, his family was told that he may have been one of John's

• 55:14Annie Elise?

  victims. And the reason they even believed this was because of a bracelet that was on the corpse that was actually identical to the one that Samuel had been wearing when he was last seen. The detectives were then able to get a positive ID through an old X-ray that showed the outlines of his teeth. Another victim was 19-year-old John Schitt. John went missing on January 20, 1977. And not a whole lot is known about his disappearance or what happened leading up to it. However, it was John's class ring that the investigators found during that first search of John's house. And that's what initially clued them in that he was likely one of John's victims. And get this, John was actually arrested in 1977 for stealing gas, which the gas station

• 55:59Annie Elise?

  clerk noticed what he was doing and managed to write down his license plate and then tracked the car down all the way to John's home. However, when the police checked the VIN number on the car, they saw that John Gacy wasn't listed as the owner. John Schitt's was. They knew at the time that John S. was a missing person, and of course, they asked John Gacy why he was driving a missing man's car. But his reason was that he bought the car from John S., that he had bought it from him back in January. And according to him, all this other John had told Gacy was that he was selling it because he needed the money to skip town. And apparently that was good enough for the authorities. They just kind of like let it be.

• 56:39Annie Elise?

  Now, John S. was eventually identified through dental records in 1979. And those are just a few of the victims whose family members at least got some sort of peace and confirmation pretty quickly in all of this. A lot of other family members did not get that lucky. For example, a guy named Francis Wayne Alexander. He was originally from North Carolina, but he moved to Illinois in February of 1975. He was believed to have been around 21 or 22 years old. After moving to Illinois, he met a woman and they got married, but their marriage didn't really last very long. And eventually they went their separate ways and got divorced. Then he went missing right around the same time as this.

• 57:21Annie Elise?

  His family had just assumed that he was going through a really rough patch and that he wanted to be left alone. So they didn't report him as missing. But the truth was, something had happened to him. His body was recovered from John's crawlspace on December 26th, 1978. But his family had no idea that it was him. The detectives didn't even know that it was him. It wasn't until October of 2021 that his remains were finally able to be identified through genetic testing. Which something about his story just really hits me. I mean, all of these crimes are heartbreaking. Yes, don't get me wrong, every single one of them. But just imagine this, imagine that your son, your brother, or someone you love

• 58:04Annie Elise?

  just simply stops talking to you one day and you have no idea why or what happened. Then decades go by and you're still left with nothing but questions, hoping they're okay, wondering if they're okay. I cannot imagine living with that kind of uncertainty, let alone then finding out years later, decades later, that they were a victim of one of America's most notorious serial killers. To this day, victims number 10, 13, 21, 26, and 28 are still unknown.

• 58:37Annie Elise?

  The detectives have a rough idea of each person's age and height, but really, that's all we know. And those are the unknown victims whose bodies were, at the very least, recovered. John was charged with thirty-three counts of murder, and his trial was set for February 6th, 1980. Now, his defense team really pushed for an insanity plea. He went through all of these tests and hours spent with doctors leading up to his trial. He claimed that he had multiple personalities, each one of them being different from the next. He had Pogo, the clown, Patches the clown. There was the contractor, who he related to the most on any given day. There was the clown. There was the politician.

• 59:17Annie Elise?

  There was someone who he called Bad Jack, and he claimed that Bad Jack was an evil and corrupt policeman who hated homosexuality. He even went as far as claiming that every murder was done by Bad Jack. And during his actual trial, his defense team brought in three different psychiatric experts who all believed that John was a paranoid schizophrenic with multiple personalities. And maybe that was true, but he ultimately was deemed competent to stand trial. And after over a month, the jury took only an hour and fifty minutes to come to a verdict. Guilty on all three charges of murder, as well as sexual assault and taking indecent

• 1:00:00Annie Elise?

  liberties with a child relating to his crimes against Robert. Now unfortunately for John, the state of Illinois had just recently reinstated the death penalty in 1977, so that ultimately was his fate. Now, like a lot of prisoners on death row, he was behind bars for years before he was ever put to death. Fourteen years, to be exact. And during this time, he took up a hobby of painting. And he painted hundreds of different things, but the most well-known paintings were paintings of clowns, of random clowns, or even himself as Pogo the Clown.

• 1:00:37Annie Elise?

  Eventually, these pieces were all sold at auctions or put on display at different art exhibits, which I can't imagine ever wanting to own one of those paintings in your house. But on top of all this artwork that he was pumping out, he was also doing a lot of media interviews. His first ever public appearance was in 1992, and it seemed like his reasoning behind these interviews was to publicly plead his innocence. But truly, who knows what was going through his head when he decided to do them, but he did them.

• 1:01:08Speaker 07

  My question would be to you right off the bat is, why, after so many years of silence, never having a media interview? And people have said that you have given them interviews in years past.

• 1:01:18Speaker 08

  Well, that's hogwash.

• 1:01:19Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20Speaker 08

  That's strictly hogwash.

• 1:01:21Speaker 07

  So we're saying today...

• 1:01:22Speaker 08

  I'm constantly told that I've misquoted constantly, saying that I said this and I said that, and it's not happened.

• 1:01:27Speaker 07

  So it's pretty well established on this, this is the first time you're speaking publicly about your case?

• 1:01:31Speaker 08

  Right.

• 1:01:32Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:01:33Speaker 08

  I've always felt that my attorneys were handling it, and they said to keep low profile and stay away from it, and in light of all that has been used against me in the media, they've created this fantasy monster image, and it's been going on for the last 12 years. And I've ever had no comment, and I had no need to talk to the media for the simple reason that they were looking for sensationalism and they were looking for the monster.

• 1:01:58Speaker 07

  When you say fantasy monster image, what are you referring to by that?

• 1:02:01Speaker 08

  Well, the idea that I'm a homosexual thrill killer and all that, that garbage. And they painted this image of me that, like, I stroll down the streets and stalked young boys and slaughtered them. Hell, if you could see my schedule, my work schedule, you'd know damn well that I was never out there.

• 1:02:21Speaker 07

  Well, you were indicted, convicted, and sentenced on 33 counts of homicide, is that correct?

• 1:02:29Speaker 08

  That's correct.

• 1:02:30Annie Elise?

  Now, you might be wondering, how can he be just sitting there and say that the media's portrayal of him was all wrong? How can he claim that he's still innocent? Well, not to worry, because he spoke on that as well. And he basically explained that Tim McCoy, his first victim, the one whose death was this weird accident in self-defense, he says that that truly was his only victim. Every other body that was found underneath his house, according to him, he claimed he had no idea about them. Which, okay, I can roll my eyes so hard I can see the back of my brain, but listen to this clip where he tries to prove that he's innocent.

• 1:03:09Speaker 07

  You, you, yourself did bury him then in the crawl space?

• 1:03:12Speaker 08

  Right, and if you, if you notice, he's under concrete.

• 1:03:15Speaker 07

  Did you bury any of the others in the crawl space?

• 1:03:17Speaker 08

  No, I had nothing, I, I had no knowledge of them.

• 1:03:20Speaker 07

  Well, why, why is it that yours, your, your first one is there and then, you know, twenty-some others are buried down there as well? Did somebody know that you had done this with the first one, that giving them an idea?

• 1:03:30Speaker 08

  More than likely when drinking and getting high with the others, yeah.

• 1:03:34Annie Elise?

  Now, that whole interview was wild, because you have to be a grade-A moron to say, or to think that you can get away with saying like, "Well, yeah, this murder was self-defense, so I decided to bury him here and pour concrete on him, and other people must have learned that, so my house, my crawl space, the one that you had to get access to from the trap door inside a hallway closet in my house, they learned that that was going to be the perfect dumping site for their murders, for their victims, this other serial killer who's not me." Like, are you a moron? Yes, you are, but like, get real, like, at least have a better imagination and come up with a different excuse. So finally, on May 10th, 1994, John was executed by lethal injection.

• 1:04:20Annie Elise?

  He was 52 years old. Now, there are extremely conflicting reports on what his last words were. Some sources say that his final words were, "Kiss my ass."

• 1:04:33Speaker 09

  Hey, I can tell you, I killed 33 times, you're only gonna kill me once.

• 1:04:39Speaker 09

  In case you have spotted him again.

• 1:04:45Annie Elise?

  Forty-two people were in that room watching as he was put to death. Now, most of that number was made up with officials and press and people like that. But I don't know if ironic is even the correct word to use to describe this next detail. But during the whole process, there apparently was a bit of a complication that delayed things. And I don't know the exact details because I don't know what he felt, but is it wrong to say that I hope that he actually did have some sort of fear and remorse during that period of time, maybe even a little bit of pain?

• 1:05:18Speaker 10

  During the second chemical, there was some problem with that chemical gelling in the line. We're not real clear whether it was the blood clotting with the needle or whether the chemical itself was gelling.

• 1:05:33Speaker 11

  He did not make eye contact with any of us. He looked up at the ceiling, said a few words to the director and the warden. One of the things I did notice was there was a complete change in the color of his face, and obviously he had a stoppage of the heart.

• 1:05:51Speaker 12

  There were all these sort of shadowy things going on, and it was very creepy, but it wasn't like you saw anything bad happen.

• 1:05:57Annie Elise?

  After announcing the news of his death, a few different family members of some of the victims were interviewed, and their raw and emotional reactions are something that's just so upsetting to see.

• 1:06:09Speaker 13

  Um, I just don't feel that it's solved a whole lot, seeing someone, hearing about someone's death. But it was the sentence that came down, and I feel we need to be more consistent with our laws if we expect to have, ever have a peaceful society.

• 1:06:34Speaker 14

  My son should be remembered, and all those that have not been mentioned should be mentioned, and Michael Marino should be mentioned, and all those that have never been mentioned should be mentioned. Thank you, God.

• 1:06:47Speaker 15

  I feel justice has been served. Just like Tim said, I'm glad it's over. It was a long, drawn-out, way overdue process that has to be shortened.

• 1:07:01Speaker 16

  Were you told about what his last statement was? What was your opinion about that? We were told nothing.

• 1:07:04Speaker 15

  We were really told very little.

• 1:07:06Speaker 16

  His last statement was that he felt he was innocent? He was a victim of all this?

• 1:07:10Speaker 15

  Yeah, that's something he's been saying for 15 years. That's basically what I expected him to say.

• 1:07:16Annie Elise?

  Some of the family members even said that they wished that he had suffered more.

• 1:07:20Speaker 17

  I'm glad it's over. I just wish that there could have been more suffering, so to speak. The punishment doesn't fit the crime.

• 1:07:28Annie Elise?

  Now, a lot of friends and family members of the victims, and honestly, even people who aren't related to these cases, are still pretty angry with law enforcement and how they handled things during John's time. Because there were so many red flags, which, to be honest, I don't even know if we can just call them red flags at this point. It seemed like obvious signs. So many times where he blatantly broke the law and was a creep, yet still, nothing ever happened to him. Not until so many lives were already taken. And think about it, he had a 10-year prison sentence. Had he actually been required to serve that sentence, the majority of these victims would still be alive. That's unnerving to think about. And I can only think about the remaining unknown victims.

• 1:08:12Annie Elise?

  Do their families sit up at night wondering whatever happened to their loved ones? The saddest thing is a lot of these victims today would be in their 60s or 70s, depending on their ages at the time. So because of that, it's very likely that most of their loved ones have already passed away, dying not knowing whatever happened to their loved ones. And I know that this might seem like a long shot here, but I'm gonna say it anyway. But imagine if this video could even help to identify one of those unknown victims. The Cook County Sheriff's Office is requesting that anyone comes forward if they believe that their family member could be one of the unknown five. And maybe it's not even you. Maybe you have a friend that you could send this video to,

• 1:08:54Annie Elise?

  or a friend of a friend, or put it in your group chat or on your social media. You can either directly contact the sheriff's office at 708-865-6244, or you can fill out a form on their website that I will link in the episode description for you. But maybe that's the point in a lot of this and a lot of the rehashing because it could lead to the unknown five's identities and give peace to other families. I know that this case was intense, heavy and a lot to take in. And I really want to hear your thoughts on it, too. So drop a comment below and let me know what you think. And if you found this episode interesting, please give it a quick like. Feel free to share it with a friend who's into true crime, too.

• 1:09:36Annie Elise?

  And hopefully somebody out there can help identify these five unknown victims. Now, before we wrap up, I want to give a huge thank you to Patrick McManus and Michael Churnas. Because remember, they took the time to speak with our team and Michael is the one who got into Gacy's mind, played his role and became him for this new Peacock series, The Devil in Disguise, which again, truly was incredible. If you haven't watched it yet, you need to. But like I said in the beginning of this episode, now I want to share with you some of my favorite parts of that conversation. And if you want the full uncut interview in its entirety, that's over on my Patreon. You can go check it out. But I do want to highlight a lot of the big takeaways from this.

• 1:10:19Annie Elise?

  And once again, if you haven't already, make sure to watch Devil in Disguise because it is now streaming on Peacock. It is such a powerful and important series that really reminds us why these stories matter. Okay, so now here is our conversation with Patrick McManus and Michael Churnas. And we kicked it off by asking each of them to tell us how they were feeling going into the launch of Devil in Disguise. And we started with Patrick, the showrunner of the series.

• 1:10:45Speaker 18

  I don't get nervous before shows come out, like at all. But this one is, this one's weird. It's a strange feeling because, because I'm really curious. I think that that's like, that's, that's the thing that has been, that's been sort of sticking with me is that from the very beginning, when we first started talking about the show, it was unique and it was good and it was a bit of a swing. And I, and I'm really just have this like sort of gross curiosity as to, as to how it's going to be.

• 1:11:11Annie Elise?

  Then we asked actor Michael Churnas, who plays John Wayne Gacy, the exact same thing.

• 1:11:17Speaker 19

  I think I'm just ready for it to be. Out in the world and see what other people's responses are to it. It's not just your typical examination of a psychopath, but really a much larger examination of the the sort of effects of this horrible man's acts on a whole community.

• 1:11:38Speaker 18

  He doesn't fit into a cliche, right? Like, he doesn't fit into the the totally black, blank-eyed, evil psychopath that you could see coming from forty-three miles away. And everyone's like, why did you do this? How did you fall for this guy, right? He wasn't like, you know, the the mindless slaughterer, right? Like, he was this very sort of study of of opposites of what you thought a serial killer should be. And so the challenge was, was how do I write this character and make it make sense? And the answer to that is you don't.

• 1:12:11Speaker 19

  I think he was a great actor, kind of. He was a chameleon in that he could read a room really quickly and know who you wanted him to be. And so he could put on kind of the mask that would work best to make you feel comfortable. And so he said in many interviews that there were these multiple Johns. There was John, the contractor, John, the politician, John, the family man, John, the clown, and then the sort of evil guy. And so I think, in a weird way, when I was playing scenes, it wasn't that complicated. It sounds strange, but like, I was just doing whatever version of him.

• 1:12:53Speaker 19

  I felt like he was playing in that moment to manipulate that person, to get what he wanted, except for a very few moments where the mask drops and we see sort of the soulless, dark-eyed, evil person behind the mask. But those moments are fairly rare. I mean, most of the time, he's just trying to manipulate the cops and manipulate the lawyers and and really manipulate himself, convince himself that he didn't do anything wrong and that he was still gonna get away with it. But, that being said, um, yes, there were many days when we were done, like in my trailer, where the work just kind of came crashing down on me. Um, the one day that stands out that it was really hard, even in the moment, um,

• 1:13:35Speaker 19

  It's not a particularly gruesome moment, but in episode six, there's like a montage of Gacy doing all kinds of stuff, but one of them is picking up guys on the street and you see kind of one after another him picking up sex workers or young men who are out cruising. And we shot it all in one night in Hamilton, Ontario, which is a little more industrial and kind of looks a little bit more like 70s Chicago streets. And it was this rainy night and I'm driving the picture vehicle from the 70s and we have all these incredible background artists against a wall. And because of the speed of shooting, I'd never had a chance to meet any of them. And so these sort of anonymous strangers are just getting

• 1:14:19Speaker 19

  in and out of my car and I'm rolling down the window and saying, get in, get in, how much, you know, you want to get high? Come on, let's go. And the volume of that, because we were just shooting it all night, trying to get a lot of different options, it hit me, the volume of how many of these young men Gacy was picking up and how often they were anonymous to him as well. They were strangers and he didn't care to get to know them. And I went home and just that, the like, the, the sort of lack of humanity of just picking up people like, like they didn't mean anything to just get in the car. That was a particularly rough night.

• 1:15:02Speaker 18

  That weekend, I flew home. That was a Friday night. I flew, I flew out. I, I went home. I was having a football catch with my eldest son in the front yard. He was 13 at the time. He's 14 now. I have another son who's 12. And I was in the middle of having a regular catch. We were like bouncing between the catch and watching the NFL, like watching, it was like halftime. And it hit me in on that moment and that, that one day it hit me that my son was the same age as, or about to be the same age as the youngest victim of, of Gacy. And it got me. You know, it really, really got me. I had, I had to like pretend like nothing was wrong. And I said I had to go to the bathroom and, and I lost it. It was it was a very, I don't know what the connective tissue was to that night.

• 1:15:46Speaker 18

  I don't understand why that those connected, but but but they did. And and so it became personal in that in that moment.

• 1:15:54Speaker 19

  And I think that's an example of how like every scene in this show had the potential, at least for me, of of the of there being something really difficult to have to manage. The hardest scene for me is in episode six, which is the scene with Rob Peast back at the house. And we have this wonderful young actor, Riker, who did an incredible job. But for me, that it's a one of our longer scenes with Gacy. And that scene, I feel like, is the best example of seeing all the different variations of Gacy's manipulation and just his sort of insanity at play. How he's even kind of lying to himself in moments or forgetting what he was doing.

• 1:16:39Speaker 19

  Like, being able to kind of like switch back and forth from those different modes, those different states of being, was not only just technically really hard to do as an actor, it was also very disturbing as a person to have to embody.

• 1:16:55Speaker 18

  And I and I will say the the moment that that I that like hit me hardest about, and I'm not saying this because he's here, but hardest about this guy, was that we were in rehearsals, we were in prep, and we were watching from the back, just sort of seeing what was what. And for all those months before, I'd only seen Michael do do, for lack of a better word, affable Gacy or charming Gacy. And it was the way that it was set up, and it's exactly how it was shot, was that Tim McCoy is sitting in the foreground and Gacy is sitting in in the background.

• 1:17:35Speaker 18

  And there it was the very first time, as Tim McCoy is eating, that that Gacy just like turns. And you suddenly, and for me, the very first time in the entire process, I had seen the mask drop. And it was the most unbelievable experience that I've had in my, in my career. I mean, it's giving me chills just talking about it. It was, it was an overwhelming experience in the best possible creative way. It was, it was astounding to watch.

• 1:18:06Annie Elise?

  Now, obviously, producing this kind of series can be really tricky because as we know, at the center of it are real people, real families who have been impacted by the very real events at the center of this story, which honestly, it made me really curious about how Michael decided he even wanted to touch this type of role.

• 1:18:23Speaker 19

  My agent, very wisely, said, just take a meeting with Patrick and find out what he's doing with it before you make a tape. And so, right away when we spoke, things he was saying were just right up my alley. You know, one of them was, there won't be any murder on screen. There won't be any, you know, intense violence shown on screen. It will be psychologically intense, but we're not going to show any gore or gratuitous violence. I, I don't know that I would have said yes if that would have had, if I, if I would have had to enact those things.

• 1:18:56Speaker 18

  The real rationale behind it was that you can't, you can't claim on the one hand that you want to focus the story on the victims and their families and then, in my opinion, degrade the memory of the victims or, or re-traumatize the living family members by showing it. Those two ideas stand in, in direct contrast with one another. And so, it wasn't, again, it's nev, I don't think anything that we've ever done is like looking to be pat on the back, but it's just looking at it logically and emotionally and what is being consistent with the vision of what you're trying to do. And it was, it was when we figured our way in about really focusing it on the victims,

• 1:19:39Speaker 18

  the victims' families, the, um, the police and the, and the lawyers. And specifically, I will say, the victims. The victim's stories that have nothing to do with with with Gacy like once that piece of of the you know the Tetris piece fell into place then suddenly the show made sense and it and it all it actually became very easy to write because suddenly we understood what the framework was and and what its what its soul was and its heart was and myself, the writers, and then eventually our beautiful actors and our wonderful directors we found a reason for being and that and that just makes it a much more for again for lack of a better word creatively enjoyable process because we could really dig in and carve and find

• 1:20:23Speaker 18

  find the moments that we knew were going to stand out and be special and the thing that I keep saying over and over again is that I one hundred percent did not set out to make something special but we ended up making something special it just sort of like was birthed in that direction.

• 1:20:38Speaker 19

  Something I hope that people watch this and and think twice about dehumanizing anyone who feels different from them or thinks other than them in every aspect and so I think uh we could all you know take a moment to like actually stop and think about someone who has different opinions of us or loves differently or lives differently than us you know there's maybe a lot more that is the same between us than we know the number of times that his name was mentioned and that police went to his house and either interviewed him or brought him in down to the station and interviewed him and um quite often as as we see in episode six he would just lean into the sexual element knowing it would make

• 1:21:19Speaker 19

  the cops uncomfortable and knowing that it would just make them squirm or um you know the time write off that young man is a deviant then if he was involved in these uh sexual sexual behaviors um and even not even not around sex that they would just be like oh that that kid's a runaway then or that kid is probably hitchhiked to California or that kid is off drinking for a couple of days in in Chicago or in Milwaukee or they hitchhiked to so and so and just the um

• 1:21:54Speaker 19

  The ability to sort of just eh write it off um

• 1:22:00Speaker 19

  or be so disturbed by it that you don't investigate further, that is really upsetting. And the last thing I'll say, I mean, it's pointed out in the show, but if he had served all 10 years in Iowa, he would have been let out on December 11th, 1978, which is the day that he killed Rob Peast, his final victim. None of the 33 boys needed to die if he had just stayed in that prison in Iowa.

• 1:22:23Speaker 18

  That, that thing, that blew my mind. When we discovered that in the writer's room, it felt like i- if you had written that as a piece of fiction, you wouldn't be able to to get away with it. Someone would note it, note it away. That the concept that the day and the year was the day and the year that he was supposed to get out, i- it's mind boggling to me.

• 1:22:47Speaker 19

  Yeah, truth is stranger than fiction.

• 1:22:50Speaker 18

  What I, what I do not want the audience to come away with is some concept that this story that we have told is irrelevant, right? That it's that, that it is not a story of our times. That in some way to what Michael had just talked about, about like all of the systemic failures that surrounded the Chicago Police Department in particular um are somehow, have somehow been solved. Yeah, absolutely. There is a very real probability that we can say that a lot of the communication issues that, that were, that were had back in the time have been taken care of just simply due to computers and quite, quite a bit of the computerization that we now, that we now have is, is actually born out of the John

• 1:23:34Speaker 18

  Wayne Gacy case. So, okay, I'll give you that. But the prejudices that Michael was talking about, prejudices against homosexuals, prejudices against socioeconomically suppressed individuals, prejudice against anyone who might have a, a record of some sort, right? Those are all the more relevant today and they are.

• 1:24:00Speaker 18

  The flames of that are fanned on a millisecond by millisecond basis by social media. And the truth is, is that prejudice leads to violence. And prejudice leads to these systemic failures in our society. And it ultimately leads to this type of violence that we see to this day.

• 1:24:23Speaker 19

  At the time, most people didn't know anything about these boys today. I think almost no one could probably name the name of one of John Gacy's victims unless you are, you know, really follow these things. So I encourage people to go out and learn about these boys. We could only cover, you know, eight or nine of them. And so go and there's a great book called Boys Enter the House that doesn't focus on Gacy. There's a podcast called The Defense Diaries, The Gacy Tapes. Go listen to these things, go read these things, go do a Google search on who his victims were, learn about them. And also there are still some unidentified victims. And so a hope of mine, and I know of Patrick's, is that maybe in some small way our show could

• 1:25:09Speaker 19

  lead someone to send in a DNA sample or dental records or something because their uncle or brother or father went missing in the seventies. And, um, you know, maybe in some small way, we could put a name or face to some of these young men and boys.

• 1:25:27Annie Elise?

  You can watch the eight part series Devil in Disguise, John Wayne Gacy, right now on Peacock. And if you want to hear our entire interview with Patrick and Michael, you can also find it uncut, uncensored over on Patreon. We have linked it out in the episode description below. So thanks again for tuning into another episode. And as a reminder, 10 to Life is available now, not just as a YouTube series, but also its own podcast. So please go check it out on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. All the uncensored versions will be over there. And when you check it out, hit a follow. Or if you're watching this on YouTube, click that subscribe button.

• 1:26:03Speaker 20

  Hey everyone, it's Stavros Halakis and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, Stavvi's World. Each week, we're joined by great guests like Josh Safdie, Eric Andre, Caleb Heron, and more. It's sort of an interview show, but really, we're just messing around, making each other laugh, and hopefully making you laugh while you're washing the dishes, or grocery shopping, or on a long drive. Plus, I take listener calls where we have honest conversations about dating, life, and everything in between. Imagine if your therapist was a vulgar degenerate whose office was in a Greek diner. No scripts, no polish, and absolutely no holding back. Listen to Stavvi's World wherever you get your podcasts.

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