John Wayne Gacy, The Grim Case Of The Killer Clown
One of the most famous cases studied in forensic psychology subjects is that of John Wayne Gacy an individual who was adorable to others, but who committed several dozen crimes, torture and abuse.
Gacy charmed young people after dressing up as a clown, so many of them agreed to meet him. Coulrophobia is an irrational fear of clowns, and although these characters usually entertain the little ones, in this terrible case, the fear of clowns is totally justified. His story has inspired several films due to its brutality.
John Wayne Gacy, Jr. He was one of the most famous serial killers in the United States and committed his crimes during the 1970s. In 1978 he was arrested and in 1994 executed for the deaths of 33 young people who were buried in his home or thrown into the Des Plaines River (the rest) in Illinois.
He was popularly called “the killer clown” because he organized parties in the neighborhood and invited neighbors to his barbecues in his garden, while he entertained the younger ones, curiously where he had his victims buried. As an entertainment figure he was known as “Pogo” the clown”.
The birth of a monster
John Wayne Gacy, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was the second of three children. His father was a sexist who always criticized him. He was also an alcoholic, so little Gacy did not have an easy childhood. At the age of 11 he had an accident when he hit his head on a swing that caused a blood clot in his head that went unnoticed until he was 16, when he began to have dizziness.
During his high school years, his family moved places several times, which caused him to have to go to different educational centers and he became a strange person with little emotional stability. Still, despite the difficulties, he graduated in Business Management from Northwestern Business College.
Following an internship at Nunn-Bush Shoe Company, in 1964 he was promoted and transferred to Springfield, Illinois. Working there he met a worker who would become his wife, Marlynn Myers, and they consummated their marriage the following year in 1065. Her parents, who acquired several Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) franchise locations, offered him a job as a manager. manager in Waterloo, Iowa. Gacy accepted the option of going to work abroad.
Living in Waterloo, she had two children and was part of different charitable organizations in the area. And despite family stability, Rumors of his homosexuality soon spread through his neighborhood It was said that he had made intimate propositions to different young people who worked at the restaurant. Despite these rumors, the Jaycess Club named him “honorable vice-president” of the Waterloo Jaycees in 1967.
At that time his professional life was perfect, but his personal life was not, in which he quickly began to have serious problems. He was unfaithful to his wife several times and he started taking drugs. In addition, he built a room in his basement where he invited young people to drink and tried to have relations with some of them.
Denounced and imprisoned
But his love affair with the inhabitants of Waterloo would soon come to an end, as he received several complaints from young people who came to his basement. Mark Miller was the first to go to the police claiming that he had been tied up and abused on one of the visits to the killer clown’s house. John Wayne Gacy He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but his good behavior allowed him to be on the streets after 18 months His wife divorced him and she never saw his two children again.
After leaving prison, Gacy returned to Illinois to live with his mother, and in 1971, thanks to his mother’s financial help, he bought a house at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, in an area of Chicago.
His most macabre crimes
After his time in prison, Gacy took it upon himself to leave his past behind and was welcomed by the inhabitants of the new town in which he lived. In fact, he was a kind and loved person because he organized barbecues at his home and dressed up as a clown to entertain the younger ones and the children who were sick. Few neighbors could imagine the kind of person he was.
In 1972 he married Carole Hoff, but their marriage ended in 1976 since he stated that they did not have intimate relationships and he had discovered that he gave himself pleasure with adult magazines with homosexual content.
In this town, the killer clown carried out dozens of murders, such as that of a young man named Darell Samson who went to the house on West Summerdale Avenue and was never seen alive again. During that decade, Gacy continued to abuse, torture, and murder scores of young people Some of his victims were Randall Reflett, Samuel Stapleton, William Carroll, Rick Johnston Gregory Godzik… so up to a total of 33 innocent young people. The youngest is 14 years old and the oldest is 21.
His arrest and execution
It was from 1977 when Gacy began to have a bad reputation, especially after the disappearance of a 19-year-old boy, a young man was arrested for driving his vehicle. The young man who was arrested claimed that the car had been sold to him by Gacy. Although Gacy had already received several complaints previously that had not been taken into account, everything changed in 1978, when 26-year-old Jeffrey Rignall accused him of attacking him with a cloth damp with chloroform. When he woke up, He was immobilized in the killer clown’s basement where he was the victim of abuse and torture by Gacy
After several hours of suffering, Rignall woke up in the middle of a field surrounded by snow, and was very physically damaged. Despite everything, he managed to leave the place. His ordeal would still last a few months since, even though he identified his attacker in a photo, the police did not believe him. He then hired a lawyer who requested the arrest warrant, and although Gacy was investigated, he was surprisingly released.
Now, he was not so lucky with Robert Piest, his last victim. Since he left several clues and did not take into account that his parents were waiting for him at home and knew that his son had gone to see Gacy. Since her son was slow to return, they began looking for him and contacted the police. Several agents went to her house and Gacy didn’t have time to hide the body of the boy he just strangled
The police found the bodies in his house and Gacy himself ended up confessing that he had thrown the rest into the river. He was convicted and executed in May 1994.
Possible explanations for the murderous clown case
This terrifying case became popular in the United States and is currently studied in forensic psychology courses and subjects, along with other cases such as that of Petiso Orejudo or Beth.
Psychologists have provided different opinions and explanations to the causes of this serial killer’s personality. Some point out the poor relationship with his father who, in addition to being an alcoholic, treated him very badly during his childhood Others think that the blow she received on the head and the subsequent fainting that he suffered from the age of 16 had something to do with her macabre behavior. Even some psychoanalysts have suggested that the murder of these young people was the unconscious expression of self-hatred for his own homosexuality, a condition that he never came to terms with.
After his death, Gacy’s brain was removed. But the forensic psychiatrist who examined him, and despite the speculation of many professionals, found no abnormalities that could explain Gacy’s violent behavior. This same coroner stated that John Wayne Gacy did not meet the characteristic psychological profile of a serial killer and Dr. Morrison, who knew John himself and who studied different murderers such as Ed Gein, is her role as a psychiatrist witness in the case. , stated that: “Gacy had the emotional structure of a child.”
