“Killer Clown” John Wayne Gacy was born in 1942 and grew up in a suburban home with his parents and siblings located in Chicago, Illinois. Gacy did not have the easiest time growing up. John’s father was an alcoholic and would abuse not only John, but his siblings and wife as well. As a child, John was hit in the head by a swing and received a blood clot in his brain causing severe blackouts and headaches. The clot went undiagnosed for many years and even after the clot was removed, John still experienced health problems which led doctors to diagnose him with a congenital heart condition. Due to this heart condition, John was unable to participate in athletics or even play with his peers on the playground which caused him to feel unaccepted …show more content…
Police would eventually discover that young Robert Piest was not Gacy’s only victim. In fact, Gacy had killed over 33 boys and young males. Many times Gacy would lure boys and young men in by acting as if he had a contracting job for them to do, but in reality his plan was to rape, beat and murder them. He would convince his victims to handcuff themselves and then would “kill them by placing a rope or board against their throats as he raped them” (Meadows & Kuehnel, 2005, p. 71). Most of Gacy’s victims were male prostitutes, but some were employees of his and others were just regular young hetersexual boys. Eventually, the police came to discover that while the majority of the corpses were located either in a “crawl space” underneath Gacy’s home or under his garage, there were also a number of bodies thrown into the Des Plaines River. When it came time to take Gacy to trial, the defense side tried to use an insanity defense, even though Gacy already admitted to all 33 murders. John tried to claim that it was not he who committed these horrific acts, but his alternate personality, “Jack Hanley.” The judge and jury could see right through Gacy’s lies though and in 1980, Gacy was found guilty and given numerous death penalties and life sentences. John Wayne Gacy spent 14 years in prison before being executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994 (“John Wayne Gacy