John Wayne Gacy is one of the most infamous serial killers in American history. During a seven year span of the 1970s, Gacy murdered 33 men. As is the case with many high profile murderers, to the average person, one would have to be insane to commit such acts, which is what Gacy's defense claimed. The jury did not buy it though, and Gacy would be executed by lethal injection in 1994. John Wayne Gacy was born on March 17, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. He married in 1964, and moved to Iowa. In Iowa, he was asked by his new father-in-law to take over the family's chicken restaurant franchise. Everything seemed to be going well for Gacy, until he was arrested in 1968. Gacy was accused of coercing a boy who worked for him into homosexual acts. …show more content…
His second wife divorced him in 1978, saying he had unpredictable moods and an obsession with homosexual magazines. Gacy' world began to crumble on December 12, 1978, when 15 year-old Robert Piest went missing. Piest at worked at a local pharmacy, and disappeared after his shift when he said he was going to talk to Gacy about a job with Gacy's contracting business. Police obtained a search warrant for his house. During that search, police found class rings from other boys who had been reported missing in the previous years and other incriminating evidence. They also noted a strange smell throughout the house, but dismissed it thin king it was from broken sewage pipes under the house. Following the initial search though, they obtained a second search warrant, which would lead to much worse …show more content…
He also drew a map of 28 graves in the crawl space underneath his home and underneath his garage, and said there were five bodies in the Des Plaines River. Investigators uncovered the bodies on his properties, and also four of the bodies from the river. Then the last body was found, Robert Piest, the boy who had started the whole investigation. Gacy told investigators that there were four different Johns: John the Contractor, John the Clown, John the Politician, and Jack Hanley, who was the murderer and evil one. The trial began on February 6, 1980, lasting for five weeks. The defense was claiming insanity, saying Gacy had schizophrenia, and called over 100 witnesses. The jury took only two hours to deliberate though, coming back with a guilty verdict. Gacy was sentenced to death on March 13, and sent to the Menard Correctional Center in Illinois. Fourteen years later, and after many appeals, he was executed by lethal injection at the Statesville Penitentiary on May 10, 1994. It is reported that his last words were "Kiss my