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John Wayne Gacy Research Paper

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Individuals who have never committed a serious crime might frequently wonder what motivates or causes such criminal behavior. When crimes involving murder hit the media, you can't help but wonder if murderers are born or whether their surrounding environment fosters their development. During 1967–1978, John Wayne Gacy became a very recognized name. Gacy, also known as the “Killer Clown,” was a notorious American serial killer. He was given this nickname because in the public eye, he was a clown that entertained at parties but behind closed doors, he was a criminal. He sexually assaulted, tortured, and killed his young victims. Before diving deeper into why this killer clown committed such horrific crimes, it's important to discuss his upbringing. …show more content…

His father would beat them if they were thought to have misbehaved or didn't live up to his standards. His father also violently abused Gacy's mother in front of the children. Gacy could not play with other kids when he was younger because of a congenital heart disease, which his father saw as yet another failure. During this time, Gacy discovered that he was attracted to guys, and this caused a lot of sexual confusion and frustration. As an adult, Gacy seemed to have lived a normal life but eventually, authorities detained Gacy following some later significant allegations. Investigators located a crawl space while searching his house, where they recovered human bones. Gacy was accused of killing seven young men, engaging in deviant sexual behavior with a child, aggravated kidnapping, and other crimes. Gacy verbally confessed to killing multiple young men while being held by the police. He was charged with an additional 26 killings, and a motion to have him prosecuted for all 33 murders at once was subsequently approved by the court. The death penalty was sanctioned upon John Wayne Gacy (Biography.com, …show more content…

At a young age, John Wayne Gacy was abused and seemed to grow numb to the things happening around him. These strains cut so deep that his anger and resentment stayed with him for the rest of his life. “I thought I could never please him, but I still love him (Wilkinson 1994),” says Gacy in a conversation. At the end of the day, he still loved his father since they were family, but what his father had done to him caused lingering negative emotions. It also could have unknowingly made him despise males, which could explain why his victims were all men. Another strain in Gacy's life was his sexuality. Despite being married to several women, Gacy was unsure of his sexual orientation. He might have experienced some sort of internalized homophobia and took it out on his victims, as they were young males. Concerning the removal of a positive stimulus, Gacy never had the most fulfilling parts of childhood. He lacked care, love, and nurturing from his parents. He didn't get to experience making friends because of health-related problems, he had to mature quickly to survive the abuse from his father, and he was expected to live up to seemingly impossible expectations his father placed on him. All these strains in Gacy's early childhood followed him into adulthood and presented themselves in his crimes. This can all be tied to general strain

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Over the span of six years from 1972-1978 John Jr had murdered and raped thirty-three young males. John Wayne Gacy’s first victim he claimed was, “this killing was unintentional, committed in the mistaken belief the youth intended to attack him with a knife from his kitchen” (Cahill, 1986, p. 349). John Wayne Gacy Jr after tasting what it was like to murder someone, continued over the next six years. Except John Jr could not control himself and ended up escalating in his crimes.

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756 Words | 4 Pages

To go along with the molestation, Gacy’s father was a very abusive alcoholic. His life was tough and wouldn’t get much better till he got older. He lived in a modest suburban home in Des Plaines, Illinois. He was quite well known in his community, liked by his neighbors, and remembered for his performances in clown costume at children's parties. He was active in

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470 Words | 2 Pages

On December 22, 1978, John Wayne Gacy confessed to killing over two dozen young men and boys and burying their bodies underneath his home in Chicago. Gacy grew up with a relatively normal life, besides his abusive alcoholic father Gacy was raised in a normal middle class home and experienced minor health issues in his youth. In 1964, Gacy would marry his wife and move to Iowa. While he lived in Iowa he would manage his father-in-laws Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).The couple would have two children, Micheal Gacy and Christine Gacy. However, in 1968, Gacy's wife would then divorce him after he was charged for sexually assaulting multiple of his male employees.

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1857 Words | 8 Pages

His father saw Gacy as a disappointment in several ways. When Gacy was 11 years old he was involved in an accident on a swing set that caused a blood clot in his head that wasn't discovered until the age of 16. The side affects due to his injury before it was discovered were blackouts that happened frequently within that time. The blackouts

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724 Words | 3 Pages

That same year, he molested a girl with his friend during school. By 11 years old, his father beat him so badly that he blacked out and since then he would have fainting spells. Gacy’s teenage years were spent in the hospital due to a burst appendix and his congenital heart defect which prevented him from exercising. By

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540 Words | 3 Pages

During the times of 1972 to 1978, John Wayne Gacy Jr. killed 33 people in the Chicago area. He was known for raping, torturing, then strangling his victims (SC4). Then he would dispose of the bodies by either dumping them into a river or hiding them beneath his house. He wasn't caught until after the murder of his final victim in 1978. Then he became one of the most famous serial killers in American history.

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1049 Words | 5 Pages

Introduction John Wayne Gacy was an american serial killer convicted of 33 murders; mostly teenage boys. He was sentenced to death for 12 of those murders and to natural life in prison for the others. Most of the victims bodies were unearthed in the crawl

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920 Words | 4 Pages

John Wayne Gacy was a cold-blooded serial killer from the early 1940s until the late 1990s. This cold-blooded killer was a master manipulator, a sex offender that tortured, raped, and murdered young men and boys. All the murders took place in the state of Chicago, Illinois, in the town of Norwood Park. “Over the period of a few years, Gacy murdered 33 people, 29 of whom were found underneath Gacy’s house – 26 in the crawlspace, and 3 other bodies were found in other areas of his house.” (Crime Museum) John Wayne Gacy took on another version of himself that he called Pogo the Clown.

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1650 Words | 7 Pages

John Wayne Gacy was one of America’s most notorious serial killers. Born and raised in Chicago, Gacy would go on to kill thirty-three boys within the Des Plaines area of Chicago, Illinois. He would rape, torture, then finally suffocate every single one of his thirty-three victims within the very walls of his own home. Having killed that many people, he became the serial killer with the most amount of confirmed kills in the United States at the time. He would be caught in early 1978 and sentenced to twenty-one life sentences, twelve death sentences, and to be executed by lethal injection, which would not happen until over a decade later in the middle of 1994.

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788 Words | 4 Pages

Later, he would be known as the “Killer Clown”. Gacy grew up in an abusive home. According to the article, “John Wayne Gacy, the Killer Clown”, “From age 4, Gacy was verbally and physically abused by his alcoholic father.” (Montaldo 2019.) That can make a person wonder if Gacy’s murders were instigated from his life growing up.

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1665 Words | 7 Pages

Many people have minor qualities but do not have the label of serial killer. John Wayne Gacy is an excellent example of a human monster because of his actions of murder and rape while demonstrating that nurture can shape a person's personality proving human monsters are more terrifying than those we read about in fiction.       The life of Gacy began in Chicago, Illinois where he and his family lived. He was born on the 17th day of march in 1942. He grew up with

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1042 Words | 5 Pages

When he went to school he kept more to himself over the years due to his heart condition that he was diagnosed with at 16. With his condition he was looked upon by his father as a failure. Time went by and Gacy started to realize that he felt attracted to men. With his new found sexuality and other knowing, he got a lot of encounters for it. Looking at Gacy you would think of him as just your average hard working man.

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1729 Words | 7 Pages

“A clown can get away with murder” (John Wayne Gacy). “John Wayne Gacy is a notorious serial killer, known for his attention toward young men.” John was a middle-aged construction contractor with the company, PDM Contractors. Before he became a killer, he had a record of violence and perverse assault on teens. His wife, Marlynn Gacy, seemed to have condoned his sexual appeal to boys and went as far as to engage in acts with him.

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983 Words | 4 Pages

John Wayne Gacy is a serial killer who killed 33 people in total. He was born on May 17th 1942 in Chicago where he was physically and verbally abused by his father. Since this age he showed unusual behaviours and avoiding society, but then was determined that he has a psychological disorder. He moved to Los Angeles and was living a normal life however he started showing his real face in 1968 where he raped a young, male employee.

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516 Words | 3 Pages

He obviously carried this violent nature into his adulthood on a much larger scale and thought of his actions as acceptable. The fact that Gacy dressed as a clown clearly portrays that he learned these behaviors from a young age because being a clown is a childhood symbol. This reflects directly on what he was doing as an adult because here he had switched roles in a situation involving the molestation of a child. You can easily see the correlation between his childhood experiences and his reversed role adulthood actions. One personality disorder pertaining to Gacy was sociopathic.

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