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John Wayne Gacy Research Papers

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John Wayne Gacy is one of America’s most well-known homosexual serial killers and rapist to date. He was tried and convicted on killings of 33 teenage boys from 1972-1978. Gacy was born on Saint Patrick’s Day, March 22, 1942 in
Chicago Illinois. Growing up Gacy had a pretty rough childhood. By the time he was 9 years old he had been molested which he had never told anyone about. 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 …show more content…

Gacy was paroled in 1971 and moved back to Chicago. This is when he made his own construction business. That July he remarried a recently divorced women he had met through mutual friends and, with financial assistance from his mother, moved into a house in Des Plaines. In February 1971, Gacy again ran into trouble with the law. He was charged with the attempted rape of a young man. The charges were dropped when the victim failed to appear in court for the hearing. On December 12,1978 , the police again focused their attention on John Wayne Gacy. Robert Piest, a teenage stock boy at a local Des Plaines pharmacy, had come up missing. Gacy was the last person seen with the boy prior to his disappearance. He had offered the boy a job with his constuction company and had the boy come to his home. When investigators ran a background check on Gacy, they were surprised to discover that he had previously served time for committing sodomy on a teenage boy. With this incriminating information, investigators were able to obtain a warrant to search Gacy’s house. During the execution of the warrant, investigators entered a crawl space located beneath the home. A rancid odor was quickly noticed. The smell was believed to be faulty sewage lines and was quickly dismissed. Without any noticeable incriminating evidence, investigators returned to headquarters to run tests on the evidence they

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After they uncovered all the bodies from his crawl space, he was then convicted of thirty-three murders and was put on death row for thirteen years following his conviction (source 6). Police and other investigators obtained remains from some of the deceased bodies and took DNA tests on those parts to help find out who the bodies were (source 6). They needed evidence to confirm each missing person in Gacy's crawl space (source 7). There are still six people who were not able to be identified. During his thirteen years at the Stateville Correctional Center, Gacy started selling some art from prison.

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839 Words | 4 Pages

Phillip Craig Garrido was born in Pittsburg, California, on April 5, 1951. He graduated from high school in 1969. After graduating, he began struggling with substance abuse, and was arrested for possession later that year. In 1972, Garrido first became known to police when he was arrested for drugging and raping a 14-year-old girl, although the charges were dropped after the victim refused to testify in court. In 1976, he abducted a 25-year-old woman named Katie Callaway Hall in Reno, Nevada and raped her in a warehouse.

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1400 Words | 6 Pages

John Wayne Gacy Jr. was born on March 17, 1942, to middle-class Marion and John Gacy Senior in Chicago, Illinois. His mother was Danish and his father was Polish. His father was an abusive alcoholic with a violent temper that often led to him beating his wife and children, the beatings were usually with a razor strap. John’s beatings were usually so brutal that he ended up in the hospital most of the time and was suffering from blackouts caused by seizures. Since John’s medical condition was never diagnosed Sr. often accused Gacy of fabricating illnesses even while lying helpless on a hospital bed.

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1571 Words | 7 Pages

He learned from his last two victims that a witness who is alive, can get him into trouble which is why I believe that he started murdering his victims and escalated so drastically when he was paroled out of prison. The reason that Gacy was considered a suspect was on December of 1978 when the investigation began into the disappearance of Robert Piest. His last known location was with John Gacy at his home because the boy went to talk to him about a job. After learning of Gacy’s criminal history and him being the last one to see the young man alive, Authorities soon set in for a search warrant to search Gacy’s home. As authorities searched the house, they noticed a strong strange smell coming from below the house.

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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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675 Words | 3 Pages

Gacy was trialed for this crime and was convicted, he

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1857 Words | 8 Pages

Gacy’s father became an alcoholic and repeatedly would beat his wife and children, primarily Gacy. His family problems eventually took their tole on his schoolwork. After attending four different high schools, and eventually dropping out, Gacy moved to Las Vegas. He held a job at a funeral home as a janitor in order to save enough money in order to someday return to Chicago. Once he returned home he enrolled in a Business College and eventually graduated with a degree.

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731 Words | 3 Pages

He was named after his mother’s favorite Hollywood movie star, the legendary John “Duke” Wayne. He He enticed many young men to his home for homosexual liaisons, tying or handcuffing his partners then strangling or choking them. Gacy was a successful contractor, was active in the community, and often dressed up as a clown for parties. He has the distinction of having been convicted of more murders than anyone else in American history.

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540 Words | 3 Pages

In addition to the 33 murders that were committed, Gacy was also accountable for many, many rapes. A couple of times before his killing period, he was found guilty of sodomizing several minors. Even during the period of his murders, he would commit numerous acts of rape. Gacy would chloroform the victim, or sometimes hold gunpoint, take them back to his house, and then brutally rape and torture the victim. Even with complaints by the numerous victims, the Chicago police department did not take action (Blanco).

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1049 Words | 5 Pages

He was occasionally hospitalized because of these seizures. Gacy later estimated that he spent almost a year in the hospital for these episodes between the ages of 14 and 18, and attributed the decline in his grades to his time out of school. His father suspected the episodes were an effort to gain sympathy and attention; on one occasion, he openly accused his son of faking as the boy lay in a hospital bed. Although his mother, sisters, and few close friends themselves never doubted his illness, Gacy's medical condition was never conclusively diagnosed. At the age of 18, Gacy became involved in politics, working as an assistant precinct captain for a democratic candidate in his neighborhood.

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531 Words | 3 Pages

John Wayne Gacy Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois in March 1942, where he was beaten down by his alcoholic abusive father. Although he had close relations with his sisters and mother, Gacy yet sought for the acceptance of his father. At the ages of 5, 7, and 8, he was sexually abused by a family friend of his father’s. By the third grade, Gacy had suffered from blackouts, which resulted in retaining him from school. With that, his grades started to decline.

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1259 Words | 6 Pages

His lawyer told that he had sense of insanity as he committed the murder but not before or after. While on trial Gacy joked around and said that, “the only thing he was guilty of was running a cemetery without a license”. The trial didn’t last long at all only a short month later he was convicted and sentenced to death. Gacy was on death row for a long fourteen years, and had many experiences during his time. While on death row he painted pictures and sold them for money. It was because of John Gacy that in todays times inmates are not allowed to sell things and make money while in prison.

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2716 Words | 11 Pages

During his parole, Gacy moved to Chicago where he sexually assaulted another young boy, but the Chicago court dismissed the complaint after the boy failed to show up in court. Unfortunately, the Iowa Board of Parole never heard about this incidence and Gacy’s parole ended in 1971 where his criminal records in Iowa were sealed [8]. Killing Spree & Arrest After becoming a free man, Gacy would establish a construction company, remarry, get involved in more politics and continue to kidnap, rape, torture, murder and bury over 33 young boys and men between the ages of 14-21 from 1972 to 1978. It was not until the kidnapping and murder of Robert Piest in December of 1978, that led detectives to Gacy’s home where they found evidence linking him to Piest and obtained warrants to dig through Gacy’s crawl space. They found 29 bodies buried in his property, with another 4 victims, including Piest, to have been dumped in the Des Plaines River.

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1232 Words | 5 Pages

Clifford L. Linedecker was a well-known author for writing about true crime and historical events. He has written books on various topics, mostly including crime and mysteries, and his books often provide a very detailed and specific account of insights into these events. The topic of my book goes into a detailed account of serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr’s life. Gacy is known to be responsible for at least 33 young men and boys during the 1970’s, but the “Why?” has always remained unknown. Linedecker wanted to dive deeper into Gacy’s background, his crimes, and the investigations and trials, along with the results.

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962 Words | 4 Pages

The man everyone trusted and admired was living a double life, he was married and divorced having step children along with having children of his own, he participated in the charitable and political activities that went on in his town while also engaging in the vicious and brutal killings. He ended up being convicted of sexual assault in 1968 of two teenage boys. He was condemned to ten years in prison but was a “model” prisoner and was released on parole in 1970. He ended up getting arrested the following year when another teen boy accused him of sexual assault. When the young man did not show up for his trial, the charges on Gacy ended up being dropped.

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