WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.419 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we're opening 00:00:04.419 --> 00:00:09.060 a file that I think, well, I think a lot of you 00:00:09.060 --> 00:00:11.380 are going to feel like you already know. We've 00:00:11.380 --> 00:00:13.359 all seen the documentaries. We've seen the headlines. 00:00:13.539 --> 00:00:15.419 We definitely know the nickname. Right. But when 00:00:15.419 --> 00:00:17.260 you actually sit down with the source material, 00:00:17.460 --> 00:00:20.059 and I'm talking about the court transcripts, 00:00:20.059 --> 00:00:22.960 the FBI profiles, the survivor testimonies, you 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:26.079 realize that the headline version of this story. 00:00:27.019 --> 00:00:29.640 It doesn't just miss the point. It actually hides 00:00:29.640 --> 00:00:32.359 the scariest part. It really does. We are talking 00:00:32.359 --> 00:00:35.679 about John Wayne Gacy. It's a name that has become 00:00:35.679 --> 00:00:38.520 a sort of cultural shorthand for monster, hasn't 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:40.700 it? It really has. You hear Gacy, you immediately 00:00:40.700 --> 00:00:42.520 think of the clown suit, you think of the crawl 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:45.259 space. It's almost become a caricature of evil. 00:00:45.460 --> 00:00:47.560 But you're absolutely right. If we stop there 00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:49.280 at the caricature, if we just look at the killer 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:52.310 clown. Yeah. We miss the much more disturbing 00:00:52.310 --> 00:00:54.770 mechanics of how this man actually operated. 00:00:54.789 --> 00:00:57.750 We miss the story of how a predator didn't just 00:00:57.750 --> 00:01:01.409 hide in the shadows, but actually thrived in 00:01:01.409 --> 00:01:04.090 the blazing sunlight of a polite suburban community. 00:01:04.390 --> 00:01:06.629 That is exactly it. That's what kept hitting 00:01:06.629 --> 00:01:08.859 me as I was reading through this stacky. It's 00:01:08.859 --> 00:01:11.260 the paradox. The duality. We aren't looking at 00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:13.620 some guy who lived in a creepy shack in the woods. 00:01:13.819 --> 00:01:16.799 We are looking at a man who, by day, was this 00:01:16.799 --> 00:01:19.620 gregarious community leader. He was a precinct 00:01:19.620 --> 00:01:21.540 captain for the Democratic Party. He was the 00:01:21.540 --> 00:01:23.239 guy you called when your streetlights went out. 00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:25.180 The guy who threw the best parties on the block. 00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:28.280 Exactly. The best parties. And then, by night, 00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:32.319 well, he was something entirely different. That 00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:35.280 duality is the absolute core of this case. And 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:37.659 there is one specific image from the research 00:01:37.659 --> 00:01:40.719 that I think perfectly, just perfectly encapsulates 00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:42.920 this entire deep dive. I know exactly the one 00:01:42.920 --> 00:01:45.640 you mean. It honestly gave me chills when I saw 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:47.340 the date on it. Yeah, the date is everything. 00:01:47.500 --> 00:01:49.519 Paint the picture for the listener because this 00:01:49.519 --> 00:01:52.239 visual is just crucial. Okay, so it's May 1978. 00:01:52.799 --> 00:01:55.439 We are at the Polish Constitution Day Parade 00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:57.219 in Chicago, which is, you know, a huge event. 00:01:57.459 --> 00:02:00.060 Massive. And in the photo, you have John Wayne 00:02:00.060 --> 00:02:03.219 Gacy. He's looking sharp. wearing a suit, big 00:02:03.219 --> 00:02:06.219 friendly smile, and he is shaking hands with 00:02:06.219 --> 00:02:08.699 First Lady Rosalind Carter. The wife of the President 00:02:08.699 --> 00:02:10.680 of the United States. Right. Surrounded by Secret 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:12.639 Service agents. And if you look really, really 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:14.819 closely at Gacy's lapel, he's wearing this little 00:02:14.819 --> 00:02:17.259 pin with an S on it. Which stands for special. 00:02:17.639 --> 00:02:20.039 It meant he had received special security clearance 00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:22.439 from the Secret Service to be in that secure 00:02:22.439 --> 00:02:25.439 zone with the First Lady. That is just mind -blowing 00:02:25.439 --> 00:02:28.039 to me. The Secret Service, I mean, the most elite 00:02:28.039 --> 00:02:30.280 protection agency on the planet. They vetted 00:02:30.280 --> 00:02:32.360 this guy and said, yeah, he's safe. He's fine. 00:02:32.620 --> 00:02:35.580 But here is the kicker, and this is why that 00:02:35.580 --> 00:02:40.259 date is so important. This is May 1978. Based 00:02:40.259 --> 00:02:42.039 on the timelines we have from the investigation, 00:02:42.439 --> 00:02:45.340 what was the situation at his house at that exact 00:02:45.340 --> 00:02:48.419 moment? By May 1978, the crawlspace underneath 00:02:48.419 --> 00:02:51.360 his house at 8213 West Somerdale Avenue was, 00:02:51.580 --> 00:02:54.180 it was effectively at capacity. He'd already 00:02:54.180 --> 00:02:58.039 murdered nearly 30 young men and boys. 30. So 00:02:58.039 --> 00:03:00.520 just think about that spatial reality. He is 00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:02.319 shaking the hand of the first lady during the 00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:04.860 day, wearing a secret service pin, and then he 00:03:04.860 --> 00:03:07.000 is going home to a house where he is literally 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:10.060 walking on top of a mass grave he created. It's 00:03:10.060 --> 00:03:12.180 the ultimate thesis statement for who this man 00:03:12.180 --> 00:03:15.900 was. It is. It shows us that his mask wasn't 00:03:15.900 --> 00:03:17.659 the clown makeup. I think people get so hung 00:03:17.659 --> 00:03:20.259 up on the clown thing. Right. But the real mask 00:03:20.259 --> 00:03:23.919 was the suit. The real mask was the civic virtue. 00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:27.780 He constructed a persona of such aggressive normalcy, 00:03:27.800 --> 00:03:32.259 such hyper competence as a citizen that it blinded 00:03:32.259 --> 00:03:35.180 everyone, his neighbors, the police, even the 00:03:35.180 --> 00:03:37.580 federal government. It blinded them to the rot 00:03:37.580 --> 00:03:39.719 that was right underneath their feet. And that 00:03:39.719 --> 00:03:41.620 is our mission today. We are going to unpack 00:03:41.620 --> 00:03:44.819 exactly how he built that mask. We need to understand 00:03:44.819 --> 00:03:48.139 the architecture of that lie. Yeah. And inevitably. 00:03:48.780 --> 00:03:50.400 We need to see how it slipped. And how it all 00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:52.560 came crashing down. But before we get into the 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:54.879 psychology, the childhood, we need to set the 00:03:54.879 --> 00:03:56.919 scale here. Because even all these years later, 00:03:57.060 --> 00:03:59.780 the numbers, they're just hard to process. They 00:03:59.780 --> 00:04:03.120 are grim. We're talking about 33 confirmed murders 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:07.639 between 1972 and 1978. And confirmed is a heavy 00:04:07.639 --> 00:04:09.300 word there, which I think we will get to later. 00:04:09.500 --> 00:04:11.560 It is, yeah. But even just sticking to the official 00:04:11.560 --> 00:04:13.680 count, for a long time, this was the highest 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:15.840 murder count attributed to a single individual 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:18.480 in United States legal history. And again, the 00:04:18.480 --> 00:04:20.379 context is everything. This wasn't happening 00:04:20.379 --> 00:04:24.220 in some transient, lawless area. This was Norwood 00:04:24.220 --> 00:04:27.519 Park Township. A quiet, respectable suburb of 00:04:27.519 --> 00:04:30.480 Chicago, the house on Somerdale Avenue was a 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:34.139 standard brick ranch house. It's the kind of 00:04:34.139 --> 00:04:37.000 place people move to specifically to get away 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:40.019 from crime. I think that is why this story sticks 00:04:40.019 --> 00:04:43.019 in the American psyche so deeply. It's the violation 00:04:43.019 --> 00:04:46.670 of the sanctuary. You expect the danger to be 00:04:46.670 --> 00:04:49.129 out there. Right. You don't expect the monster 00:04:49.129 --> 00:04:51.410 to be the guy plowing your driveway for free 00:04:51.410 --> 00:04:53.829 in the winter. Precisely. This isn't just a true 00:04:53.829 --> 00:04:56.389 crime story. It's a case study in sociopathy. 00:04:56.470 --> 00:04:59.189 Yes, of course. But it is also a case study in 00:04:59.189 --> 00:05:01.730 the failure of systems. Yes. As we go through 00:05:01.730 --> 00:05:04.170 this timeline, we are going to see again and 00:05:04.170 --> 00:05:06.149 again these moments where Gacy could have been 00:05:06.149 --> 00:05:08.509 stopped, moments where the mask slipped. And 00:05:08.509 --> 00:05:11.149 yet the system, whether it was his father, the 00:05:11.149 --> 00:05:14.089 courts in Iowa or the community in Chicago. It 00:05:14.089 --> 00:05:15.910 shows to look the other way. So let's go back 00:05:15.910 --> 00:05:17.750 to the beginning, because with a case like this, 00:05:17.790 --> 00:05:20.689 we always want to know why was he born this way? 00:05:20.769 --> 00:05:23.129 Was he made this way? The source material gives 00:05:23.129 --> 00:05:25.290 us a lot of detail on his childhood in Chicago. 00:05:25.810 --> 00:05:29.069 Born in March 1942, working class Polish and 00:05:29.069 --> 00:05:31.910 Danish Catholic family. And looming over everything 00:05:31.910 --> 00:05:34.490 in those early years is the father figure, John 00:05:34.490 --> 00:05:37.519 Stanley Gacy. You cannot understand the son without 00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:40.339 dissecting the father. John Stanley Gacy was 00:05:40.339 --> 00:05:43.399 a World War I veteran, an auto repair machinist, 00:05:43.420 --> 00:05:45.620 and by all accounts in the biographies and the 00:05:45.620 --> 00:05:47.980 family interviews, he was a deeply troubled man, 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:52.079 an alcoholic, and a domestic tyrant. Tyrant really 00:05:52.079 --> 00:05:55.139 seems to be the right word. The stories are just 00:05:55.139 --> 00:05:57.680 brutal. There's one incident when Gacy was just 00:05:57.680 --> 00:06:00.769 four years old. Four. A toddler. He was messing 00:06:00.769 --> 00:06:02.329 around with some car engine components in the 00:06:02.329 --> 00:06:05.069 garage, just being a curious kid, and his father 00:06:05.069 --> 00:06:07.149 beats him for it. And it wasn't just the physical 00:06:07.149 --> 00:06:08.889 abuse, though that was severe and constant. It 00:06:08.889 --> 00:06:11.470 was the psychological conditioning. John Stanley 00:06:11.470 --> 00:06:14.250 had a very specific, very rigid idea of what 00:06:14.250 --> 00:06:17.209 a man was supposed to be. And he decided very 00:06:17.209 --> 00:06:19.870 early on that his son just didn't measure up 00:06:19.870 --> 00:06:21.769 to that standard. He was constantly belittling 00:06:21.769 --> 00:06:25.189 him. Constantly. He used slurs. He called him 00:06:25.189 --> 00:06:29.040 a sissy, my mama's boy. Dumb, stupid. He would 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:31.620 compare him unfavorably to his sisters. It was 00:06:31.620 --> 00:06:33.939 relentless. That has to do something to a kid's 00:06:33.939 --> 00:06:36.459 wiring. That has to fundamentally change you. 00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:39.720 Absolutely. Gacy grew up in an environment where 00:06:39.720 --> 00:06:42.459 the person whose approval he needed the most, 00:06:42.620 --> 00:06:45.420 the patriarch, the god figure of the house, was 00:06:45.420 --> 00:06:47.740 the source of his greatest terror and his deepest 00:06:47.740 --> 00:06:50.779 shame. So he's trapped. Completely. He was in 00:06:50.779 --> 00:06:52.759 a constant state of trying to win affection from 00:06:52.759 --> 00:06:55.000 a man who was incapable of giving it and who 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:57.480 actively despised him. And on top of all that, 00:06:57.579 --> 00:07:00.800 Gacy wasn't a big athletic kid. He had health 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:03.040 issues that I imagine just made him an even easier 00:07:03.040 --> 00:07:05.990 target for a guy like his dad. He did. He was 00:07:05.990 --> 00:07:08.069 born with a heart condition, a congenital defect 00:07:08.069 --> 00:07:10.709 that kept him out of organized sports. In the 00:07:10.709 --> 00:07:13.730 1940s and 50s, not playing sports was a major 00:07:13.730 --> 00:07:15.949 strike against a boy's social standing, especially 00:07:15.949 --> 00:07:18.569 in his father's eyes. Sure. But even more significant 00:07:18.569 --> 00:07:21.050 were the blackouts. Starting around the fourth 00:07:21.050 --> 00:07:24.410 grade, he began experiencing these seizure -like 00:07:24.410 --> 00:07:26.110 episodes. And these weren't just minor things. 00:07:26.230 --> 00:07:28.649 The records show they were serious. No, not at 00:07:28.649 --> 00:07:31.089 all. Between the ages of 14 and 18, he spent 00:07:31.089 --> 00:07:33.629 nearly a year in the hospital undergoing tests 00:07:33.629 --> 00:07:37.230 and treatment. A year. Okay, now imagine a normal 00:07:37.230 --> 00:07:39.449 parent's reaction to their teenage son being 00:07:39.449 --> 00:07:41.769 hospitalized for a year. Yeah. You'd expect concern, 00:07:42.069 --> 00:07:44.670 worry, sympathy. Of course. But John Stanley 00:07:44.670 --> 00:07:47.750 Gacy. His reaction was accusation. He accused 00:07:47.750 --> 00:07:50.990 his son of faking it. He thought Gacy was malingering, 00:07:51.089 --> 00:07:54.009 just acting sick to get attention or to get out 00:07:54.009 --> 00:07:56.629 of doing chores or work. That is heartbreaking, 00:07:56.750 --> 00:07:59.410 but it's also terrifying. It's a critical developmental 00:07:59.410 --> 00:08:02.850 moment. Imagine the isolation. You are a sick 00:08:02.850 --> 00:08:05.569 child terrified of your own body failing you, 00:08:05.629 --> 00:08:07.350 and your father is standing over your hospital 00:08:07.350 --> 00:08:10.029 bed calling you a liar. Right. That breeds a 00:08:10.029 --> 00:08:12.709 very specific kind of resentment, but it also 00:08:12.709 --> 00:08:15.600 teaches a lesson. It teaches you that the truth 00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:18.399 is irrelevant. It teaches you that vulnerability 00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:21.740 is dangerous. And crucially, it teaches you that 00:08:21.740 --> 00:08:24.220 you can't rely on authority figures to understand 00:08:24.220 --> 00:08:28.639 you. You have to manipulate them. Bingo. He internalized 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:31.019 that lesson completely. If the truth doesn't 00:08:31.019 --> 00:08:33.360 get you love, maybe a better story will. If I 00:08:33.360 --> 00:08:35.539 can't be the son you want, I'll invent a version 00:08:35.539 --> 00:08:38.340 of myself that you can't ignore. And that explains 00:08:38.340 --> 00:08:41.220 so much of his later life, this desperate need 00:08:41.220 --> 00:08:43.960 for validation that we see again and again. He 00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:47.259 is always chasing the Outstanding Vice President 00:08:47.259 --> 00:08:50.100 Award, always chasing the photo op. He's trying 00:08:50.100 --> 00:08:52.659 to fill that void his father left. Now fast forward 00:08:52.659 --> 00:08:55.919 a bit. He leaves home. He runs away to Las Vegas 00:08:55.919 --> 00:08:58.919 when he's about 20 years old. And there is a 00:08:58.919 --> 00:09:01.480 really disturbing incident here that feels like 00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:05.179 the first major neon flashing red flag of what 00:09:05.179 --> 00:09:07.740 was to come. He gets a job at a mortuary. This 00:09:07.740 --> 00:09:09.779 is known as the mortuary incident. He was working 00:09:09.779 --> 00:09:12.019 as an attendant, basically a janitor and a night 00:09:12.019 --> 00:09:14.679 watchman. He slept on a cot behind the embalming 00:09:14.679 --> 00:09:17.259 room. Okay. And he later confessed that one night 00:09:17.259 --> 00:09:19.220 he climbed into a coffin with the corpse of a 00:09:19.220 --> 00:09:23.159 teenage male and embraced it. Okay. That just 00:09:23.159 --> 00:09:25.240 stops you in your tracks. That isn't just acting 00:09:25.240 --> 00:09:27.940 out or teenage rebellion. That is something else 00:09:27.940 --> 00:09:31.539 entirely. It is the first concrete sign of what 00:09:31.539 --> 00:09:35.320 we call necrophilic tendencies. And we have to 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:37.799 analyze why that would appeal to him. With a 00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:40.899 corpse, the partner has no agency. Right. They 00:09:40.899 --> 00:09:43.039 cannot reject him. They cannot judge him. They 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:45.139 cannot leave. They cannot call him stupid or 00:09:45.139 --> 00:09:47.980 sissy. It is a relationship of total control. 00:09:48.120 --> 00:09:50.159 It's the ultimate safe relationship for him. 00:09:50.220 --> 00:09:53.779 Exactly. That desire for a partner who is essentially 00:09:53.779 --> 00:09:56.200 an object becomes the defining characteristic 00:09:56.200 --> 00:09:59.039 of his crimes later on. He didn't want a relationship. 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:01.120 He wanted possession. It's terrifying to see 00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:03.659 it manifest that early. But he leaves Vegas. 00:10:04.250 --> 00:10:05.950 Comes back to the Midwest, and this is where 00:10:05.950 --> 00:10:07.809 we enter a chapter of his life that I think gets 00:10:07.809 --> 00:10:10.250 glossed over way too often. I call it the practice 00:10:10.250 --> 00:10:14.230 run. He moves to Waterloo, Iowa. Yes. And if 00:10:14.230 --> 00:10:15.929 you didn't know how this story ended, you'd look 00:10:15.929 --> 00:10:17.909 at his life in Iowa and think, wow, this guy 00:10:17.909 --> 00:10:20.629 is a massive success story. On paper, he was 00:10:20.629 --> 00:10:23.350 winning at life. He marries Marlon Myers, whose 00:10:23.350 --> 00:10:26.289 father is a wealthy businessman. His father -in 00:10:26.289 --> 00:10:29.429 -law sets him up to manage three KFC franchises. 00:10:29.429 --> 00:10:32.419 Three of them. And Gacy throws himself into this 00:10:32.419 --> 00:10:35.820 role with a manic, almost frantic energy. He 00:10:35.820 --> 00:10:38.299 insisted on people calling him the Colonel. The 00:10:38.299 --> 00:10:41.279 Colonel. I mean, the ego required to demand that 00:10:41.279 --> 00:10:44.080 title while you're managing a fried chicken franchise. 00:10:44.379 --> 00:10:47.279 Yeah. It's just staggering. It's pure narcissism. 00:10:47.500 --> 00:10:50.039 But here's the thing. It worked. People bought 00:10:50.039 --> 00:10:52.720 into it. He joined the Jaycees, the Junior Chamber 00:10:52.720 --> 00:10:55.159 of Commerce, which was a very influential organization 00:10:55.159 --> 00:10:57.299 for young men at the time. And he wasn't just 00:10:57.299 --> 00:10:59.120 a member who showed up for the free lunch. I 00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:01.200 don't know. He was the vice president. He was 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:03.860 named outstanding vice president. He was working 00:11:03.860 --> 00:11:07.179 12 to 14 hour days at the chicken places and 00:11:07.179 --> 00:11:09.759 then volunteering all night for the Jaycees. 00:11:09.840 --> 00:11:12.299 This is that pattern emerging again. He's building 00:11:12.299 --> 00:11:15.960 the facade of the perfect citizen. If you're 00:11:15.960 --> 00:11:17.559 the guy bringing the fried chicken to the meeting 00:11:17.559 --> 00:11:19.440 and you're the guy raising the most money for 00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:22.240 charity. Nobody looks too closely at what you're 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:24.179 doing in your basement. And the basement is exactly 00:11:24.179 --> 00:11:26.639 where the mask comes off. He built a club in 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:29.139 his home for his employees. He hired a lot of 00:11:29.139 --> 00:11:31.220 teenagers to work at the KFCs. He'd bring them 00:11:31.220 --> 00:11:33.740 down there for drinking, playing pool, just hanging 00:11:33.740 --> 00:11:36.320 out. And this is where the predatory behavior 00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:38.779 starts to really ramp up. He's not killing yet, 00:11:38.879 --> 00:11:42.279 but he's grooming. He's testing. He's testing 00:11:42.279 --> 00:11:45.299 boundaries. He's running experiments. He would 00:11:45.299 --> 00:11:47.500 get these boys drunk and then he would make sexual 00:11:47.500 --> 00:11:50.019 advances. But and this is the key manipulation. 00:11:50.559 --> 00:11:53.360 If they rejected him, he would spin it. He'd 00:11:53.360 --> 00:11:55.159 say it was just a test of their psychological 00:11:55.159 --> 00:11:57.440 toughness or a joke or some kind of experiment. 00:11:57.799 --> 00:12:00.120 He was gaslighting them. He was seeing who was 00:12:00.120 --> 00:12:02.340 vulnerable, who was submissive and who would 00:12:02.340 --> 00:12:05.519 keep a secret. But then he crosses a major line 00:12:05.519 --> 00:12:08.940 with Donald Voorhees. This is 1967. Voorhees 00:12:08.940 --> 00:12:11.820 is 15 years old and he's the son of a fellow 00:12:11.820 --> 00:12:14.899 Jaycee member. Which is so brazen. Jaycee assaults 00:12:14.899 --> 00:12:17.529 him. And when the kid talks, Gacy doesn't just 00:12:17.529 --> 00:12:20.190 panic or deny it. He escalates in a way that 00:12:20.190 --> 00:12:22.789 proves this wasn't just an impulse. This escalation 00:12:22.789 --> 00:12:25.250 is crucial because it shows his criminal sophistication 00:12:25.250 --> 00:12:27.789 even at this early stage. He didn't just call 00:12:27.789 --> 00:12:30.370 the kid a liar. He hired another employee to 00:12:30.370 --> 00:12:32.490 beat Voorhees up to stop him from testifying. 00:12:32.610 --> 00:12:34.350 He tried to intimidate a witness. He was trying 00:12:34.350 --> 00:12:36.490 to act like a mob boss. He thought he could use 00:12:36.490 --> 00:12:38.750 violence and intimidation to silence the truth. 00:12:39.230 --> 00:12:41.950 Thankfully, it didn't work. He gets caught. He 00:12:41.950 --> 00:12:44.190 gets convicted of sodomy. And as part of that 00:12:44.190 --> 00:12:47.429 legal process, he is evaluated by psychiatrists 00:12:47.429 --> 00:12:50.190 at the University of Iowa. Yes. Reading their 00:12:50.190 --> 00:12:53.570 report now, all these years later, it's chilling 00:12:53.570 --> 00:12:55.889 how accurate they were. They nailed it completely. 00:12:56.070 --> 00:12:58.409 They diagnosed him with antisocial personality 00:12:58.409 --> 00:13:01.590 disorder. They explicitly stated he was a sociopath. 00:13:01.649 --> 00:13:05.330 And most crucially, they deemed him untreatable. 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:08.559 Untreatable. They warned the court in writing 00:13:08.559 --> 00:13:10.840 that he would come into repeated conflict with 00:13:10.840 --> 00:13:14.179 society. They essentially said, this man is dangerous 00:13:14.179 --> 00:13:18.059 and he isn't going to change. So, OK, you have 00:13:18.059 --> 00:13:20.860 the diagnosis. You have the conviction for a 00:13:20.860 --> 00:13:22.799 violent sex crime against a minor. You have the 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:24.919 attempt to hire a hitman to silence a witness. 00:13:25.059 --> 00:13:27.220 He gets sentenced to 10 years in the Iowa State 00:13:27.220 --> 00:13:29.750 Reformatory. This should be the end of the story. 00:13:29.909 --> 00:13:32.210 It absolutely should have been. Society has identified 00:13:32.210 --> 00:13:33.929 the threat and locked it away. It should have 00:13:33.929 --> 00:13:36.509 been. But this is the critical failure point. 00:13:36.669 --> 00:13:40.830 He served only 18 months. 18 months. For sodomy 00:13:40.830 --> 00:13:43.149 and hiring a hitman, how does that even happen? 00:13:43.350 --> 00:13:46.490 He was a model prisoner. And this is what high 00:13:46.490 --> 00:13:49.490 -functioning sociopaths do. They assess the environment, 00:13:49.769 --> 00:13:51.809 they learn the rules of the game, and they play 00:13:51.809 --> 00:13:54.169 them better than anyone else. So he just manipulated 00:13:54.169 --> 00:13:56.909 the prison system. Completely. He didn't sit 00:13:56.909 --> 00:13:59.659 in his cell and rock. He became the head cook 00:13:59.659 --> 00:14:03.179 in the prison. He revamped the prison JC's chapter. 00:14:03.460 --> 00:14:06.220 He made himself indispensable to the wardens. 00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:09.559 He didn't use prison to reform. He used it to 00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:11.940 verify his theory that he could manipulate authority 00:14:11.940 --> 00:14:14.700 figures. He realized that if he just acted like 00:14:14.700 --> 00:14:18.000 a good guy, the system would bend over backward 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:20.750 to believe him. Exactly. He learned that the 00:14:20.750 --> 00:14:23.090 appearance of virtue is more powerful than the 00:14:23.090 --> 00:14:25.389 reality of virtue. He walked out of there in 00:14:25.389 --> 00:14:27.649 18 months with a blueprint for how to get away 00:14:27.649 --> 00:14:30.070 with anything. So he gets out. His record is 00:14:30.070 --> 00:14:32.330 sealed in Iowa, which is another systemic failure 00:14:32.330 --> 00:14:34.570 we could spend an hour on. A huge one. He moves 00:14:34.570 --> 00:14:38.460 back to Chicago in 1971. And he effectively hits 00:14:38.460 --> 00:14:40.960 the reset button. He reinvents himself as John 00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:43.559 Wayne Gacy, this successful contractor. He buys 00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:46.639 the ranch house at 8213 West Somerdale Avenue. 00:14:46.820 --> 00:14:50.620 He starts PDM Contractors. And again, that Manning 00:14:50.620 --> 00:14:54.139 energy returns. By 1978, his business is pulling 00:14:54.139 --> 00:14:57.779 in over $200 ,000 a year. That is a lot of money 00:14:57.779 --> 00:15:01.019 in the 70s. A huge amount. He is wealthy, he 00:15:01.019 --> 00:15:03.500 is established, and he is employing a lot of 00:15:03.500 --> 00:15:05.649 young men. And he goes right back to the Civic 00:15:05.649 --> 00:15:07.830 Pillar playbook. He's the director of the Polish 00:15:07.830 --> 00:15:10.990 Constitution Day Parade. That's how he met Rosalind 00:15:10.990 --> 00:15:13.110 Carter. He's a lighting commissioner for the 00:15:13.110 --> 00:15:15.590 township. He throws these massive parties at 00:15:15.590 --> 00:15:19.090 his house. The famous Somerdale Luau. We're talking... 00:15:19.549 --> 00:15:22.750 400 people, neighbors, local politicians, police 00:15:22.750 --> 00:15:25.230 officers, all drinking and eating in his backyard. 00:15:25.470 --> 00:15:27.450 It provided him with perfect cover. It's the 00:15:27.450 --> 00:15:29.429 halo effect, right? Who suspects the lighting 00:15:29.429 --> 00:15:31.549 commissioner? Who suspects the guy who just bought 00:15:31.549 --> 00:15:33.549 you a beer and is laughing with the precinct 00:15:33.549 --> 00:15:35.649 captain? He was buying social capital. Every 00:15:35.649 --> 00:15:37.490 favor he did for a neighbor was an insurance 00:15:37.490 --> 00:15:40.330 policy against suspicion. And then we have to 00:15:40.330 --> 00:15:42.429 talk about the clowning. It's the image everyone 00:15:42.429 --> 00:15:44.529 knows. But I feel like people just think, oh, 00:15:44.549 --> 00:15:46.690 he was a clown without understanding the nuance 00:15:46.690 --> 00:15:49.740 of it. Right. It wasn't just a hobby. He joined 00:15:49.740 --> 00:15:52.399 the Jolly Joker Clown Club. He actually created 00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:55.100 his own characters. There was Pogo, who was the 00:15:55.100 --> 00:15:57.820 happy clown, and Patches, who was the serious, 00:15:57.840 --> 00:16:00.840 sad clown. Which just feels a little too on the 00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:03.820 nose for a guy living a double life. It is. But 00:16:03.820 --> 00:16:06.320 look at what Gacy said about it. He admitted 00:16:06.320 --> 00:16:08.379 that clowning let him regress into childhood, 00:16:08.519 --> 00:16:10.379 but he also said something very, very telling 00:16:10.379 --> 00:16:12.799 to detectives later, something that I think reveals 00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:16.950 his true mindset. He said, Clowns can get away 00:16:16.950 --> 00:16:18.830 with murder. He actually said that explicitly. 00:16:19.169 --> 00:16:22.090 He did. He viewed the clown persona as the ultimate 00:16:22.090 --> 00:16:24.710 disguise. When you are in the grease paint, your 00:16:24.710 --> 00:16:27.710 identity is erased. You aren't John Gacy. You're 00:16:27.710 --> 00:16:30.269 Pogo. You can enter personal spaces. You can 00:16:30.269 --> 00:16:32.409 touch people. You can put your armor on a child. 00:16:32.549 --> 00:16:34.750 And the normal social barriers are lowered because 00:16:34.750 --> 00:16:36.669 you are a character. It was a hunting blind. 00:16:36.970 --> 00:16:39.169 It was perfect hunting blind. So while he's playing 00:16:39.169 --> 00:16:41.710 the clown and the politician, the killings begin 00:16:41.710 --> 00:16:45.000 in earnest in Chicago. Let's look at the methodology, 00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:48.000 because it was horrifyingly consistent. He was 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:50.759 targeting young men and boys, usually ages 14 00:16:50.759 --> 00:16:54.899 to 21. Where was he finding them? He was an opportunist 00:16:54.899 --> 00:16:57.679 with a system. A significant number were his 00:16:57.679 --> 00:17:01.059 own employees at PDM Contractors. He would lure 00:17:01.059 --> 00:17:03.870 them with the promise of high wages. Five dollars 00:17:03.870 --> 00:17:06.369 an hour was great pay for a teen in the 70s. 00:17:06.470 --> 00:17:09.289 Others were hitchhikers or runaways he'd pick 00:17:09.289 --> 00:17:12.009 up at Greyhound bus stations. He specifically 00:17:12.009 --> 00:17:14.670 targeted the vulnerable boys who were transient 00:17:14.670 --> 00:17:17.829 or estranged from their families. He was banking 00:17:17.829 --> 00:17:19.529 on the fact that they wouldn't be missed right 00:17:19.529 --> 00:17:22.049 away. And once he got them to the house or into 00:17:22.049 --> 00:17:25.299 his car, he had these tricks. The handcuff trick 00:17:25.299 --> 00:17:27.619 comes up over and over again in the files. This 00:17:27.619 --> 00:17:29.799 was his primary way of gaining control without 00:17:29.799 --> 00:17:32.539 a violent struggle. He would spin a story about 00:17:32.539 --> 00:17:35.160 being a magician. He'd have a pair of handcuffs, 00:17:35.259 --> 00:17:37.480 and he'd demonstrate how he could escape from 00:17:37.480 --> 00:17:39.880 them. He actually could. He'd practiced it. Oh, 00:17:39.880 --> 00:17:42.339 wow. Then he'd challenge the victim. I bet you 00:17:42.339 --> 00:17:43.839 can't do it. Let me see if you're strong enough. 00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:45.839 He'd click the cuffs on the victim's wrists, 00:17:46.019 --> 00:17:48.799 often behind their back. It sounds so innocent 00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:51.480 in a way. A bar bet? A magic trick? That's the 00:17:51.480 --> 00:17:54.849 horror of it. It relied on trust. But the moment 00:17:54.849 --> 00:17:57.329 those cuffs clicked shut, the game was over. 00:17:57.470 --> 00:18:00.450 The mask dropped instantly. The nice guy vanished 00:18:00.450 --> 00:18:03.109 and the predator took over. The victim was helpless 00:18:03.109 --> 00:18:05.289 before they even realized they were in danger. 00:18:05.490 --> 00:18:08.829 And then the torture. We don't need to get graphic 00:18:08.829 --> 00:18:10.750 for the sake of it, but we do need to understand 00:18:10.750 --> 00:18:13.569 the sadism here. He had something he called the 00:18:13.569 --> 00:18:16.630 rope trick. He called it the last trick. It was 00:18:16.630 --> 00:18:19.230 a tourniquet strangulation using a rope and a 00:18:19.230 --> 00:18:21.720 wooden hammer handle. He could tighten it to 00:18:21.720 --> 00:18:23.980 cut off air and then loosen it to let them breathe 00:18:23.980 --> 00:18:26.460 again. He could prolong the dying process for 00:18:26.460 --> 00:18:28.920 hours. He wanted to control the moment of death 00:18:28.920 --> 00:18:31.880 itself. Completely. He was drowning victims in 00:18:31.880 --> 00:18:34.039 his bathtub, reviving them and doing it again. 00:18:34.180 --> 00:18:36.759 He wanted absolute power over that threshold. 00:18:36.980 --> 00:18:38.799 There's a specific example in the notes, Timothy 00:18:38.799 --> 00:18:41.440 McCoy. He was the first victim in Chicago, January 00:18:41.440 --> 00:18:45.019 1972. Gacy later described realizing that death 00:18:45.019 --> 00:18:47.599 was the ultimate thrill. McCoy was just a kid 00:18:47.599 --> 00:18:49.619 at a bus station. He had his whole life ahead 00:18:49.619 --> 00:18:53.480 of him. Gacy stabbed him during a struggle. And 00:18:53.480 --> 00:18:56.660 that description Gacy gave, comparing the moment 00:18:56.660 --> 00:18:59.559 of the kill to an ultimate thrill, literally 00:18:59.559 --> 00:19:03.220 an orgasm, that tells us that for Gacy, the power 00:19:03.220 --> 00:19:06.559 over life and death was the drug. It wasn't just 00:19:06.559 --> 00:19:09.000 sexual in a traditional sense. No, it was about 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:11.799 absolute dominance. He wanted to be God in that 00:19:11.799 --> 00:19:14.319 room. And then you have John Buckovich in 1975. 00:19:15.349 --> 00:19:18.069 This one feels different because Butkovich wasn't 00:19:18.069 --> 00:19:20.970 a random pickup. He was an employee. This shows 00:19:20.970 --> 00:19:23.430 Gacy's growing arrogance. He killed Butkovich 00:19:23.430 --> 00:19:25.549 because the kids stood up to him about unpaid 00:19:25.549 --> 00:19:28.009 wages. They had an argument about money. That's 00:19:28.009 --> 00:19:30.549 it. An argument over a paycheck. That's it. Gacy 00:19:30.549 --> 00:19:32.289 killed him essentially because he was annoyed. 00:19:32.450 --> 00:19:34.170 He buried him under the concrete in his garage. 00:19:34.509 --> 00:19:36.309 This wasn't a crime of passion. It was a crime 00:19:36.309 --> 00:19:39.230 of convenience. He viewed human beings like disposable 00:19:39.230 --> 00:19:41.730 objects. If an appliance breaks, you throw it 00:19:41.730 --> 00:19:43.509 out. If an employee becomes a problem, you put 00:19:43.509 --> 00:19:45.339 them under the floor. And speaking of under the 00:19:45.339 --> 00:19:49.799 floor, the crawl space, 26 bodies. Just think 00:19:49.799 --> 00:19:53.240 about that number. 26 human beings buried in 00:19:53.240 --> 00:19:56.420 a defined grid system under a suburban ranch 00:19:56.420 --> 00:19:59.200 house. The logistics of that are just... They're 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:01.960 terrifying. A crawlspace isn't a basement. It's 00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:05.619 dirt. It's low. It's damp. He was using quicklime 00:20:05.619 --> 00:20:08.460 to speed up decomposition. And trying to manage 00:20:08.460 --> 00:20:10.579 the smell. But what's even more disturbing is 00:20:10.579 --> 00:20:13.240 that he forced his other employees, young boys 00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:16.299 who were still alive, to dig the trenches. Wait, 00:20:16.319 --> 00:20:18.619 he made them dig the graves? He told them they 00:20:18.619 --> 00:20:20.859 were digging drainage trenches for plumbing issues. 00:20:21.140 --> 00:20:23.200 Oh, my God. Boys like Michael Rossi and David 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:25.079 Cram, they were down there digging in the mud, 00:20:25.140 --> 00:20:26.859 sometimes complaining about the terrible smell, 00:20:27.039 --> 00:20:29.119 not knowing they were digging. graves for future 00:20:29.119 --> 00:20:31.579 victims or digging right next to existing ones 00:20:31.579 --> 00:20:33.900 that is psychological torment on another level 00:20:33.900 --> 00:20:36.420 it's almost like he was mocking them dig this 00:20:36.420 --> 00:20:39.880 hole you might end up in it exactly it reinforced 00:20:39.880 --> 00:20:42.640 his feeling of superiority he knew what was really 00:20:42.640 --> 00:20:44.839 happening and they didn't it was a private joke 00:20:44.839 --> 00:20:48.819 for him so eventually the crawlspace just it 00:20:48.819 --> 00:20:52.920 fills up it's 1978 he runs out of room He does. 00:20:53.119 --> 00:20:55.579 And that's when he started using the Des Plaines 00:20:55.579 --> 00:20:59.019 River. He would drive to the I -55 bridge and 00:20:59.019 --> 00:21:02.180 throw bodies into the water. He claimed he disposed 00:21:02.180 --> 00:21:04.619 of five victims this way. And that's a big shift 00:21:04.619 --> 00:21:06.839 in his MO. It is. And this shift in disposal 00:21:06.839 --> 00:21:09.680 method actually marks the beginning of his unraveling. 00:21:09.700 --> 00:21:12.880 He was getting sloppy. He was overwhelmed by 00:21:12.880 --> 00:21:15.940 the sheer volume of his own violence. The stress 00:21:15.940 --> 00:21:18.220 of managing the secret was starting to crack 00:21:18.220 --> 00:21:21.019 the facade. And that sloppiness leads us directly 00:21:21.019 --> 00:21:24.859 to December 11, 1978. The beginning of the end. 00:21:24.980 --> 00:21:28.039 The disappearance. of Robert Piest. This was 00:21:28.039 --> 00:21:30.180 the mistake that brought the entire house of 00:21:30.180 --> 00:21:33.140 cards down. Robert Piest was a 15 -year -old 00:21:33.140 --> 00:21:35.359 boy working at Noosan Pharmacy. He was a local 00:21:35.359 --> 00:21:38.240 kid, well -loved, stable family. He wasn't a 00:21:38.240 --> 00:21:41.839 runaway. He wasn't a hitchhiker. He was the quintessential 00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:44.380 good kid from the neighborhood. Which meant he 00:21:44.380 --> 00:21:47.440 was going to be missed immediately. And Gacy 00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:49.579 was there that day at the pharmacy. He was there 00:21:49.579 --> 00:21:51.559 to discuss a remodeling contract with the owner. 00:21:51.900 --> 00:21:54.039 Robert told his mom, I'm just going to go talk 00:21:54.039 --> 00:21:55.519 to the contractor about a job. I'll be right 00:21:55.519 --> 00:21:57.680 back. And he never came back. This is where the 00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:01.200 police work finally shifts. Detective Joseph 00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:05.480 Kozenczak gets the case. And he deserves a lot 00:22:05.480 --> 00:22:07.240 of credit here because he didn't treat this as 00:22:07.240 --> 00:22:09.480 a runaway case, which was the standard procedure 00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:13.119 at the time. Kozenczak followed his gut. He realized 00:22:13.119 --> 00:22:15.579 pretty quickly that Piest had no reason to run. 00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:18.380 He found out the contractor was Gacy. He ran 00:22:18.380 --> 00:22:20.880 the background check. And unlike in the past, 00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:23.279 where Gacy had stated by or records were missed, 00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:26.440 Kozenczak found the Iowa record, that sodomy 00:22:26.440 --> 00:22:28.460 conviction. That was the loose thread. That was 00:22:28.460 --> 00:22:30.500 the loose thread Kozenczak pulled and the whole 00:22:30.500 --> 00:22:34.099 thing started to unravel. But Gacy. The sheer 00:22:34.099 --> 00:22:36.400 arrogance of this man. He didn't go into hiding. 00:22:36.440 --> 00:22:38.700 He didn't run. He played games with the police. 00:22:38.920 --> 00:22:40.740 It was a cat and mouse game, but the mouse thought 00:22:40.740 --> 00:22:43.819 he was the cat. The police started 24 -hour surveillance 00:22:43.819 --> 00:22:46.339 on him, and Gacy loved it. He loved it. Oh, yeah. 00:22:46.539 --> 00:22:48.420 He would invite the detectives to breakfast. 00:22:48.539 --> 00:22:51.660 He'd buy them dinner. He'd drive slow, then fast, 00:22:51.839 --> 00:22:54.160 leading them on these pointless chases. He even 00:22:54.160 --> 00:22:56.599 filed a civil suit against the police for harassment. 00:22:56.940 --> 00:22:58.799 He sued the police while he had bodies under 00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:01.700 his floorboards. That is the level of his narcissism. 00:23:02.009 --> 00:23:04.250 He truly believed he was smarter than them. He 00:23:04.250 --> 00:23:07.769 believed his community pillar mask was impenetrable. 00:23:08.710 --> 00:23:10.549 There's a detail where he showed up at the police 00:23:10.549 --> 00:23:13.069 station at 3 a .m., covered in mud, claiming 00:23:13.069 --> 00:23:15.470 his car got stuck in a ditch. And where had he 00:23:15.470 --> 00:23:17.569 actually been? He had just been burying Robert 00:23:17.569 --> 00:23:20.490 Piest. He walked into the police station, literally 00:23:20.490 --> 00:23:23.230 dirty from the grave he just dug, and looked 00:23:23.230 --> 00:23:26.549 the cops in the eye. It was a taunt. He was daring 00:23:26.549 --> 00:23:28.829 them to figure it out. But the evidence was mounting. 00:23:29.109 --> 00:23:31.940 They get a search warrant. And they find things 00:23:31.940 --> 00:23:34.740 in the trash that he just carelessly threw away. 00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:37.400 They find a high school class ring belonging 00:23:37.400 --> 00:23:40.700 to another missing boy, John Syke. They find 00:23:40.700 --> 00:23:43.880 handcuffs, badges, and, cruefully, a photo receipt 00:23:43.880 --> 00:23:46.720 from the Neeson Pharmacy. That receipt proved 00:23:46.720 --> 00:23:49.299 Gacy was there and linked him directly to Piest. 00:23:49.359 --> 00:23:51.539 It destroyed his alibi. And then there's the 00:23:51.539 --> 00:23:54.019 second search warrant. And the smell. It was 00:23:54.019 --> 00:23:56.819 December. The heat was on in the house. An officer 00:23:56.819 --> 00:23:59.039 standing near a heating duct caught a whiff of 00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:01.779 something rancid. Gacy had tried everything to 00:24:01.779 --> 00:24:04.460 mask it. He used lime. He blocked vents with 00:24:04.460 --> 00:24:07.380 concrete. But the smell of biological decomposition 00:24:07.380 --> 00:24:10.359 is distinct. It was the smell of death rising 00:24:10.359 --> 00:24:13.299 up into the living space. The house itself was 00:24:13.299 --> 00:24:16.619 giving him up. And damn breaks. December 20th, 00:24:16.619 --> 00:24:20.869 1978. Gacy is drinking with his lawyers. And 00:24:20.869 --> 00:24:23.769 he just confesses. He gets drunk. He starts rambling. 00:24:23.869 --> 00:24:26.950 And he says this phrase, which has become infamous. 00:24:27.569 --> 00:24:31.329 I've been the judge, jury and executioner of 00:24:31.329 --> 00:24:34.670 many, many people. He admitted to 30 plus murders. 00:24:34.869 --> 00:24:37.490 He told his lawyers about the crawl space. Imagine 00:24:37.490 --> 00:24:39.829 being those lawyers. Yeah. Sitting there drinking 00:24:39.829 --> 00:24:41.730 whiskey with a client thinking you're defending 00:24:41.730 --> 00:24:44.089 a guy on a missing persons charge. And you realize 00:24:44.089 --> 00:24:46.170 you are sitting across from one of the most prolific 00:24:46.170 --> 00:24:47.869 serial killers in history. It must have been 00:24:47.869 --> 00:24:50.220 surreal. The police got the information. They 00:24:50.220 --> 00:24:52.279 went back to the house. And on December 21st, 00:24:52.299 --> 00:24:55.960 they found the first bone, a human arm bone in 00:24:55.960 --> 00:24:58.400 the crawl space. And that was it? That was it. 00:24:58.460 --> 00:25:00.539 One of the excavators told the police, I think 00:25:00.539 --> 00:25:03.039 this place is full of kids. And it was. They 00:25:03.039 --> 00:25:05.140 had to take the house apart piece by piece to 00:25:05.140 --> 00:25:07.059 get them all out. It became an archaeological 00:25:07.059 --> 00:25:09.960 dig of horror. So we get to the trial in February 00:25:09.960 --> 00:25:13.039 1980. The evidence is overwhelming. He's confessed. 00:25:13.319 --> 00:25:16.099 The bodies are found. Yeah. So the defense goes 00:25:16.099 --> 00:25:19.799 for the only thing they have left. Right. They 00:25:19.799 --> 00:25:22.480 argued not guilty by reason of insanity. They 00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:24.839 claimed he had multiple personality disorder, 00:25:24.960 --> 00:25:27.859 what we now call dissociative identity disorder. 00:25:28.180 --> 00:25:31.160 And they introduced this alter ego. Yes. Jack 00:25:31.160 --> 00:25:34.490 Hanley or Bad Jack. The defense claimed Bad Jack 00:25:34.490 --> 00:25:36.910 was the one who hated homosexuals and did the 00:25:36.910 --> 00:25:40.269 killing, while John Gacy was the innocent, upstanding 00:25:40.269 --> 00:25:42.549 citizen. Did anyone buy that for a second? The 00:25:42.549 --> 00:25:45.349 jury certainly didn't. The prosecution dismantled 00:25:45.349 --> 00:25:47.390 it perfectly. They pointed to the premeditation. 00:25:47.690 --> 00:25:49.950 Right. You don't dig a grave in advance if you're 00:25:49.950 --> 00:25:52.869 insane. You don't buy quicklime to hide the smell 00:25:52.869 --> 00:25:54.230 if you don't know what you're doing is wrong. 00:25:54.470 --> 00:25:56.829 You don't draw maps of where you buried people 00:25:56.829 --> 00:25:59.569 so you can fit more in if you are legally insane. 00:25:59.829 --> 00:26:02.170 Those are the actions of a rational calculator. 00:26:03.639 --> 00:26:06.960 Exactly. And the verdict was guilty on all 33 00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:10.019 counts. Sentenced to death. A historic verdict 00:26:10.019 --> 00:26:12.819 at the time. He spent 14 years on death row. 00:26:13.319 --> 00:26:15.539 And he didn't exactly go quietly. He started 00:26:15.539 --> 00:26:18.380 painting. The artwork. This is another glimpse 00:26:18.380 --> 00:26:21.720 into his narcissism. He painted clowns, mostly 00:26:21.720 --> 00:26:24.640 Pogo. He painted the seven dwarfs. He painted 00:26:24.640 --> 00:26:27.559 Elvis. And these paintings became these controversial 00:26:27.559 --> 00:26:29.700 collector's items. It was this macabre industry 00:26:29.700 --> 00:26:32.039 that sprung up around him. He was still seeking 00:26:32.039 --> 00:26:34.000 attention. Still desperate to be the center of 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:35.799 the narrative right to the end. And finally, 00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:40.420 May 10th, 1994, execution day. Even his last 00:26:40.420 --> 00:26:43.940 meal was a callback. KFC, fried chicken, shrimp. 00:26:44.879 --> 00:26:47.319 Strawberries. A callback to his colonel days 00:26:47.319 --> 00:26:49.759 in Iowa. He was clinging to that persona until 00:26:49.759 --> 00:26:52.220 the very end. And the execution itself. Yeah. 00:26:52.380 --> 00:26:54.720 It didn't go smoothly, did it? No, it was botched. 00:26:54.839 --> 00:26:57.299 The chemicals in the lethal injection solidified 00:26:57.299 --> 00:26:59.259 and clogged the IV tube. It took 18 minutes. 00:26:59.420 --> 00:27:01.500 It was a messy end to a very messy life. And 00:27:01.500 --> 00:27:05.519 his final words. Kiss my ass. Wow. Defiant to 00:27:05.519 --> 00:27:08.339 the end. No remorse. None. A psychopath to the 00:27:08.339 --> 00:27:11.140 last breath. Now, after he's gone, there's this 00:27:11.140 --> 00:27:14.099 lingering question of legacy. Obviously, the 00:27:14.099 --> 00:27:17.039 trauma for the families is immeasurable. But 00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:19.539 there were some actual changes to the law that 00:27:19.539 --> 00:27:22.039 came out of this whole nightmare. This is a fascinating 00:27:22.039 --> 00:27:25.140 twist. Gacy's defense attorney, Sam Amirante, 00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:28.099 the guy Gacy confessed to, was deeply affected 00:27:28.099 --> 00:27:31.000 by the case. He later authored the Illinois Missing 00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:33.920 Child Recovery Act of 1984. What did that do? 00:27:34.059 --> 00:27:37.039 Before this, police often had a 72 -hour waiting 00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:39.339 period before they would look for a missing child, 00:27:39.559 --> 00:27:41.960 just assuming they were runaways. Right. This 00:27:41.960 --> 00:27:45.140 act eliminated that. But wait, it evolved into 00:27:45.140 --> 00:27:48.200 what we now know as the modern Amber Alert system. 00:27:48.519 --> 00:27:50.680 That's incredible. So the system that helped 00:27:50.680 --> 00:27:52.900 save kids today was born directly out of the 00:27:52.900 --> 00:27:55.599 failures to catch Gacy sooner. Exactly. A positive 00:27:55.599 --> 00:27:58.119 outcome from an absolute tragedy. And the story 00:27:58.119 --> 00:28:00.460 isn't fully over, is it? Because for a long time, 00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:03.519 there were unidentified victims. Buddy 5, Buddy 00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:07.299 10. That's right. In 2011, Sheriff Tom Dart reopened 00:28:07.299 --> 00:28:10.039 the files. They used modern DNA technology to 00:28:10.039 --> 00:28:12.200 try and name the nameless. And they've had successes. 00:28:12.500 --> 00:28:14.839 I saw that. William Bundy, identified in 2011. 00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:18.900 James Hawkinson, 2017. Francis Wayne Alexander, 00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:22.680 identified just recently in 2021. It's amazing 00:28:22.680 --> 00:28:24.640 that science can give those families some kind 00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:27.299 of closure, even 40 years later. It really is. 00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:29.259 But there's one loose thread that really bothers 00:28:29.259 --> 00:28:32.640 me, the accomplice theory. Gacy hinted at it. 00:28:32.700 --> 00:28:35.460 He talked about... My associates. It's the biggest 00:28:35.460 --> 00:28:38.579 unanswered question of the entire case. Gacy 00:28:38.579 --> 00:28:40.440 wasn't in town for some of the disappearance 00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:43.400 dates. Witnesses, like a survivor named Jeffrey 00:28:43.400 --> 00:28:46.160 Rignell, insisted there was a second person in 00:28:46.160 --> 00:28:49.079 the room during the torture. FBI profiler Robert 00:28:49.079 --> 00:28:51.519 Ressler always suspected others were involved. 00:28:51.799 --> 00:28:54.759 But Gacy took those secrets to the grave. We 00:28:54.759 --> 00:28:56.519 may never know the full extent of who helped 00:28:56.519 --> 00:28:58.859 him or if he was just lying to confuse the police 00:28:58.859 --> 00:29:00.819 one last time. It's chilling to think someone 00:29:00.819 --> 00:29:03.160 else might have walked away free. It is. The 00:29:03.160 --> 00:29:04.960 story may not be completely finished. So let's 00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:06.880 bring this home. What does this all mean? We've 00:29:06.880 --> 00:29:09.279 walked through the trauma, the mask, the murders, 00:29:09.359 --> 00:29:12.299 the trial. When you look at the totality of John 00:29:12.299 --> 00:29:15.059 Wayne Gacy. What are we left with? I think we 00:29:15.059 --> 00:29:17.339 are left with the terrifying reality that evil 00:29:17.339 --> 00:29:20.460 is banal. It's boring, almost. It doesn't look 00:29:20.460 --> 00:29:22.759 like a monster. It looks like a guy in a suit 00:29:22.759 --> 00:29:24.599 shaking hands with the First Lady. It looks like 00:29:24.599 --> 00:29:28.019 a helpful neighbor. Gacy proved that if you act 00:29:28.019 --> 00:29:29.900 like you belong, if you act like a good guy, 00:29:30.099 --> 00:29:32.460 society will let you get away with almost anything. 00:29:32.799 --> 00:29:35.460 It's a harsh lesson in trust. It is. And here's 00:29:35.460 --> 00:29:38.480 a final thought to leave you with. After Gacy 00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:41.450 was executed, His brain was removed. It was given 00:29:41.450 --> 00:29:45.109 to science. It sits in a jar owned by a psychiatrist, 00:29:45.430 --> 00:29:48.569 Dr. Helen Morrison. They wanted to find the biological 00:29:48.569 --> 00:29:51.890 root of his evil. A tumor, a defect, something. 00:29:52.230 --> 00:29:54.369 And did they find anything? Nothing conclusive. 00:29:54.410 --> 00:29:57.259 Just a brain. And I think that's the point. We 00:29:57.259 --> 00:29:59.700 want to find a biological reason, something in 00:29:59.700 --> 00:30:01.640 the hardware that explains the colonel and the 00:30:01.640 --> 00:30:04.200 clown, but maybe we're looking in the wrong place. 00:30:04.380 --> 00:30:06.279 What do you mean? Maybe the power wasn't in his 00:30:06.279 --> 00:30:08.960 brain. Maybe the power was in our willingness 00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:11.900 to trust the man in the suit. The mask worked 00:30:11.900 --> 00:30:14.539 because we wanted it to work, and that says a 00:30:14.539 --> 00:30:16.619 lot more about us than it does about him. That 00:30:16.619 --> 00:30:20.099 is a heavy thought to end on, but a necessary 00:30:20.099 --> 00:30:22.420 one. Thank you for listening to this deep dive 00:30:22.420 --> 00:30:25.440 into the darkness. Stay curious, stay skeptical, 00:30:25.599 --> 00:30:26.740 and we'll see you next time.