Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy - "The Killer Clown" ---
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In July 1975, one of Gacy's employees, John Butkovich, disappeared. Butkovich had recently left Gacy's employ after an argument over back pay Butkovich was owed. Butkovich's parents urged police to check out Gacy, but nothing came of it and the young man's disappearance went unsolved.
In December 1976, another Gacy employee, Gregory Godzik, disappeared, and his parents asked police to investigate Gacy, one of the last people known to have spoken to the boy. In neither case did the police pursue Gacy nor did they discover his criminal record.
In January 1977, John Szyc, an acquaintance of Butkovich, Godzik and Gacy, disappeared. Later that year, another of Gacy's employees was arrested for stealing gasoline from a station; the car he was driving had belonged to Szyc. Gacy said that Szyc had sold the car to him before leaving town, and the police failed to pursue the matter further.
Gacy then started getting tired of digging holes in his crawlspace, he wanted space that was available at all times. He hired one of his employees David Cram to make more space. Cram also stayed in the spare bedroom in his boss' house. One night, Cram came home from work and found Gacy drunk and in his clown costume. They had a few drinks and then Gacy tricked Cram into the handcuffs. Gacy then started growling and began spinning Cram around the room screaming "I'm going to rape you". Cram pushed Gacy down and some how grabbed the key and escaped to his room.
Not all of Gacy's victims died. In March 1978, Gacy lured Jeffrey Rignall into his car. Gacy chloroformed the young man, took him back to the house on Summerdale, raped and tortured him, and dumped him in Lincoln Park. Police drew a blank, but Rignall remembered, through the chloroform haze of that night, a black Oldsmobile, the Kennedy Expressway, and some side streets. He staked out the exit on the Expressway until he saw the black Oldsmobile, which he followed to 8213 West Summerdale. Police issued a warrant, and arrested Gacy on July 15. He was facing trial on a battery charge for the Rignall incident when he was arrested in December for the other murders. In December 1977, a 19-year-old man complained that Gacy had kidnapped him at gunpoint and forced him into sex. Yet again, Chicago police took no action.
Robert Piest, a 15-year-old boy, disappeared on December 11, 1978 from the Des Plaines pharmacy where he worked after school. Just before he vanished, Piest told a co-worker he was going to a house down the street to talk to "some contractor" about a job. Gacy had been at the pharmacy that night discussing a remodeling job with the owner. Gacy denied talking to Piest when Des Plaines police called him the next day, but the Des Plaines police did what Chicago police failed to do and checked Gacy's record, discovering that he had done time for sodomie.
A search of Gacy's house on December 13 turned up some suspicious items: a 1975 high school class ring, drivers' licenses for other people, handcuffs, a two-by-four with holes drilled in the ends, a syringe, clothing too small for Gacy, and a photo receipt from the pharmacy where Piest worked. Detectives noticed an offensive odor coming from the crawlspace beneath the house.
Further investigation revealed Godzik's disappearance. The high school ring was traced to Szyc. From Gacy's second wife, they learned of Butkovich.
On December 21, 1978, one of Gacy's employees told the police that Gacy had confessed to more than 30 murders. Shortly thereafter, Gacy was arrested for marijuana possession. Police took out a second warrant, went back to the house on Summerdale, and found human bones in the crawlspace.
After being informed that he would now face murder charges, Gacy confessed to some 25-30 murders, telling investigators that most were buried in the crawlspace and on his property, and that he threw the last five bodies, after the crawlspace was full, off the I-55 bridge and into the Des Plaines River, including that of Piest. Gacy drew police a diagram of his crawlspace to show where the bodies were buried.