John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer executed for raping, torturing, and murdering 33 men back in the 1980s. What’s even more shocking is that he could have kept his heinous crimes buried like the victims’ dead bodies but instead, he turned himself to the police. However, it was like he’s mocking the police and court. Several decades have passed but the world still remembers John Wayne Gacy Last Words which made everyone feel disgusted. 

 Let’s grab all the details about John Wayne Gacy, covering what made a seemingly ordinary man an anti-social killer. 

Who was John Wayne Gacy? 

 Born on March 17, 1942, John Wayne Gacy had a difficult childhood marked by bullying and abuse. While growing up as an obese, effeminate, and repressed boy, “Johnny” was one of the great victims of his father, an alcoholic man who also physically attacked his mother.

After being sexually abused by a family friend at age nine and suffering a concussion that would affect him throughout his adolescence, Gacy moved forward aimlessly in life. He dropped out of multiple schools, worked unprofitable jobs, and failed in his first marriage, the only one in which he fathered a daughter.

What Crimes Did John Wayne Gacy Commit?

On May 10, 1968, John Wayne Gacy – whose name was a tribute to one of the greatest movie stars of the time – was arrested and accused of raping a 16-year-old boy the previous summer. After a quick trial, the man was sentenced to 10 years in the Anamosa Penitentiary in Iowa. However, he was released only 18 months later for good behaviour. In 1971, Gacy moved to Illinois, where he not only kept his conviction a secret but was also able to start a new life. One where he was considered a prominent man.

Upon arriving in Illinois, Gacy started a construction business, married one of his older sister’s friends, registered as a Democratic Party volunteer, allowing him to meet First Lady Rosalynn Carter, and began dressing up as the Democratic Party clown Pogo as a favour to “repay everything society had given him.” It was a perfect story. After years of being relegated by everyone, John Wayne Gacy was finally loved and appreciated by everyone and everyone.

Nearly a decade later, in 1977, Gacy’s perfect façade slowly crumbled. That year, a 28-year-old man reported to the police that the businessman had been insistent with his intentions to take him to his house. When a 15-year-old boy disappeared in December of the following year, suspicion fell on Gacy. Overwhelmed by police surveillance, the “clown” confessed to his lawyers that he was responsible for the kidnapping of the boy. He also swore to have murdered more than thirty people in the last decade, all men between 15 and 21 years old. At an instance, he claimed that he might have killed more people.

According to him, his first victim was a boy whom he tortured and stabbed on New Year’s Eve 1972. He was followed by Timothy, John, Mike, Darrell, Randall, Samuel, Michael, Billy, James, Rick, Marino, Kenneth, William, Frances, Gregory, John, Jon, Matthew, Robert, John, Russell, Robert, Tommy, David, Robert, William, Timothy, Dale and James. Robert, his last victim, was murdered on December 12, 1978.

John Wayne Gacy Trial

During the trial, Gacy confessed to his modus operandi. He drove through the streets until he ran into young men he considered defenceless. Then, he would offer them to go to his house to do renovation work or spend time with him; a monetary or in-kind reward was promised. Once under his roof, John Wayne Gacy began his attack: he attacked the young people and raped, tortured and strangled them without any concern.

In some cases, he buried the bodies in his backyard or his mother’s mother’s parking lot; in others, he dumped them on land or in the vicinity of the Des Plaines River. The quiet society of Iowa was horrified: John Wayne Gacy, the man everyone had grown accustomed to seeing at children’schildren’s parties and parks, was a rapist and serial killer.

How Did John Wayne Gacy Die?

The media picked up the case and named Gacy ” the killer clown.” Incredibly, the attention unleashed a wave of people supporting the criminal during the five weeks that the trial lasted, where “Pogo” claimed to suffer from mental problems and that the men’s deaths had occurred after practising erotic asphyxiation. The authorities managed to refute both arguments.

On March 13, 1980, John Wayne Gacy was sentenced to life in prison for 21 counts of murder and the death penalty for 12 counts. Four years later, on May 10, the “killer clown” received the lethal injection. 

John Wayne Gacy Last Words

John Wayne Gacy last words were: “Kiss my ass.” Some resources have reported that he further added, “killing me will not bring back any of the victims. The State is murdering me. They will never know where the others are”.

This was indeed a mocking statement that John Wayne Gacy passed just before his execution. He left us wondering how many more men he had killed and where he buried their bodies. ALAS! Nothing more came to light after his death.

Aftermath of John Wayne Gacy’s Execution

This way, beyond the media scandal caused by Gacy’s crimes, the personality of the ” killer clown” became a topic of interest for psychiatric branches. Experts began to speculate about the reasons that led Gacy to become a rapist and serial killer while maintaining a “normal” life. Many claimed that this was caused by the abuse he received from his father and the poor treatment of a concussion during his pre-adolescence. Others pointed out that his homophobia triggered his violent behaviour. By not accepting his sexual orientation, Gacy redeemed himself by murdering the men he had sex with. Interestingly, the majority of his victims were heterosexual men.

Shortly after his death, Gacy’s brain was donated to science for study. After months, it was revealed that no anomaly forced him to act sadistically, as his lawyers had said. The existence of a gene that caused him and his possible descendants to have a predisposition towards murder or rape was also denied. After the scientific verdict was released, his only daughter, with whom Gacy never had a relationship, could breathe easy for the first time in five years.