Studies of John Wayne Gacy's Behavior - Case Study Example

John Wayne Gacy Case Study Student’s Name Institution Date John Wayne Gacy Case Study Abstract John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer who sexually abused and killed many male teenagers from 1972 until his arrest in 1978. He was very deceptive and was able to hide his crimes because they were done in his house. Many of his victims were enticed with offers of job opportunities which made them trust him. His crimes follow a similar pattern like those committed by other serial killers who target vulnerable and gullible people who have poor judgment. He had psychological problems while he was growing up which turned him into a monster who was ready to do anything to satisfy his own wicked fantasies. Gacy made his victims experience more suffering because of the abuse he was subjected to by his father when he was still a child. Many of his victims’ corpses were found buried in the crawl space underneath his house after investigators dug out his house. Introduction John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer who was infamous for killing youthful male victims in the US, nicknamed the ‘Killer Clown’. He was a successful construction contractor who had managed to hide his true psychopathic nature to people that knew him. Gacy experienced a difficult childhood when he was growing up, a factor which made him turn into a sadist. He had a homosexual attraction to young males; who he constantly abused before killing them and burying their bodies under his house. He was actively involved in various community campaigns and was even highly regarded by the Democratic Party due to his generosity (Kozenczak & Henrikson, 2003). He even organised parties in his own home which his neighbours attended with their children without knowing what the risks they were exposing themselves to. This paper will focus on John Wayne Gacy to uncover more information about his criminal profile and the manner in which he was able to commit serious crimes without detection. History of John Gacy John Wayne Gacy was born in Chicago, Illinois, as a second child to John Stanley Gacy and Marion Elaine Robinson in 1942. He had experienced many problems as a child which had a negative effect on his psychological growth. His elder sister Joanne and his younger sister Karen were very close to him and they lived in a middle class neighbourhood. Peck and Dolch (2001) reveal that Gacy had to content with his alcoholic father who constantly assaulted him for petty mistakes. The difficulties in the relationship he had with his father is attributed by some psychological experts as one of the key reasons that made him develop antisocial tendencies towards people of his own gender. According to his father, he was not going to amount to anything when he grew up. It is revealed that he got several blackouts between the ages of 11 and 16 which made it difficult for him to play with other children. Gacy also experienced several heart problems which made it difficult for him to interact with other children in his school. All this while, his father’s condescending attitude towards him did not stop and his low regard for his son did not help him much as he was growing up. His father’s verbal and physical attacks against him did little to give him a good experience of childhood as he was growing up. In essence, this difficult relationship he had with his father made him become hardened and it twisted his mind to become a psychopathic criminal who had very little regard for human life (Peck & Dolch, 2001). Gacy turned from victim to perpetrator and his objects of desire, young males in their teens or in their early adulthood stages underwent terrible ordeals which many of them never got opportunities to describe how they were. An inadequate criminal justice system made it possible for the psychopath to fool many people who were fooled by his friendly personality. Gacy did not fit the perfect description of a villainous murderer who would stop at nothing to strangle and sexually molest his young victims. The community had thought of him as a responsible man who was always willing to help other people. The lack of attention from his father made him to look for ways to gain validation and he worked hard enough to rise to gain recognition from the society for various roles he was involved in. Even though he constantly disagreed with his father, Gacy loved him deeply and he later dropped out of high school before attaining his diploma. The psychopathic behaviour which Gacy had managed to inhibit during his childhood came out in the open when he had become an adult (Alison, Bennell, Mokros & Ormerod, 2002). The justice system needs to have mechanisms to analyse convicted criminals who display deviant, antisocial behaviours at an early age. Serial Killer Instincts Serial killers like Gacy are driven to engage in heinous acts due to some psychological factors which motivate them to harm others. Two doctors who had examined Gacy when he sexually assaulted a teenager, Donald Voorhees, in 1967 concluded that he suffered from antisocial personality disorder. Sullivan and Maiken (2000) reveal that Gacy had assaulted the 15 year old without any provocation, which led to his first stint in prison in 1968 for aggressive behaviour. All along, he had displayed erratic behavioural patterns which made him commit crimes without thinking about the harm he was doing to his victims. This case shows a disturbing trend in serial killer profiles across the world. It reveals that there are psychological problems which are likely to affect a person’s ability to relate with other people well which can easily turn him or her into a serial killer. Criminal justice systems need effective laws to deal with sociopaths who are likely to harm other people in the society. Gacy’s crimes were influenced by homosexual erotic fantasies and other psychopathic pleasures which made him enjoy killing other people. It is notable that most of his victims were mainly young men or teenage boys, who he was sexually attracted to. He had been influenced by his environment to do cruel acts to other people without feeling any remorse about the suffering he was subjecting his victims to (Sullivan and Maiken, 2000). Gacy was very good at concealing his true character to his victims who were enticed to come to his home without suspecting any harm was going to befall them. His outlook and demeanour did not betray his real character because he owned a construction company which had successfully accomplished several projects. He also actively participated in different community activities which earned him a lot of respect from other people in Cook County. Gacy confessed that his first murder gave him a thrilling experience which drove him to commit more murders. His first victim, Timothy McCoy, a 15 year old, was enticed by Gacy to spend a night in his house. He combined his sexual attraction for young males with the thrill of getting pleasure from killing vulnerable and naive victims who he picked from different locations. As a consequence, he developed a compulsive habit that encouraged him to end the lives of many young people who were too weak to defend themselves. Just like other serial killers, he had an art of persuasion which enabled him convince many of his victims to trust him (Woodworth & Porter, 2002). He would later intoxicate them with alcohol before embarking on his sexual sadist activities which made him get pleasure from inflicting pain to his victims. Gacy had a history of childhood abuse and neglect. He had been subjected to verbal, physical and sexual abuse by close relatives and close family friends. His motivation for killing his young victims was to satisfy his psychological deviant fantasies which made him become violent. For instance other serial killers such as Gary Ridgeway who was infamously known as The Green River Killer, Ed Kemper and Henry Lee Lucas engaged in necrophilia. LaBrode (2007) reveals that these cruel serial killers gratified themselves sexually by having sex with their dead victims’ bodies. Gacy’s modus operandi involved targeting desperate teenage boys and young males who were looking for some form of employment to earn money for their own upkeep. He would make them aware that he was in a position to hire them because he needed to increase the number of people working for him. Gacy’s traumatic experiences during his childhood were not conclusively dealt with. These experiences turned him into a monster and made it difficult for him to form constructive relationships with other people. Even though he was married, Gacy did not find any fulfilment from his family life and he had to engage in sadistic activities to satisfy his perverted mind. However, it is worth mentioning that Gacy was widely involved in community activities in his home area which earned him a lot of respect from other people in Cook County (LaBrode, 2007). His PDM Contractors Company was involved in many activities and by the time of his arrest, its annual revenue was estimated to be 200,000 dollars. Gacy hosted many community parties and events where people were able to meet and interact without suspecting anything was amiss. He used such opportunities to make people living in his community trust him which helped him mask his true character. Even though they used to get horrible a stench whenever they visited his house, his neighbours and other guests did not know that the smell came from bodies which had been buried underneath his house. His earlier training as a salesman gave him the power of persuasion which he used to avoid any form of scrutiny being directed towards him. He used his charm convincingly which allowed him to engage in many criminal acts without getting suspected (Canter, Alison, Alison, &Wentink, 2004). Gacy’s previous experiences as a teenager directed him to victims who were facing similar challenges similar to that time when his father constantly berated him. His psychopathic attributes developed from what he considered to be perfect victims; teenage boys who he felt did not have any hope in life. Many of Gacy’s victims were in their adolescence, a stage when his father did not offer him any form of motivation to develop his self esteem. His father constantly lamented that his son was a sissy who would not achieve anything in life. Gacy parents failed in their parenting responsibilities. They did not take action to solve problems he had faced in his adolescence which made him develop antisocial behaviour (Amirante & Broderick, 2011). He loathed young males in the society who faced problems similar to those he faced in his childhood. Gacy understood what teenage boys liked because he knew that at that age, young people needed someone who could believe in them. He understood that by offering them a job opportunity and promises of cash rewards, he would easily entice them to his own house where he was in a better position to kill them without any difficulties. Economic and social vulnerabilities which teenagers experience as they grow up served as an advantage that allowed Gacy to lure them into his trap easily without their suspicion (Morton, 2005). Through his victims, Gacy was able to recollect his past as a teenager and the traumatic experiences he had gone through. This made him more ashamed of what he was which encouraged him to torture and kill his victims. Modes of Operation The criminal justice system investigators did not know that Gacy’s crime of sexually assaulting Voorhees would evolve into serial killings after serving his first prison term. He only served 18 months of his 10 year prison sentence and was released in 1970 after being given a parole. Therefore, this shows that the justice system needs to monitor previous sex offenders to ensure they do not commit more serious offences in future. Morton (2005) insists that previous sex offenders with antisocial disorders have a higher chance of committing other violent crimes to other people in the society, if they are not monitored carefully. Offenders who have been previously tried and convicted are likely to do all they can to avoid getting arrested again. Gacy used the image of ‘Pogo the Clown’ to participate in different charity events in Cook County. Many neighbours and other community residents were fooled by his generosity to believe that he was a morally upright citizen. They did not know that they were dealing with a psychopath who was a danger to other people. Gacy just like other serial killers had a unique signature style which he used to murder his victims. He used to intoxicate them with alcohol before making them perform different types of sexual activities. He would handcuff his victims from behind and later rape them before killing them through strangulation. Victims who proved to be tougher were stabbed to death before their bodies were buried in his backyard. Gacy also used different types of drugs to make his victims weak after which he was able to conduct his perverse activities on them. His favoured mode of disposal was excavating the floor under the crawl space of his own house, where he dug trenches that served as graves for victims’ corpses (Moss, & Kottler, 1999). The disappearance of a teenager named Robert Piest made police investigators to conduct more investigations against Gacy, to find out if he was connected in any way to his disappearance. Gacy confessed that he used to muffle the screams of his victims by stuffing their innerwear or socks in their mouths. He used to do all this after handcuffing them from the back which made it easy to rape them. Afterwards, he confessed that he would use a rope to strangle them and he would later keep their bodies under his bed before disposing them off by burying them in trenches dug underneath his house. Gacy would later cover these trenches with mud and lime to hide any signs that the ground had been dug out. Therefore, he was able to hide his crimes and this motivated him to search for more victims. Many serial killers use personal signature styles because it allows them to fulfil their individual sadistic instincts which motivate them to kill vulnerable victims (Moss, & Kottler, 1999). Gacy was different from other serial killers who were willing to show the public what they had accomplished. Many criminology experts argue that some serial killers yearn for attention and they use their signature killing styles to make police and the media identify their individual crimes (Haggerty, 2009). It seems he was more willing to cover up his actions by burying his victims in the safety of his own home where he could not be easily detected by law enforcement officers. Media attention directed at serial killers makes them feel that they are heroes because this gives them more public spotlight (Schmid, 2007). For instance, Dennis Rader used to inscribe BTK on his victims’ bodies. He used to make the police aware of where the body of his next victim lay before he was arrested in 2005. Gacy was different from other serial killers because he did not seek attention through the media for his murderous ways because he knew that would have made law enforcement officers to track him down. Conclusion John Wayne Gacy, also known as the Killer Clown shocked many people with his activities. He had managed to fool everyone about his moral character and he even managed to meet and got photographed with the then US First Lady, Rosalynn Carter. However, he used his charm to hide his true character of a sexually driven psychopath who killed young teenage boys to satisfy his depraved instincts. Gacy’s crimes show that serial murder is one aspect of criminology that needs to be tackled more carefully to protect vulnerable people in the society. Psychological profiles of sex offenders need to be analysed more carefully to find out reasons which make them do particular actions. Tough laws need to be enforced to protect children from sadists and sociopaths. References Alison, L., Bennell, C., Mokros, A. & Ormerod, D. (2002). The personality paradox in offender profiling: A theoretical review of the processes involved in deriving background characteristics from crime scene actions. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 8: 115– 135. Amirante, S.L., & Broderick, D. (2011). John Wayne Gacy: Defending a monster. Boston, MA: Skyhorse Publishing. Canter, D.V., Alison, L.J, Alison. E. & Wentink N. (2004). The organized/disorganized typology of serial murder: Myth or model? Psychology, Public Policy, and Law,10: 293–320. Haggerty, K.D. (2009). Crime, media, culture: Modern serial killer. London, UK: Sage. Kozenczak, J.R., & Henrikson, K. (2003). The Chicago killer: The hunt for serial killer John Wayne Gacy. New York, NY: Xlibris. LaBrode, R.L. (2007). Etiology of the psychopathic serial killer: An analysis of antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, and serial killer personality and crime scene characteristics. Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention, 7(2): 151-160. Retrieved 30th August 2013 from http://btci.edina.clockss.org/cgi/content/full/7/2/151/ Morton, R.L (2005). Serial murder: Multi-disciplinary perspectives for investigators. San Antonio, Texas: National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime, FBI. Retrieved 30th August 2013 from http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murder Moss, J., & Kottler, J. (1999). The last victim: A true-life journey into the mind of the serial killer. Boston: Springer. Peck, D.L., & Dolch, N. A. (2001). "Behaviour beyond the boundaries". Extraordinary behaviour: A case study approach to understanding social problems. London, UK: Greenwood. Rutter, M. (2003). Commentary: Causal processes leading to antisocial behavior. Developmental Psychology, 39: 372–378. Schmid, D. (2007). Natural born celebrities: Serial killers in American culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Sullivan, T., & Maiken, P.T. (2000). Killer clown: The John Wayne Gacy murders. New York, NY: Pinnacle. Woodworth, M. & Porter, S. (2002). In cold blood: Characteristics of criminal homicides as a function of psychopathy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111: 436–445. Read More