John Wayne Gacy - Case Study Example

The Case of John Wayne Gacy Abstract John Wayne Gacy killed 32 people that were able to be identified. He was considered to be one of the most vicious and evil killers in American History. He was a successful business man, contributing to charity, and also did children’s parties as a clown. No one suspected him of foul play in his small Illinois community, so he had an easy way of luring young boys and young men to his home to rape and strangle them, and then bury them in the crawlspace in his home and in other spaces around his home. Some of his victims were identified but many were not. He spent 14 years in prison and was executed in 1994. The Case of John Wayne Gacy John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer who is known for killing 33 boys and young men, and burying them under the crawlspace in his home (Dunea, 1994). Gacy was a charming, and interesting man, and he had status in his community as a businessman who also worked for charity. Gacy also did children’s parties as Pogo, the clown. Gacy claimed that it was not he who committed these crimes, but someone named “Jack” which alluded to a split personality. Psychiatrists found no evidence of a split personality. Gacy confessed his crimes in 1978 after police found the boys bodies in the crawlspace. He spent 14 years in prison and was executed in 1994. The case of John Wayne Gacy follows many of the same patterns as other serial killers because he abducted a certain type of boy and brought them to his home. He would engage the boys in some type of playing and often wrestling, have sexual intercourse with them, and then kill them. Once he understood what he had done, he would bury them in the crawlspace and then go on living his “normal” life until he found another boy. Because he owned a construction company that employed teenagers and young men, he was able to have a steady flow of boys as he wanted. Gacy has been called the most vicious of the serial killers because he killed so many people before he was caught. This paper will present information about the crime scene, the victimology, investigation, forensic findings, the motive for his crimes and information about the trial. He was convicted of more murders than any other killer in American history (Clark County Prosecutor, n.d.). Crime Scene The crime scene has been described as gruesome and smelling like death. The crime scene did not become apparent to police until the family of one of the boys, Robert Piest, was missing. Once he was missing, and it was known that Gacy was the last person to see Piest, the police began to watch him closely. What they found was that Gacy was living a duo life where he was a well-known business man by day and serial killers who lured boys to his house to rape and torture them. He would tie or handcuff their hands, and then strangle them to death (Clark County Prosecutor, n.d.). The police found that two other victims, Gregory Godzik and John Butkovich, who were employees of Gacy, were also missing. Police received a search warrant and upon entering Gacy’s home, they found a roll of film that belonged to Piest. A second search warrant found three dead bodies that had been covered by lime, in the crawlspace (Clark County Prosecutor, n.d.). The officers would eventually find 27 bodies in the crawlspace and another body buried under the concrete in Gacy’s garage (Sullivan & Maiken, 2000). A few weeks later, another body was found in a pit next to a barbecue grill in his backyard, and another was found under the joists of the dining room floor. By this time 29 bodies had been found; in 1978, three more bodies found at the Des Plaines River, were found to also be Gacy’s work (Sullivan and Maiken, 2000). This made a total of 32 bodies that could be attributed to Gacy with several of them still hand-cuffed or garroted. Some of the most bizarre aspects of the crime scene would show that the victims died of asphyxiation rather than from strangulation. Some of the bodies had foreign objects in their pelvis area which the investigators said might be because he had forced these objects into the victims’ anus. Many victims were found to with some of their personal artifacts which helped police identify them. His victims ranged in age from 14 (Dodd Stapleton and Michael Marino) to 21 years old (Russell Nelson and James Mazzara). Unfortunately, some of his victims remain unidentified (Vronsky, 2004). Victimology Looking at victimology in terms of the victims is difficult because Gacy only had one person who survived his attack. The way that victimology can be shown is through how he picked his victims and the commonalities between them. Gacy described his victims as, “Worthless little queers and punks” (Labrode, 2007, p. 155). Most of Gacy’s victims fit a similar profile. They were young, thin and muscular, and between the ages of 14 and 21. He would visit the places where he could find boys alone, such as in the bus station. He would look for boys who needed work, or who would lonely. He would start a conversation with them to win their confidence (Pelsor, 2012). Once he had their confidence, and they were in his truck or home, he would handcuff them using what he called, trick handcuffs. Once on, the boys found these were not trick handcuffs, and Gacy would use chloroform to transport them to his house, and to knock them out. He would then rape them and slowly strangle them to death in the process (Pelsor, 2012). Because of his size and his charm, he could charm anyone into anything and he appeared very trustworthy and reliable (Pelsor, 2012). Gacy always used a rope or tourniquet that he wrapped around their necks (Pelsor, 2012). This worked well on the younger boys, but he had to change his way of dealing with the older boys. He would promise to do construction work for them. Gacy was confused later when he would be contacted by the police to come in for questioning, but he told his friends that he had nothing to do with any murders. The Investigation and Forensic Findings Possibly if Gacy had not decided to kill Piest, or if he had stayed with boys he met at bus stations, he may not have been watched so carefully, because he was such a stellar business person in the community. Instead, he chose Piest who had a family in his community that cared about him. This boy was close to his family which seems different from the other boys that Gacy victimized. The investigation began with the disappearance of Piest, which caused the police to watch him more closely (Bell & Bardsley, 2013). What was most important was that Piest was taken from his pharmacy job, when he went out to smoke. Piest was a minor and his family was waiting for him. Generally, his mother or father would pick him up at the pharmacy. Gacy never checked these things. Piest’s mother was waiting at the pharmacy like she always did, when he said he would be “right back” as he was going to talk to a contractor about another job – Priest was in need of a raise at the pharmacy and had been turned down. The parents became worried when he did not return, and asked the pharmacist the name of the contractor; this would become the motivation for the investigation (Bell & Bardsley, 2013). When the family reported him missing and that he had last been seen with Gacy, Lt. Kozenczak, who would lead the investigation, went to Gacy and asked him to come down to the station for questioning; he did several hours later to give a statement (Bell & Bardsley, 2013). Gacy said he knew nothing which prompted Lt. Kozenczak to do a background check where he found that Gacy had been convicted of sodomy with minor, years later; he obtained a search warrant for the property (Bell & Bardsley, 2013). It was December 13, 1978 when Gacy would finally be found to be the killer of several boys and young men. When Lt. Kozenczak went into the house, he found several trophies (personal artifacts) from the various boys. They also found a particularly foul smell in the house, and upon investigation, they found the bodies in the crawlspace and around the house. Motive There were no motives suggested by Gacy, but he always said that he did not do the killings. Instead, he said it was someone he called, “Jack.” To date, there have been no accomplices found, and forensic psychiatrists could not find evidence of multiple personalities. There have been several occasions where people have speculated about his motive, but generally, there are no motives found for serial killers (Marn & Wigdahl, 2009; Clark County Prosecutor, n.d.). Labrode (2007) states that generally, a serial killer’s motive is psychological rather than material. Labrode also contents that Gacy was a psychopath and had been abused by his father as a child. His father always called him names and Gacy suggested that he could not live up to his father’s expectations (Clark County Prosecutor, n.d.; Bell & Bardsley, 2013). These could have easily been triggers for the reason that he lashed out at young boys. The Trial Gacy’s trial began on Wednesday, February 6, 1980 in the Cook County Criminal Courts Building in Chicago, Illinois. This would be a momentous occasion because Gacy by this time was well known to the media around the country. The prosecutors began describing what happened to Robert Piest, and then explained how Gacy was linked to 32 other criminal cases (Bell & Bardesley, 2013). Some people on the five women and seven men jury were hearing the details of Gacy’s murders for the first time. The defense attorneys tried to say that Gacy was insane and that he did not know what he was doing at the time of the crimes. There were several witnesses that were called to testify: family members and friends of the victims, men who had survived some sort of attack by Gacy (e.g. fights, or fits of rage), friends and neighbors of Gacy, policeman, and finally psychologists who said they found that Gacy was sane after the killings (Bell & Bardesley, 2013), and the judge ruled that he was competent to stand trial. The trial went on for several weeks. Finally, in March 1980, Gacy was sentenced to death by lethal injection (Brown, 2009). The Supreme Court of Illinois also voted to carry out the sentence and on May 10, 1994, Gacy was killed by lethal injection (Brown, 2009). Conclusion John Wayne Gacy was a prolific serial killer who preyed on young boys and young men. He never stated a motive other than to say that these boys were in some ways less than him and should be killed, in his opinion. Gacy killed more people than any other serial killer in America, and he did this under the guise of a successful businessman, contributor to charity and children’s party clown. He has been dubbed, “the killer clown” because of what he did. There were a few people that survived his attacks, and perhaps their fears were put to rest when he was executed. Gacy has been dubbed “a monster” by many, and it is a good thing that he is not able to kill again. References Associated Press. (1978, December 23). 3 bodies found at sex offender’s home. St. Joseph News Press. Retrieved from http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=n6deAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YFMNAAAAIBAJ&pg=2866,5642650&dq/ Bell, R., and Bardsley, M. (2013). John Wayne Gacy Jr. Crime Library. Retrieved from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/gacy/gacy_1.html Brown, D. (2009). The "Killer Clown" People v. John Wayne Gacy, 79C-69 et seq. Clerk of the Circuit Court, Cook County Illinois, Records and Archives. Retrieved from http://www.cookcountyclerkofcourt.org/?section=RecArchivePage&RecArchivePage=john_w_gacy Clark County Prosecutor. (n.d.). John Wayne Gacy. Retrieved from http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/gacy237.htm Dunea, G. (1994). Lethal injection. British Medical Journal, 308(6943), 1575-1575. Retrieved from ProQuest database. Proquest ID: 203994042 LaBrode, R. T. (2007). Etiology of the psychopathic serial killer: An analysis of antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, and serial killer personality and crime scene characteristics. Brief Treatment & Crisis Intervention, 7(2), 151-160. DOI:10.1093/brief-treatment/mhm004 Mayer, M. (2012, December 3). Crime scene investigator discusses John Wayne Gacy murder case. The Advocate Online. Retrieved from http://www.hcdevilsadvocate.com/news/2012/12/03/crime-scene-investigator-discusses-john-wayne-gacy-murder-case/ Marn, C., and Wigdahl, H. (2009, May 12). John Wayne Gacy's final secret: Serial killer ordered to drink while in jail. 6 South Florida. Retrieved from http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/weird/The-Final-Secret-of-John-Wayne-Gacy.html Pelsor, C. (2012, April 17). Criminal profile: John Wayne Gacy. Prezi. Retrieved from http://prezi.com/935cgepujhu0/criminal-profile-john-wayne-gacy/ Sullivan, T. and Maiken, P. T. (2000). Killer clown: The John Wayne Gacy murders. New York, New York: Pinnacle Books. Vronsky, P. (2004). Serial killers: The method and madness of monsters. New York, New York: Berkeley Press. \ Read More