The Killer Clown — The Real Life “Joker” Convicted for 33 Murders

The psychology and eerie similarities with Batman’s Joker.

Haven’t we all watched Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Joker in the movie by the same name and almost empathized with the unfortunate childhood and bullying through his youth that drove him to the psychopath he became?

I found myself having similar thoughts as I came across one of the most gruesome criminals in history — John Wayne Gacy, who at the time of his conviction for 33 murders, was the individual with the most number of murder convictions in American history.

Ironic he would share a middle name with the last name of the Joker’s nemesis — Bruce Wayne aka Batman.

Like most serial killers I have read and written about the seeds of the criminal future were sown much earlier in their lives. Here is a look at John Wayne Gacy’s path to being a serial killer.

A Disturbed Childhood of Abuse and Bullying

Gacy was born in Chicago in 1942 to a father who was an auto repair machinist and World War I veteran, and a mother who was a homemaker.

He was close to his mother and two sisters but had a troubled relationship with his father who was abusive to his wife and children and was an alcoholic.

His mother often tried to protect him from his father’s abuse which only made matters worse as he was accused by his father of being a “mama’s boy” and a “sissy.”

Gacy was overweight and unathletic as a child and due to a heart condition was to avoid all sports at school. He had many health issues during school including frequent blackouts, seizures, and a broken appendix — owing to him spending a total of as much as a year in hospitals from age 14 to 18. Gacy’s father blamed him for faking illness in order to skip school and lay in bed all day. He also had several unprovoked incidents of physical abuse towards Gacy.

In fact, many of his health issues were probably owing to the beating on his head by his father. He was also hit in the head by a swing, one of the causes resulting in the blackouts. Head trauma has been found to be a common form of physical trauma associated with serial killers.

The Continued Search for Father’s Approval

From 1960 to 1964 as Gacy got into adulthood, he went through a number of different jobs to achieve a certain level of success to live upto his father’s expectations.

These included a brief stint with the Democratic party in 1960, working with the ambulance service in Vegas, working as an attendant at a mortuary, and others.

While working at the mortuary, Gacy confessed to have jumped into the coffin of a deceased teenage male, embracing and caressing the body before experiencing a sense of shock.

After this incident, he called his mother asking if his dad would accept him back which he did and Gacy drove back to Chicago.

In 1963, he graduated from Northwestern Business College and in 1964 landed a trainee position at a shoe company where he later became a salesperson and a manager. He also became engaged to a co-worker Marlynn Myers in March that year.

Starting April his success with social acceptance also took off after he joined Jaycees (Junior Chamber International), where he worked hard to be named Key Man for April 1964. By 1965, Gacy had risen to the position of vice-president of the Springfield Jaycees. The same year, he was named the third most outstanding Jaycee in the State of Illinois.

The “Perfect” Period of His Life

After a six-month courtship, Gacy and Myers married in September 1964. Marlynn’s father subsequently purchased 3 KFC restaurants in Waterloo, Iowa, and the couple moved there so he could manage the restaurants. Gacy would receive $15,000 per year (the equivalent of $115,513 as of 2020), plus a share of the restaurant’s profits.

Gacy relocated to Waterloo with his wife. He opened a "club" in his basement where his employees could drink alcohol and play pool.

This is when he also started to socialize primarily with his male employees and would offer them alcohol and make sexual advances. When some of them questioned these advances, he would simply play them down as jokes or a test of morals.

Gacy’s wife gave birth to a son in February 1966 and a daughter in March 1967. Gacy himself later described this period of his life as "perfect"—he had finally earned his father’s approval.

When Gacy’s parents visited in July 1966, his father apologized for the abuse and said:

"Son, I was wrong about you."

The Start of Deviant Acts and Crime

In Waterloo, he also joined the Jaycees chapter and quickly became popular and was also named “Outstanding Vice President” of Waterloo Jaycees in 1967. He and the other Waterloo Jaycees were deeply involved in deviant acts such as wife-swapping, prostitution, pornography, and drug use.

Donald Voorhees — First Known Sexual Abuse Victim

In August 1967, Gacy sexually assaulted 15-year-old Donald Voorhees, the son of a fellow Jaycee. He lured Voorhees to his house having promised to show him pornographic films. Gacy plied Voorhees with alcohol and persuaded him to perform oral sex. Over the following months, Gacy similarly abused several other youths, including one whom Gacy encouraged to have sex with his own wife before blackmailing him into performing oral sex on him. Gacy tricked several teenagers into believing he was commissioned to conduct homosexual experiments in the interests of "scientific research", and paid them up to $50 each.

Voorhees’ father in March 1968 reported the incident to the police and Gacy was arrested and charged with oral sodomy on Voorhees and attempted assault of another 16-yr old youth.

In a polygraph test that Gacy insisted on to prove his innocence claim, he sounded nervous and was indicted for the charges in May 1968.

A psychological assessment of Gacy later that year revealed an Antisocial Personality Disorder, that he was unlikely to benefit from any therapy or medical treatment, and that his behavior pattern was likely to bring him into repeated conflict with society.

Conviction and First Sentence

He was convicted and jailed on a 10-year sentence, only to be granted parole after 18 months of his sentence owing to model prisoner behavior, on a 12-month probation.

This was probably a failure of the legal system or genius on part of Gacy to fool the system to convince them of his reformation and free him — a failure that would cost many young lives.

While on probation in Chicago, he had a couple of charges of teenage abuse and battery filed against him, but these were never reported to the Iowa parole board and in October 1971 his parole term ended and he was a free, albeit, dangerous man on the loose.

The Gruesome Murder Spree

With support from his mother, Gacy bought a ranch house near the village of Norridge in Norwood Park Township, an unincorporated area of Cook County, a part of metropolitan Chicago.

The address, 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, is where he resided until his arrest in December 1978 and where, according to Gacy, he committed all his murders.

He also married Carol, a divorcee in 1972, who had two daughters, and later in 1975 declared to her that he was bisexual.

After a marriage full of differences, and Gacy spending life in solitude with alcohol and gay pornography, Carol filed for divorce which was granted in March 1976 on the false grounds of Gacy’s infidelity with other women.

The Killer Clown

While establishing a successful Painting, Decorating, and Maintenance (PDM) contractors business between 1971 and 1978, Gacy had good financial and business success.

Through his membership in a local Moose Club, Gacy became aware of a "Jolly Joker" clown club, whose members regularly performed at fundraising events and parades, in addition, to voluntarily entertaining hospitalized children. In late 1975, Gacy joined and created his own clown characters: "Pogo the Clown" and "Patches the Clown". He described Pogo as a "happy clown", whereas Patches was a "more serious" character.

It was this voluntary service as a clown throughout his criminal years that got him the title of “The Killer Clown.”

The Murders and Modus Operandi

Gacy murdered at least 33 young men and boys and buried 26 of them in the crawl space of his house. Several victims were lured with the promise of a job with PDM, others with an offer of drinks, drugs, or money for sex. Some victims were grabbed by force while others were conned into believing he was a Sheriff with the Police Department.

Inside Gacy’s home, he would typically get the youth to consume drinks and drugs, or generally gain his trust. He would then produce a pair of handcuffs to show a magic trick, sometimes as part of a clowning routine.

Gacy referred to this act of restraining his victim as the "handcuff trick".

He then physically and sexually assaulted the victims in multiple ways including foreign objects, and other forms of torture. He would then drag the victims to his bathroom and drown them repeatedly as part of the torture.

The final killing was done by using a rope tourniquet around their neck to strangle the victims in what he called the final “rope trick.”

After death, Gacy usually stored the victims' bodies under his bed for up to 24 hours before burying his victim in the crawl space. Some of his victims' bodies were taken to his garage and embalmed prior to burial.

The Arrest & Death Sentence

The disappearance of a 15-yr old Robert Piest and the investigation that followed led to Gacy’s arrest. Piest was lured in with a promise of a job with good wages and disappeared on the eve of his mother’s birthday on Dec 11, 1978.

The ensuing investigation and search warrants against Gacy which lasted an eventful 10 days resulted in Gacy’s confession and eventual arrest on Dec 22.

After a thorough search of his crawl space, and other dead body discoveries, 27 of his victims were identified and the other six were never identified.

He was sentenced to death in 1980 and was eventually executed by lethal injection in 1994. His killings were all committed in the period from 1972–1978.

This is yet another story and example of a serial killer who became a heartless and sadistic, mentally ill serial killer owing to a troubled childhood, an abusive upbringing, and a suppressed psyche which later turned into a criminal mastermind and led to the loss of so many innocent lives.

References:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/john-wayne-gacy https://www.chicagotribune.com/history/ct-john-wayne-gacy-timeline-htmlstory.html