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January 4, 2024 37 mins

John Wayne Gacy, commonly known as the "Killer Clown," or "The Devil in Disguise," was one of the most notorious American serial killers. Born on March 17, 1942, Gacy led a double life—one as a successful businessman and another as a sadistic murderer. Between 1972 and 1978, Gacy lured young men, mostly teenagers, to his home under the impression of offering them employment or money. But behind closed doors, he subjected them to unimaginable horrors. Gacy's vicious acts came to light in December 1978 when police discovered the remains of 29 victims buried in the crawl space of his suburban Chicago property. This shocking revelation forever forged Gacy's name in the pages of criminal history, leaving a horrific and unforgettable mark on the nation's psyche and culture of clowns


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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Clorophobia, the fear of clowns from Stephen King's fictional
character Pennywise and the recent 2016 killer clown
sightings around the United States.
It's no wonder that the number of people afraid of clowns has
shot up to a whopping 42%. And today we're looking at a
real killer clown who murdered 33 young boys.
And men in the 19. 70s And that is none other than the infamous

(00:24):
John Wayne Gacy welcome. To the Last Supper.
Hello and welcome to the first episode of The Last Supper, a
true crime podcast. My name is Coulson Davis and I'm
an amateur chef, a true crime junkie, a music and video

(00:47):
producer, and a content creator.Every other week on this podcast
we'll be looking at a true deathpenalty case story, and at the
same time I will be cooking thatcriminal's last requested meal
before they were executed. This week we're looking John
Wayne Gacy, who ordered a bucketof KFC Original Recipe Chicken,
a dozen fried shrimp, French fries, a pound of strawberries,

(01:07):
and a Diet Coke. You can find all of my original
recipes I've written at Last Supper podcast.com/blog.
Now let's get into it. John Wayne Gacy was born March
17th, 1942 in Chicago, IL. His father was John Stanley

(01:29):
Gacy, who was a World War One veteran and then an auto repair
mechanist at a local Chicago factory.
His mother, Marion Elaine Robinson, was the homemaker who
took care of John and his two sisters.
John was always close with his mother and his sisters, but had
severe problems with his father,who is an alcoholic and
extremely verbally and physically abusive to John.

(01:51):
John's earliest memory of his father was being whipped with a
leather belt after rearranging his father's car parts.
His mother would try to step in,but this only caused his father
to verbally abuse John, calling him a Sissy, a mama's boy who
would, quote, probably grow up queer.
John would go on in life struggling with his own
sexuality, being an abusive household, being ridiculed by

(02:14):
his father, and obviously growing up in a period where
being gay wasn't acceptable, yetled to John never coming out to
his parents or any of his friends only ever admitting his
bisexuality to his second wife. This assumingly made John have
internal conflicts with his own sexuality that was exhilarated
by his father's torment. Later, John would degrade his

(02:36):
victims, calling them prostitutes, hustlers, and
worthless little punks and queers, showing that John was
possibly trying to kill part of himself that he deemed
undesirable. Now, in 1949, John and one of
his high school friends were found fondling a little girl,
which caused his father to severely beat John with a razor

(02:58):
strap. During that year, John was
molested multiple times by his family friend but never had the
courage to tell his dad, thinking that his father would
blame him for the incidences. John suffered from an
undiagnosed heart condition, meaning he wasn't allowed to
participate in school sports. This caused John to feel even
more of an outcast from society because he couldn't do the fun

(03:19):
things all the other boys did. We really see this later in life
when psychiatrists in his trial speculated John suffered from
antisocial personality disorder.This condition is usually
misunderstood severely, but basically this means that John
had no regards or empathy for people in society.
It's a very impulsive condition that makes people lash out and

(03:40):
usually commit petty to severe violent crimes.
An article from the National Library of Medicine states that
about 47% of incarcerated inmates suffer from this
disorder. Now, in 4th grade, John was hit
in the head by a swing which caused a blood clot to form in
his brain which was missed by medical staff for five years.

(04:01):
This led to John experiencing severe blackouts and seizures.
In 1957, John was hospitalized for a burst appendix and John's
father would openly mock him in the hospital, telling John and
staff members that he was fakinghis condition to gain sympathy
and attention. This and all previous incidents
LED John to always try to gain the approval he desired from his

(04:24):
father. So John turned 18 in 1960 and he
joined the local Democratic Party as an assistant precinct
captain, where he helped a localcandidate and this caused his
father to disapprove of his son even more, calling him a Patsy.
John later speculated that he made this decision to gain the
acceptance of others that he didn't from his father.

(04:46):
This same year, though, John's father bought him a car and had
John pay monthly car payments and he would take the keys if
John didn't obey his father. John's father removed the
distributor cap after John made a second set of keys for when
his father took the originals. After several days, his father
replaced the cap and John immediately left home and headed
for Las Vegas, NV. When John arrived in Las Vegas,

(05:09):
he quickly found a job in the ambulance service but was
quickly transferred to work at aMortuary.
Since John had just left home, he didn't have much money and
had nowhere to stay. This led to him having to sleep
on a cot behind the embalming room and this is where John was
heavily exposed to dead bodies. This is an incidence where
John's dark fantasies start to solidify in his brain because

(05:31):
later he felt he needed to be close to his victims and bury
them under and around his own home.
But his visit to Las Vegas didn't last long because John
went as far to sleep next to andcaress one of the younger male
corpses at the Mortuary, which freaked him out so much that he
packed up and headed back to live with his parents in
Chicago. Upon arriving home, John

(05:52):
enrolled in the Northwestern Business College and after
graduating he applied to work asa management trainee at a shoe
company. He was then transferred to work
at a sales position for the company in 1964 in Springfield,
IL and was quickly promoted to manager of his department.
This is where he met Marilyn Myers, who would become his
first wife. During this time, John also

(06:15):
joined the local JC's. The JC's are a leadership
training, service and civic organization that helps young
adults learn business development, management skills,
community service and international connections.
He quickly rose the ranks to Vice President at the JC's and
at this point John had his firsthomosexual experience with
another JC. After having drinks with a man

(06:37):
and being invited to stay on hissofa, the man performed oral sex
on John while he was drunk. In September of 1964, John
married Marilyn Myers and her father also purchased several
KFC restaurants with the thoughtof John managing them for about
$15,000 a year, about $144,000 in today's money.

(06:57):
So John and his new wife hurriedto Waterloo to manage the
restaurants. John opened a club in his
basement where teen employees could come, smoke, drink and
play pool. This is where John started
making sexual advances towards only the young men and boys.
However, if any of them refused John, he would play it off like
he was just joking or simply testing their morals.

(07:18):
This time in John's life, he described it as perfect.
His son was just born in 1966 and his daughter would be born
later in 1967. And when his parents came to
visit in 1966, John's father personally apologized to his son
for all the abuse and torment heput John through as a child.
Even saying, quote, son, I was wrong about you.

(07:41):
During all of this, John joined the local Waterloo JC chapter
and again quickly rose the ranks.
Soon being called the outstanding Vice President, he
dedicated many hours to the organization's fundraiser work
and brought fried chicken to meetings, insisting he be called
the Colonel. John and other JC's were heavily
involved in wife swapping, hiring prostitutes, and throwing

(08:02):
wild parties. And of course John was the host.
These parties got so wild and fun that John managed to recruit
20 new members in one night. We see here in both the
managerial position at KFC and the host and Vice president at
the JC organization that John isputting himself in a place of
power and control. Like most serial killers, John

(08:24):
sought both things in his life to be happy.
And if this personally didn't make him happy, he ultimately
created a fake American dream family man facade that would be
his shield for his horrible actson young man that did make him
happy. So in 1967, John sexually
assaulted Donald Juarez Junior, the son of fellow politician and

(08:46):
JC member John persuaded the boywith pornography and alcohol
before he assaulted him. John would also assault several
other young boys around, this time telling them, quote, you
have to have sex with a man before you can have sex with a
woman. Juarez kept silent for a few
months but eventually told his father, who informed the police.
John was immediately arrested and he denied all wrongdoing and

(09:08):
even failed a polygraph test that he insisted he could pass.
John was indicted on oral sodomycharges on May 10th, 1968.
While in jail, John hired another young boy to physically
assault Voorhees to prevent him from testifying, but the boy was
soon arrested and told police that John hired him to partake
in the beating for $300.00. John was also charged with this

(09:30):
attack. In November of 1968, John pled
guilty to the sodomy charge, butnothing else.
His story that the ACT was consensual was not believed, and
he was sentenced to 10 years in the Animosa State Penitentiary.
That day, John's wife, Marilyn, filed for divorce, sole custody
of the children, and alimony, which she was granted.
John never saw her or her children again.

(09:53):
While in prison, John quickly established himself as a model
prisoner. He joined the JC chapter in
prison and recruited 600 people in 18 months.
He also became head chef, was involved in several projects to
help improve prison conditions, and even oversaw the
construction of a mini golf course in the rec yard.
He even completed high school classes that got him his

(10:15):
diploma. However, on Christmas Day 1969,
John's father passed away, whichleft John devastated.
John later said that he thought his father died from
disappointment. He was denied his request to
attend the funeral. However, after a short 18 months
stay in prison, John was paroledon June 18th, 1970 and was given

(10:36):
one year probation and was sent to live with his mother in
Chicago. Within a year, John was charged
with two different counts of sexual crimes against young
boys, but both cases were dropped when complications
arose. The Iowa Board of Parole was
never notified, even though thiswas a huge violation of his
parole. And in October of 1970 his

(10:57):
parole ended and his criminal records were sealed.
We can only play the what If game for so long, but this is
absolutely insane. I've seen a lot of screwed up
cases, but this is a big one. If one word was mentioned to the
pro board, we probably wouldn't be talking right now about the
infamous killings of John Wayne Gacy.

(11:17):
The same year though. In 1970, John and his mother
purchased a ranch style home which was 8213 W Summerdale Ave.
which would be the ground for all of John's gruesome murders.
He again quickly established himself in the community and
held a great reputation among the neighbors and friends.
So the next couple years there'sa lot of different events that

(11:39):
happened with John's life, so I will be going through them in
order from year to year. So let's start.
In 1971, John met and got engaged to his soon to be second
wife, Carol Hoff, who had two daughters from a previous
marriage. She and her daughters quickly
moved in after the engagement was announced.
The same year, John also established his construction
company, PDM Contractors, which stood for painting, decorating,

(12:04):
and maintenance. He was simultaneously working as
a line cook at a local restaurant, making his days
quite long. So let's move on to 1972.
John and his wife had their wedding and officially got
married. John also committed his first
known murder. Now this story is told from
John's perspective years after his arrest, so we must take this

(12:24):
story with a grain of salt. Here's his story.
After a family party on January 2nd, John went riding around and
spotted a young man who just missed his bus connection at the
Chicago Greyhound Bus Station. His name was Timothy McCoy.
John pulled up to the young man and asked if he would like to go
sightseeing in the area and possibly come spend the night

(12:44):
until his bus came the next morning.
Timothy agreed and got in the car with John Gacy.
The following morning, John awoke to Timothy standing in his
bedroom doorway with a knife. Startled, John leapt at Timothy
where he raised the knife and surrender, which cut John's arm.
John saw this as Timothy's attack and eventually wrestled
the knife out of Timothy's hand and stabbed him in the chest

(13:06):
multiple times. John ran to wash the knife and
realized that the table was set for two and there was unprepared
breakfast items like eggs and uncut bacon in the kitchen,
indicating that Timothy was onlycooking breakfast to say thank
you for John's hospitality. As John listened to Timothy gasp
and gurgle for air, John said that he experienced a mind

(13:26):
numbing orgasm which made him realize that death was the
ultimate thrill. He buried Timothy in the crawl
space under his garage and latercovered him with concrete.
Now again, I must note that thisis John's retelling of the
story, so this could be true, ormore than likely not, this seems
to be a false story of what actually happened that night.
It could be that John made-up this story in his head to

(13:48):
justify his actions of murder. Like he knew that his deep
rooted sadistic desire to harm others was inevitable.
So he blamed an accidental killing as the starting gun.
Now in 1973, John quit his job working as the cook to start
working full time in his business.
The business was growing steadily and at this point John

(14:08):
was doing a bigger jobs like interior design and remodeling.
This made it so that John wasn'thome as often and even led to
him traveling out of the state on many occasions.
On one of these trips to Floridawith a teenage employee, John
raped the young man in the hotelroom.
Upon returning to Chicago, the young man spotted John outside
his house and beat up John in his own front yard.

(14:32):
John told his wife it was only because the boy was upset about
not getting paid for poor quality work.
In 1974, John started hosting his annual block parties that
each had a specific theme. These parties had up to 400
people and some of them were local politicians.
This again shows that John wanted to gain a good reputation

(14:52):
as a local, established businessand family man.
We see this a lot in John's lifewhere he wanted people to see
him as one of them. This would always become his
cover for his horrible actions. And later, after his arrest,
people would still believe that John couldn't possibly have been
involved again. As a serial killer with a clear
mental illness, he sought power and control, which he achieved

(15:15):
by gaining the respect and appreciation from high up
politicians and neighbors. In early 1974, John committed
his second known murder. This victim remains unidentified
to this day, but John said he strangled the boy and put the
body in the closet until he buried him in the crawl space.
While in the closet, the body seeped bodily fluids that

(15:35):
stained John's carpet. This is when John realized to
put clothes, rags, or even the victim's own underwear in the
later victim's mouths to preventthis from happening again.
Now 1975, a lot of major things in transition happened in John's
life. Firstly, after having sex with
his wife Carol on Mother's Day of 1975, John told her that he

(15:59):
was bisexual and that this wouldbe the last time that they would
ever have sex again. Carol stayed with John until a
heated argument in October of 1975 ensued and a mutual divorce
process was started. It was finalized in October of
1976. This had to be the biggest
change in John's life in 1975, mainly because he worked so hard

(16:20):
to build his reputation as a neighborly family man that it
seems weird that John would so easily give that up.
However, looking at his actions in the next following three
years, it makes sense that John was so willing to leave his wife
because it gave him freedom to do whatever and go wherever he
wanted. It also gave him free ran over

(16:40):
the house and the horrible things he did there.
John still appeared as an upstanding citizen and in this
year he was also named the director of the Polish
Constitution Day Parade in Chicago, meaning he still had
connections with higher up politicians and leaders.
Also this year, along with directing the parade, he
experienced rapid growth with PDM contractors and he started

(17:03):
working 16 hour days. And over the next three years,
John would grow his business to making over $1 million in
today's money. And then along with both things
before, John also joined the local clown club and created his
own iconic characters, Pogo the Clown, which he said was a more
happy clown, and Patches the Clown, who he said was more

(17:24):
serious. He would work for fundraisers
and perform for hospitalized children.
He really took on this identity,even wearing his clown costume
to local bars and events. Now we come to the creepy topic
of clowns and why this was such an odd thing in Casey's case.
Now we've been talking John's many struggles he's had in his
life, from his father's abuse and disapproval of him to

(17:48):
struggling with his sexuality and of course his mental illness
that led to his horrific actions.
When someone puts on clown makeup, shoes, and a costume,
they essentially can become a different person, change their
identity. So in John's instance, he felt
comfort in his acts as a clown, possibly because he always
struggled with his own identity.He wished he could have been a

(18:11):
better son and a straight heterosexual man.
These things he struggled with his whole life.
But when he put on his clown costume, he could be free.
He could express himself and possibly even give kids joy in
their crappy situation like hospital patients that he never
got as a struggling child himself.
He also could have been doing this to try to change the fact

(18:32):
that he was a sick minded individual.
He knew he was ill and couldn't help these horrible fantasies he
had. So he dressed as a clown to
possibly try to escape this horror movie he was living in.
He even said later in the investigation that quote clowns
can get away with murder. Now we come to another murder.
In 1975, John's third victim, John Bukovich, was murdered

(18:54):
while he was confronting Gacy about a paycheck he didn't
receive yet. Bukovich's car was found with
his jacket and wallet still inside with the keys in the
ignition. Gacy later confessed that he saw
Bukovich near his car When he asked to talk.
Gacy told him to get in his car and they drove back to Gacy's
house. Gacy gave Bukovich a drink
before conning him into handcuffs, quote, sat on the

(19:17):
kids chest for a while and strangled him to death.
Bukovich's parents called the police over 100 times over the
next three years, accusing Gacy of the crime, but nothing was
ever done. Now, when John would lure and
murder his victims, he would usea method called the handcuff and
rope, a trick He would usually lure unsuspecting victims to his

(19:37):
house with the promise of alcohol, drugs and money for
sexual acts. He would get his victims to put
on handcuffs. After explaining that it was a
magic trick, he always started by handcuffing himself and
freeing himself with the unknownkey.
He would then handcuff the victim and reveal his magic
trick secret saying quote the trick is you have to have the
key. He would then proceed to rape,

(20:00):
torture and strangle the victims.
He had several means of torturing and tormenting his
victims. He would use various instruments
such as an 18 inch dildo which was found later by
investigators, various types of liquor and prescription bottles
and even lit candles. He even built his own torture
board, where he could have his victims handcuffed but also have

(20:20):
their feet secured by handcuffs as well.
He also later used a pillory type device, which is a board
with three holes in it where thevictim's head and hands could be
restrained. After torturing his victims,
John would proceed to his rope trick.
This is where John would wrap a rope around the victim's neck,
use a hammer handle and twist itto slowly tighten the rope

(20:42):
around the victim's neck until they died from suffocation.
So after explaining the overarching brutal theme of
Gacy's murders, we can talk about John's cruising years when
most of his murders were committed, now having his whole
house to himself following his finalized divorce in 1976.
Obviously there was at least 30 murders that happened during

(21:02):
John's cruising years, but I'm not going to go into detail
about all of them. I will, however, go into detail
about the more in depth victim stories.
I would like to point out that Ihave full respect for all of the
victims and their families, but it will definitely get
repetitive if I tell all 30 murder stories.
In June of 1976, John picked up a young hitchhiker named David

(21:25):
Cram. John offered him a job with his
company, and he started his workimmediately.
A month later, Cram moved into John's home and they also had
drinks to celebrate his 19th birthday.
John dressed as Pogo and donned Cram into handcuffs.
John swung Cram around, holding onto the handcuffs and said he
wanted to rape him. Cram fought back, kicking John

(21:45):
in the stomach and freeing himself.
A month later, John attempted toattack and rape Cram again, but
just as before, Cram resisted and won.
He moved out of John's house in early October, but worked for
John here and there for the nextcouple of years.
After this, another young man named Michael Rossi moved into
John's house. In January 1977, John murdered

(22:08):
19 year old John Shits. Gacy said he would sell shits
his Plymouth Satellite, but he instead strangled him while
Rossi was in the other room. John then sold Schitz's car to
Rossi for $300.00. Rossi never fully questioned how
John came into possession of thecar.
However, in August of 77, Rossi stole gasoline and the police

(22:31):
were notified of the license plate number.
This led the police to John's house and he explained that Shit
sold him the car in February andhe subsequently sold it to Rossi
for a profit. The police never investigated
the matter further, but they didnotify Schitz's mother about the
car. This is only one of the many
times that John was questioned by the police or had close

(22:52):
encounters with being caught, but managed to talk his way out
of it without consequences. backin December of 1976, a young man
named Gregory Godsick was last seen leaving his girlfriend's
home. He worked for PDM Contractors
for only three weeks and even dug trenches in John's crawl
space. His car was found abandoned and

(23:13):
Godsick's parents contacted Johnabout the situation.
He told the family that God Six ran away after telling him he
planned on doing so, and that heleft John a voicemail which he
had already erased. Also back in May of 1975, John
had an employee named Anthony Antonucci who was working on a
construction site with him. Antonucci had stepped on a nail

(23:36):
that went right through his footand had to go get a tetanus shot
with John at the hospital. The next day, John arrived in
Antonucci's front door. Knowing that his parents were
out of town, he invited John into his home and they started
drinking some wine. John handcuffed Antonucci and
John left the room. However, he had made a critical
mistake and didn't put the handcuffs on tight enough, and

(23:58):
Antonucci was able to free himself, wrestle John to the
ground, and handcuff him. John aggressively fought the
restraints but later calmed downand Antonucci agreed to free
John if he left immediately, which he did.
Antonucci later testified that John said, quote, not only are
you the only one who got out of the handcuffs, but you got them

(24:19):
on me. One call to the police and he
potentially would have been under investigation.
However, we know that John had ahistory of intimidating victims
into silence, so maybe this was at play in this situation too.
On December 30th, 1977, John kidnapped Robert Donnelly at
gunpoint and forced him back to John's house.
There John raped, tortured and waterboarded Donnelly until he

(24:43):
passed out. Donnelly was in so much pain he
asked John to kill him, Which John replied Quote I'm getting
rounded to it. John let Donnelly live and
dropped him off at his workplace, telling him if he
told the police they wouldn't believe him.
Donnelly did end up going to police and on January 6th of
1978 John was questioned stated that he had a sex slave

(25:04):
relationship with Donnelly and it was consensual.
No charges were ever filed for this incident.
This really goes to show how confident and charming John Gacy
must have been, which made him that much scarier.
On March 21st 1977 John Lord 26 year old Jeffrey Rignoll into
his car where he chloroformed him into unconsciousness.

(25:26):
John brought him back to his home and again tortured, raped
and repeatedly chloroformed Rignoll for hours.
Again John let Rignoll go and dumped him in Chicago's Lincoln
Park. Rignoll managed to find his way
to his girlfriend's house and she notified the police.
However, Rignoll managed to recall the different landmarks
to get to John's house and recognized John's Oldsmobile and

(25:47):
he was arrested and charged withbattery.
So since John was appointed the director of the Chicago's Polish
Constitution Day parade, this gave him connections and on May
6th, 1978 he was actually photographed with the First
Lady, Rosalynn Carter. I just wanted to add this in
because a murderer of this degree seven months before his

(26:08):
arrest was photographed with theFirst Lady, which is crazy.
So after the incident with Rignall, John started throwing
his murdered victims bodies intothe Des Plains River because he
ran out of room in his crawl space in his home.
There was a total of five victims that John threw into the
river from what John stated later, but only four bodies were

(26:30):
recovered because John thought that one of the bodies landed on
a passing barge. Now we come to the murder of
Robert Piest. On the afternoon of December
11th John visited the Nissan Pharmacy to discuss a remodeling
deal with the pharmacy owner. John took note of Piest and
discussed with the owner that hetoo liked to hire teenagers for

(26:51):
a much higher wage compared to what Piest he was making.
John finished up the conversation and left the store.
PS finished his work and was about to leave when John
returned to the store claiming he'd forgotten his appointment
book. PS Mother was there to pick him
up at the time, but John wanted to discuss a potential job
opportunity with PST. He went out to his mother's car

(27:11):
and asked her to wait for him while he discussed a better
paying job with a contractor. PS never returned to his mother
car and she went home on her birthday of all days and
celebrated wondering where her son was taken back to John's
house, where John gave him a soda and asked him what he would
do for money. PS responded saying he would
work hard. John suggested that he could

(27:33):
make some pretty good money hustling, to which PS dismissed
the idea. John then duped the handcuffs on
PS, telling him that he intendedto rape him.
John raped and tortured him until using his rope trick to
murder him. After PS didn't return the
following day, his family filed a missing persons report.
Lieutenant Joseph Konzinski started investigating.

(27:54):
I'm terribly sorry if I pronounced that name wrong.
He looked into John's backgroundand found he had a current
battery charge in Chicago and a prison sentence for sodomy.
John told the investigators thathe did not talk to PS about a
job. John promised to come down to
the police station later and give an official statement.
Hours after John agreed to visitthe police station, he arrived

(28:15):
covered in mud, claiming he had been in a car accident, which he
actually was after he threw Pease's body off the I-55
bridge. John then told police that he
did return to the pharmacy for his appointment book because the
owner, Phil Torf, had called himabout it.
Investigators already talked to Torf, who denied calling John.
They were suspicious of John andthey were worried Pease was

(28:38):
being held captive by John in his home.
Because of their suspicions, police obtained a search warrant
for John's home on December 13th.
Police went through the house and found many suspicious items,
such as the various instruments of torture I've mentioned above,
and homosexual pornographic films and books.
One of those books titled The Great White Swallow, but what

(28:59):
really hit home for the place was a receipt from the Nissan
pharmacy He went to. The day piece disappeared and a
three foot piece of nylon rope beside it in John's trash can.
They also found a blue hooded parka coat and a main West High
School class ring with the letters Jas engraved on the
side. Investigators would later find

(29:20):
it to be the class ring of the missing John Allen Shits.
After this, the Des Plaines Police Department set up a 24
hour surveillance of John while they continued to investigate
his background. They were given information by
Michael Rossi and David Cram about the suspicious things they
saw during both of their stays with John and during the
recovery of damning evidence being found.

(29:42):
John would invite the investigators into his home and
restaurants for meals and would vehemently deny any involvement
in peace disappearance. On one of these visits to John's
house, one of the police officers attempted to gather
further evidence in the home butwas unsuccessful.
He then excused himself to the bathroom where the heat kicked
on and the officer could smell the undeniable smell of a human

(30:05):
body coming from the heating vent.
On December 18th, John filed a civil harassment suit against
the Des Plains Police Departmentfor the constant surveillance of
him and his home. At the same time, the police
matched the serial number for the receipt found in John's
trash bag to a colleague of Piste named Kimberly Byers.
Byers told the police that she had borrowed Piste's coat prior

(30:29):
to him leaving and placed the receipt in the coat pocket
before returning it to him. This corroborated that John was
in fact lying about being in contact with Piste on the day of
his disappearance. On the evening of December 30th,
John drove to his lawyer's office to discuss the civil
suit. When John arrived, he appeared
intoxicated and asked for more alcohol.

(30:50):
The lawyers asked what John needed to talk about and John
picked up the Daily Herald, which covered Piste's
disappearance, and said, quote, this boy is dead, he's dead.
He's in a river. John then went into a drunken
ramble about his murder spree and told his lawyers that he had
quote, been the judge, jury and executioner of many, many people

(31:12):
Going into the early hours of December 21st.
John finally passed out and awoke several hours later.
He then ignored his lawyer's advice of him going to a
psychiatric appointment they hadscheduled.
During his confession, he left his lawyer's office and went
into the day. Knowing that his arrest was
inevitable, he drove to a local gas station to fill up his
rental car when he slept a smallbag of weed into the attendant's

(31:34):
pocket. The attendant subsequently told
the supervising officers. He then drove to a friend's
house to say his final goodbye to him and left to talk with
Cram and Rossi. Cram drove John to his lawyer's
office and then proceeded to have Cram drive him to the
cemetery where his father was buried.
During John's ride, the surveillance officers were told
that John might commit suicide and they decided to arrest him

(31:58):
on possession and distributing charges to hold him in jail.
During this, Judge Marvin J Peters granted the second search
warrant and the detectives and crime scene analyst went to
John's home to search the crawl space.
John had allowed him his crawlspace to flood to destroy
the evidence, but they drained it and started digging.
Evidence technician Daniel Gentebegan digging in the southwest

(32:21):
corner of the crawlspace and quickly found human flesh and an
arm bone. He called to the detectives
saying you can charge Gacy with murder.
I think this place is full of kids.
After three more bodies were found, John was informed that
bodies were discovered and he asked to clear the air.
On December 22nd, alongside his lawyers, Gacy made a formal

(32:42):
confession to murdering 30 victims.
The next day, John was taking tothe I-55 bridge to show
detectives where he had disposedof Piste and the four other
victims he had thrown into the river.
Then John was taken to Mark his garage floor where he buried his
first known victim, Timothy McCoy.
Over the next few months, recovery efforts were made to

(33:03):
exhume and find all the victims,and in April 1979, after finding
all the bodies, John's house wasdemolished.
John was taken to trial on February 6th, 1980 and after
weeks of testimony on March 11ththe jury deliberated for an hour
and 55 minutes, which is basically doing paperwork before

(33:24):
finding him guilty of all 33 murders and sexual assault.
The jury then took a little over2 hours to sentence John to
death for all the murders committed after June of 1977
because that's when Illinois reinstated the death penalty.
John was then taken to death rowat Menard Corrections Center to
live out the rest of his life. He appealed as much as he could,

(33:46):
unsuccessfully, but his final execution date was set for May
10th, 1994, fourteen years afterhis conviction.
On the afternoon of May 9th, John was given a private picnic
with his family members where heate his last meal, consisting of
a bucket of KFC chicken, fried shrimp, French fries,
strawberries, and a Diet Coke. That evening he observed prayer

(34:10):
with a Catholic priest and was given his last rites before
being led to the execution chamber.
John's last words were supposedly quote, kiss my ass.
The drugs were administered intohis bloodstream and he was
pronounced dead at 12:58 AM on May 10th, 1994 and his sentence

(34:30):
was served. After John was pronounced dead,
his brain was taken by Helen Morrison, who is a witness for
the defense. She interviewed John and other
serial killers to identify common personality traits among
violent sociopaths. After that, his body was
cremated. Now, a couple things to talk

(34:51):
about before we dive into his last meal.
Firstly, it was that there was evidence that John had
accomplices. However, I'm going to save this
information for a bonus episode down the road.
Next, we need to talk about John's paintings he did on death
row. John said he wanted the
paintings to bring quote, joy topeople's lives.
Nowadays, John's paintings go from anywhere between $200.00

(35:13):
and $20,000. However, most of his paintings
were actually bought by the victims families and burned
publicly. Lastly, Sam Ameriante, which was
John Wayne Gacy's defense attorney, actually incorporated
some procedures into the MissingChild Recovery Act of 1984.
During John's murders, you had to wait 72 hours to report a

(35:34):
child missing and this new act would remove that 72 hour limit.
It was then developed into the child abduction emergency, which
is what we know today as the Amber Alert, which I thought was
super. Cool.
And that wraps up all the information about John Wayne
Gacy. Now let's dive into his last
meal. All right, How would the

(35:55):
chicken? My Lord, that is not bad.
Excellent. We got the shrimp.
We got our fries. These are the best fries I think

(36:19):
I've ever had in my entire life.Letting all you guys know out
there Go to lastsupperpodcast.com/blog and
Strawberry. That's a strawberry.
So, and to finish it off, we gotthe Diet Coke.

(36:45):
All right. And that concludes the first
ever episode of The Last Supper.Wherever you're watching or
listening, please. Subscribe.
Or follow me and if you're. Listening on any podcast
directory like Spotify or Apple,you can give me upwards of a
five star review and I would highly appreciate.

(37:05):
I appreciate that. Let's drive this, show up the
charge, get, get it moving, and until then, make sure you enjoy
every meal because you never know when it'll be your last.
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