A Missing Boy Opens a Crawl Space of Horror On December 21, 1978, a search for a missing 15-year-old led Chicago police into John Wayne Gacy’s crawl space, where the first shovel struck human remains. The 36-year-old contractor and popular socialite spent weekends in clown makeup entertaining children, once remarking that clowns could get away with murder. The find shattered his wholesome persona and exposed a hidden world of torture and death beneath an ordinary suburban home.
Violence at Home and a Malignant Worldview Born in 1942, Gacy grew up under an alcoholic father who demeaned him as weak and beat him with belts and brooms, once knocking him unconscious. A heart condition and a childhood head injury left him sickly, sidelined from sports, and prone to blackouts and hospital visits. Such brutality and isolation bred a belief that relationships revolve around exploitation, cruelty, and inflicting pain.
Civic Respectability Masks Early Crimes By 1966 he was married, employed, and active in the community in Waterloo, Iowa, projecting the image of a model family man. He sexually assaulted a fellow Jaycee’s teenage son and later hired another youth to intimidate the victim into silence. Pleading guilty to sodomy, he received 10 years but quickly charmed prison staff, rose to head cook, and won parole after about 18 months.
A New Life in Chicago Conceals a Deadly Double Life Returning at 28, he launched PDM Contractors in Chicago, where acquaintances remained unaware of his past due to absent background checks. In 1972 he remarried and moved to 8213 West Summerdale Avenue in the suburbs. Outward warmth and opportunity drew in teenage employees and drifters who became vulnerable to his control.
Robert Piest Vanishes and Suspicion Focuses on Gacy In December 1978, Piest told his mother he would meet a contractor about a job at his Des Plaines pharmacy and then disappeared. Detectives tied that meeting to Gacy, uncovered his prior sex offense, and, in a first search, found porn, a missing teen’s ring, and IDs linked to other missing youths. With no body, they mounted overt surveillance as he bought beers for the tailing officers and bragged about business and connections, all while neighbors praised him.
Trenches, Stench, and a Tactical Arrest Young workers reported being ordered to dig trenches in his crawl space several times amid an overpowering odor Gacy blamed on sewage. As investigators pressured his supporters and hinted at a new warrant, his attorneys appeared petrified after a late-night meeting with him. Gacy’s behavior turned erratic, including gifting marijuana at a gas station, leading to his arrest for the drug transaction and a chest-pain ruse while police secured the second warrant.
A Hand-Drawn Graveyard and Nationwide Shock The second search immediately uncovered remains; Gacy confessed and drew a detailed map marking doubles and triples beneath his home. Crews recovered 27 bodies from the crawl space, one from the yard, and five from the Des Plaines River, with Piest found there in April 1979. The revelation that an ordinary-seeming neighbor had stored rotting corpses below his house transfixed the nation.
The Handcuff Trick, Chloroform, and Rope Tourniquet Gacy lured victims with hospitality, then used a “handcuff trick,” chloroform to incapacitate, and a knotted rope tightened with a stick like a tourniquet, gauging reactions by half turns. He sometimes restrained multiple captives, killing one before the others, and proudly detailed every one of his 33 murders. Teen worker Tony Antonucci escaped by freeing a hand, cuffing Gacy instead, and surviving by staying calm, later reporting the attack after Gacy’s arrest.
Conviction, Execution, and a Remorseless Legacy Tried in early 1980, competing psychiatric opinions failed to sway jurors from viewing him as a rational, culpable psychopath; they convicted in under three hours, and he was sentenced to death. On death row he sold macabre paintings and pursued appeals, later denying guilt in a TV interview, yet he never accepted responsibility. Executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994, before crowds reveling outside, his final words—“Kiss my ass”—underscored the absence of remorse and the enduring horror he left behind.