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Myers, Gacy's new father-in-law, offered him a position with one of his franchises. Soon after that Gacy and his new wife moved to Iowa. Gacy began working for his father-in-law, learning the business from the ground up. On average he worked for 12 hours a day, yet it was not uncommon for him to work 14 or more hours a day.
He was enthusiastic and eager to learn, with hopes of one day taking over the string of fast food restaurants. When Gacy was not working, he was active in the Waterloo, Iowa, Jaycees.
Gacy worked tirelessly performing volunteer work for his community through the Jaycees. It was there that he made most of his friends and spent most of his time. One he left alive was Robert Donnelly, a year-old college student he abducted from a Chicago bus stop. After bringing him to his house, Gacy raped and tortured Donnelly, dunking his head repeatedly in a bathtub until he passed out and performing fake executions with a gun loaded with banks.
Donnelly was in so much pain he begged Gacy to kill him, but Gacy let him go and warned him not to tell anybody. Donnelly reported him to the police, however. Gacy killed another victim one month later. On December 11, , year-old Robert Piest went missing after telling his mother he was going to meet Gacy to discuss a potential construction job. Gacy eventually confessed to killing about 30 people.
The following year, the house and all structures on the property were demolished, and a new house was eventually built on the property. With Gacy having confessed to the crimes, the arguments were focused on whether he could be declared insane and thus remitted to a state mental facility. Gacy spent hundreds of hours with doctors at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester, Illinois, and underwent a series of psychologist tests, according to Buried Dreams.
Gacy pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and he went to trial on 33 murder charges. The prosecution argued Gacy was sane and in control of his actions, pointing to the elaborate steps Gacy took to both prepare for and conceal his murders. On March 12, , after a short jury deliberation, Gacy was found guilty of committing 33 murders, and he became known as one of the most ruthless serial killers in American history.
Gacy was imprisoned at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester for 14 years, appealing the sentence and offering contradictory statements on the murders in interviews. Although he had previously confessed, Gacy later denied being guilty of the charges and had a telephone number set up with a minute recorded statement declaring his innocence.
While at Menard, Gacy took up studying the visual arts, especially painting. His paintings were shown to the public via an exhibition at a Chicago gallery. After the U. As a result, a national network aimed at locating missing children was gradually formed. Only 28 of Gacy's victims have been conclusively identified.
Cook County medical examiner Robert Stein supervised the exhumations of the victims buried on Gacy's property. The first body recovered from the crawl space was assigned a marker denoting the victim as Body 1. John Butkovich was labelled as Body 2; he was among the first to be identified, on December 29, The search was postponed over Christmas.
Four more bodies were unearthed on December On December 27, eight more bodies were discovered. The following day, four more bodies were exhumed. By December 29, six more bodies were unearthed. Bodies 22, 23, 24, and 26 were buried in a common grave beneath Gacy's kitchen and laundry room, [ ] with Body 25 Robert Gilroy, identified January 6, located beneath Gacy's bathroom.
Two socks were recovered from the pelvic region. The final victim recovered from the crawl space William Kindred, identified May 16, was also found beneath the bathroom, with cloth lodged deep in his throat. Operations were suspended due to the Chicago Blizzard of , but resumed in March despite Gacy's insistence that all the buried victims had been found.
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All the victims discovered at Gacy's house were in an advanced state of decomposition. Dental records and X-ray charts helped Stein identify the remains. These identifications were supported with personal artifacts found in Gacy's home. The head and upper torso of several bodies unearthed beneath Gacy's property had been placed in plastic bags.
The victim found 6 miles 9. An autopsy was unable to rule out strangulation as the cause of death. Following Gacy's arrest, investigators discovered he was a further victim. Frank Landingin's cause of death was certified at autopsy as suffocation through his own underwear being lodged down his throat. His body was also identified via fingerprint records.
A bond slip issued to Landingin the day before his death was found at Gacy's home; [ ] he was assigned victim number On December 28, one further body linked to Gacy was found 1 mile 1. This victim was identified two days later as James Mazzara, whom Gacy confessed to having murdered shortly after Thanksgiving. On April 9, , a man walking along a Grundy County towpath discovered a decomposed body tangled in roots on the edge of the Des Plaines River.
The body was identified via dental records as being that of Robert Piest the same evening. An autopsy revealed that "paper-like material" had been shoved down his throat, causing him to suffocate. Five victims have never been identified. In the fall of , [ ] forensic expert Betty Pat Gatliff used the skulls of the remaining unidentified victims to create facial reconstructions.
In October , Cook County sheriff Thomas Dart announced that investigators, having obtained DNA profiles from the unidentified victims, were to renew their efforts to identify them. At a press conference Sheriff Dart stated investigators were seeking DNA samples from across the United States related to any male missing between and So far the identification of three victims has been confirmed, numerous other missing youths have been ruled out as being victims of Gacy, [ ] [ ] and four unrelated cold cases dating between and have been solved.
At the time of Gacy's arrest, he had claimed to investigators that the total number of murder victims could be as high as Investigators excavated the grounds of his property until they had exposed the substratum of clay beneath the foundations, finding 29 bodies.
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Shortly after his arrest, Gacy informed investigators that after he had assaulted and then released Jeffrey Rignall in March , he began to throw his murder victims into the Des Plaines River. He confessed to having disposed of five bodies in this manner; however, only four bodies recovered from the Des Plaines River were linked to him.
Disputed DNA and dental tests conducted between and indicate that neither body found in the common grave in Gacy's crawl space and identified as those of Kenneth Parker and Michael Marino in was actually Marino. He had been missing since May Moreover, Rossi had stated that Hattula was known to have conflicts with Gacy, and when he had "failed to show up at work", Gacy had informed him and several other employees that he had drowned.
However, Des Plaines authorities had contacted Freeport during their investigation into Gacy, and were told Hattula had fallen to his death from a bridge. Hattula's death has been officially ruled as asphyxia by drowning. Retired Chicago police officer Bill Dorsch stated he had reason to believe there might be more victims buried in the grounds of an apartment building on West Miami Avenue in Chicago, where Gacy had been the caretaker for several years.
When Dorsch confronted him, Gacy said he was doing work that he was too busy to do during the day. Dorsch also said that several other residents of West Miami Avenue stated they had seen Gacy digging trenches at the property in the early to mids. The Cook County State's Attorney denied the request, citing a lack of probable cause , including the results of a search of the property.
Both FBI sniffer dogs and ground-penetrating radar equipment were used, but no human remains were found. One of the first things Gacy told investigators after his arrest was that he had not acted alone in several of the murders: he asked whether "my associates" had been arrested. When questioned whether these associates had participated directly or indirectly in the killings, Gacy replied, "Directly".
He later claimed Cram and Rossi were involved in several of the murders.
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Ressler believed there were unexplained avenues to the case and that Gacy had killed more than 33 victims in multiple states. Gacy neither confirmed nor denied Ressler's suspicions. Three days before his arrest, two officers followed Gacy to a bar where he met two employees—Michael Rossi and Ed Hefner. An anxious Gacy was observed walking with the two out of earshot of the officers to talk before returning closer.
Gacy said to both young men: "You'd better not let me down, you fuckers. You owe it to me. Buried like the other five? In interviews from death row, Gacy said that at the time of his arrest, three PDM employees were also considered suspects in the murders—all of whom he said were in possession of keys to his house. In the late s, Norman operated a nationwide sex trafficking ring based in Chicago known as the Delta Project.
Gacy claimed that he was not in Chicago when sixteen of the identified victims disappeared. In , two Chicago lawyers said travel records show that he had been in another state at the time of three of the murders, implying he had one or more accomplices. Investigators note that Robert Young, the traveling companion with whom victim Russell Nelson was visiting Chicago at the time of his disappearance, gave differing accounts of his disappearance.
Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. American serial killer — For other uses, see Gacy disambiguation. Chicago , Illinois, U. Marlynn Myers. Carole Hoff. Illinois Iowa.
Waterloo, Iowa. Assault of Donald Voorhees. Conviction and imprisonment. Second marriage and divorce. Main article: Murder of Timothy McCoy. Main article: Murder of John Butkovich. Recent identification efforts. Possible additional victims. He dropped out of school midway through his sophomore year. He claimed the bodies were "just dead things" who "couldn't tell anybody".
In June of that year, by mutual agreement, the engagement was called off and she moved out. The records of this confession state "Gacy stabbed the first victim. He thought it was December of According to Cram, Gacy also informed him this identification belonged to a deceased individual. He did not perform autopsies on the three other victims recovered from the Des Plaines River.
According to Gacy's account, his second victim had also been buried in the crawl space close to his first. However, at Gacy's trial, prosecutor William Kunkle theorized his second murder victim must have been buried near his barbecue pit if his wife still resided with him at the time of the murder. Gacy estimated this victim to be approximately twenty-four years old, with military connections.
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July 19, Archived from the original on July 20, Retrieved July 19, Paul Pioneer Press. Archived from the original on December 12, Retrieved November 30, CBS Local. Archived from the original on January 2, Archived from the original on January 6, Retrieved August 8, Joseph Gazette. March 31, Retrieved March 14, — via Google News. Archived from the original on February 23, Chicago Tribune.
Archived from the original on March 3, The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved October 26, October 26, Archived from the original on October 29, Retrieved November 8, Archived from the original on September 23, Retrieved March 13, NBC News. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. For the movie, see Gacy movie.
Chicago , Illinois. Crest Hill, Illinois. Early life [ change change source ]. Move to Iowa [ change change source ]. Unidentified victims [ change change source ]. January Body Male aged 14— Crawl space.
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Male aged 22— Male aged 17— Male aged 15— Death [ change change source ]. Popular culture [ change change source ]. Movies [ change change source ]. Books [ change change source ]. Television [ change change source ]. Music [ change change source ]. Notes and references [ change change source ]. Notes [ change change source ]. References [ change change source ].
January 10,