John Wayne Gacy, the murderous case of the murderous clown
One of the most famous cases that are studied in the subjects of forensic psychology is that of John Wayne Gacy, an individual who was adorable to others, but who committed several dozen crimes, tortures and abuses.
Gacy was cajoled to young people after disguising himself as a clown, so many of these agreed to stay with him. The coulrophobia is an irrational fear of clowns, and although these characters tend to entertain the little ones, in this terrible case, the fear of clowns is totally justified. His story has inspired several films because of his brutality.
Who is John Wayne Gacy?
John Wayne Gacy, Jr. he was one of the most famous serial killers in the United States , and committed its crimes during the decade of the 70. In 1978 it was arrested and in 1994 executed by the death of 33 young people who were buried in their house or thrown to the Des Plaines River (the rest) in Illinois.
He was popularly called "the murderous clown" because he organized parties in the neighborhood and invited the neighbors to barbecue in his garden, while entertaining the younger ones, curiously where his victims were buried, as an entertainment figure he was known as "Pogo the clown".
The birth of a monster
John Wayne Gacy, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was the second of three children. His father was a macho who always criticized him. He was also an alcoholic, so little Gacy did not have an easy childhood. At age 11 he had an accident when he hit his head with a swing that caused a blood clot in his head that went unnoticed until he was 16 years old, when he began to have dizziness.
During his high school years his family moved several times, which caused him to go to different schools and become a strange person with little emotional stability. Even so, and despite the difficulties, he graduated in Business Management at the Northwestern Business College.
After a position of practices Nunn-Bush Shoe Company, in 1964 was promoted and transferred to Springfield in Illinois. Working there he met a worker who became his wife, Marlynn Myers, and consummated their marriage the following year in 1065. The parents of the latter, who acquired several premises of the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise (KFC), offered him a position of manager in Waterloo, Iowa. Gacy accepted the option of going to work outside.
Living in Waterloo, he had two children and was part of different charitable organizations in the area. And despite family stability, the rumors of his homosexuality soon spread throughout his neighborhood . It was said that he had made intimate proposals to different young people who worked in the restaurant. Despite these rumors, the Jaycess Club named him "honorable vice-president" of the Jaycees de Waterloo in 1967.
At that time his professional life was perfect, but not his personal life, in which he quickly began to have serious problems. He repeatedly cheated on his wife and started taking drugs. In addition, he built a room in his basement where he invited young people to drink and tried to have sex with some of them.
Denounced and imprisoned
But his idyll with the inhabitants of Waterloo would soon come to an end, as he received several complaints from young people who came to his basement. Mark Miller was the first to go to the police stating that he had been tied up and abused on one of the visits to the home of the murderous clown. John Wayne Gacy He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but his good behavior allowed him to be on the street at 18 months . His wife divorced him and never saw his two children again.
After leaving prison, Gacy returned to Illinois to live with her mother, and in 1971, thanks to the financial help of her mother, she bought a house at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, in an area of Chicago.
Your most macabre crimes
After his time in prison, Gacy was responsible for leaving behind his past and was well received by the inhabitants of the new town where he lived. In fact, he was a kind and loving person because he organized barbecues in his home and disguised himself as a clown to entertain the younger ones and the children who were sick. Few neighbors could imagine the kind of person he was.
In 1972 he married Carole Hoff, but his marriage ended in 1976 because he stated that they had no intimate relationships and had discovered that he took pleasure in adult magazines with homosexual content.
In this town, the killer clown carried out dozens of murders, such as a young man named Darell Samson who went to the house on West Summerdale Avenue and never saw him again alive. During that decade, Gacy continued to abuse, torture, and kill many young people . Some of his victims were Randall Reflett, Samuel Stapleton, William Carroll, Rick Johnston Gregory Godzik ... so up to a total of 33 innocent young people. The youngest of 14 years and the oldest of 21.
His arrest and execution
It was from 1977 when Gacy began to have bad reputation, especially after the disappearance of a boy 19 years, a young man was arrested for driving his vehicle. The young man who was arrested claimed that the car had been sold to him by Gacy. Although Gacy had already received several complaints previously that had not been taken into account, everything changed in 1978, when Jeffrey Rignall, 26, accused him of attacking him with a wet cloth of chloroform. When he woke up, he was immobilized in the cellar of the murderous clown where he was the victim of abuse and torture by Gacy .
After several hours of suffering, Rignall woke up in the middle of a field surrounded by snow, and was very physically damaged. In spite of everything, he managed to leave the place. His ordeal would still last a few months because, although he identified his attacker in a photo, the police did not believe him. He then hired a lawyer who requested the arrest warrant, and even though Gacy was investigated, he was surprisingly released.
Now, he was not so lucky with Robert Piest, his last victim. Since he left several clues and did not take into account that his parents were waiting for him at home and knew that his son had gone to see Gacy. As his son was slow to return, they began to look for him and contacted the police. Several agents went to his house and Gacy did not have time to hide the corpse of the boy who has just strangled .
The police found the bodies in his house and Gacy himself confessed that he had thrown the rest into the river. He was convicted and executed in May 1994.
Possible explanations of the case of the murderous clown
This terrifying case became popular in the United States and is currently being studied in courses and subjects of forensic psychology, along with other cases such as Petiso Orejudo or Beth.
Psychologists have contributed different opinions and explanations to the causes of the personality this serial killer. Some point out the poor relationship with his father who, in addition to being an alcoholic, treated him very badly during his childhood . Others think that the blow he received in the head and the subsequent fainting suffered from the age of 16 had something to do with his macabre behavior. Even some psychoanalysts have suggested that the murder of these young people was the unconscious expression of self-hatred for their own homosexuality, a condition that they never came to terms with.
After his death, Gacy's brain was extracted. But the forensic psychiatrist who examined him, and despite the speculations of many professionals, found no abnormalities that could explain Gacy's violent behavior. This same medical examiner claimed that John Wayne Gacy did not comply with the psychological profile characteristic of a serial killer and Dr. Morrison, who knew John himself and who studied different killers like Ed Gein, is his role as a psychiatrist witness in the case , I affirm that: "Gacy had the emotional structure of a child".
