Case Study- John Wayne Gacy-A Serial Killer

John Wayne Gacy-A Serial Killer

Context

A 15-year-old boy named Robert Piest went missing on December 1978 as reported by his mother. She had come to pick him up from the pharmacy where Robert worked part-time. Robert informed his mother that he was going to visit a man who had offered him another part-time job. After a long time when Robert did not return, his mother contacted the police.

The investigation

The man who offered work to Robert was a local contractor named John Wayne Gacy. The police begin the investigation by interrogating John. The police searched John’s house and asked him the whereabouts of Robert but he denied seeing Robert. John told the police that he was unable to meet him because of a recent death in his family and that he had funeral arrangements to be made.

Evidence found

The police called John to the police station. John was questioned for several hours. His background was also checked and it was revealed that he had criminal record for sexually assaults and a trial waiting for the same. The police obtained a search warrant for John’s house.

The evidences found are as follows:-

• Two school graduation rings

• Marijuana

• Handcuffs

• Two driver’s licenses from two unknown males

• Police badges

• Several articles of teenage boy clothing

• In the trunk of one of John’s vehicles, hair matching with that of Robert was found.

After a detailed investigation, the police discovered that one of the graduation ring belonged to a teenager who had disappeared a year earlier. They also found that John’s former employees had mysteriously gone missing within the last 5 years.

The evidences led John to confess that he did kill someone but claimed that it was done in self-defense. He also told the police that they can find the body under his garage. They searched for the body under the garage and did find the body and also found numerous remains under the crawl space of John’s house.

John then confessed to killing Robert Piest and 33 other young men.

The bodies were searched at John’s house as an archeological dig site. The excavation was done carefully so as to preserve the decomposing remains. It was observed that the bodies were buried in such a way that it looked like a pile of bodies. The carefulness was necessary so as to avoid the mixing of the remains. A total of 26 bodies were found beneath the crawl space.

John told the police that there were several times when he killed more than one person in a day.

John even confessed that he ran out of space to hide the bodily remains and thus he disposed many bodies in the local river. He also complained of back problems from digging the graves.

The bodily remains of Robert Piest were recovered from the local river. He was sexually assaulted and was suffocated to death by stuffing paper towels down his throat.

Examination report of the evidences found

Dr. Clyde Snow, a forensic anthropologist, was hired by the police department for the analysis of the bodily remains recovered from John’s property. Dr. Snow was able to identify the bodies by using the missing reports and the description mentioned on them.

A total of 33 victims, they were identified mostly as either teenage runaways or male prostitutes. Many were identified in this manner but 9 victims were still unidentified. Betty Pat Gatliff, a forensic artist, was called on for conducting facial reconstruction. Soon the reconstructed facial images were released to public for identification but unfortunately no one came forward to identify these 9 victims. They remained unnamed.

Verdict

John was found guilty and was convicted of 33 murders in 1980. He was executed by lethal injection in 1994.

Author:- Srishti Dutta