■Murderous Minds■

John Wayne Gacy

TW / WARNING THIS INCLUDES -  Rape / Sexual Assault, And Murder (Obviously.) Please read at your own risk!

The story of John Wayne Gacy is enough to cause even the most hardened serial killer fan to have a hard time sleeping. This prolific serial killer stacked his victims, in some cases quite literally, on a scale that is mostly unmatched amongst other serial killers. The details of his life would make a frighteningly rich novel. Unfortunately for his some 33 victims, John Wayne Gacy was a real life, living breathing monster. Let's take a look at how John Wayne Gacy got started and how his killing career ended.

John Wayne Gacy - Early Life

Gacy was born March 17, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois to an alcoholic, often abusive World War I veteran and a homemaker. He was one of three children. Gacy with born with a heart defect that made it impossible for him to be active in sports, therefore he was an overweight child. of his father's scorn. He reported taking a beating from a razor strop on more than one occasion. As if the beatings weren't enough, Gacy suffered verbal abuse from his father as well. His father told him he was dumb and stupid. Gacy felt he was never good enough for his father.

His mother did her best to protect her child from his violent father. This caused his father to call him a momma's boy and a sissy. Gacy's mother knew her son had a heart problem. . Gacy reports being hospitalized for much of his life from the ages of 14 to 18 due to a mysterious seizure causing illness and a ruptured appendix. In a John Wayne Gacy interview, he reports his father's verbal abuse while sick in a hospital bed. According to Gacy, his father accused him of faking it.

Signs of trouble were present during Gacy's childhood. When he was six, Gacy stole a truck from a store. His mother forced him to take it back and apologize. His father beat him for it. When Gacy was 7, he and another boy were accused of molesting a young girl. This earned him a beating with the trusty razor strop. Also during his 7th year, Gacy was molested by a family friend. Instead of telling his parents, he suffered this in silence out of fear of being blamed for the act by his hateful father.

The most telling sign of something amiss with Gacy takes place around 1962 after he left his abusive home for Las Vegas. In the desert city, John Wayne Gacy took a job as a mortuary assistant. In a later interview, Gacy recalls sleeping behind the embalming room. He tells of a night where he decided to climb inside the coffin of a teenage male and spent some time cuddled up with the body before disgust took over and forced him out.

An Upstanding Member of the Community

John Wayne Gacy was a man of many faces. Before giving into his murderous instincts, he played a role in . He became an assistant precinct captain for his local democratic party candidate. Gacy once said he hoped this decision would gain some acceptance from his father. Instead, his father called him a patsy.

After his short stint as a mortuary assistant, Gacy returned home to Illinois to attended Northwest Business College and graduated in 1963. Not too much time passed before Gacy met his first wife, Marlynn Myers. After a brief courtship, the couple married and moved to Waterloo, Iowa.

Marlynn's father purchased three Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in the area and Gacy became the manager. It was in Waterloo where John Wayne Gacy first joined the Jaycees, an organization that teaches leadership and offers civic opportunities for their members. Gacy quickly became vice president.

At this point in his life, Gacy appeared to be an upstanding member of society. But things weren't all they seemed. The Jaycees had a bit of a dark side. Some members took part in prostitution, wife swapping and rampant drug use. Gacy was involved in all of this. He went as far as to open a club in his basement where young people, especially boys could be plied with alcohol and drugs.