All language subtitles for John.Wayne.Gacy.Devil.in.Disguise.S01E02.WEBRip.x264-ION10

The clowning
was relaxation for me.

I enjoyed entertaining kids.
Like some people are ...

You know they...

They unwind
in different ways,

either going out
drinking or that.

I could put on clown makeup,
and I was relaxed,

and I enjoyed doing it.
It was twice.

It was only twice a month
that I did it.

This was not used then
for a lure to draw kids to you.

No. would
visit different hospitals

and entertain
the children there,

and we didn’t entertain them
with handcuffs

or anything like that.
All we used was balloon animals

and small toys
and stuff like that.

But we also did parades,
and in the summertime,

like on Fourth of July,

I used to be in four parades
in one day.

I always told people,
when I got into clown makeup,

I regressed into childhood.

It was fun being a clown
because you could be yourself

or just let yourself go
and act a fool.

You could be slapstick and funny
and have a good time.

That’s why I always
enjoyed clowning.

Clowning has taken
a bad name, right,

because of what
they’ve used in my case.

Gacy was superconfident
when we first started

our investigation up
until the last maybe 2 1/2 days.

It seemed like months,

but it was only
a 10-day surveillance,

and it was a cat-and-mouse game

between the surveillance team
and Gacy.

At one point,
we were in a restaurant,

and he was telling me
he volunteered as a clown,

and he said to me,
"Dave, if you’re in a parade

and you’re dressed like a clown,

if you see
a nice looking gal,"

he says, "You can put your arm
around her

and get a little feel."
And he says, "You know, Dave,

clowns can get away
with murder."

And the hair on the back
of my head just stood up

because he was so confident

that he would get out
of this crisis he was in.

Gacy appeared to be
an average Joe.

He didn’t look sinister.
Just an average-looking guy,

and I remember thinking, "Could
this guy really be a monster?

Could he have killed
Robert Piest?"

The evidence was that Piest
left work to meet with Gacy

to talk about a job,

so Gacy was thought to be
one of the last people

to have seen Rob Piest.

When Gacy realized
that we were seeking

a second search warrant,

he went so fast
from being superconfident

to really having nothing
to live for,

and we knew he was
about ready to break.

Now, the first
search warrant,

a police officer had opened
the crawl space.

It was a big crawl space.

He looked down there,
didn’t see anything.

But then it became evident

that there might be
more people missing,

and one of the officers
when he was in the house,

he said,

he’d smelled this real putrid
smell coming through the vents.

So once we went and did
the second search warrant,

we’d searched everywhere else,

so we decided,
"Well, let’s dig."

All right.
Is there a flashlight up there?

I was standing, holding a
flashlight over the crawl space

for one of the evidence
technicians,

and he said,
"I think we have something,"

and so we started digging
some more,

and then we found a left femur
with no flesh on it.

So we kept digging,
found another left femur.

Nobody has two left femurs,

and he kept digging
and found a third one,

so we knew we had a lot more
there than we thought.

Everybody stopped.

At that point, when we
discovered the initial bones,

everybody stopped.
We regrouped.

"All right. Let’s see.
What’s the next step?"

When I got to the scene
on Summerdale,

the medical examiner,
Robert Stein, was there,

and I realized that if Stein
was on the scene

in the middle of the night,
this had to be big.

In Des Plaines, Illinois,
near Chicago,

a man who served time in prison
for sex crimes was let out.

Today, they found the bodies of
at least three young boys

buried under his house.

It’s suspected because
of the looks of the area

down in the crawl space,

there are some other mounds
and appears to be more there.

This should not
have happened.

These young men and boys
should still be alive today

had somebody paid any attention
to the warning signs.

Gacy is a 36-year-old
building contractor

who reportedly dressed like
a clown to entertain

at children’s parties.

He once went to prison
for a sex offense in Iowa.

It wasn’t very long
before we realized

that the house on Summerdale

was not the only place we should
look for leads as to Gacy.

I reported on Gacy’s time
in Iowa

where he was
arrested for sodomy.

The picture that was painted
was very, very similar

to what was happening here.

They should have been able
to see what happened in Iowa.

On a historical note,

your Iowa conviction
goes back to ...

What year was that?

1968.
’68. And what was ...

Just in a nutshell,
without getting in too deeply,

what was the basis
of the Iowa conviction?

The basis ...
It was a sodomy conviction.

It’s the only thing

I ever was sentenced
to was the sodomy conviction.

They’re claiming that
the state representative’s son,

who was on the other party,

he claims that
he was sexually abused by me,

and in essence,
he was blackmailing me for it.

Now, what it boils down to
is oral copulation,

and it was consensual.

I’m Karen Kuzma.
My brother was John Wayne Gacy.

The John I knew was good.
He was kind.

He was hardworking.
He did love family.

I keep trying
to put a point in time

when I saw a big change in him,

and in Iowa was where
the big change took place.

When he moved to Iowa, it’s like
there was a different John.

John moved because he met and
married his first wife, Marlynn.

Her father had Kentucky Fried
Chicken businesses in Iowa.

He wanted John to come on
to help him to manage them.

His father-in-law was trying to
build something up for his kids,

and that’s why he wanted John
to be in there with him

to learn the business
so he could carry it on.

When John got there in Iowa,

then he started
with this Jaycee chapter.

Gacy was a very
prominent member

of the Waterloo Junior
Chamber of Commerce,

known as the Jaycees.

These were young business
people priming themselves

to take leadership
in the business community,

which translated into
the leadership in Waterloo.

Those business people

have always had the ear
of the authorities and the mayor

and in a very limited sense,
ruled the town.

John was a recruiter,
probably their best recruiter

from what the Jaycees said.

He got into anything that would
bring him more contacts,

especially if he could
get a foot up.

Gacy pretty much became
the man in the community,

so he was one of their prime
movers,

one of their big leaders.

I moved to Waterloo, Iowa.
I was honored as man of the year

because besides working
full-time I also ...

I was the chaplain
for the Jaycees,

and I also ran
the membership campaign,

and of course
we used pornography.

We had stag shows, and that’s
how we increased the membership

from 150 to 400 members
in that Jaycee chapter.

We were dealing
with porno films,

and we had the girls
set up in a room and that.

So it was the thing to do.

We were boosting membership
from it,

so nobody said a word about it.

Gacy was attempting to get
a cadre of people to engage

in the same kind of activity
that he was engaged in.

What Gacy was doing is saying,
"We’re sexual beings.

We enjoy it,
so let’s revel in it,"

and on certain nights,

after you’ve had
a certain number of beers,

and you’ve watched
some stag films,

maybe that why not
sort of an attitude.

He wanted this to be the norm.

Everybody is involved in sexual
activity outside the marriage,

so why are you looking at me?

We went to visit
John in Iowa.

When we got there, he said,
"I’ve got some plans for us.

I’m a member of the Jaycees,
and I’ve got to go this party."

So we went, and at the end
of the evening, he said,

"I’m not going to be
going home with y’all."

When we were going
to get into the car,

it wasn’t Marlynn and John.

It was her and another guy.
She brought him home instead,

and I guess John
went with his wife.

The next morning,
John came home,

and this guy left
right about the same time,

so I stepped outside with John,
and I told him,

"I cannot believe

that you put us in
that type of awkward situation.

Ron and I are packing up,
and we’re leaving."

I was really, really upset.
I’m not a prude.

I mean, if you’re going to do
something like that,

do it on your own time.

Don’t invite me
and throw it in my face.

When I look back at some of that
switching partners

and all this craziness,
I wonder

if that wasn’t a precursor
to all this other stuff.

John Gacy was a very
dominant personality,

so people did what
he wanted them to do.

He used them as objects and toys
for his sexual gratification.

John was married,
had two children,

and we received a call that
he had been arrested for sodomy.

It was devastating to my father
at that point

because he thought
John had his act together,

and then he gets arrested.

We had a report
that he had coerced a young man,

a minor, Don Voorhees,
to commit a sex act with him.

He was the son of a state
representative in Iowa,

and I thought he was quite brave
as a young man to come forward

and tell his story
to the police.

We had it investigated,

and we brought a charge
of sodomy against John Gacy.

This was a law that had
direct application to mostly men

who required young people
to commit acts of sex on them

or be the recipient
of those sex acts themselves.

At the time he was arrested
for sodomy

of the 16-year-old
youth in Iowa,

Gacy was running for president
of the Jaycees,

the Chamber of Commerce.

He did lots of inspirational
writing for them

about how to manipulate people,

how to inject your ideas
into other people’s minds.

He believed he could talk his
way out of pretty much anything,

and he was successful at it
on many occasions.

It wasn’t just
Donald Voorhees

that had made complaints
against Gacy in Iowa.

When he was able to get these
young boys back into the house,

all he had to do
was to get them into a position

where they’re immobilized,

and then he took
advantage of them.

Gacy thought that
he was above the law.

He obviously thought
that nobody would ever believe

somebody else’s claim
against him.

At the time

this young individual
made the charge at me,

he was blackmailing me.
He wanted more and more money.

He said, "Look.
I gave you a blowjob.

Now you got to pay for this."
I said, "Go see your father."

He wasn’t getting along
with his father,

but they came down heavy on me.

John didn’t feel remorse
about anything.

When he was first arrested
in Iowa,

"It’s not my fault.
It’s the kid’s fault."

He just did not have the
emotional core to feel anything.

He was just kind of a flat line.

As far as my mom
and dad felt,

they believe that John
was getting railroaded

because him and this other guy
were running for office.

The whole thing was over Jaycees
and a political position.

I can’t get into it because
I really don’t understand

whether John was telling
the truth

or not telling the truth,

but my mom and dad,
they were believing it.

They understood the sodomy part,
but they said

he shouldn’t have been charged
because it was consensual.

Gacy dragged out this period
of time between the indictment

and the trial,
and for the next several months,

we kept hearing horror stories
about his attempts to intimidate

and even eliminate
the complaining witness.

We recognized that he had
a certain amount of evil in him

that would come up again
if we didn’t send him to prison.

So we charged him with a series
of additional crimes

which eventually led
to his guilty plea

on the sodomy charge.

On the night
of the sentencing,

we went to see Marlynn,

who was still his wife,
but she had filed for divorce,

and her dad told us
a lot of things

that he had found out
since the arrest.

He felt that John had brought
this pretty much on himself.

He had had complaints
at the restaurants

that he owned about John

being just a little
overly friendly

sometimes with the employees
in wrong ways.

He wasn’t sympathetic
about any of it.

He just wanted John
out of his daughter’s life

and out of the kids’ life.

John Wayne Gacy was sentenced
to serve 10 years

in the men’s reformatory
at Anamosa.

Anamosa is typically
for younger people

who have committed crimes,

and perhaps
through rehabilitation,

we can return them to society
better than when they came in.

This is the men’s reformatory
at Anamosa.

Inside are 629 inmates.

I was 21 years old,
and I was only inside the walls

about a year and a half.
I had one count of forgery

and one count of breaking
and entering, burglary.

The prison itself,
it looks like Ivanhoe’s castle.

To me, that’s the best way
to describe it.

I wouldn’t want to
live there again,

but at least it doesn’t look
like a waiting room for hell.

John Wayne Gacy,

inside the walls,
he was known as Gacy.

I never heard anybody
ever call him John.

"Here comes Gacy recruiting
for the reformatory Jaycees."

He literally went around
talking to people,

basically saying
this is something

that’ll help you pass the time,
and so I joined.

That’s how I met him, and then
we started hanging out together.

We played cards
almost every evening,

always talking about something,

but Gacy lied about
why he was there.

His version of that story
was that he got popped

for showing pornographic movies
to teenagers,

and he certainly
never talked about

any sexual assaults on anybody.

He had this big fat secret
that he had to hold on to

unless he wanted
to leave prison in a box

because that’s what happened
to sexual deviants back then,

and so he’d managed to already
inveigle himself into a position

of pretty significant influence
for an inmate.

I’m John Gacy.
I’m from Waterloo, Iowa.

You’re a man
of some authority here.

What is your title?

Well, I’m first cook
in the kitchen,

and there’s nine cooks
under my direction,

under the supervision
of several supervisors

that are assigned
to the food area.

Of course the kitchen had
some of the most

prestigious jobs in the system,
and Gacy got a lot of privileges

because he gave
a lot of privileges.

When he was cooking
as a chef,

he would curry favor
from the guards

by providing them with the best
steaks and other cuts of meat,

and outside the kitchen,

only the guards
and other administrative people

were white shirts
in the penitentiary,

but he got to wear
a white shirt.

That’s not prison garb, okay?

I mean, it was blue denim then,
and it’s orange now,

which meant that he had an in
in not only the laundry

but the dry cleaning shop.

He received an award
from the national Jaycees

for the best performance
in a prison Jaycee chapter.

That’s John.

It literally was one of
the bigger chapters

in the entire state.

I’m not in any way diminishing
the nature of what John did,

but John had some
good attributes,

one of which was he understood
how to lead people.

Back then, John had read
an article about this couple

who had run this miniature
golf course,

couldn’t afford to keep it up.

John immediately looked at that
and he talks to the warden,

"Oh, this is a great
recreational deal for the guys."

Okay. The warden says, "Fine.
Get on the phone and call him."

He does, and of course
John tells them,

"This is a nonprofit."

He didn’t both to tell them
he was an inmate,

but if you donated
to the reformatory,

it’s a nonprofit,
and you’ll get a tax break.

So the next thing we know,

we’re sending a truck
from prison industries

to pick up the remains
of this golf course.

I do have a smile on my face
because I like clever,

and that’s clever.
His name is anathema now,

but if he’d gone
a different route,

that golf course
would have his name on it.

His time in prison,
I think he talked more

about the meals he made,
the miniature golf course.

You would have thought
that he was down there

remodeling the prison
from the way he talked,

like he was
the head guy down there.

In that closed
little environment,

people like John
have a lot of power.

Human beings don’t
change their nature

when you lock
the door behind them.

They’re still human beings
with all their virtues

and all their faults.

If John Gacy had wanted
somebody snuffed,

he could have gotten it done.
The power was there.

[Lyrics]

Joyful and triumphant
O come ye,

o come ye to Bethlehem

Come and behold him

Christmas at Anamosa,
how do these 629 men observe it?

Well, differently
than we do of course,

but it’s still Christmas.
How about Christmastime?

Do you do anything special
for the guys?

The food service department
on Christmas Eve,

we would serve cookies
and hot chocolate

to the men in the cell house.

[Lyrics]

Glory to God

About a year after John
was in prison,

my dad was sickly, and on
Christmas Day, my dad died.

[Lyrics]

O come, let us adore him

Christ the Lord

John felt he killed dad.

He felt that what he had done
caused dad dying.

We had to try
to convince him dad died

because of his drinking.
That’s what killed dad.

[Lyrics]
Word of the Father

I think it was the shame
that he’d went to prison

that was weighing on his mind

because John had always tried
to win his approval.

[Lyrics]

O come, let us adore him
Christ the Lord

One of the strongest memories
I have of John Gacy

was walking the yard every night
and just talking,

and he was just devastated
by the death of his father

and the fact
that he couldn’t be there.

He felt very strongly that he’d
somehow let his father down.

That’s the only time
I ever saw him cry

was talking about his dad.

How about your dad, John?

You had mentioned that you could
never really please him,

that he had talked of you
in a derogatory terms.

And I did not hate ...
I didn’t hate my dad either.

But you did have
a hard upbringing with him,

did you not?

My dad came from the old
country, limited education,

but he was a good provider

and with strong will
and strong views.

He was also an alcoholic,
sorry to say.

Was he abusive? Did he strike
out at you from time to time?

When he drank, he was
almost like a different person.

My dad struck all of
his children all the time.

Yeah.

John was usually his target.

Dad thought my mother
kind of mollycoddled him,

that she babied him,

and when he drank too much,
John got the brunt of it.

After dad passed away,
my mom called me, and she said,

"We’re going to try
to get John home

because I’m just by myself,"
and she was invalid.

A lot of things
she couldn’t do for herself.

So she got in touch
with a friend

who knew different people
here in Illinois,

and he helped her
writing letters,

and they finally
got through to Iowa.

I’ve been here now
about a year and 2 weeks.

How long do you plan
to take up residence here?

Well, I hope to be
getting out sometime in May.

Because of John’s record
of being a model prisoner,

they felt that
he was rehabilitated,

and so at 18 months,
he came home.

The judge gave him
the 10-year sentence,

which was the most
he could give him,

but it did go unheeded
by the Iowa Parole Authority,

whoever they are, because they
allowed him parole after a year

and a half with his white shirt
and cooking for the warden

and building a junior golf

course
in front of the penitentiary,

and Illinois accepted
his parole.

I think possibly some money
changed hands,

but all the actors are dead,

and so really it
is a closed issue.

We both ended up

being essentially
released the same day,

and he said, "Well, if you’re
ever in Chicago, look me up.

I’ll take you out to dinner."

The last time I talked to him
was literally at the front door.

From a law enforcement
standpoint, I am sorry

that there was no transfer
of information about this man.

That’s the part
that really bothers me.

Our system was developed
to the point

that we tracked people
who were on parole.

We just didn’t do it,

but we sure had a mountain
of information on the man

that would have been extremely
helpful to the communities

in which he eventually landed.

After fooling authorities
that,

"Oh, he’s fine. He’s cured,"

Gacy was free again
to come back to Chicago,

but Gacy was not fine at all.

The Iowa State Psychopathic
Hospital it

was called at the time

did a complete work-up of Gacy
as a sex offender

before the sentencing in that
case which essentially says,

"This guy is a sexual
psychopath.

There is absolutely no treatment
of any kind

that is going to cure this guy.
For the rest of his life,

he’s going to remain
a dangerous sexual predator."

Gacy’s psychiatric evaluation
clearly said,

"This man will continue
to commit crimes."

Somebody somewhere really
screwed the pooch on this one

because they had
every warning sign.

When you paroled out,
where did you set up

establishing your residency?
I was ...

Under the interstate compact,
I was paroled back to Illinois.

Mm-hmm.

And you went to Springfield
first, did you not?

No.
No?

Directly to Chicago ...
Directly to Chicago.

... because I had a job
working at Bruno’s Restaurant.

That was a requirement
of interstate compact transfer.

You had to have a job
and a place to stay.

I moved in with my mother
in the condominium.

My dad had just passed away.

So I lived with my mother
and worked at Bruno’s as a chef.

Bruno’s was a pizza place
but also an Italian restaurant,

and John did like his job.

I think that he liked the hobnob
of being with other people.

He had a whole new life
of meeting people

that probably would have
never been in his life

had he not been working
at the restaurant.

When I first got out on parole,
for the next 2 years,

I stayed with
Bruno’s Restaurant,

and I worked for them,

but on the side,
I used to work for ...

I used to go in at 4
in the morning

and get off at 2 o’clock
in the afternoon,

and to me, that was too short
of a day, not enough work,

so I started
doing odd jobs painting,

and I found that
on the weekends,

the afternoons and the weekends,

I was making more money
than I was as a chef

even though I was getting
12 something an hour.

I borrowed $600 from my mother,

and through odd jobs,
I left the chef business.

He started kicking out this
little remodeling type business.

He went to construction
and repairs

and rebuilding and remodeling.
He just wanted to be successful.

He wanted to be known
for something.

I owned PDM Contractors.

PDM was able to work 52 weeks
out of the year.

While most construction
companies shut down

for the winter,
I never had time to shut down

because I had them
on a waiting list.

Our business was growing
at that rapid rate.

After prison, mom and John
got along at first.

His wife went on her way
with the kids.

He never tried to contact her
or anything,

and then John started talking to
mom about getting a bigger place

because he needed
to have a garage.

He needed more space
to run a business.

He couldn’t do it from a condo.

Well, lo and behold,
mom went ahead without us

and sold it,

bought a house that he
picked out on Summerdale.

Norwood Park
is where they moved to.

Norwood Park Township
was bungalows of people,

small single-family houses,

the good working class
people of Chicago.

This is where they lived.

That’s what
Norwood Park Township was like.

That Summerdale house
was rented to PDM Contractors,

and the living room
was the front office.

The dining room of that house
was like a board room

because it was
an 8-by-10-foot table

with big captain’s chairs

because we used it
as a board room for meetings.

John was happy because
it was going to be

where he could start a business,
and mom was happy.

I think she was happy to be back
in a house again,

but all of it seemed
kind of short-lived

because my girlfriend Carole
got to dating him.

Carole was my best friend
through high school

and always kind of had
a little thing for John,

and the next thing I know it,
they’re getting married.

I was really happy because
Carole really needed somebody,

and John needed somebody.

I always told him
I always felt him as a brother.

The day we got married,
that was our big ...

that was a big joke.

He did all the food
and everything and setup.

We had the party at the house.

I was introduced
to John in 1972

and asked to photograph
his wedding.

It was a nice affair,
very small, very low-key.

I photographed it all
in black and white.

He was a good groom that day.

During the wedding,
he was dignified,

and Carole was beautiful.

Her two little girls,
John’s stepdaughters,

stood up in the wedding,
little flower girls.

He was always good
to the girls.

I can’t say enough about that.

I mean, the girls
still refer to him as their dad.

John was settling again.

He moved Carole
and her children in,

and then he moved the mother in,
Carole’s mother,

and then of course
he had mom living there,

but she didn’t want to interfere
because of their marriage

and everything,
a new marriage,

and she just felt it’d be better
if she was back on her own,

and so he got her an apartment
in a building

where he was doing maintenance
on Miami

not too far from the house.
When mom moved out,

she just said things
weren’t getting along,

but that’s all she said.
She didn’t say anything else.

Mom protected John all the time,
all the time.

One time she said
that she’d come home one night,

and it was totally dark
in her apartment,

and when she turned
on the light,

found him there with another man
in her living room.

It scared the daylights
out of her.

She didn’t know
what was going on.

It just scared her,
and I asked her

if she ever found out
what that was all about.

She said,
"Oh, it was just nothing."

She did try to protect him.
There was no doubt in my mind

that she probably
carried secrets

that she went to the grave with.

The media says ...

has called you
a homosexual killer.

What is your position
on homosexuality?

I have nothing against it.
I’m an outspoken liberal.

I don’t care for the labeling.

I don’t care for any labeling
for that fact. I’ve been ...

Do you claim to be a ...
No.

Do you claim homosexuality?

No, I would definitely
not be homosexual.

I have nothing against
what they do,

and I don’t deny that
I’ve engaged in sex with males,

but I’m bisexual.

You’re bisexual?
Right. I ...

my preference is women.

Mm-hmm.

And I’ve been married
enough times

and have children,
and I see nothing wrong with it.

He always told me
he was bisexual.

I didn’t know anything about the
sodomy from when he was Iowa.

I didn’t know the full story.
That’s why it didn’t hit me

like,
"Oh, my god. He was in prison."

He just said he was dealing with
pornography. That was his story.

After having the wedding
pictures, John always called me

for doing various
little photographic jobs

as well as some
of the construction work.

Anything he needed pictures of,
I was there to do it,

or if there was a wall
to be knocked down,

I was there to do it.

So I photographed him
as Pogo the Clown.

I photographed his stepchildren.

I photographed his family
for their Christmas cards.

John was a master
at saying something

without coming right out
and saying it.

But if you took offense to it,
he would always have an out.

He once said to me,

"There’s money to be made
in photographing homosexuals,"

and I assumed, knowing John,

that there was going to be
something sideways about this,

either sleazy or maybe
just downright illegal.

He said to me,
"What? How dare you say

that I should
photograph homosexuals

engaging in illicit behavior.
I didn’t say that at all.

I just meant taking dignified
portraits of homosexuals.

What’s wrong with that?

There’s no illegality
or immorality in that."

Well, of course there isn’t,

but he always
left himself an out.

He was very careful
the way he used his words.

John didn’t like if anybody
called him a homosexual,

but I guess he preferred men
more than he did women.

I didn’t realize how much
of that was going on.

My dad had
conservative values.

If you were out after midnight,
you were up to no good.

My dad did not believe it.
If you were out after dark

and you didn’t leave
a phone number,

you were up to no good.

So I think that’s why I tended
to go that way more,

just to be the opposite of him.

I used to make comments
when he would go out at night,

and when I would make
these comments and say,

"You know, anybody that’s
going out at midnight

is up to no good,"

so this is when I was getting
aggravated with him though.

This was ...

we were married
already maybe about 2 years,

and he said,
"You sound like my father."

I said, "Good.
I hope it haunts you."

I don’t think I ever
slept a lot really.

Our bedroom was right
by the drive as you come in,

and there were times
I’d hear the car

and thinking he’s coming in,
never heard the door open.

So I’d get up,
and I would nosy around.

His car would be parked,

and he’d be maybe standing
and talking to somebody,

and it was always
a young kid.

I thought really he was
dealing with drugs.

It’s like a Grand Central
Station all night long.

I had gone to the garage
one day when he was gone,

and I knew he’d be gone
for a long period of time,

and there was a red light
up on the wall.

He had heavy chains
laying on the side

and a blanket on the floor,

and then the one time
I was in his car,

I reached under the seat
and found a big crowbar

and a couple of other ...
and I’m like, "What in the heck

are you carrying a crowbar
in your car for?"

He says, "What the hell
are you doing in my car?"

I said, "I was cleaning it."

I felt like I was living
in this ...

that it was some
kind of a movie,

and of course
there was Mother’s Day,

which last time we had any ...
anything to do with one another.

He said, "Happy Mother’s Day,

and this is the last time
that we’re having sex."

I said, "Oh, really?"

Well, with all the stuff
that was going on,

and I felt that
he was lying to me,

I had made an appointment to go
and see a lawyer

because I didn’t want
to live like that anymore.

I was married twice,

and just because I didn’t get
along in the marriages ...

My marriages
went down the drain

only because I was a workaholic
working 7 days a week and that.

Years later, Carole finally
opened up to me,

and she said she really felt
that he was making things bad

so she’d leave,

and I guess I could understand
that knowing what I know today.

He was definitely
leading two lives.

Even though he wanted
the happiness,

something kept driving him
toward the other side.

The day that I walked out
of that house,

he said, "One day,
you’re going to read about me

on the front pages
of the newspapers."

Even being married to him, there
was a lot that I didn’t know.

Gacy employed
mostly young men,

and they would party
at the house.

Not only his friends
liked to party there,

so did his employees.

That was their home away
from home and source

of all kinds of marijuana,
drugs, uppers, pills, booze.

And people often asked him
why he would employ

all these inexperienced
young men.

He’d developed relationships
with lots of them.

There were the lost souls,

the kids that had
no aim in life.

They had nowhere else to go.
If they needed a flop somewhere,

well, they knew
they could count on John.

There was 12 keys
out to the house.

Twelve sets of keys?

Twelve sets of keys.

Anybody working for
PDM Contractors

had a set of keys for the house

so you could come
and go when you wanted,

and of course my neighbors
would keep me informed.

They would inform me,

"God, while you were
out of town,

they must have been partying
all night there."

At that point, John is alone.

Sometime later, Michael Rossi
came to live with John.

Who is Rossi?

Michael Rossi was
an employee of PDM.

Mm-hmm. And how old was he
at the time? Who was he?

He was 20 years old.

Michael Rossi was
a handsome kid, polite.

He just struck me
as just a nice kid

who wouldn’t be involved
in anything unseemly.

If John and Michael
got something from another,

the obvious thing right
on the surface of it:

Michael got work.

John got his walls
knocked down for cheap.

Michael got room and board.

John got some form
of companionship.

John told me that Michael
Rossi is really good

with helping
keep his crews working.

He could count on him
to do things.

When he ordered it,
it would get done,

but I know Carole
didn’t care for him.

We just couldn’t
put our finger on why.

I learned later their connection
was not only business.

It was also personal and sexual.

There was more than one
person that was in that

some kind of relationship.

David Cram was one of those
people who worked for John

sometimes
as a construction person.

He worked in the bedroom.
They had a sexual relationship.

He collected checks
from John’s company.

He got to borrow John’s car.

It’s the same setup
where you give me something,

I’ll give you something.

Insofar as being bisexual,
if I wanted to engage in sex,

Rossi and Cram were willing to
go down on me anytime I wanted,

providing they were given stuff.

Those two guys were around
and in the house a lot.

The very first time
I met Rossi and Cram,

I just said to John,
"Those two are bad news."

John Wayne Gacy, a popular
Democratic precinct captain,

emerged as a person of interest
in a missing persons case.

Robert Piest was only
15 years old.

He disappeared after applying
for a job with Gacy.

Throughout the entire
investigation,

Gacy was always talking
about suing

the Des Plaines
Police Department for harassment

and interfering
with his freedom.

So he calls in Sam Amirante,
who was just leaving

the public defender’s office
at this time,

and they sue for harassing him
with the surveillance.

Sam Amirante and John
Wayne Gacy

had known each other
from Norwood Park

Township political circles.

Gacy was a member
of the electric board,

and Amirante did
some legal work for them.

He had just hung out his shingle
as a criminal defense attorney,

and so when Gacy needed a favor,

is the way he put it,
he called Amirante.

John Gacy was Sam Amirante’s
first private client.

Yeah, that’s one hell of a way
to start your career

in private practice.

Most of our work, obviously,

as surveillance team
was outside.

So Gacy is in
the attorney’s office,

and the next thing we know,

it’s 3 o’clock in the morning
or something like that.

One of the attorneys
comes out the front door

and waves Mike over and says,

"Hey. I know
it’s super cold out there.

Why don’t you guys come on in?

It’s too brutal for you guys
to be out there all night."

Seeing what led up
to this point,

we talked to each other
and said,

"You think maybe he confessed
to his attorneys,

and they’re a little concerned
that they’re in there

with him all by himself?"

And that’s a darn
good possibility.

So we decided, "Okay. We’ll come
in there under one condition.

We have to be able to see Gacy."

So they get us
a couple chairs, and they’re,

"Whatever you guys want,
we’ll get for you."

They bring a bottle
of booze out here.

"Have a drink on us," and just
couldn’t do enough for us.

And we still hadn’t seen Gacy.

The attorneys gingerly
bring Gacy out,

and he looked like
he was the walking dead.

His eyes were closed.
He was slouched over,

and it looked like
he was actually sleeping.

So he laid him
on the front couch.

We could see him
through the glass,

and we were talking
to the attorneys

about what we have seen over
this 10 days of following him,

and this guy is dangerous.

We both had this kind of look
on our face

and stepped back and said,

"Well, just be careful
because when he wakes up,

you never know
what he’s going to do.

We’ve been told
that he gets very violent.

He can hurt people and is
very erratic when he wakes up."

And they get this very shocked
look on their face.

Their eyes were like
the size of saucers.

Believe this or not,
the attorney said,

"Guys, if he tries to leave,
shoot his tires out.

We can’t tell you anything.
Stop it. Don’t let him leave."

So there was something
very urgent on their minds.

Well, about, I don’t know,
7:30 or 8 in the morning,

Gacy gets up.

He jumps up off this couch,
stares straight ahead.

He had this wild man
look in his eyes,

flung the door open,
jumped in his car and took off.

We were in hot pursuit on foot
to get to our cars

so we could follow him
and not lose him.

His first stop was
a gas station, a Shell station.

Goes into the gas station,
and he’s double handshaking

and showing some emotion
with the owner.

Gacy didn’t do
that kind of thing,

so that was kind of strange.

It really looks almost like
he’s saying his last goodbyes,

and at one point,
he pulls out a ...

we could see from a distance,

it looked like
a bag of marijuana,

and put it in the pocket
of this young man,

the attendant. And again,
he took off like a madman.

We decided Mike
would follow Gacy,

and I would go
in the gas station.

As soon as I walked
in the gas station,

this kid took the marijuana
out of his pocket

and just about threw it at me
and said,

"Hey, I didn’t buy this.
I didn’t ask for it.

He just gave it to me. He says
he’s given his stuff away."

We went from the gas station.

We didn’t know
where we were going.

We ended up
at David Cram’s house.

So he pulls up.
He goes into Cram’s house.

They both come out.
David Cram comes over to me

and asks if it’s all right
if he drives Gacy’s car.

I said, "I don’t care if you’ve
got a driver’s license.

Don’t drive like an idiot,

and you won’t have
any problem from us."

So they drive from Cram’s
house over to Di Leo’s
restaurant

in the Chicago area,
and Gacy goes in,

and then all of a sudden Cram
jumps out of his car

and comes over to us and says,

"Gacy just told me
he killed 33 kids."

I realized the magnitude
of this case at that point,

and Cram is saying that Gacy
is going to try to kill himself.

He was going to go to his
father’s grave at a cemetery,

and he was going
to commit suicide.

But Dave obviously had
a bag of marijuana,

so okay, let’s just take him
on a marijuana

and see what happens from there.

I grab Gacy.
I pull him out of the car

and throw him up
against the trunk,

and pretty much yell at him
that he’s under arrest,

and that was just
for the marijuana,

and we knew that
the investigators were seeking

a second search warrant.

And we put handcuffs on him
and put him

in the back of our car
and drove to the station,

and shortly after
being at the station,

Gacy complained of chest pains,

so they took him
to the emergency room

at the Holy Family hospital.
They told him at the hospital,

just give him
the whole screening.

Do whatever you got to do.

They wanted him there
as long as they could

until they got executed
on the second search warrant.

Mike stays back
at the station,

and I go up, sit with Gacy,

and not long after
we were there, I said,

"Hey, there’s a call for you,
Dave," so I got on the phone.

It was Captain Kozenczak over
at Gacy’s house, and he said,

"Hey, we just executed
the second search warrant.

We went in the crawl space,

and the very first shovel
of dirt that we dug into,

we found bones down there,
human remains."

So at that point is
when I arrested Gacy for murder.

Gacy had been a successful
building contractor

at the time of the discovery.

... volunteer
at the local Jaycees

who entertained children
as Pogo the Clown.

He is charged with murder.

... killed as many
as 32 teenage boys.

This grim investigation
is expected to last ...

It’s almost a sense of being
in shock and disappointment.

We were so hopeful
that somehow Rob Piest

would be found alive somewhere,

but at this point, we realized
that wasn’t going to happen.

Certainly there was a cost of
Gacy’s early release

from prison at Anamosa

because had he done
his full sentence,

he would have been
in prison until ’78.

The crimes never
would have happened,

and there would have been
a lot less people

that would have been affected
by John Wayne Gacy.

Gacy’s dark secrets, the fact
that this was a house of death,

a house of horror,
was not known.

They have found
the decomposed remains

in the dirt crawl space
underneath Gacy’s house.

They expect to find many more.

The minute authorities
realized

that there were bodies buried

and they started prying up
the floorboards,

that’s when the secrets
of John Wayne Gacy

started to pour
out of that house.