John Wayne Gacy

The backstory

The disappearance of Robert Piest

Robert Piest, 15, worked at the Nisson Pharmacy in Des Plaines, Illinois.¹ On the evening of Dec. 11, 1978, he told his mother he would be back in a few minutes; according to the Illinois Supreme Court’s statement of facts, “He was never again seen alive.”¹ Gacy, a building contractor, had spent much of that evening in the pharmacy, and his truck was seen outside at about the time Piest disappeared.¹ The Des Plaines police suspected him, and the complaint for a search warrant noted his 1968 sodomy conviction in Iowa.¹

The searches

Police searched Gacy’s home under a warrant issued Dec. 13, 1978.¹ Among the 57 items seized were a receipt for film left to be developed at the Nisson pharmacy, found in a wastebasket, and a Maine West High School class ring that belonged to John Szyc, who had been reported missing.¹ A car previously owned by Szyc was also linked to Gacy.¹ A second warrant, issued Dec. 21, 1978, authorized a search of the house for Piest’s remains.¹ The Illinois Supreme Court later upheld both warrants as supported by probable cause.¹

The confessions and the recovery of the victims

By the court’s account, Gacy admitted to police that he had killed “approximately 30 individuals,” some buried in the crawl space under his home and five thrown into the Des Plaines River.¹ Excavation of the crawl space and the area around the house recovered 29 bodies, and four more were recovered from the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers.¹ Police officers and an assistant state’s attorney testified at trial about his confessions; according to that testimony he said that all of his victims had come to his house voluntarily.¹ The federal appeals court summarized the record this way: between 1972 and 1978 Gacy lured young men to his home, and the victims were tied up or handcuffed and then strangled or choked.³ Medical experts testified that the official cause of death for the bodies with material in the mouth or throat was “asphyxia due to suffocation,” and that one body showed injuries consistent with stab wounds.¹

The victims named in the court record

The court opinions reviewed for this page name four of the 33 victims of the murders of conviction; the full list, drawn from later news accounts and the Cook County Sheriff’s identifications, is in the victims list on this page.¹¹⁴

Robert Piest. Gacy told police that Piest came to discuss a job, according to the court’s summary of his confession, and that he handcuffed him and strangled him with a rope.¹ The court noted that Piest “did not fit the pattern” of the other victims as Gacy described it.¹

John Szyc. Szyc had been reported missing before the December 1978 search; his class ring was found in Gacy’s home, and he “was later discovered to be one of defendant’s victims,” the court wrote.¹ In his confession, by the officers’ account, Gacy said he killed Szyc after Szyc asked him for more money.¹

John Butkavitch. Gacy told police he killed Butkavitch because Butkavitch threatened to kill him if he was released from his handcuffs, according to the court’s summary.¹ (The opinion spells the name Butkavitch.)

Greg Godzik. Godzik is named in the court’s account of the confessions.¹ The opinions reviewed give no further detail about him that the court relied on.

Relatives and friends of victims testified at trial about their lives, including that some had steady girlfriends or plans to marry.¹ The opinions reviewed do not name the remaining victims; names identified later by the Cook County Sheriff are listed under “What came after.”

The trial

The trial was moved for jury selection: the jury was selected in Winnebago County and heard the case in Cook County.¹ Judge Louis Garippo presided.³⁸ Sam Amirante was Gacy’s lead trial lawyer, and William Kunkle and Assistant State’s Attorney Terry Sullivan were among the prosecutors.³⁹⁸ The state told the jury the murders were premeditated and rational.¹ Witnesses who had known or worked for Gacy testified, among other things, that he had said he killed about 30 people.¹

Gacy did not testify.³ His lawyers’ opening statement said the evidence would show “a profound, incredible obsession,” and that insanity “is the only defense that we could use here.”¹ After his confession, by the officers’ account, he had spoken of “four Johns” and of a personality he called “Jack,” telling them, “Jack does not like homosexuality.”¹ Jeffrey Rignall, called by the defense, testified that Gacy had chloroformed, restrained and assaulted him, and said he believed Gacy was not sane at the time; another defense witness testified that Gacy had struck him with a hammer.¹

The insanity defense

The defense called six mental health experts, four psychiatrists and two psychologists.³ According to the Illinois Supreme Court’s summary of their testimony:

• Thomas Eliseo, a clinical psychologist, testified that Gacy “lacked the substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law”; on cross-examination he conceded that his assessment of Gacy’s condition at the time of the crimes was “a guess.”¹
• Dr. Lawrence Freedman, a psychiatrist, diagnosed him as “a pseudo-neurotic paranoid schizophrenic” but declined to give an opinion on whether he was legally insane.¹
• Dr. Robert Traisman, a psychologist, testified that because of paranoid schizophrenia Gacy “had a minimal amount of control over his actions”; on cross-examination he agreed that Gacy knew his acts were wrong.¹
• Dr. Richard Rappaport, a psychiatrist, testified that Gacy was “borderline” with psychosexual disorders and described brief psychotic episodes.¹
• Dr. Tobias Brocher did not give an opinion on legal responsibility under the Illinois standard; Dr. Helen Morrison testified that Gacy was not legally responsible for his actions.¹

The state’s experts, the court wrote, “all testified that defendant was suffering only from a personality defect, that he was never psychotic,” and that he was legally responsible under the Illinois standard.¹ Dr. A. Arthur Hartman diagnosed an antisocial personality; Dr. Robert Reifman diagnosed a narcissistic personality disorder and said Gacy was feigning mental illness; and Dr. James Cavanaugh described “pervasive narcissism, with an obsessive compulsive quality.”¹ Dr. Leonard Heston testified that he could not conclude that Gacy was unable to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.¹ In rebuttal the state also called witnesses from Iowa, who described earlier incidents of violence and sexual coercion by Gacy there.¹

The verdict

The jury rejected the insanity defense and convicted Gacy in March 1980 of 33 counts of murder.³ It also found him guilty of deviate sexual assault and indecent liberties with a child; the aggravated kidnaping count had been dismissed.¹ After the verdict, Sullivan told reporters that “the jury rejected any evidence of any insanity evidence,” and the judge ordered the jury to return for a death penalty hearing, the Michigan Daily reported.⁸

The death sentences

The state sought death only for the 12 murders committed after the Illinois death penalty provision was enacted; the federal appeals court described these as the only 12 the prosecution could prove occurred after the law took effect.¹³ At the sentencing hearing, all of the trial evidence was admitted by stipulation.² The defense used the psychiatric evidence to argue that Gacy had acted while under extreme mental or emotional disturbance.² The jury found “the existence of one or more of the statutory aggravating circumstances” and that there were no mitigating factors sufficient to preclude death, and it returned death sentences on the 12 counts.²¹ He received natural life sentences on the other murder counts.¹ The opinions reviewed for this page do not say which statutory aggravating factor or factors the jury found.

The appeals

On June 6, 1984, the Illinois Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Goldenhersh, affirmed the convictions and death sentences.¹ It upheld the search warrants, rejected claims about the confessions, jury selection and pretrial publicity, and held that the jury was not required to find him insane: the evidence “amply supports the verdict.”¹ The U.S. Supreme Court declined review in 1985.³

In 1988 the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of his post-conviction petition.² It rejected the claim that his lawyers should have presented more mitigation at sentencing, such as evidence of a traumatic childhood, family relationships, business and civic success and good behavior in jail, noting that “much of this evidence was actually presented at trial.”² It found that the trial judge had erred in barring the defense experts from repeating Gacy’s statements to them, but that the error was harmless because the experts still explained the basis of their opinions.² It rejected the rest of his claims, including 43 he raised himself.²

In 1993 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of federal habeas relief.³ It held that a misreading of the jury instruction on mitigating factors was not prejudicial, that jury selection was adequate, and that he had not shown his lawyers forced the insanity defense on him or were compromised by book and publicity income.³ The court wrote that “Gacy’s only real choice was between an insanity defense and a guilty plea,” and that he “received a skillful, vigorous defense by lawyers who were prepared to the nines.”³ On May 9, 1994, the same court refused to stay the execution on a second habeas petition, calling it an abuse of the writ.⁴

The execution

Gacy was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center and pronounced dead at 12:58 a.m. on May 10, 1994; the procedure was delayed by a clog in the tubing, the Associated Press reported.⁹ State Corrections Director Howard Peters said Gacy’s last words were that taking his life would not compensate for the loss of the others and that this was the state murdering him.⁹ William Kunkle, the trial prosecutor, witnessed the execution.⁹

What came after

In 2011 Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart reopened the effort to identify the victims whose remains had never been named.⁷ Through DNA comparison with relatives, the sheriff’s office identified:

• William George Bundy, Victim No. 19, born Oct. 22, 1957, who went missing in October 1976 around his 19th birthday; announced Nov. 29, 2011.⁵
• James “Jimmie” Byron Haakenson, Victim No. 24, who left his home in St. Paul, Minnesota, at 16 and last called his mother from Chicago on Aug. 5, 1976; announced July 19, 2017.⁶
• Francis Wayne Alexander, Victim No. 5, who was 21 or 22 when he was killed sometime between early 1976 and early 1977; announced Oct. 25, 2021.⁷

In 2021 the sheriff’s office said five victims remained unidentified.⁷

Personal backstory

Early life

Gacy was born in Chicago on March 17, 1942.¹⁰ At trial his mother testified that he was an unhealthy baby who was not expected to live, that his father was violent, and that her son had begged her not to take him for a psychiatric referral.¹ His sister testified that their father had “a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type personality.”¹ The sources reviewed say little about his schooling.

Iowa

According to the 1978 search warrant complaint quoted by the Illinois Supreme Court, Gacy was “arrested and convicted in Waterloo, Iowa in 1968 for Sodomy and sentenced to 10 yrs. in prison,” and “The Sodomy arrest involved 15 and 16 year old youths.”¹ The sources reviewed do not give the date of his release.

Work and public life

Gacy worked as a building contractor in the Chicago area.¹ The Associated Press described him as a successful remodeling contractor, a Democratic precinct captain and an amateur clown named Pogo.⁹ His second wife testified at trial about a smell from the crawl space under the house.¹ Other defense witnesses described him as boastful but not antisocial, and said he often complained of ailments that did not appear to exist.¹

Mental health

No court found that Gacy was legally insane.¹ The defense experts’ diagnoses, the state experts’ contrary findings and the jury’s rejection of the insanity defense are set out above under “The insanity defense.”¹ Shortly before his execution, his lawyers argued that he could not assist them; the Seventh Circuit rejected the claim because they offered no medical or psychological evidence for it.⁴

On death row

His appeals delayed the execution for 14 years, the Associated Press reported.⁹ On death row he recanted his confession, the Associated Press reported.⁹ In a 1990 affidavit quoted by the Seventh Circuit, he said he “couldn’t believe that anyone could go insane 33 different times.”³ After his execution his body was to be cremated at his family’s request.⁹