What happened to John Wayne Gacy? The biggest questions from Netflix's Conversations With A Killer

25 April 2022, 20:50 | Updated: 26 April 2022, 19:41

The John Wayne Gacy Tapes is available to watch on Netflix. Picture: Netflix

By Radio X

Netflix's Conversations With A Killer: The John Gacy Tapes has shocked and horrified true crime fans. Get the biggest questions from the docuseries answered.

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WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS DISTURBING CONTENT WHICH INCLUDES RAPE, TORTURE & MURDER

Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes is the latest true crime documentary to hit Netflix.

The the series tells the chilling and harrowing true story of a serial killer who raped, tortured and murdered at least 33 boys and young men.

In the documentary, we got to hear first hand from Gacy's own words about the crimes he committed.

Watch the trailer for the series and find out the answers to some of the biggest questions surrounding the documentary.

Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes | Official Trailer | Netflix

Who was John Wayne Gacy?

John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer who raped, tortured and murdered at least 33 men and boys. He is also known by the names The Killer Clown and Pogo the Clown.

Where did John Wayne Gacy live?

8213 West Summerdale Avenue. John Wayne Gacy was born in Chicago, Illinois on 17th March 1942. After a short courtship with his first wife, Marilynn Myers, they married in 1964 and moved to Waterloo, Iowa so Gacy could manage the KFC stores her father had bought. Gacy returned to Chicago and bought a house with the help from his mother in 8213 West Summerdale Avenue. It was here where he buried the majority of his victims under a crawl space and here where he lived until his arrest in December 1978.

What were the sodomy laws?

Sodomy laws were the laws across the United States that made certain kinds of sexual activity illegal. Most sodomy laws made both oral and anal sex illegal, but not all states agreed on who could commit the crime.

Illinois was the first American state to repeal its sodomy laws in 1963, where incidentally where Gacy was from.

John Wayne Gacy himself was convicted with 1 count of sodomy of a teenage boy in Iowa in 1968 and was sentenced to ten years, but only served eighteen months.

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS DISTURBING CONTENT WHICH INCLUDES RAPE, TORTURE & MURDER

How did John Wayne Gacy kill his victims?

Gacy would lure his victims back to his home, ply them with drink or drugs and show them a "magic trick" with handcuffs. He would typically start by tying his own hand behind his back and releasing himself with a key he was hiding, before encouraging his victims to do the same. Sadly once his victims were restrained, he would rape, torture and murder them, typically by placing a rope tourniquet around their neck. 26 victims were buried in the crawl space under his home where he poured quicklime to speed up decomposition. Another three were buried elsewhere on the property and four were discarded in the Des Plaines River.

How was John Wayne Gacy found?

It was the investigation into the disappearance of Des Plaines teenager Robert Piest that finally led to John Gacy being arrested in December 1978 at his home at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue. In the '70s it was not uncommon for young teens to be deemed as runaways. However, Piest's disappearance from the Nisson Pharmacy where he worked and the fact it was his mother's birthday that same say raised the most cause for alarm. Plus, witnesses reported that he'd gone to enquire about a job. After the police were satisfied there was no way Piest would have run away from home that day, an investigation was launched. Gacy was named as the contractor most likely to have spoken to a young man about work and a check of Gacy's background revealed his outstanding battery charge as well as the prison sentence he'd previously served for sodomy.