Gacy Quotes

The biggest problem with true crime has always been its imbalance of villains to heroes. True crime is full of supervillains: Manson, Bundy, Gacy. But the superheroes are rarely acknowledged.

But Billy had done good deeds all the time. So had John Wayne Gacy, and dozens of others. It didn’t matter. It was all part of the disguise. Jazz realized that he couldn’t trust even his noblest impulses. They might not be genuine. They might just be camouflage.

Few would disagree that Herbert Mullin, who thought he was saving California from the great earthquake by killing people, and Ed Gein, who was making chairs out of human skin, were entirely insane when they committed their acts. The question becomes more difficult with somebody like law student Ted Bundy, who killed twenty women while at the same time working as a suicide prevention counselor, or John Wayne Gacy, who escorted the first lady and then went home to sleep of thirty-three trussed-up corpses under his house. On one hand their crimes seem "insane," yet on the other hand, Bundy and Gacy knew exactly what they were doing. How insane were they?

It’s always the most patriotic asshole in the room that has absolutely no concept of what patriotism actually means.

With apologies to Judy Garland and Cole Porter, all the world does NOT love a clown. John Wayne Gacy might have been the final nail in the coffin in terms of anyone associating clowns with funny (if a bunch of clowns die, do they all fit into one coffin?)

Maybe we should stop putting pot smokers, prostitutes, and petty thieves in prison and leave some room for the John Wayne Gacys of the world. Enough said?

You know... clowns can get away with murder!" — John Wayne Gacy

L.A. was the John Wayne Gacy of cities, smothering its children with a toxic beach towel of poisoned air, mindless growth, and bad values.

I lead a double life. I'm John Wayne Gacy. I present myself in potentially awkward social situations as a laughing, colorful clown to gain your regard. If you ask my friends and neighbors, they will tell you I'm "normal" and that I "keep to myself." Meanwhile, there's a crawlspace in the basement where I've buried my secrets. It's starting to get pretty crowded down there, but they are mine. And there they'll stay.

If the Constitution says one thing and our emotions say another, the Constitution should be followed rather than the emotion, every single time. It is that very Constitution that protects those rights that we like to call inalienable.

But Bachmann’s efforts to strut her IQ were undermined by gaffes galore. In New Hampshire, she hailed the state for being “where the shot was heard round the world in Lexington and Concord.” (That blast emanated from Massachusetts.) On June 27, the day of her official announcement in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, Bachmann proclaimed in a Fox News interview that “John Wayne was from Waterloo.” (Wayne was in fact from Winterset, Iowa; serial killer John Wayne Gacy was from Waterloo.) From now on, her son Lucas razzed his mother, “you can’t say George Washington was the first president unless we Google that shit first.

John Wayne Gacy is obsessively fond of defending his innocence, which is imaginary. On March 12, 1980, he was convicted in Chicago of killing thirty-three boys. The murders took place between 1972 and 1978, when he was caught and arrested. No one else in America has ever been convicted of killing so many people. Twenty-seven of the bodies were buried in a crawl space beneath the house where Gacy lived,

During one of his activities as director of Chicago’s annual Polish Constitution Day Parade, Gacy met and was photographed with the then First Lady, Rosalynn Carter, on May 6, 1978. The famous photograph even has her autograph, an embarrassing reminder to the Secret Service – who gave special clearance to Gacy – that they still had a bit to learn, once they found out who and what John Wayne Gacy truly was.

Dahmer was as manipulative and calculating as the other killers we've covered in this book, demonstrating a keen understanding of how to evade capture the vast majority of his victims were Black men, not because Dahmer was exclusively attracted to the them but because he knew that police were much less likely to investigate their disappearances. In this, he was absolutely correct, harkening back to the "less dead" theory we discussed in Gacy's case. When you add gay and poor to that victim profile as many of Dahmer's victims were, you've got the perfect trifecta of investigative apathy.

In any discussion of serial killers, a few notorious names—those of the most prolific killers—always get mentioned. Ted Bundy admitted to killing thirty women, but it could well have been more. Gary Ridgeway, also known as the Green River Killer, was convicted of murdering forty-eight, but later confessed to others. John Wayne Gacy was convicted of killing thirty-three people. Jeffrey Dahmer was convicted of murdering and partially ingesting fifteen people. David Berkowitz, New York City’s “Son of Sam,” shot and killed six people. Less well known but significant are Dennis Rader, who killed ten people in Wichita, Kansas, and Aileen Wuornos, portrayed by Charlize Theron in the film Monster, who killed six men. Wayne Williams was convicted of killing only two men, but he is believed to have killed anywhere from twenty-three to twenty-nine children in Atlanta. Robert Hansen confessed to four murders but is suspected of more than seventeen. Juan Corona was convicted of murdering twenty-five people. Their crimes are all horrific, and the number of victims is heartbreaking. But all these most notorious serial killers stand in the shadow of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Strangely, Gosnell appears in no list we have found of known U.S. serial killers, though he is the biggest of them all. In reality, Kermit Gosnell deserves the top spot on any list of serial murderers. He’s earned it.

Caucasian male in his teens or twenties. Families of missing persons

So for me, for this election, and for everyone with a brain, there were only two candidates -Theodore Robert Bundy, nominee of the Republican Party, and John Wayne Gacy, nominee of the Democratic Party. The choice was clear.

Executing Ted Bundy cost the state of Florida seven or eight million dollars, money that could have been better invested in building a criminal forensic institution devoted to the research and study of people like Bundy, Kemper, Gacy, Berkowitz and Dahmer, who have hideously violated society’s trust. Criminologists have long ago agreed that the death penalty has never deterred violent criminals. It only satisfies the families of the victims and the general desire of society for revenge.

The officers had a ghoul pool, in which they bet on how many bodies eventually would be recovered. The estimates ranged from five to twenty-four. Everyone was low. Taking a cue from a movie just opening in Chicago theaters, they got themselves T-shirts emblazoned with “The Body Snatchers, No. 803640,” the six digits referring to the case number, with large numerals “27,” signifying the body count, on the other side. (That number also proved low.)

No!” I shout, plead, beg. Dean falls across my lap like a ragdoll, and I feel myself being lifted from the seat and yanked through the window as shards of glass tear my dress and skin. “Let me go!” A thick palm that smells like gasoline clamps over my mouth, stifling my cries, and when I glance up, my eyes widen. It’s him. The John Wayne Gacy look-a-like from outside the bar. No.

These are not the same as the sadistic, sexual predators like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, or Jeffrey Dahmer, who would fit any definition we might want to apply. I prosecuted thirteen defendants during my time in Homicide who met the most basic requirements, but only six were true serial killers, and between them they likely accounted for well over a hundred murders, and certainly over a hundred separate sexual assaults. They were clever, prolific, and incredibly cruel.

You see the problem is us—our perception. We simply cannot conceive how anyone could rape and kill a teenage boy, or strangle a woman and cut her into tiny pieces, and yet that's exactly what these monsters did. For those of us with a sound mind, there has to be something else at work. And so we come up with Satan, Lucifer, the Devil. As if the notion of some external evil spirit excuses them from their villainy. I think they have no such excuse. We should not give them any place to hide. “We personify evil. We turn evil into a devil, but there's no such creature as Baal or Beelzebub. There's just us. This universe is what we make of it. We have to make this world better in spite of the Dahmers and the Gacys. “Never forget, these monsters had mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters who loved them, who cried when they went to the electric chair. They grew up just like we did, laughing at the same movies, kicking a soccer ball around in the park and throwing a Frisbee for the family dog. And yet somewhere along the line, the wheels fell off the train. At some point, rage or jealousy, lust or envy got the better of them. They wanted power. They wanted control. They succumbed to their own base desires, not those of some mythical demigod rising out of the fires of Hades.

Even a clown can get away with murder, Justine. Ask John Wayne Gacy.

Gacy would later state that he experienced an orgasm while stabbing McCoy. “That's when I realized that death was the ultimate thrill,” he added.

Donnelly was abducted at gunpoint on December 30, 1977. He was driven to Gacy’s home where he was raped, tortured and sodomized with various objects. His head was held under water in the bathtub until he passed out. Then Gacy revived him, before holding him under water again.

This low self-image was routinely and continuously reinforced by that domineering, uncompromising dad, a man who would routinely refer to his son a dumb and stupid sissy, a fag, a fruit picker, or worse.

The closest and most precious people in your life are guaranteed to make you feel the entire spectrum of human emotions.

People can do terrible things without being terrible people.

that’s America. You have an inalienable right to be a nut, even an asshole.

Maybe we should stop putting pot smokers, prostitutes, and petty thieves in prison and leave some room for the John Wayne Gacys of the world.

with all these serial killer Waynes, anyway? Wayne Williams. John Wayne Gacy, Jr. Patrick Wayne Hearney, who dismembered thirty-two human beings on the West Coast.

A couple of months ago,” he said, removing his glasses once again, “a group of prosecutors from another country came and couldn’t understand how in the United States you could try a person who was arrested of this type of situation. A lot has been said about how much this case has cost, and I don’t know what it cost. I don’t know if anyone could put together the cost, but whatever the cost was, it’s a small price. My voice is cracking because I really truly feel it’s a small price that we paid for our freedom. What we do for the John Gacys, we’ll do for everyone. I thank you. You are now excused.

He was also active in his local community, a tireless worker for the Democratic Party and, for three consecutive years, director of Chicago's annual Polish Constitution Day Parade. Through this latter activity, he was introduced to (and photographed with) First Lady Rosalynn Carter on May 6, 1978. Mrs Carter signed the photo: “To John Gacy. Best wishes. Rosalynn Carter.

The execution did not go as smoothly as expected due to clogging of the IV tube administering the lethal chemicals into Gacy's arm. After a delay of 18 minutes, Gacy was pronounced dead at 12:58 a.m. on May 10, 1994.   His final words were reported to be, “Kiss my ass.

Don’t you know clowns can get away with murder?” John Wayne Gacy

There he sat, implicated in the disappearance of a human being, under suspicion for perhaps kidnapping, abduction, or worse; and he was nonchalantly going on and on about his political connections.

Too often, when a defense attorney wins a case on constitutional grounds, it is offhandedly described in the press, and sometimes even by our society in general, as a “loophole.” This is always done so in the pejorative sense, as in, “That scumbag lawyer got his terrible criminal client off on a goddamned loophole. It’s a travesty of justice.” Unfortunately, this statement, this sentiment is completely ass-backward. When a defendant is convicted of a crime in spite of his or her constitutional protections, that is the loophole—that is the true travesty. Otherwise, why have a Constitution? Why don’t we just revert to mob rule, mob lynchings? Why is it so often accepted practice in the minds of some in this country that the police can break the law in their efforts to get the bad guy, as long as they get the bad guy? How silly is that, the police can break the law in order to arrest a person that broke the law? What?

It is very easy to speak abstractly in a bar or at a cocktail party about how tough one thinks the laws should be, but perhaps one should wait until they have actually been wrongfully accused to fully formulate that opinion. __________________

Officer: “Did you mention finding these wallets to Mr. Gacy?” Cram: “Yeah, I asked him if I could use the I.D. He said I was underage, so on and so forth, and, ah, to go out with my older partners to do drinking. He said, no, you don’t want those.” Officer: “Did he say why?” Cram: “He said ’cause they were some people that were deceased.” Officer: “Would you repeat that?

EARLY MORNING IN THE yard at the Men’s Reformatory at Anamosa, prisoners lounging about, doing lazy time, and here comes John Wayne Gacy, inmate number 26525, moving fast, a man with things to accomplish.

The laws have been slowly changing. Right now, statistics show that more than 30 percent of kids send sexual texts to each other. That

Gacy came out with Gray and walked up to the officers. They had to meet Stevens at Di Leo’s, a restaurant on Chicago’s Northwest Side. Did the officers mind if Gray drove? They didn’t, but they advised the youth to use caution. It

Gray walked over to Robinson’s car and began repeating what he had just told Schultz, reiterating the fears he had for his own safety. The conversation was interrupted when Gacy returned from the restaurant. “Let’s go,” he told Gray. Robinson jumped into his car, which was parked in front of Gacy’s, and twisted around to see which way Gray would be going. Gray pulled out and went straight ahead, and Robinson fell in behind him. “Stick

Seeing a piece of notepaper next to the phone, Kozenczak picked it up. It had Phil Torf’s name on it. Kozenczak pocketed it. “Thief!

Somewhere in her journey, Paige Kotes had become a notorious murderer. A serial killer popular in the news, and with a level of notoriety like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Gacy’s

Sami had a brilliant idea for the finish in which, at the apex of the action, Sami and the new recruit to our little group, a student named Joe Gacy who Sami had taken under his wing, would run interference.

You know,” Gacy said, looking at one officer and then the other, “clowns can get away with murder.

Now they were audience, waiting for the actors on the other side of the glass to begin their drama.

When Richard was asked recently how to avoid becoming the victim of a serial murderer, he said, “You can’t. Once they are focused on you, have you where you are vulnerable, you’re all theirs. Dahmer used to invite you home for a drink, and the next thing you knew, he’s eating you. Same thing with John Gacy: he’d put on his clown face, do a couple of tricks, and suddenly he had you handcuffed and in his control. What people can do is not trust someone you don’t know and to always be aware of what’s going on around you. When you drop your guard—that’s when a serial killer moves.

No one had figured out any of the other murders he’d done, had they? They got John Wayne Gacy, Jr., after over thirty murders in Chitown. Jeffrey Dahmer went down after seventeen in Milwaukee. Gary had murdered more than both of them put together. But no one knew who he was, or where he was, or what he planned to do next.

John Wayne Gacy haunting of the R Theater in Auburn, Illinois,

It’s funny, the people that wrap themselves most snugly in the American flag, the ones that scream the loudest about their freedoms and their constitutional rights are often the very people that lose sight of the meaning of all of that wonderful rhetoric as soon as push comes to shove, as soon as the precepts that we as a people so cherish come to be tested.