Jose Patino

11/09/22
Period 3
The Killer Clown

John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer from Chicago, Illinois, convicted of

rape and murder of 33 boys and young men. He is also known as the Killer

Clown, due to his enjoyment of entertaining children in a clown outfit.

In December 1978, a 15-year-old boy named Robert Priest went missing.

The boy had disappeared from a local pharmacy, where he had heard a man

talking about hiring teenage boys to help him out with some work. Apparently

someone else overheard this and told his mother that he wanted to go back later

because “some contractor wants to talk to me about a job”. After leaving home to

meet with this man, the boy didn't return home. Upon being questioned, the

owner of the local pharmacy identified Gacy as the man the boy was referring to.

Police checked out Gacy’s record and discovered he had previously

served 18 months in prison on child molestation charges, but was released for

good behavior. This was enough to further their suspicions, and so they brought

him in for questioning. Gacy began confessing, and his house at 8213

Summerdale Avenue was searched. His neighbors had complained of an awful

smell coming around the man’s house, and soon police discovered why. As the

floorboards of the house were taken up, remains were discovered in various

states of decay, and more corpses were pulled from a river nearby.
 Once the bones were confirmed to be those of human origin, forensic

anthropologists Charles Warren and Clyde Snow were brought in to examine the

bones.

The anthropologists began by sorting and separating the bones, examining

them closely for any distinguishing features that may help identify the victims. In

total there were 33 victims, most of whom were teenage runaways or male

prostitutes. Clyde Snow compiled a chart for every skull found including 35 points

of reference to compare to missing person reports. Many victims were identified

in this way, but soon the specialists found themselves stumped on the

identification of nine of the victims. Forensic artist Betty Pat Gatliff was called in.

Using facial reconstruction methods, as described here, she was able to

reconstruct the faces so that images could be distributed to members of the

public. Unfortunately no one came forward to identify the victims, and they

remained unnamed.

John Wayne Gacy was convicted and executed on May 10, 1994.