John Wayne Gacy, an American serial killer, and formerly known as a clown, was born on March 17, 1942, and was the murderer behind 33 cases in the 1970s. He received international media attention and shocked his suburban Chicago community, where he was known for his sociability and his performance as a clown at charitable events and children’s parties. Gacy was born into a blue-collar family and lived a fairly ordinary childhood, making his signs of murder very unnoticeable and much unexpected.
Although his everyday tasks were normal for any teenage boy, he started developing a tendency towards sadism, which resulted in several encounters with the law between the years 1950 and 1960. In 1968, after his conviction of sexually assaulting a young teenage boy, he was confined to the Iowa State Men’s Reformatory and forced to undergo a psychological evaluation. After his release in 1970 and while still on parole, he was yet again arrested for sexual assault, but the charges were later dropped. Gacy then became a fairly successful independent contractor and bought a house in Suburban Chicago.
After his successful contracting business Gacy became a very well-respected man in his community. That’s when he started to perform as a clown known as the jolly joker at children’s parties. Even though he became a well-respected member of the community people didn’t see the truth, but that’s how he got the name killer clown. He would lure his victims in the promise of construction work then he would assault them and strangle them with either rope or his hands. After many accusations of assault and disappearances, the police began to keep Gacy under surveillance until finally convicting him.
Gacy eventually confessed to over 30 different murders and was incarcerated for 14 years at Menard Correctional Center. Then finally after many years in prison Gacy was sentenced to death row and died on May 10, 1994, at the age of 52. It’s crazy how long this deranged man stood in society without getting caught. The crazy thing is that during his imprisonment before he was executed he began to study visual arts and became a painter during his incarceration. I wonder how his life would have been different if he had not chosen the path he did? I guess we’ll never know.