Biography of John Wayne Gacy Essay

Marion Morrison, also known as John Wayne, is perhaps one of the most popular movie personalities ever. He began as a mere stagehand, but by the end of his career he had developed himself as a very successful actor, producer, and director.

Gacy was a well respected man who wouldn’t be suspected of committing multiple murders. “His first known killing was in 1972, taking the life of Timothy McCoy after luring the teen to his home” (Biography 1). Gacy’s strategy into luring kids (mostly boys) into his home was to roam the streets in search for these young kids and force them to go with him. In 1978 Robert Piest who was 15 years old went missing. His mother said Robert had went to Gacy’s home in search of a job but Robert never came back. “This time the Des Plaines police got involved and searched Gacy’s home” (Crime museum 1). When the police got involved they found things that weren’t his and items that were suspicious. Later on, “On December 22, 1978, facing mounting physical evidence against him from subsequent searches of his home, Gacy confessed that he had killed thirty-three young men and boys and buried most on his property” (Luongo 1). Gacy would torture, strangle, and rape these young men. Gacy was found guilty on all of the murders he committed and he was sentenced to the lethal injection.

This essay aims to examine weather serial killers are born a certain way and their genetics define their psychotic tendencies or whether they're a product of a bad environment that they grew up. This essay looks at recent killings in the late 20th century as there is more information on the killers from this period and it's easier to gain details about their childhoods. Whilst I will look at various different killers to reach more rounded conclusions (see appendix for comparison table), this essay will focus on four in detail to examine the debate; Ted Bundy (1946-89), Jeffery Dahmer (1960-1994), John Wayne Gacy (1942-1994) and Gary Ridgway (1949-present).

The Obituary states that John Wayne Gacy was born on March 17th, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois and he spent most of his youth in a small house with his mother, two sisters, and a violent alcoholic father. As John grew up, his long downward spiral towards alcohol abuse, drug habits, and the death of over 30 teenage boys began to rise after his first arrest and sentence of 10 years for sodomizing a young man and the divorce of his first wife in 1968. After serving only 18 months of his 10 years sentence, John was settled back into his old surroundings in Chicago, which where John made a name for himself as the local party clown “Pogo”. Soon after the gratified “Pogo The Clown” made headlines as “The Killer Clown of

Throughout American history, numerous acts of crime have been committed by serial killers that ultimately shocked the nation. A serial killer is defined as “someone who murders more than three victims one at a time in a relatively short interval (Serial).” One particular person who is considered one of the most infamous serial killers on earth is Jeffrey Dahmer. The Jeffrey Dahmer case had a significant impact on not only society but on the criminal justice system as well.

3. What mental changes occurred in Phineas after the accident? Gage’s behavior became erratic and

John Gacy had a barbaric childhood and struggled with his sexuality. After being convicted of sexual assault in 1968, it was unexpectedly brought to the officer attention that he had killed at least 33 young males, burying most under his home and around his home. John Wayne Gacy was found guilty in 1980 and given multiple death penalty and life sentences. Gacy was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.

“Dear John Wayne” by Louise Erdrich is about the stereotype of the Native American, being a savage race on film and how the Native Americans watching the film react to those stereotypes.

His school work began to drop, so he dropped out of high school, and to escape his father, he moved to Las Vegas in 1962. During his time there, he worked as a mortuary attendant and janitor. While living in Las Vegas, Gacy had his first experience with death. One evening while he was walking around the morgue he climbed into a coffin of a recent-dead. As he climbed in, Gacy began to embrace the

Jeffrey Dahmer killed and committed acts of necrophilia on 17 males between 1978 and 1991. In the article “Jeffrey Dahmer Biography”, it states that “Dahmer initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, despite having confessed to the killings during police interrogation, but he eventually changed his plea to guilty by virtue of insanity” (Biography.com). His defense then described all the gorey details of his behavior and murders, trying to prove that only someone who had psychopathic tendencies could commit such horrendous acts, but the jury decided to believe the prosecution's statement that Dahmer was fully aware that his acts were evil and chose to commit them anyway. The trial was so complicated that “on February 15, 1992, they returned after approximately 10 hours' deliberation to find him guilty, but sane, on all counts” (Biography.com). He was then sentenced to 15 life sentences in prison, which were going to be run consecutively, with a 16th term added on in May. Another well known serial killer was John Wayne Gacy. Gacy would dress up as “Pogo the Clown” and perform for children’s birthday parties, but no one knew that he would eventually murder and rape 33 boys. He would then hide the bodies in a crawl space in his house and kept them there for years until he was caught. The article states that “the discovery of his murders and subsequent arrest shook the community as he

On Friday, December 22, 1978, Gacy finally confessed to police that he killed at least thirty people and buried most of the remains of the victims beneath the crawl space of his house. According to the book Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders by Sullivan and Maiken, Gacy said that, "his first killing took place in January, 1972, and the second in January, 1974, about a year and a half after his marriage." He further confessed that he would lure his victims into being handcuffed and then he would sexually assault them. To muffle the screams of his victims, he would stuff a sock or underwear into their mouths and kill them by pulling a rope or board against their throats, as he raped them. Gacy admitted to sometimes keeping the dead bodies under his bed or in the attic for several hours before eventually burying them in the crawl space.

Gary Ridgway grew up like any other ordinary suburban kid. He had a problem of wetting the bed which his mother would make fun of him and embarrass him in front of family and friends. As a young teen, he was always getting into trouble such as stabbing a six year-old boy in the ribs when he was a young teen. In high school Gary continued to go down hill and get bad grades. Gary graduated high school and joined the Navy. While he was in Vietnam, he discovered prostitutes and ended up getting sexually transmitted diseases. Soon after being home from Vietnam, Gary was killing and raping prostitutes on the streets of Seattle, Washington. Gary would go on to murder about 71 young women who he targeted because they were either prostitutes or runaways.

	One of John friends found him a job at Lake Tahoe in June of 1925. His plan was to make enough money to become a freelance writer in New York City. Low on funds John signed on as a working berth on a freighter headed to New York is November of 1925. When he arrived in New York John got a job as a newspaper cub reporter. He finally seemed to a secure job and things seemed alright. After a couple of months working as a reported John realized that he did not fit this kind of job. "Due to his lack of experience John was never given a chance to show his talent and he was given unimportant assignments with no value"(Morrow 75). Numerous times he failed to show up at work and was soon after fired.

Serial killers have fascinated the imaginations of people for a long time. One of the most notorious serial killers is Jeffrey Dahmer whose gruesome murders shocked the nation. Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer also known as Milwaukee monster was a notorious American serial killer and sexual offender in the 1980s and early 1990s. Between 1978 and 1991 Dahmer had murdered 17 men. His victims were usually raped, tortured, dismembered, and cannibalism was also involved. Jeffrey was a troubled child psychologically and his social skills had a lot to be desired. All the way through his childhood he was ignored and had queer fantasies of cadavers. In his adulthood this psychosocial status quo didn 't change and was in fact aggravated.

All these factors caused a lot of stress for him and contributed to his depression. He began to feel like life was not worth the struggle anymore. He had tried reading all sorts of self-help books to motivate himself and provide relief but none really helped. He began to feel worthless and hopeless for not being able to overcome his panic attack. He realised that his anxiety was baseless but he simply could not control it whenever it