John Wayne Gacy's Summary As A Killer Clown

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

In “Lamb to the Slaughter,” Mary Maloney is not guilty for killing her husband, Patrick, but was instead temporarily insane. As her defense attorney, I declare that Mary Maloney should not be held liable for breaking the law, because she was mentally incompetent at the time of her actions. A crime of passion can describe Mary Maloney’s actions, because it was not premeditated or deliberate; it was because of a strong impulse of disbelief and anger. The first example from the passage that justifies this is, “Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home from work. Now and again she glanced at the clock, but without anxiety: She merely wanted to satisfy herself that each minute that went by made it nearer the time when he would

In Roald Dahl’s short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” , Mary Maloney murders her husband, a detective, after he declares that he is leaving her. Mary then has to cover her tracks or else she and her unborn child will be killed. Throughout the story, Mary’s character changes from loving wife to cold killer and back again based on her situation.

On September 1, 1956, Peter woodcock had committed his first murder (Bourrie, 2010). Peter Woodcock lured a 7-year-old boy named Wayne Mallette into toronto’s exhibition where he then killed him¬¬¬¬ (Bourrie, 2010). The next month on October 6, 1956, Mr. Woodcock picked up a 9-year-old boy named Gary Morris. Woodcock drove Gary Morris on his bike to cherry beach where he then strangled and killed him (Newton, n.d.). About three months after Peter Woodcock offered a ride to a 4-year-old girl named Carole Voyce. Peter Woodcock sexually assaulted her and killed her (Liam, 2015). Mr. Woodcock was then arrested but then was found not guilty by reason of insanity (Liam, 2015). Mr. Woodcock was placed at Oak Ridge (a psychiatric

John Wayne Gacy was considered to be one of the most vicious serial killers in U.S. history. He viciously murdered 33-34 boys and men between January 3, 1972 and December 11, 1978. He would lure his victims into his house promising them jobs, he would then capture them, sexually assault them and then strangled most of them with a rope. He would than bury their bodies under his house. He was caught and sentenced to death by lethal injection. Through this paper you will see first-hand who John Wayne Gacy was and how he became the monster we all know him to be.

The Cook County Sheriff’s Department in Illinois said that the newly identified victim was James Byron Haakenson, a 16-year-old boy who ran away from his home in St. Paul in the summer of 1976. The police found his body and 26 others in the crawl space beneath Mr. Gacy’s home in December 1978. Mr. Gacy was among the most prolific serial killers in American history. From 1972 to 1978, he lured or forced 33 teenage boys and young men — some of whom he employed at his construction business — to his home in suburban Chicago, where he murdered them. He sexually assaulted most of his victims as he tortured them to death and buried all but six of them beneath his house. Neighbors in Norwood Park Township, Ill., knew Mr. Gacy for his appearances at children’s parties where he performed as Pogo the Clown, a character he later painted or sketched numerous times while in

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.

Mary is very manipulative in that she is able to create the character of the poor, pregnant wife, whose husband has just been murdered. She is able to convince the police to take pity on her, to mix her a drink and then to even eat the evidence, the leg of lamb that she has left in the oven. "Why don’t you eat up that lamb that is in the oven" (Dahl, p. 17). Mary realizes that if the police find the evidence she will go to jail. Her quick thinking and manipulative character results in the police officers eathign the evidence and therefore she cannot be charged of this crime. These actions show the complex character that Mary Maloney truly is.

Not guilty by reason of insanity is a defense strategy that has often been used by serial murderers in the past once an offender has been charged; however, contradictory to popular belief, this defense has been used in less than one percent of all criminal cases. According to Hickey, “The legal system uses the term insanity to define the state of mind of an offender at the time of the offense; offenders may be deemed insane at the moment of the crime and only for that period of time” (2014, p. 75). There have been four insanity defenses used in the United States to determine criminal responsibility, although only two are still in use to this day, and without much success.

Because of this, it is common for people to think the plea is more prevalent in cases than it actually is. It is extremely rare for an insanity plea to succeed and the public is unaware of that. Researcher Michael Faultstich (1984) wanted to examine which factors determine whether or not lay individuals believe an insanity plea. Faulstich created a study in which he approached people at shopping malls and had them react to a newspaper article. The articles were written about people who were either male or female, had harmed a male or female, had a victim who lived or died and had a psychiatric history or not. These factors varied article to article and were used to determine when the public is okay with the not guilty by reason of insanity defense. Faulstich found that whether or not the victim died and the psychiatric history of a defendant had the greatest affect on the outcome of the case. The public was more likely to accept the plea if the victim had died and the defendant had a history of mental illness. The women who participated in the study were more likely to sympathize with the defendant if he had a psychiatric history. All of these factors show how the public’s view on the not guilty by reason of insanity plea can be skewed. The participants did not have a medical expert explain the nature of a defendant’s case or point out specific examples of the illness in the individual. Overall, the public were much more likely to credit breaking a law to psychiatric history than the courts. Once again these findings demonstrate how important it is to sway the jurors opinion, not necessarily provide proof of illness (1984). If people can sympathize with the defendant then it is much easier to hand down that verdict. Primal Fear shows that when jurors hear about previous psychological issues, they are more likely to rule in favor of the defendant. Aaron Stampler

It is very rare to study something that is as fascinating yet as bewildering as the distinctive paradox, that is the human brain. Every individuals conflicting behaviour and elaborate character that make them the person they are must have a justification. I originally established a fascination in forensic psychology as I read about a sequence of homicides committed by Gary Ridgway, otherwise known as the “Green River Killer”. Upon discovery of this case, questions began to pervade in my head about what may be the cause for an individual to execute such things, and just how someone’s mind could be so peculiarly dissimilar to my own.

In the 1970s, Gacy appeared at children's birthday parties as "Pogo the Clown" and also regularly painted pictures of clowns. When the authorities discovered that he had killed at least 33 people, burying most of them in the crawl space of his suburban Chicago home, the connection between clowns and dangerous psychopathic behavior became forever fixed in the collective unconscious of Americans. (Mcandrew)

To start off, it can be clearly seen from the short story that Mary Maloney is guilty. She makes a conscious effort to make sure she reacts as if she has not committed this crime in the text “Lamb to Slaughter” she says, “If she finds anything unusual or terrible when she got home, then it would be a shock and she would have to react with grief and horror.”(Dahl 383) By her stating this it shows that she knows she is guilty and that she killed her husband. The main reason I chose this quote was that it shows that she knows what she is talking about and that she has to act like this otherwise she will be caught and

This is a twisted, gripping tale of Mary Maloney, who murders her own husband by hitting him with a frozen leg of lamb and then hiding her crime and disposing of the evidence by feeding the lamb to the policemen who come to investigate the murder.

Dahl’s protagonist in “Lamb to Slaughter”, Mary Maloney, displays her deceitful nature when her husband comes home from a long day of work. Mary kills Patrick with a frozen leg of lamb after he informs her that he wants a divorce. Immediately thereafter, she goes to the store to purchase vegetables. This is the beginning of her deceit. Mary clearly does not need vegetables. Her trek to the store is her way of creating an an alibi. This adds another layer to her deception. Here, she engages in a conversation with a seemingly familiar clerk, Sam. She informs him that Patrick “decided he’s tired and doesn’t want to eat out tonight” (Dahl 3). This gives Sam the impression that her husband is still alive when in all actuality, he is dead. She has added yet another layer to her level of deception. Mary’s deception has no limits. She eventually deceives herself into thinking she did not murder her husband. She convinces herself that she is “not expecting to find