One of America’s worst serial killers, who dressed as a clown to entertain local children but murdered at least 33 boys and young men, recorded a secret jailhouse interview, it has emerged, in which he suggested he may have had accomplices.
John Wayne Gacy confessed in 1978 to the murders, and was executed in 1994, aged 52.
Now a new docuseries, released on Peacock on March 25, asks whether Gacy may have murdered more than he said.
‘The dead won’t bother you,’ he says in the trailer.
‘It’s the living you have to worry about.’
John Wayne Gacy is seen in a previously unknown interview, from jail. He was executed in 1994
Gacy is seen grinning in a mugshot taken at the time of his arrest, in December 1978
Gacy’s jailhouse interview was hidden for years: even his death row attorney Karen Conti said she was unaware of it until the series was made.
Gacy, asked why he never spoke before, says: ‘I had no need to talk to the media.
‘They were looking for sensationalism.
‘They were looking for a monster.’
Conti said the show, John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise, detailing the serial killer’s crimes – which took place in suburban Chicago during the 1970s – was fascinating a whole new generation with his grim story.
‘There are some new interviews – there is that interview with Gacy, something I have never seen in all the years,’ she told The National Desk.
‘These crimes were committed in the late 1970s, he’s been dead since 27 years ago, so there’s a whole new generation of people who didn’t live through these crimes.’
Gacy – who became known as the ‘serial killer clown’ due to his penchant for dressing up as a circus entertainer – lured his young male victims to his home, before raping, torturing and strangling them.
The remains of 29 victims were found buried in the crawl space under Gacy’s property. Four others were dumped in a nearby river.
The depravity of Gacy’s crimes shocked the nation, and he was executed at Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois in 1994 after spending more than a decade on death row.
‘He was the worst of the worst,’ said Conti.
‘He was the world-record serial killer at the time.
‘He was, on one hand, such an evil person, a monster. On the other hand, he was good at what he did, he had a good business, he was politically-minded, community-minded, and he was charming, in some ways. So you have this juxtaposition of good and evil.’
Conti said what is particularly fascinating about Gacy and other true crime subjects covered in recent documentaries and podcasts, such as Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby, are that they are ‘likable people.’
She said he was one of her more pleasant clients.
‘We don’t think of them as being people who are capable of this kind of thing,’ she said.
‘I think people are fascinated by what made Gacy do what he did. He was raised in a fairly normal home, it wasn’t horrific. What caused him to be so twisted and so evil? Some days he would go out and kill three boys in one night.’
One detective who worked on the case tells producers of the new miniseries that there could be a dozen additional men who Gacy killed.
‘I firmly believe there’s more,’ said retired Detective Rafael Tovar.
A chilling new docuseries probes whether John Wayne Gacy may have murdered more than the 33 victims he was convicted of killing. The six-part series, titled John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise, is streaming now on Peacock
10 of Gacy’s 33 confirmed victims are pictured.
Investigators carry the remains of a body found beneath the garage floor of the home of John Wayne Gacy on December 22, 1978. All up, 29 bodies were discovered on Gacy’s property
Tovar claims that he was transporting Gacy to prison in 1980 when he asked the serial killer about his victims.
‘Are there more?’ Tovar says he asked Gacy, who responded: ’45 sounds like a good number’.
When Tovar quizzed the killer on the whereabouts of the bodies of the additional victims, Gacy is alleged to have replied: ‘That’s your job. You’re the detectives. You got to find out.’
Tovar said in the documentary: ‘We had 33 victims, so that would mean, obviously, there’s 12 more somewhere’.
The detective told producers that he spent enough time with Gacy to believe that he was telling the truth.
Meanwhile, Tovar, who retired from policing in 2009, spoke with Fox News about what he believes motivated Gacy to kill.
‘I think he liked the power to kill people, the power of death,’ he said.
‘It made him feel like a god. And I think that just got to him. And he was smart. He got away for a long time… It made him feel powerful.’
Retired Detective Rafael Tovar believes there could be 12 more victims – taking the total number of people Gacy killed to 45
Cook County Sheriff’s Police evidence technicians are seen removing of one of the 29 bodies that were found decomposed beneath the house and in the garage area of the home
The documentary additionally features never-before-seen footage of a jailhouse interview Gacy conducted in 1992, in which he denies he is a killer (pictured)
Tovar told Fox News that Gacy never showed remorse for his crimes and was ‘obviously a person who had no moral compass’.
‘I mean, killing someone for him was like how you would shoo a fly off of your food,’ Tovar stated.
‘It wasn’t something that affected him. When it came time to dig up the basement, I think he was more concerned about us messing up his carpet’.
Tovar also told LRM Online that Gacy was ‘an egomaniac’.
Devil In Disguise also includes audio of Gacy admitting to killing another victim.
However, the documentary additionally features never-before-seen footage of a jailhouse interview Gacy conducted in 1992, in which he denies he is a killer.
But Gacy’s words in the interview ring hollow, as he had already admitted to killing the 33 people a decade earlier.
The grave of an unidentified victim of John Wayne Gacy is seen at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Forest Park, Illinois. Six of the 33 victims have not been identified
Of those 33 victims, six have still not been identified.
Tovar told Fox News that some of them are likely to have been ‘street guys and runaways’ whose families never knew they went missing.
Working as a remodeling contractor in suburban Norwood, Gacy began building a reputation as an organizer of parties and parades as ‘Pogo the clown.’
According to prosecutors, Gacy would lure young men to his home by impersonating a police officer or promising them construction work.
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Once his victims were inside, he would usually put them in handcuffs, claiming he wanted to demonstrate a ‘trick’ he has learned as a clown.
When the young men were restrained, Gacy tortured and raped them, before strangling them with a knotted rope.
The identified victims were aged between 14 and 22.
The six-part series, titled John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise , details the serial killer’s shocking crimes, which took place in suburban Chicago during the 1970s
Investigators were alerted to Gacy after a boy went missing who he had been talking to about construction work.
On searching his home in December of 1978, they found a series of odd items – such as clothes too small for Gacy – and the smell of decay.
Investigators began to find bodies buried in his crawlspace hours after Gacy’s arrest.
The ranch was torn down as investigators searched for more bodies in 1979.
Gacy was executed by lethal injection in 1994. His last words were ‘Kiss my a*s.’
