1992 JOHN WAYNE GACY INTERVIEW WITH WALTER JACOBSON

Transcribed BY SKYE ANDREWS - Art by Brent Andrew Doty

---

John Wayne Gacy claims he did not commit any murders

Tonight in news extra the man who committed what may be the crime of the century. His name is John Wayne Gacy convicted of killing 33 innocent people and destroying hundreds of lives, he has never talked to anyone about the case until tonight. His murder spree was first discovered on a cold December day when the first of his victims was found in a crawl space beneath his home and was taken out one by one as the world watched. For 13 years Gacy refused to talk but tonight he is breaking that silence walking out from death row at Menard State Prison to speak one on one with Channel News Walter Jacobson. Walter is here now to tell us what Gacy had to say in an exclusive interview, Walter.

Quite a bit, well I spent two and a half hours with John Gacy listening to a whole new story about his case he was rambling and often inconsistent but always, always very cagey. Thirteen years ago he told the police how he murdered his victims, now he is telling me he never did.

“People will want to know the truth in the end, the honesty of it. If they want to be convinced or brain washed into what they want to believe, then fine then go ahead and kill me but vengeance is mine sayith the lord because you will execute someone who didn’t commit the crime”. Those are the words of John Wayne Gacy pleading innocence from death row at Menard State Penitentiary 13 years after being convicted of his crimes. The most notorious serial killer of our time “when they paint the image that I was this monster, who picked up like these altar boys along the street and swatted them like flies it’s just ludicrous” but the jury didn’t find it ludicrous after barely two hours deliberation its verdict was murder by Gacy 33 times, 29 bodies buried in that house of his in Summerdale a crime of horrendous proportions. In the crawl space underneath bodies covered in lime and encased in plastic dug up a few days before Christmas and carried into the December cold one after another after another. But despite all this evidence he said he has proof he didn’t do it. Here is one of dozens of examples of what he calls proof “I’ve taken ah 5 and a half hours 3 and a half hours of truth serum and under sodium amytal the maximum amount I can have it shows I have no knowledge of the crime what so ever, never have had” But this is where his attempt to change history which is what he thinks will get him a new trial begins to break down there is no proof anywhere that he took truth serum, now it is not only a matter of physical evidence it’s a character issue as well, many times during our interview he tried to portray himself as a good guy an ethical, hardworking family man. Here’s how he describes himself as a father “loving and caring, I’ve always looked after my children even now” What kind of values do you remember imparting to them “the kind of values?” where you strict with them too? “No, not as strict, No, a lot of things my dad did I refused to do cause I don’t believe in hitting children, I don’t believe in ah spoiling a child either, my values are such that if you give enough love to them” You have been accused of murdering 33 kids and you say that you didn’t believe in hitting I mean “well anyone that knows, you see its pretty simple you are basing this garbage on what you have heard of me”

And what the jury said and what the courts of appeal have said and the prosecutor that put him in jail said Gacy is a ruthless and sadistic killing machine.

William Kunkle “he is responsible, he knew exactly what he was doing, he planned it in advance he carried it out and he enjoyed it”

And he admitted it in fact boasted about it to the police but now 14 years later he is denying it and talking to me about it what does his prosecutor Kunkle think of that “he is a desperate man, he is gonna die in 2 or 3 years, he is gonna be executed when the law is finally carried out and he will clutch at any straw” two and a half hours of clutching at straws, cunning and manipulative denials but if you listen carefully you catch him slipping up about John Butkovitch for instance his second victim. What happened to? What happened in the Butkovitch case? Where was he picked up and how did he get to the house and what happened with him? “I don’t want to go into I don’t want to go into the other the five that I know about just take it that I didn’t Butkovitch is not one that I killed so I don’t know nothing about him, the little bit I know about him is that he was employed at my, see when you look up at this recall business and and ah” I'm not the prosecutor John “I know you’re not, wait a minute” this is not one that you killed which suggests that maybe there are others that you did kill now now “Ok im sorry I led you to believe, no strike it then that is wrong”

But it is too late to strike it there are others that he killed children that he lured into his home anyway that didn’t get out alive when he was arrested he told the police what he did and how he did it, the rope that he used as a tourniquet, now he says he didn’t do it and shows me his rope trick to explain how the police misunderstood.

That and more of what he is twisting into his pleas of innocence tomorrow.

Gacy claims he is a misunderstood victim of circumstance

13 years ago a jury deliberated for just two hours before finding John Wayne Gacy guilty of murdering 33 young men and boys. The evidence seemed clear Gacy went to death row but tonight in News Extra Channel 2 exclusive John Gacy speaks out claiming he is a victim of circumstance and and he sets out to try and prove it. Channel 2 Walter Jacobson, Walter

Now Linda Gacy is as you noted I think quite accurately a minute ago a man who was found guilty of all those murders and of being plenty sane enough to of committed them, very quickly a jury acted in fewer than two hours. There were half a dozen pieces of evidence that were just overwhelming but Gacy now says he refutes that evidence. And all that he is owning up to is having only some knowledge of five murders and direct knowledge of even fewer than that.

“If you want to charge me with anything, charge me with complicity in two of the murders” Just two? “that’s all I know about” That’s his story, he didn’t kill anyone, just an accomplice he says and that he helped to dispose of two. One of them Robert Piest who was 15 years old when he went to the house on Summerdale, Gacy owned a construction company and invited young Piest to apply for a job.

“Robert Piest was killed by another individual in my home” How did he get to your home? “Ah he was transported to the house by another” How did the other whoever he was kill Robert Piest? “I believe he was strangled” You were there right? “Not during the crime but I was I was there afterwards and I watched the removal of the body” What happened to the body? afterwards? That was the one that was… “It was taken to the river and dumped in the river” did you help do that? “yes, im in complicity with that, ive always considered don’t look at me like an innocent babe in the woods” Not for a second would I look at John Gacy as babe in the woods, he may be admitting now only as being an accomplice but 13 years ago when he was arrested he confessed to almost everything. You have all the bodies Gacy said and there was even a killer map showing where 27 youths were buried and in fact he lead police to his garage and sprayed orange paint on the concrete to mark the spot of precisely where a body could be found. “NO NO NO NO” now he said he was simply marking the spot where some new concrete had been poured “in regards to going out into the garage, yes I know I went to the house and yes I know I walked in the garage and they asked me where the last section of concrete was poured, ok I said there is the last section where the last section of concrete was poured ok, they are the ones that took the orange can of paint and said here put a mark there so I put an x there” so the paint was not to identify the place of burial? “NO, No never was.”

But according to authorities who were with Gacy that morning he made more than just an x on the floor.

William Kunkle “he sprayed a stick figure with orange spray can in the garage not just a mark a stick figure showing the orientation of body, right underneath that stick figure exactly where he drew it, pointed in the direction he drew it was the body of John Butkovitch.”

And then there was the Gacy confession about how he killed his victims, strangled them with his now infamous rope trick that police say that he demonstrated to them with a rosary bead. He said he was simply discussing knots in general, catch his sense of humor “too late, your in trouble now, aren’t you afraid sitting that close oh what the hell, this is too long, you don’t need it this long. Ok I had a rosary which I carried in my pocket, I always carried a rosary it was my communion rosary. What kind of knot do you use, what do you mean a knot? When I tie things up? I said depending on what I am using it for; I said the only thing I learned from boy scouts is a tourniquet knot. Well they said show us what that is, so I took at that time then again it was together in order to demonstrate it here. I took the rosary and I said here you put it around this is hard trying to do this why don’t you put your hand out. Ok here what I told them here what you do is you wrap it around you put one knot in it then I says you put a second knot in it, ok then you take a stick and stick it in here and you turn this and it causes it a tourniquet . I said that’s the only knot I ever learned.”

Precisely the kind of knot found on the ropes wrapped around the necks of the victims that was found under the house on Summerdale.

And there was other compelling evidence including wallets and rings of the victims found in Gacys home that leave no doubt whether he was the killer. But what is it that made him do what he did, a look at the mind of a serial killer tomorrow.

John Wayne Gacy: Portait of a killers mind

Tonight on news extra, a portrait of a killer, paintings and diaries that provide a frightening view inside the mind of the worst mass killer in American history, John Wayne Gacy.

Tonight Gacy talks exclusively to our Walter Jacobson and reveals part of his life most of us have never seen.

There are personality traits that are common in mass killers, which include arrogance and cunning and enough cleverness to kill many times without getting caught. John Gacy has all those traits and then some.

He was a Kentucky colonel, and a husband and a father of 5 children and an actor dressed as a clown. John Gacy loves clowns “to me clowning was a way of relaxation for me, you regressed into childhood, you were able to relax and you could be goofy if you wanted to and still you had the sade of your face being covered” The clown suit hid his face and his evil crimes as well. Even today on death row he is painting portraits of himself as a clown, the 33 flavours clown, and the convicted killer of 33 can’t help but chuckle at the irony “You see clowning; I don’t know whether you want to mention the name for an ice-cream company in Chicago, who had 33 flavours, I listed, I’m serious, for the ice cream company something I was their contractor and also their clown and Pogo the clown was the clowning I did for charity hospital work for the democratic party and that and Pogo the clown was originally Pogo comes from being Polish and on the go all the time so its Po Go.”

On the go for democrats as Norwood Park committeemen a visit with Rosalynn Carter which was the first lady during the Carter administration. Gacy right here is hiding the fact that there are bodies buried under his house he is the great deceiver “I always felt that service, community and community service to others you know in my religious background I felt that if you serve other people it will come back and serve you, you know I have always believed that way with generosity.”

So if he looks for good and he is generous then why did he kill 33 people, nobody knows but the psychiatrist talk about how obsessive and meticulous he is, enough to kill repeatedly and to stack his victims in a careful and ordered manner like cord wood under his house, even now he is obsessed and meticulous with his life. What is your life like? “Day to Day?” Ah huh “I live it day to day” What do you mean “If you want to know what my life is like I log it every day, for the last 12 years, all you gotta do is ask, I can you everything, I can tell you the first meal they served me here because I do it daily” What do you do all day? “Every phone call, everything I do, every time an officer is around me it is logged, every movement that I make is in the book is in the book here.”

And he and his lawyers have a log on his victims to, everything they did before they were killed “you know I tell you I have background information on, we took each one of them by ah took each one of the victims and this is by their names or by their indictment numbers and what we did with each one of them is we did profile sheets on them, we wanted to know what this kid was into, what his background was.”

Chicago psychiatrist Daniel Yohanna of North Western University spent a few hours this week screening the interview “he’s very attentive to all details and so he’s sort of ah that’s the way he operates and that’s how that’s how ah people like him are able to cover up these dubious crimes and cover them up and are well planned and organised.”

One thing John Wayne Gacy could not plan was the way he got that way “my dad was domineering, in fact, he had a different set of values but also very stern individual, my dad drank a lot when he drank a lot yeah he was abusive to my brother and to me, but I never swung at my dad because I loved him for what he stood for” Maybe that’s where it begun to go wrong for John Gacy, he doesn’t know nor does he seem to care, he loses himself in his paintings. Why the skeleton “ This one was done by request, someone requested ah a skull clown and ah mostly the punk rockers and the under grounders like that stuff there. This is Christ, as I see him in myself and its monolithic because Christ to me is monolithic he, he is all things to all people. This here is the high ho series and that is self-explanatory it’s the seven dwarves and its always stuck to me a great child painting as so I’ve done a series of high ho series paintings, and this is the 1991 one high ho around the camp fire, its an original work, Walt Disney is a mentor for me because I have always enjoyed his creativity and the seven dwarves if you actually look at all the faces, they represent the seven different moods most people can get into.”

Moods are important to John Gacy he has so many of them himself, angry ones mostly toward his father and his victims and especially it seems towards the victims’ families who are constantly reminding him of his crimes “That one mother that gets on television all the time that thinks I should be given 33 injections, I think she should take 33 valiums and go lay down, She goes on Horoldo show and all these other shows talking about, I think its Mowery, I think is the name, her marine son, her marine son, if her marine son so great what the hell did he run away from home 12 times”

As callous and as cunning as he is John Wayne Gacy talks about his victims.

Speaks about victims and their families

He killed 33 times, 33 families forever changed, tonight in news extra the victims of John Wayne Gacy for the first time Gacy is speaking out about the young men who died and the loved ones they left behind, and as you know he is talking exclusively to Channel 2’s Walter Jacobson.

John Gacy talks about his victims like so many numbers on a score card, he seems to have no feelings whatever about them as human beings.

But look at them and you see 33 children who lived and loved a where loved, John Butkovitch was 18, Michael Bonnin was 17, Randall Reffett was 15, why them, there is no logical explanation for why them, any of them. Several of were runaways from broken homes, 14 years ago when John Gacy was praying on families that had split apart, today in his arrogance he lectures them. “and now a days do you realise by 1993 that 50% of the American families will be single parented, and that shows a break down in the church and not being able to hold families together and for this reason children run away from home and seek love in other places” and wind up in trouble, that’s Gacy view of things, kids get in trouble because nobody cares about them. Gacy got in trouble when after 32 victims he strangled Robert Piest an all American clean cut local kid whose disappearance attracted police, such carelessness is typical of a serial killer.

Robert Ressler “by the time they have committed 10 or 12 they are very very laid back, by the time they commit 20, 15-20 they start getting careless, cavalier…”

If it sounds familiar its because you have heard the experts say it about Jeffery Dahmer, Gacy dislikes the comparison “what do I think of Jeffery Dahmer? I don’t know the man personally but I will tell you this that’s a good example of why insanity doesn’t belong in the courtroom, because if Jeffery Dahmer doesn’t meet the requirements for insanity then I would hate like hell to run into the guy that does” Do you feel? “Beyond that I don’t have no comment on Jeffery Dahmer, cause I’m not Jeffery Dahmer and I would not whether its Berkowitz, whether its Bundy, whether its Wayne Williams down in Atlanta or any of the others or Charlie Manson, I don’t comment bout other cases for the simple fact is I wasn’t there” Do you feel somewhat of a kinship with them? “NO, god I hate that when they put me in the same club with them” That’s precisely the club John Gacy belongs in
(Dahmer’s victim family member) I HATE YOU MOTHERF#$%KER, I HATE YOU.

In the pain felt by Dahmer's victims is still felt 13 years later by the families of Gacy’s victims.

Delores Neider “When you have a child taken out of your life, it is like a little pieces taken out of your heart, you just, you can never forget it, everything keeps revolving back to the day when he did this, he did that and we reminisce.”

Delores Neider courageous mother still in the same house in North West side of Chicago, 13 years remembering Johnny who was a marine and then studying to be an accountant, like others he went to Gacy’s house for a job, and never came back, about which John Gacy expresses no remorse whatever, on the contrary he says he’s a victim for being found guilty, the 34th victim and he says the families are victims cause they don’t know who the real killer is “I’m not only the victim here, I may be the 34th victim, but there are other victims in this crime, and that is the family, because if I know I didn’t commit the crime then I have been given the injustice and so has the families and no one gives a damn about the families” As though he cares, which clearly he does not, and when the families insist that John Gacy pays for his crimes with his life his real feelings come out.

“That one mother that gets on television all the time, who thinks I should be given 33 injections, I think she should take 33 valiums and go lay down, she goes on Geraldo show and all these other shows talking about, I think its Mowery, I think is the name, talking about her marine son, her marine son, if her marine son was so great why the hell did he run away from home 12 times.”

Not enough for him to be murdered “I know that.”

He is also lying, Johnny was not a run away and after Gacy's snide remark about the valium.

Delores Neider “Well, Walter it is hard for me to comprehend that Gacy has the right to say something like that about me, because of the fact of what he did. What right does he … to” say anything about you at all? “right, right.”

John Gacy now faces death by lethal injection tomorrow night we will hear what he has to say about that, in fact, Gacy is now talking about many things, he says for example there were accomplices in his murders.

“Had this case been properly investigated, I think you would of had there should have been four indictments, a minimum of four indictments and I say the sincerely.”

And he names names tomorrow.