Concerning john gacy's Sexual Orientation

Nineteen Seventy-Five

The Quest for a Man Named &39;John&39;

Adolescents residing in the Uptown district informed Chicago police that an individual known as "John" frequently traversed the locale in his vehicle, soliciting young men. This person was identified as John Wayne Gacy, a suburban resident who operated a renovation enterprise.

Law enforcement personnel noted numerous young males frequently entering and exiting Gacy's residence, situated within the unincorporated Norwood Park Township. While several of these individuals were intercepted for interrogation, not a single person provided any incriminating statements against Gacy.

Within his local area, Gacy was recognized for organizing social gatherings and occasionally impersonating Pogo the Clown.

In January of 1976

Law Enforcement Surveils Gacy&39;s Residence

Although it lay beyond their official authority, the juvenile division of the Chicago police force initiated monitoring of Gacy's residence, located just east of O'Hare International Airport, as they conjectured he might have been involved in the vanishing of a nine-year-old male child. However, they were unable to construct a prosecutable claim against Gacy.

December 31st, 1977

Apprehended and Subsequently Released

Gacy was taken into custody by Chicago police following allegations from a nineteen-year-old adolescent hailing from the North Side, who claimed the man had abducted him under duress of a firearm and compelled him into sexual activities.

Official police documentation indicates that upon his apprehension, Gacy confessed to participating in the deeds with the youth, acknowledging their severe nature; however, he asserted that the adolescent had not been an unwilling participant. Consequently, a deputy prosecutor opted not to pursue charges against Gacy.

The Sixth of May, 1978

Encounter and Photograph with the First Lady

In his capacity as organizer of the Polish Constitution Day Parade, Gacy, having obtained security authorization from the Secret Service, had an audience with and was photographed alongside first lady Rosalynn Carter.

On December Eleventh, 1978

A Commendable Student Vanishes

Robert Piest, a fifteen-year-old sophomore attending Maine West High School, was concluding his work period at Nisson Pharmacy on Touhy Avenue in Des Plaines, at approximately 21:00.

His mother, Elizabeth, came to collect him and transport him back to their Des Plaines residence, intending to commemorate her forty-sixth birthday with family members.

Piest, nonetheless, instructed his mother to defer for a short duration, explaining he needed to meet an individual concerning building employment remunerating five dollars per hour—a sum almost double his current earnings at the pharmacy. Tragically, he was never seen alive again.

Following a period of waiting, Elizabeth Piest grew concerned and returned by car to her residence. Subsequently, she re-visited the vicinity accompanied by her spouse Harold, son Ken, daughter Kerry, and the family's pair of German Shepherd dogs; however, their efforts yielded no results.

At 23:29, Elizabeth Piest presented herself at the Des Plaines police station to submit a report for her vanished son.

December 12th, 1978

Authorities Seek to Interrogate Gacy

Lt. Kozenczak, whose own son was a student at the same high school as Piest, unequivocally demanded a thorough inquiry. He discovered that Gacy, through his company PDM Contractors which had recently renovated Nisson Pharmacy, was the individual Piest had intended to converse with regarding an employment opportunity. Gacy was consequently requested to report to the precinct for interrogation.

At 23:00, Gacy telephoned Kozenczak, inquiring if he still wished to speak with him.

Kozenczak affirmed, then questioned how much time Gacy anticipated needing to arrive.

Gacy replied that he would require approximately thirty minutes.

Kozenczak remained until 01:00, yet Gacy failed to appear.

Police subsequently ascertained that following the telephone conversation, Gacy ascended to his attic, removed the remains of the Piest boy, and placed them within the boot of his vehicle. He then proceeded southward from Joliet and disposed of the corpse into the Des Plaines River.

December 13, 1978

Gacy's Refusal Prompts Police Investigation

Investigators later ascertained that Gacy's vehicle had been extracted from a snowdrift at 02:00 on the Tri-State Tollway north of Ogden Avenue—approximately thirty-eight miles north of the location where Gacy would subsequently claim he had discarded Piest's remains. Documentation from the towing company enabled authorities to pinpoint, within sixty minutes, the precise moment Gacy had disposed of the youth's body.

At 03:20, Gacy arrived at the Des Plaines police station, his trousers and footwear covered in mud. He requested to confer with Kozenczak but was advised to return at a later time.

He did indeed come back and furnished officers with a concise declaration. Kozenczak, presenting a search warrant, requested Gacy's keys to his residence. Gacy expressed opposition but ultimately surrendered his keys.

Inside the dwelling, police officers and a Cook County sheriff's office evidence technician found a receipt for a roll of film undergoing development. The Piest family confirmed the receipt belonged to a female acquaintance of their son, for whom Piest had offered to process the film. Other articles were seized from within the house, along with Gacy's automobile, van, and a pickup truck, all designated for later examination.

No additional items pertinent to Piest were discovered; however, police concluded that Piest had indeed been inside Gacy's home. Gacy, having been married twice, divorced twice, and currently residing alone, was released from custody around 23:00.

The Fifteenth of December, 1978

Authorities Uncover Objects Connected to Young Males

One day after Gacy was placed under continuous surveillance by police, a Maine West High School ring, recovered by officers from the residence, was linked to John Szyc, a youth who had been missing for two years.

On that very day, an employee of Gacy informed police that two former workers had vanished without a trace.

December 19, 1978

Attorneys Initiate Legal Action Against Police

Gacy extended an invitation to two police officers for breakfast within his home. Both detected the discernible odor of decomposition.

Gacy's legal representatives commenced a civil rights lawsuit, seeking seven hundred fifty thousand dollars, against Des Plaines and its Police Department, alleging that officers were persecuting their client through illicit searches and seizures, thereby damaging his standing with their inquiry.

December 20th, 1978

Police Ascertain a Prior Conviction

In the year 1968, Gacy entered a guilty plea to a solitary charge of sodomy involving a male teenager while he was residing in Waterloo, Iowa, resulting in a sentence of ten years in correctional facility. He received parole in 1970 and was permitted to return to Chicago to fulfill his parole terms, which concluded in October of 1971.

December 21st, 1978

Gacy Apprehended; Initial Remains Located

While under police observation, Gacy was seen transferring a package containing cannabis to a service station attendant. Gacy was pursued, then taken into custody.

Police were informed that Gacy had already confessed to his lawyer that he had perpetrated "maybe 30" homicides.

With Gacy in custody, investigators from the Des Plaines police and Cook County sheriff's office obtained a warrant and re-entered Gacy's single-story, ranch-style dwelling.

Police accused Gacy of detaining Piest there against his volition and threatened to dismantle the flooring to locate the teenager's corpse. Gacy denied Piest's presence but stated he had been compelled to kill a man in self-defense and had interred him beneath the concrete floor of his automotive garage. He then guided investigators to the garage and, using a can of aerosol paint, marked the spot on the floor where the body was interred.

Authorities also uncovered a concealed entrance to the house's crawl space, where they discovered sections of at least three bodies.

December 22, 1978

Gacy Offers Confession

In a discursive verbal statement spanning several hours, Gacy informed police that he had murdered thirty-two young men following sexual encounters with them. He referred to himself in the third person, asserting that the killings and sexual acts were perpetrated by "Jack" or "John."

He claimed to have buried the remains of twenty-seven victims on his premises (twenty-nine would ultimately be discovered), primarily within the crawl space. Five additional bodies (four would be recovered by police), including that of Piest, were, according to Gacy, cast into rivers situated south of Chicago. He sketched a diagram indicating the burial sites and disclosed the names of six of his victims.

Gacy was charged with Piest's murder, even though the youth's body had not yet been found.

December 23, 1978

Extensive Search Commences

As Gacy was transferred to Cook County Jail's Cermak Hospital, his residence was systematically dismantled, and the search for victims persisted.

Documents, billfolds, and other personal effects belonging to missing youths from the Chicago area—including nineteen-year-old John Szyc and seventeen-year-old Gregory Godzik—were discovered inside his house.

An anthropologist and a dental forensics expert were brought to the dwelling to assist with the evidence processing.

Parents of vanished boys, from distant places such as London, made telephone inquiries in an effort to ascertain the identity of any of the victims.

The discovery of a crimson light and police radio in Gacy's automobile led authorities to hypothesize that he might have impersonated a law enforcement officer to entice unsuspecting victims into his late-model black Oldsmobile.

December 24-25, 1978

Festivities Suspend Operations; Business Cards Show Gacy as Precinct Captain

Police maintained vigil at the site as hundreds of individuals drove or walked past the Gacy residence.

Investigators ascertained that Gacy held a position as a precinct captain within the Norwood Park Township Democratic Party organization.

December 26, 1978

Five Bodies Located in Crawl Space; One Previously Found in Des Plaines River Attributed to Gacy

Nine victims have been exhumed from the property thus far—eight originating from the crawl space in the northeastern section of the house, specifically an area beneath the office where Gacy conducted his renovation enterprise.

Police connected the demise of Frank Landingin, whose unclad body was found in the Des Plaines River at Channahon in Will County on November 12, 1978, to Gacy.

December 27, 1978

Eight Bodies Unearthed

Fifteen of the eighteen bodies discovered to date—the highest number linked to a single individual in Chicago-area history—have been extracted from the Gacy property. Police were assisted in the recovery of these remains by a diagram they assert was prepared by Gacy.

Several of the victims had men's swim briefs inserted into their mouths, while others bore ropes around their necks, indicating strangulation had occurred.

December 28, 1978

Four Bodies Found; Spectators Abound

Twenty-one bodies have been found to date, but none discovered on Gacy's property have yet been identified. Gacy, who initially confessed to investigators, declined to further discuss his case.

Crowds, along with broadcast news crews and their vehicles, congregated daily outside the residence.

December 29, 1978

Six Bodies Discovered; Total Reaches Twenty-Eight

As Cook County Chief Medical Examiner Robert Stein asserted there was evidence suggesting more bodies were interred beneath the house, fewer than twenty-four relatives had contacted police in an attempt to identify victims. Gacy, however, could not be charged in the fatalities of the victims whose remains were found on his property until their identities were confirmed.

A nationwide, toll-free crisis line was established for adolescent runaways to inform family and acquaintances of their safety in the wake of the Gacy incident.

December 30, 1978

Authorities Disclose Identity of First Body Exhumed from Gacy House; Three Known

As the casualty count ascended to twenty-nine with workers continuing to dismantle the dwelling, dental experts declared that the initial body discovered on the Gacy property belonged to eighteen-year-old John Butkovich of Chicago.

Butkovich had been employed by Gacy before vanishing on August 1, 1975. His parents recounted that their son visited Gacy's house that day to collect funds he believed Gacy owed him.

While undergoing interrogation by police on December 21, 1978, Gacy guided officers to his garage and indicated the spot where a body, later confirmed as Butkovich, was interred. The remains were exhumed the subsequent day.

Authorities also announced that the body of twenty-year-old James Mazzara, from Elmwood Park, who had been missing since the preceding month, was retrieved from the Des Plaines River on December 28, 1978, and definitively identified. He was found in the identical vicinity where Frank Landingin's body had been discovered on November 12, 1978. Gacy informed police that several bodies might be located at the confluence of the Des Plaines and Kankakee rivers, south of Joliet.

January 1, 1979

Three More Victims Identified; Six Confirmed

Specialists convened with Cook County's medical examiner to compare twenty-seven sets of dental records—produced after scrutinizing the upper and lower dentition of each victim—against the twelve forwarded by relatives of vanished young men.

They successfully identified three additional victims, bringing the total number of identifications to six as of this date:

Gregory Godzik, a seventeen-year-old from Chicago when he vanished on December 11, 1976.

John Szyc, nineteen years of age, from Chicago, who disappeared on January 20, 1977.

Rick Johnston, seventeen years old, from Bensenville, last observed on June 8, 1976, after his mother dropped him off at a concert event.

Investigators posit that the transmission of charts for comparison might be slow due to parents' reluctance to acknowledge their sons' association with Gacy.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Metropolitan Clown Guild convened a press conference to assert that Gacy's affinity for portraying "Pogo the Clown" had caused other clowns in the Chicago area to lose engagements because mothers were hesitant to have clowns near their offspring.

January 3, 1979

Gacy Interviewed

Authorities met with Gacy, who assured them, "you have all the bodies." Twenty-seven had been recovered on his property and two additional ones had been extracted from the Des Plaines River near Joliet. Gacy stated that each of the victims, residents of Cook County, had been murdered inside his house, and it was only once the crawl space beneath his dwelling became overpopulated that he commenced disposing of bodies in the river.

He also detailed how he had fatally stabbed the initial individual inside his sleeping quarters on January 3, 1972. Reportedly, he claimed it was a youth he had encountered at the Greyhound bus terminal in the Loop. Investigators located a substantial bloodstain on the underside of the carpeting in the bedroom. In 1986, the victim was identified as sixteen-year-old Timothy Jack McCoy.

However, the body still being sought was that of fifteen-year-old Robert Piest, from Des Plaines, the singular individual for whose murder Gacy was charged. Investigators affirmed that Gacy had confessed in the preceding month to killing Piest and casting his body into the river.

January 4, 1979

Piest&39;s Jacket Discovered Within Gacy House

The down-filled outer garment was located precisely where Gacy directed investigators to search—beneath the flooring of the utility room. It was subsequently verified by Piest's relatives as having belonged to him.

January 6, 1979

Four Bodies Identified; Ten Known

Michael Bonnin, seventeen, from Chicago, last observed alive on June 3, 1976.

Robert Gilroy, eighteen, from Chicago, last observed alive on September 15, 1977. His father, Robert, served as a Chicago police sergeant. The Gilroy household was situated four blocks from Gacy's residence, but no connection between the two could be established.

Jon Prestidge, twenty, from Chicago, last observed alive on March 15, 1977. His grandfather, Ira, informed reporters that his grandson had come to Chicago to visit a friend and had secured employment with a Chicago contractor.

Russell Nelson, twenty-one or twenty-two, from Cloquet, Minn., last observed alive on October 17, 1977. He represents the first victim from outside the Chicago area to be linked to Gacy. His mother, Norma, stated her son had arrived in Chicago with another young man to work for a Chicago contractor.

January 7, 1979

Missing Persons Database to Be Established

Estimating that the department receives up to twenty thousand reports of missing individuals—approximately fourteen thousand of which pertain to minors—each year, Chicago police announced that the agency would develop a computerized system to aid in investigating cases of those who had been abducted or killed. Police affirmed that the decision to computerize missing persons records stemmed from the Gacy case.

Nonetheless, it would not alleviate the issues caused by overlapping police jurisdictions, as Chicago and the suburban areas did not collaborate closely or exchange substantial information.

January 8, 1979

Gacy Indicted; State Seeks Capital Punishment

Gacy was charged with the murder of seven young men, along with the felonies of aggravated kidnapping, deviate sexual assault, and taking indecent liberties with a child.

Cook County State's Attorney Bernard Carey declared that Gacy could receive a fair trial locally and opposed any attempt by defense attorneys to transfer the trial to a different county.

January 9, 1979

Another Identification Linked to Gacy

A body recovered in June 1978 from the Illinois River—merely three miles from where the remains of Frank Landingin and James Mazzara were located—was identified through fingerprints as Timothy O'Rourke, from Chicago.

January 10, 1979

Gacy&39;s Plea: Innocent

Charged with the homicide of seven young men, Gacy entered a plea of not guilty before Judge Louis Garippo at what is currently known as the Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago. The accusations included murder committed during another felony, which constituted a capital offense.

January 27, 1979

Two Bodies Identified; Twelve Known

Utilizing dental charts, specialists confirmed the identities of:

John Mowery, nineteen years of age, from Chicago, who was reported missing on September 25, 1977. He had just concluded eighteen months with the Marines upon his return to Chicago in early 1977. His sister, Judith, had been murdered six years prior, and that case remained unresolved.

Matthew Bowman, eighteen, from Crystal Lake, who was reported missing by his sister on July 5, 1977.

March 9, 1979

Twenty-Eighth Body Discovered on Gacy Property

Skeletal remains, bearing a nuptial band on the ring finger of the left hand, were exhumed from beneath the driveway area—a location not indicated on a rudimentary diagram Gacy had previously supplied to the police.

March 16, 1979

Twenty-Ninth Body Found; Thirty-Two Now Connected to Gacy

A skeleton was located in the mire beneath the floorboards of an extension to the Gacy residence.

March 17, 1979

Eleventh Body Identified

Dental records confirmed William Carroll, sixteen, from Chicago, as a Gacy victim. The youth, who had a propensity for encountering difficulties, vanished on June 13, 1976—his elder brother's natal day.

April 9, 1979

Piest&39;s Remains Identified

Presumed to be the last of Gacy's victims, police had physical evidence in Gacy's vehicle and dwelling connected to Piest. Gacy admitted to discarding Piest's body in the Des Plaines River and was apprehended for his murder. However, Piest was not definitively identified as a Gacy victim until dental charts and X-ray images provided confirmation.

April 10, 1979

Gacy Residence Razed

With the Illinois Supreme Court declining to permit any further postponement, the Gacy house was demolished by county employees.

April 11, 1979

Sixteenth Body Identified via X-Ray

Randall Reffett, fifteen, from Chicago, was not identified by dental records, but rather by an X-ray taken at Weiss Memorial Hospital after he had previously sustained a stab wound. His body had been removed from the crawl space beneath Gacy's house on December 25, 1978.

May 21, 1979

Seventeenth Body Identified

William Kindred, nineteen, from Chicago, was identified through dental records supplied by his mother. He had last been seen on February 16, 1978. His girlfriend, Mary Jo Paulus, who had met Kindred when he picked her and a friend up while they were hitchhiking on the North Side in July 1977, reported him as vanished.

June 17, 1979

Scheduled Auction Canceled

Items not required as evidence—including audio equipment, furnishings, implements from the renovation enterprise, and a collection of clown heads—were slated for sale at the Kane County Fairgrounds. This was an attempt to acquire funds to compensate Gacy's legal team. However, the auction was called off when Gacy's attorneys realized it would coincide with Father's Day.

Gacy's possessions would remain in storage for fifteen years, with then-Attorney General Roland Burris initiating a lawsuit to recover the warehousing expenditures prior to Gacy's 1994 execution.

Gacy's motor vehicles, including the 1979 Oldsmobile utilized to transport the body of at least one of his victims, were apparently sold at an April 1980 auction in Winnebago County, which also showcased automobiles previously owned by Muhammad Ali, Elvis, and former President Gerald Ford.

July 23, 1979

Sheriff Disseminates Descriptions of Personal Articles

Investigators provided a listing of distinguishing items in an endeavor to ascertain victim identities:

Attire

• An army green fatigue coat bearing the inscription "Duke" sewn on the left front, alongside the outline of a First Cavalry (Air Mobile) Division emblem.
• A brown, frontier-style, fringed leather jacket, size thirty-eight (depicted below).
• A black, quilted nylon jacket spattered with white paint.
• A dark red or maroon shirt interwoven with silver threads.
• Denim blue jeans adorned with fabric stars as embellishments.

Timepieces

• A white, metallic Boy Scouts wrist-mounted clock with a compass on its facade.
• A white, metallic Ingram pocket-sized timepiece.

Neckwear

• Made of wooden beads.
• A chain of turquoise and white circular shells.
• A substantial metallic chain featuring the Latin phrase "Utrius Auctus Auxilio" on a pendant.

Belt Fastenings

• A yellow, metallic buckle engraved with an antique vehicle and the inscription "Ford Model A."
• A white, metallic buckle adorned with a brown stone and black striations (later determined to belong to victim Robert Winch).

August 28, 1979

A Single Trial

The presiding judge in the legal proceeding acceded to a defense motion to consolidate the thirty-three murder indictments pending against Gacy. The provisional trial commencement date was established as January 7, 1980.

September 12, 1979

Two Bodies Identified; Nineteen Known

Vanishing merely days apart in 1977, with their remains being located adjacent to each other in the central portion of the crawl space, were a twenty-year-old father and the sixteen-year-old son of a university physics professor:

Tommy Boling Jr., twenty, from Chicago, who disappeared on November 18, 1977. Boling and his spouse, Jolli, had a three-year-old son named Timmie. Boling's sister disclosed that he was using narcotics at that time.

Robert Winch, sixteen, from Chicago, who disappeared on November 11, 1977. He had previously been in conflict with the law and vanished after absconding from a foster care facility. His father was a physics professor in Kalamazoo, Mich., where Winch had resided before relocating to Chicago. Winch was identified by a distinctive "tiger's eye" belt buckle and skeletal markings from bones that had been fractured in an accident and subsequently healed.

October 24, 1979

County to Subsidize Gacy&39;s Legal Defense

Although the precise financial sum had not yet been ascertained, Judge Garippo ruled that Cook County taxpayers would be responsible for compensating Gacy's legal representatives, Sam Amirante and Robert Motta, who stated they had depleted their funds and were more than two thousand dollars in arrears.

November 14, 1979

Another Gacy Victim Identified

Samuel Stapleton, fourteen, from Chicago, was identified by a prior X-ray of his cranium that featured outlines of his dentition. He vanished while walking home from his sister's dwelling on May 13, 1976, and his mother and stepfather reported him missing the subsequent day.

His parents had suspected Stapleton might be deceased almost a year earlier when the medical examiner's office presented them with a bracelet discovered on one of the remains beneath Gacy's domicile.

November 16, 1979

Identification Brings Total to Twenty-One Known Victims

On what would have been his twenty-first natal day, David Talsma, from Chicago, was identified through X-ray images of his left arm as a Gacy victim whose body was found in the house's crawl space. Talsma was reported as vanished on December 14, 1977, by his father.

January 7, 1980

Jury Selection in Winnebago County; Trial in Chicago

Following Gacy's attorneys' request for a change of venue, Judge Garippo determined that the jury—consisting of twelve regular jurors and two alternates—would be chosen in Rockford and then sequestered in Chicago for the trial. Garippo emphasized that this arrangement would spare Cook County the expense of relocating prosecutors, defense counsel, court personnel, and witnesses for what was anticipated to be an protracted and costly legal proceeding.

January 26, 1980

Gacy Hastily Transferred to Rockford

Under extraordinary security protocols, Gacy was relocated from Cook County to an isolated section on the third floor of the edifice adjacent to the Winnebago County Courthouse prior to the jury selection process.

February 6, 1980

Trial Commences

Due to the graphic nature of the testimony and evidence slated for presentation, Judge Garippo prohibited anyone under sixteen years of age from entering the courtroom.

Defense attorneys aspired to persuade the jury that Gacy was not culpable by reason of mental infirmity. Prosecutors sought to have Gacy condemned to the electric chair.

March 12, 1980

Verdict: Guilty

After five weeks of testimony from psychiatrists, police personnel, neighbors, acquaintances, and family members of the victims, a jury deliberated for less than two hours before convicting Gacy of causing the deaths of thirty-three young men.

March 13, 1980

Condemned to Execution

Parents and relatives of Gacy's victims erupted in applause upon the announcement around 18:30 that Gacy had been sentenced to die. Judge Garippo scheduled an execution date of June 2, 1980, but the sentence was automatically deferred while the case was appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.

March 29, 1980

Three Victims Identified; Twenty-Four Known

Childhood friends Kenneth Parker, sixteen, from Chicago, and Michael Marino, fourteen, from Chicago, both of whom vanished on October 24, 1976, were identified through dental and radiological records. Investigators surmise the two may have been killed simultaneously because they shared a common interment site beneath Gacy's residence.

Darrel Samson, nineteen, from Chicago, was also identified by police as a Gacy victim.

May 15, 1980

Gacy&39;s Attorneys Resign, Pursue Literary Endeavor

Sam Amirante and Robert Motta, each having received forty-four thousand four hundred twenty-four dollars for their services defending Gacy, withdrew from the case and billed the county fifty-seven thousand six hundred three dollars for expenditures. A Circuit Court judge approved a path for Amirante and Motta to be remunerated for their contributions to a literary work, a motion picture, and a television agreement.

July 14, 1980

Artist Reconstructs Unknown Victims

In an appeal to families of missing young men, Cook County Chief Medical Examiner Robert Stein released depictions of facial reconstruction expert Betty Pat Gatliff's models of the nine unidentified victims found on Gacy's property. Stein had solicited dental charts of missing youths but had only received approximately two hundred of them.

Stein also urged families hesitant to identify a son due to concerns about his potential homosexuality to bear in mind: "There is no evidence that an individual child here participated in any sexually deviate practices."

June 12, 1981

Interred

Nine donated brown coffins, adorned with wreaths of yellow chrysanthemums and daisies, were arranged in a semi-circle outside Abbey Chapel of Oakridge-Glen Oak Cemetery during a brief ceremony honoring the nine unidentified Gacy victims. Each was subsequently interred in a separate cemetery, with its own graveside memorial and a marker inscribed: "We remembered."

August 1982

Gacy&39;s Artworks Exhibited, Sold at Illinois State Fair

Six pieces of art created by Gacy—including one featuring the Seven Dwarfs, a desert landscape, a mountain ranch vista, portrayals of circus jesters, and a depiction of a Native American chieftain—were among the five hundred works displayed at the fair by incarcerated individuals. Four of these creations sold for sums between twenty and forty-five dollars. The proceeds were utilized to supply inmates with pigments and other artistic materials.

June 6, 1984

Supreme Court Affirms Gacy&39;s Conviction

The court upheld Gacy's March 12, 1980, conviction for thirty-three homicides and affirmed the death penalty.

In a seventy-two-page judicial opinion, the court dismissed all thirty-nine contentions raised by Gacy's legal counsel, including arguments that Gacy, despite admitting the killings, had been precluded during the trial from adequately demonstrating his insanity.

July 24, 1984

Gacy&39;s Estate Liquidated

Hoyne Savings & Loan Association acquired the vacant land for thirty thousand five hundred forty-four dollars and one cent—the total amount owed on two mortgages held by the association, outstanding taxes, and other associated expenditures.

March 4, 1985

Appeal Denied by U.S. Supreme Court

In a six-to-two ruling—with dissenting opinions from Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, both opponents of capital punishment—the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Gacy's appeal. The justices' refusal to re-examine the preceding year's Illinois Supreme Court decision that upheld Gacy's death sentence meant he would be compelled to continue his appeal process in state courts and, if necessary, in lower federal tribunals in order to avert execution.

May 1986

Earliest Victim Identified; Eight Remain Unknown

Timothy Jack McCoy was merely passing through Chicago when he was approached by Gacy at a Greyhound bus station in January 1972. McCoy accompanied Gacy back to his residence, where he was fatally stabbed in the chest and subsequently interred in the crawl space.

McCoy's distinct dental characteristics assisted Dr. Edward Pavlik, an Olympia Fields orthodontist and chief of forensic science for the Cook County sheriff's office, in determining McCoy to be Gacy's first victim.

June 15, 1988

Groundbreaking at Site of Gacy&39;s Former Residence

The sixty-centimeter-tall weeds and discarded containers that littered the sixty-by-one-hundred-forty-four-foot plot at 8213 W. Summerdale Ave., were cleared to facilitate the construction of a new two-thousand-three-hundred-square-foot dwelling. The location also acquired a new numerical identifier, 8215 W. Summerdale Ave.

May 10, 1994

Executed

With all his legal appeals exhausted, Gacy passed away following a lethal chemical injection at 00:58 at Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet. His final repast included fried poultry and butterfly-cut crustaceans.

May 14, 1994

Bidders Expend Up to Twenty Thousand Dollars to Acquire Gacy Paintings, Intending to Destroy Them

Two businessmen from Naperville acquired up to thirty pieces of artwork—depicting clowns, Disney characters, skeletal representations, Jesus Christ, and Elvis Presley—produced by Gacy during an auction attended by over two hundred individuals. Auctioneers stated that proceeds would be directed to the vendors, who were private citizens, with a portion being donated to the families of Gacy's victims.

October 12, 2011

Public Effort Renewed to Identify Eight Unknown Victims

After exhuming skeletal remains and extracting DNA from the still-unidentified victims, Dart encouraged friends or family members who were aware of a young boy or man who had vanished between 1970 and December 22, 1978, to come forward.

Detectives believe the passage of chronological duration might prove advantageous. Some families who had never reported victims missing and had never sought them out might now be willing to do so—a generation after Gacy's homosexuality and his pattern of preying on vulnerable adolescents were extensively publicized across news outlets globally.

November 29, 2011

DNA Confirms Gacy Victim

In October 1976, William George Bundy, nineteen, from Chicago, informed his family he was attending a social gathering. He never returned home.

In 1979, as investigators endeavored to ascertain the identities of Gacy's victims following his apprehension, Bundy's mother sought her son's dental records but learned the dentist had retired. She eventually located the dentist, only to discover that he had incinerated all his files, according to the sheriff. However, after Bundy's sister and brother provided genetic samples to sheriff's officials, it was ascertained that they constituted a perfect match for Victim No. 19, the nineteenth body removed by authorities from the crawl space of Gacy's dwelling.

October 25, 2011

Long-Lost Relative, Presumed Gacy Victim, Reunited with Kin

Family members had believed Harold Wayne Lovell, a nineteen-year-old construction laborer, could potentially have been a Gacy victim. Upon contacting the Cook County sheriff's office, however, his siblings discovered that Lovell was not deceased, but rather residing in South Florida. They were promptly reunited.

October 25, 2012

Woman&39;s Assertion: Son Not a Gacy Victim

After skeletal remains were exhumed and DNA analysis conducted at a laboratory in North Carolina, legal representatives for Sherry Marino contended that the remains she had interred were not those of her fourteen-year-old son, Michael Marino.

Michael Marino's mother had submitted two sets of dental records, along with X-ray images, which were utilized as part of the preliminary inquiry. Dr. Edward Pavlik, an orthodontist who is a member of the team of specialists working on the intricate investigation, established a correspondence with the dental records.

Pavlik, who harbored skepticism regarding Marino's inquiries about her son's identity, maintained his certainty that his identification had been accurate.

December 2015

Investigation Solves Eleven Unrelated Cold Cases

In the years since Sheriff Dart reinstituted the investigation to identify eight unknown victims, Detective Sgt. Jason Moran's endeavors have led him to resolve eleven missing persons cases—unconnected to the Gacy case—that had been inactive for several decades.

July 19, 2017

Second Long-Unknown Gacy Victim Identified

Jimmy Haakenson embarked on an expedition more than forty years ago, traveling to Chicago from his Minnesota home at a mere sixteen years of age. DNA provided by a brother and sister aided in confirming that Haakenson was Victim No. 24, whose remains were discovered interred with many of the other victims in the crawl space of Gacy's residence.

Haakenson's mother had arrived in Chicago in 1979 following Gacy's apprehension. Her attempt to ascertain if her son was among Gacy's victims proved unsuccessful because she did not possess his dental records—then the primary method for identifying human remains.

October 25, 2021

Third Unknown Gacy Victim Identified

Francis Wayne Alexander has been identified, as announced by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart at a press conference. He was previously designated as Victim No. 5. Alexander's body was discovered inside Gacy's domicile on December 26, 1978. Authorities assert he was slain between early 1976 and early 1977.

Only five unidentified Gacy victims presently remain.