John Wayne Gacy was known for being an American serial killer. He raped, tortured and murdered 33 teenage boys, and young men, that we know of. People suspect there could be other victims of Gacy. His murders occurred between 1972 and 1978 in Cook County, Illinois, in his infamous Norwood Park ranch house. Gacy was known as the "killer clown" for dressing in a clown costume and makeup- I know, creepy much? Only after being accused of sexual assault in 1968, were Gacy's murders then discovered.Chicago-area Jolly Joker clown club was a place Gacy would often go. He would frequently perform as a clown at children's parties, as well as charity fundraisers. When Gacy would commit his murders he would dress as his alter egos "Pogo the Clown" or "Patches the Clown." Once captured, he would sexually assault, torture and eventually strangle his victims to death.
In 1968, Gacy was finally convicted of sexually assaulting two teen boys. From this, he received a 10-year prison sentence. Once he was released he got arrested again the following year after being accused of sexual assault again by a teenage boy. Though, the charges the teenage boy made against him were dropped when the boy didn't appear during the trial.
To this day there are still concerns that Gacy was been responsible for many of the deaths of other people who are yet to be found, a true unsolved mystery.
Sources:
1. https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/john-wayne-gacy
2. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Wayne-Gacy
3. https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/john-wayne-gacy/
It seems like Gacy was heavily influenced by growing up in an unhealthy abusive environment. John Wayne Gacy's brain was actually autopsied by Dr. Helen Morrison, who reported it as being "normal". Just as we saw with the psychopaths and sociopaths, it is not the brain itself that is necessarily different but the amount of brain being used when assessing words and others. While the doctor believed that she could not find anything different from them, she did report that the killers recounted their crimes "as if they were reciting grocery lists". This supports the ideas asserted by the psychologist who put killers through the word experiment. Without the technology to scan and record brain activity, we likely would never have learned what set serial killers apart from the rest of us.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-may-23-adna-mind23-story.html