John Wayne Gacy: The Real Killer Clown

Summary

Podcast Summary: "John Wayne Gacy: The Real Killer Clown"

Podcast: Scams, Money, & Murder
Host: Crime House (Sabrina Dianarroga & Corinne Vien)
Episode Date: August 5, 2026
Episode Focus: A chilling exploration of the life and crimes of John Wayne Gacy, the so-called "Killer Clown," his psychology, mythos in pop culture, and his influence on the horror genre, especially the archetype of the killer clown typified by Stephen King's Pennywise.

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Episode Overview

This episode peels back the mask on John Wayne Gacy, taking listeners from his seemingly ordinary midwestern life through his horrifying crimes, and on to his outsized influence on the "evil clown" trope in popular culture. The hosts, Corinne and Sabrina, mix chilling storytelling with candid, sometimes irreverent conversation, examining how Gacy's duality—model neighbor by day, monstrous predator by night—created a legacy that haunts true crime and horror to this day.

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Key Episode Sections & Insights

1. Setting the Stage – Gacy’s Public Persona vs. Secret Life

• Two Truths & a Lie game introduces bizarre facts about Gacy: community engagement, annual parties, and his clown personas Pogo and Patches (not "Pollywog") (01:01–01:49).
  • Quote:
    "But obviously, no matter how he dressed up, John Wayne Gacy was no laughing matter."
    — Corinne (01:49)

2. Pop Culture & the Killer Clown Trope

• Links Gacy’s legacy to Stephen King’s Pennywise in It, noting the symbolic power of the killer clown and societal fears (02:06–08:47).
  • Quote:
    "We wanna be afraid of monsters, but not when they're Bill Skarsgård."
    — Corinne (07:38)

3. Victims First: Remembering Lives Lost

• The hosts emphasize the importance of honoring Gacy’s victims, many of whom remain unidentified, resisting the mythologizing of the killer (05:09–06:23).

4. Gacy’s Early Life: Abuse, Alienation, and Early Signs

• Details Gacy’s abusive childhood, longing for a father’s approval, and experiences of bullying and molestation (11:58–15:45).
  • Quote:
    "Despite all of this mistreatment, he still viewed his dad as this sort of, like, idol, which is so heartbreaking." — Sabrina (13:14)

5. Las Vegas and Funeral Home Obsession

• Gacy’s fascination with death and corpses emerges when he works in a funeral home and lies with a dead body—later described as a turning point (17:31–20:40).
  • Memorable Segment/Quote:
    "He wants nothing more than to stay here, to remain flesh to flesh with the deceased boy beneath him. The taboo excites him."
    — Sabrina (19:15–20:15)
  • Key Moment: Gacy flees Las Vegas in shame, knowing his impulses are dangerous. (20:28–21:01)

6. The Mask Slips: Gacy’s Path to Abuse and Murder

• Details Gacy’s double life: respected local figure, family man, but secretly abusing, molesting, and ultimately killing young boys and men (21:44–26:18).
• His first conviction (sexually abusing Donald Voorhees, 1968), attempts to silence victims, prison time, and devastating impact on his own family (27:19–34:43).
  • Quote:
    "He blamed Donald for setting him up. No matter what he did, it was always someone else's fault."
    — Corinne (32:09)

7. Escalation: First Murders and the Building Body Count

• Out on parole early, Gacy blends further into the community while escalating his crimes (35:15–37:30).
• First known murder: Timothy McCoy in 1972 ("accidental" stabbing; body entombed under his house) (37:31–39:12).
• The chilling routine: alcohol, "magic trick" handcuffs, sexual assault, murder, burial in crawl space (45:22–49:04).

8. The Perfect Cover: Clowning, Charity, and Community

• Gacy’s involvement in the “Jolly Joker Clown Club” provides camouflage and egotistical fulfillment; he crafts Pogo and Patches, his dual clown personas (53:21–55:34).
• Quote:
  "When he puts a mask on, he literally is hiding."
  — Sabrina (54:45)

9. The Undoing: Robert Piest and Gacy’s Capture

• Gacy’s downfall begins with the disappearance of a well-connected victim, Robert Piest, in December 1978 (64:51).
• Police surveillance, crucial evidence, and the discovery of the crawl space graves (66:08–70:51).
  • Quote:
    "That's when he smells it. The unmistakable scent of rot." — (68:50)

10. Confession, Trial, and Legacy

• Gacy confesses to 30+ murders, is tried for 33, receives the death penalty, and craves attention to the end (70:51–74:13).
• Discussions of possible accomplices and Gacy’s chilling artwork in prison (74:19–76:07).
  • Quote:
    "Did John Wayne Gacy have an accomplice?" — Sabrina (74:19)

11. The Horror Echoes: Pennywise, Pop Culture, and Real-World Monsters

• Exploration of the similarities and differences between Gacy and Pennywise. Gacy, at the root of the “evil clown” trope, is more terrifying for being real (77:02–84:37).
  • Quote:
    "To me, that sense of normalcy is probably the scariest part of John Wayne Gacy's story... sometimes, the most evil people are the ones we don't expect."
    — Corinne (84:18)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Gacy’s clown personas:
  "Gacy had two clown Personas. One was named Patches and one was named Pogo."
  — Corinne (01:49)

• On pop culture echoes:
  "Gacy's story is inextricably linked to the killer clown trope, and Pennywise is definitely a part of that legacy."
  — Corinne (08:15)

• On community trust and horror:
  "It is the men who masquerade as caretakers, confident leaders, and even clowns."
  — Corinne (84:48)

• On the psychology of Gacy:
  "He bottled them up, he would ignore them, and he would blame everyone else."
  — Corinne (35:14)

• About the haunting power of Gacy and Pennywise:
  "Gacy’s story is inextricably linked to the killer clown trope, and Pennywise is definitely part of that legacy."
  — Corinne (08:15)

• On the true horror:
  "The big takeaway... sometimes the most evil people are the ones that we don't expect."
  — Corinne (84:37)

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Memorable Moments & Storytelling Highlights

• Graphic, immersive storytelling puts listeners in the crawl space with the police (09:01).
• Reflections on the psychology of both Gacy and his victims—how cycles of abuse perpetuate horror (13:14–15:16; 31:15).
• Colorful, personal asides and banter (e.g., on crushes on Skarsgård's Pennywise, their own mild clown-phobia, and wearing creepy costumes) provide levity amid heaviness (07:24–07:42; 81:45–82:41).

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Key Timestamps

• 00:53 — Two truths and a lie: Gacy’s personas and community image.
• 02:06–08:47 — The Killer Clown and Pennywise in pop culture.
• 11:58–15:46 — Gacy’s abusive childhood and psychological roots.
• 17:31–21:01 — Funeral home incident; early signs of macabre obsession.
• 27:19–34:43 — First conviction, violence, and psychological fallout.
• 35:15–37:30 — Release from prison, escalation to murder.
• 39:12–41:39 — First murder described, burial under house.
• 53:21–55:34 — Gacy’s clowning and joining the Jolly Joker Clown Club.
• 64:51–66:08 — Robert Piest disappearance and breakthrough in the case.
• 68:08–70:51 — Officers search the house, crawl space discovered.
• 70:51–74:13 — Gacy’s confession, trial, and death sentence.
• 77:02–84:37 — Links to Pennywise, horror history, and enduring legacy.

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Episode Tone & Final Thoughts

The episode artfully balances harrowing detail with insightful psychological analysis and a conversational, modern irreverence that makes grim subject matter accessible and memorable. Sabrina and Corinne emphasize how Gacy’s “mask” of normalcy enabled his predations and warn listeners that evil often hides in plain sight—even behind a smile, or a clown’s wig.

Final Takeaways:

• Gacy’s case is a profound warning about trusting surface appearances.
• The “killer clown” is a modern archetype that owes much to both real horror and cultural mythmaking.
• The episode leaves listeners haunted not just by the specifics of Gacy’s crimes, but by the fraught relationship between evil, community, and the banality of masks.

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For more true crime deep-dives, disturbing histories, and horror origins, subscribe to Crime House’s "Crimes of Infamy" series, and follow them on your podcast platform of choice. And—per their playful argument—maybe don’t trust clowns... or anyone.

Transcript

[Vanessa]

Hi, listeners, it's Vanessa. Before today's episode, I want to tell you about another show I think you'll love. Crime House and A. E are teaming up on the podcast version of the famous true crime series, the First 48. Each week, Carter Roy takes you inside a landmark homicide case. The interrogations, the dead ends, and the breakthroughs in the critical first 48 hours. Listen to and follow the first 48 every Thursday on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

This is Crime House.

[Corinne Vien]

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Crimes of Infamy. Sabrina, shall we begin with a little game of two truths and a lie?

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Of course we should.

[Corinne Vien]

Okay, today this game is about the notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy, known as the Killer Clown.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Lovely.

[Corinne Vien]

Okay, so number one, because of his charity work and political activism, John once personally met the first lady of the United States.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Okay.

[Corinne Vien]

Number two, John's clown Persona was named Pollywog because he would croak like a frog to make the kids laugh.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Okay, why can you do that so well?

[Corinne Vien]

Okay, and number three, John hosted annual summer parties for his neighbors that were attended by hundreds of people.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Okay, so I'm guessing the lie.

[Corinne Vien]

Guess the lie.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

Two of these are truths.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Okay, well, if you can believe it, because I know about John man Gacy. I know he wasn't Polly the Frog. Croaking clown Pollywog. Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's true.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

That's true.

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It's a lie.

[Corinne Vien]

Is number two, because in reality, Gacy had two clown Personas. So one was named Patches and one was named Pogo, and Patches was a little bit more serious and Pogo acted a little more silly. But obviously, no matter how he dressed up, John Wangusi was no laughing matter.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

In today's episode, we'll tell you all about John's horrific crimes, how he became known as the killer clown, and the long shadow he cast over pop culture, including his similarities to the character of Pennywise the clown in Stephen King's it who is literally nightmare fuel.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah, he is. Welcome to Crimes of Infamy, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Every Tuesday, we're exploring a different corner of the true crime universe, examining cases that left a permanent impact on society and giving you a front seat to every twist and turn along the way. We are your hosts, Corinne Vien and Sabrina Dianarroga. I will be the one walking you through the chilling narratives of every story.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I will be zooming in on the moments and showing you how the very real scenes in these stories played out if you're loving crimes of please follow rate and review us wherever you listen. It helps us build this community and we love hearing from you. To get early access and ad free listening, subscribe to the Crime House plus community on Apple Podcasts. You can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life. This season is all about the crimes behind the world's most iconic horror movies and today we're talking about John Wayne Gacy, whose crimes have a lot of connections to the iconic villain Pennywise. From it,

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[Corinne Vien]

This episode contains descriptions of murder and sexual assault, so please listen with care. Between 1972 and 1978, John Wayne Gacy murdered at least 33 young men and boys in Chicago. But before we start talking about him and his crimes, we always want to start with honoring victims and their memories.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

These crimes affected real people in real tragic ways, and remembering them is especially important for cases like these where the killer has become this sort of mythological figure. Because out of all of the serial killers out there, John Wayne Gacy stands out not only for what he did, but for what he wore. Gacy Often performed at children's hospitals and birthday parties as a clown. And his charity work helped him avoid suspicion. But once he was exposed, it put him under the spotlight.

[Corinne Vien]

After his arrest, the press started calling Gacy the killer clown, which has become a popular horror trope over the years. We've seen it many times. The movie it, based on the novel by Stephen King, features one of the most famous examples of a character like this, Pennywise.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And I also want to say, like, of his victims, there are still so many of them who haven't been identified. They found so many bodies.

[Corinne Vien]

The identifications have only been made recently.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right. Because there were some that, you know, maybe weren't marked as missing people. And he really did prey on innocent people.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I also read a really disturbing fact that when. And we'll get more into the details in this episode, but where he was burying a lot of the bodies underneath his house in the crawl space. He ran out of space and that he was like, do I start putting them in my attic? But then he decided to dispose of them in a local river.

[Corinne Vien]

Okay. So you can see why people are afraid of clowns.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Are you afraid of clowns?

[Corinne Vien]

I'm actually not. Are you?

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I'm not.

[Corinne Vien]

Are you indifferent? Cause I'm indifferent. I don't like them, but I don't dislike them.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Like, I'm not seeking out clowns, but I'm not scared of them in the way that, like. Like when I go to Halloween mazes and spooky places, I don't run away scared from clowns.

[Corinne Vien]

And in fact, when Bill Skarsgrd played Pennywise in it. Bill Skarsgrd. Despite all that makeup, I still had a crush on him.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah. Yeah. That was definitely a way more attractive Pennywise the clown. Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

We wanna be afraid of monsters, but not when they're Bill Skarsgrd.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Not when they're hot. I mean, in addition to Skarsgrd. Skarsgrd being very a sexy Pennywise and Tim Curry's being a nightmare, I do love Stephen King, and I have. I mean, he's like a horror icon and a literary genius, and it was, like, one of the first. I mean, Stephen King was my entryway into especially horror novels, and it is one of the best.

[Corinne Vien]

And Bangor, Maine, where Stephen King has. His residence, is still on our travel bucket list.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Absolutely. We have to.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. But John Wayne Gacy is a clown. Terrifying. And we know people have opinions about clowns, so let us know in the comments or in our Spotify poll. Are you yay or nay? Love them or hate them, one thing is for sure. One of the scariest fictional clowns out there is the monster known as Pennywise. And we should note that Stephen King has not said that John Wayne Gacy directly influenced Pennywise. But Gacy's story is inextricably linked to the killer clown trope, and Pennywise is definitely a part of that legacy.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Obviously, there's the clown costume.

[Corinne Vien]

And like John Wayne Gacy, Pennywise mostly

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

targeted young people, claims a staggering number

[Corinne Vien]

of victims, and his innocent, wholesome appearance disguises the real monster underneath.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I have to say, the similarities are undeniable, whether it was on purpose or not. But the big difference is that John Wayne Gacy was all too real. And his actual crimes were so horrific, they would even send a chill down Stephen King's spine. It's late December 1978. The sun sets over a quiet house in Norwood Park Township, Illinois. Evidence technician Daniel Genty stands outside the home's crawl space door. He knows something bad is waiting for him in there, but he isn't sure what he'll find. At first, it seemed incomprehensible that someone like John Wayne Gacy could fall under suspicion. Everyone in town loved him. But people have gone missing, and Gacy himself admitted to hurting them. Now it's Genty's job to find the evidence. He takes a deep breath, gets on his hands and knees and enters the crawl space. He knows where to look. The southwest west corner. Genti starts digging and finds a human arm bone, rotting flesh still attached to it. The more he digs, the worse it gets. Genti's seen a lot in his career, but nothing like this. He calls back to his colleagues and says they can definitely charge John Wayne Gacy for murder. But that's not all. He adds, one more thing. I think this place is full of kids.

[Corinne Vien]

What a heartbreaking thing to discover. And this discovery was just the beginning, because 29 bodies would be found on John Wayne Gacy's property.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

It's so sad. On his property?

[Corinne Vien]

On his property. Yeah, it's almost. It's beyond comprehension, like, the scope of this. And I can't even imagine being an investigator. And we'll get into some of the details, but it's quite upsetting that it was even able to get to that

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

number and that he's doing this in his own home, burying the bodies underneath his own home. He even was hiring some of his,

[Corinne Vien]

like, potential victims and sometimes his victims that he didn't fully kill to help

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

dig out these spaces for bodies under his building.

[Corinne Vien]

And attempt to mask the smell.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And as we'll discuss, there are so many times in this story and in the real life case of John Wayne Gacy where it felt like he almost got caught, but he kept getting away.

[Corinne Vien]

Yes. So it's very frustrating that this was able to happen. Pretty much everyone in his area knew John Wayne Gacy as a really good and decent guy, which maybe played a little bit into why he was able to get away with it so many times. And he was the sort of person that everyone felt helped kids, not killed them. Right, right. He was a clown. He played at parties. But as more information came out, John Wayne Gacy's true self became clear. And to really understand what brought him here, we have to go back to the beginning.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yes.

[Corinne Vien]

John Wayne Gacy's youth. Well, I mean, it definitely played a part in contributing to the monster that he would become. He grew up as part of this sort of like, perfect nuclear family in Chicago. And his dad was a machinist and a car mechanic. And by day, he was very nice, very friendly, downright charming. But behind closed doors, that man was evil. His father was a monster, which is

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

very similar to what John grew up to be.

[Corinne Vien]

Exactly.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

After coming home from work, John's dad would retreat to their basement to drink. And when he emerged, he would take his day's frustration out on his son and he would mercilessly beat John. He would treat him like not even as a human being with the types of torture that he did. And in 1949, John was only 7 years old, yet by that point, his father had really already given up on him. And John was used to being called things like a thief and stupid and sissy by his dad. And yet his response, John Wayne Gacy's response to this was that he wanted nothing more than to have the approval of his father. So despite, I know, all of this mistreatment, he still viewed his dad as this sort of, like, idol, which is

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

so heartbreaking because it's like his dad's narrative ingrained in him that he was worthless. But naturally, as kids, like, all we want is our parents approval, regardless of like and their love. Yeah, that's all we want.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. And as John got older, he did have a few attempts at trying to, like, stick up for himself against his dad, but all of those resulted in a beating. So this was like. Soon realized that John was in this really tough place and he started to have a lot of resentment for his mother, too, because his mom wouldn't defend him and she basically was like, Creating excuses for both of them. She was in the middle being a mediator, but, like, the worst mediator that ever existed, because she just was basically trying to avoid the problem and getting involved in any way.

[Chumba Casino / Carvana Sponsor]

And.

[Corinne Vien]

And she wasn't there to help her child, though we could argue she probably was experiencing a bit of what John was as well.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and this goes back to a conversation we talked about in episode one, where there are plenty of people who go through really traumatic events during childhood, and John had siblings, so you would believe that perhaps they're going through the same thing, but only John turns into the monster we now know him to be.

[Corinne Vien]

So these traumatic coping mechanisms that John Wayne Gacy developed was basically the perfect target for a predator. And unfortunately, when he was younger, he was taken into a field by a teenage girl and was molested. And later on, a family friend also started molesting John. So John just had nowhere safe to go. And he was really afraid of getting in trouble if he told anyone about what was happening to him, even though he knew that it was wrong, but instead he chose to keep it a secret.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Well, that's also another coping mechanism and defense mechanism. Like, if you. Because he learned if he tried to stand up for himself or speak up, he'd get beat again.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

So it was like this really, really toxic cycle that then got built into his psyche of, I will just stay quiet.

[Corinne Vien]

Which is unfortunate that that happens. But, yeah, he had to bottle up all of those negative thoughts growing up, and he felt like this awkward kid who couldn't do anything right. He was mocked for being overweight. He had this congenital heart defect that basically prevented him from being able to participate in all of the activities and sports that other kids participated in. And he just felt like he was fundamentally broken and that there was something deeply wrong with him. And no matter what he did, he was the problem. And his dad made sure to remind him of that.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right. And it's so tough, like, having that heart condition, which, like, he can't help.

[Corinne Vien]

No.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

But that almost adds to the narrative that his dad was giving to him.

[Corinne Vien]

Right. And, like, heart condition or not, it didn't matter what he did. Everything was wrong. Like, if he got sick, he was accused of faking it. If he didn't do well in school, his dad said he was just looking for attention. So no matter what, he was in the wrong. John endured that abuse his entire childhood and even into his adulthood. In 1960, when John Wayne Gacy was just 18 years old, he started volunteering with a local Democratic politician. And you would think that most people would be like. Or most parents would be like, well, oh my gosh, you're so motivated, you're driven, like, what a great thing, and celebrate that. But no, instead, John's dad called him a patsy. So basically he was like anything. He did a wimp.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Anything.

[Corinne Vien]

Anything. Literally anything.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

He could have done exactly what his own dad did, and his dad would

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

find fault in it, which he does eventually do. He works at his dad's KFCS.

[ADT Sponsor]

Yep.

[Corinne Vien]

So by 1962, 20 year old John could not stand it anymore. He took his car and he ran away from his home in Chicago. He drove all the way to Las Vegas, which was a place that he had never been before. And you know, in theory, this is like a great thing, right? You get to start fresh. You have. You can attempt to leave behind all of the trauma and the things that were in your way in the past and start anew in this new place where no one knows you, no one knows your reputation, and you can do whatever you want and. But he still needs a job and he still needs money and a place to stay. And that is how he came to find a job listing for a local funeral home that was hiring an attendant. And the job came with housing. Perfect, right?

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

What's the housing, Corinne? Please tell me.

[Corinne Vien]

Oh, it is a cot downstairs next to the dead bodies in the same room where they're prepped for burial.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Great.

[Corinne Vien]

So this was John's way of making ends meet. But this is one of the contributing moments that would start to completely change the direction of his life. John became totally enamored and fascinated by the embalming process, which I kind of feel like if you're in that career, I hope you are enjoying or curious. Yeah. Curious enough. Or.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

But it wasn't. His enthusiasm was different than a lot of other professionals in this career.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Correct.

[Corinne Vien]

One night, according to the book Hidden Dreams by Tim Cahill, John decided to do what he later told a psychiatrist was, quote, an experiment.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

It's dark. Sometime after midnight, John lays on his tiny cot staring into the blackness. He can't sleep. The bed is thin. It's comfortable enough, but that's not the problem. Because there's a nameless anxiety eating at him. His thoughts keep drifting to the teenage boy lying beside him. The handsome, muscular youth resting in an eternal slumber in a silver coffin just a few feet away. And the body inside. He's not afraid of it. He's actually come to feel companionship from the rotating bodies that come through the funeral home. He's been working at the mortuary for a couple of months now, and death has become routine. In fact, he finds a strange sense of peace in the embalming room. No one can hurt him there. And nothing even feels real. So there John is. He slides off his cot and shuffles through the darkness with his arms out, almost like a zombie reaching for the teenager beside him. Soon enough, he feels the cold top of the coffin in front of him. He extends his hands, caressing the rich velvet interior, his fingers searching for skin. Finally, they graze the body inside the boy that was taken too soon. John's breath catches in his throat. A longing courses through his body. And he slowly, cautiously, as softly as he can, pulls himself up and into the coffin and presses himself against the cold skin of the deceased. A mixture of fear and excitement consumes the him. And not the fear of the body he lays entangled with, but the fear of being caught. He wants nothing more than to stay here, to remain flesh to flesh with the deceased boy beneath him. The taboo excites him. He lays there soaking in the feeling.

[Corinne Vien]

In the harsh light of day, reality hits John and he is so ashamed. He's so humiliated. All he did was lay there with the boy, right? But like, that is still not okay.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And he knows it's not okay.

[Corinne Vien]

He knows it's not okay. And he is so filled with shame that it's enough that he decides he can't be here anymore. He's so terrified of how it made him feel that he enjoyed it, right?

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

There's that duality, right? It's shame and excitement and desire, like he wants to do it more. And he knows he should run away from that feeling because it's not scary.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah, exactly. So he knows what could happen if he stayed in this job any longer. So he calls his mom and asks if he can go home. Home to his mom and his abusive father?

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yes.

[Corinne Vien]

So his dad says yes, but that he has to, you know, get his life together, basically, if they agree to house him again. So over the next few years, John decides to become what his father told him he would never be, which is a success. He enrolled in a business school and turned out he had a talent for sales. And so this sort of built up his self confidence and he even kindled a romance with a co worker named Marilyn Myers. And in 1964, they were engaged. So now at age 22, he's finally having this life that he dreamed of having and that he thought his father would be proud of. He has a partner he has a successful job, he's doing well, he's gaining confidence, People seem to like him.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

But then his life took a dark turn sometime in 1964, after John was engaged. He was out drinking with an older co worker, a man named Alan Williams. And that night, John and Alan were not just out to drink, they were out looking for women.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Never mind the fact that John is literally about to get married. His wife is at. Or his wife to be is at home waiting for him.

[Corinne Vien]

These men don't seem to care about that, unfortunately.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And it's also interesting because I read about how John Wayne Gacy was part of the Waterloo JC and he. It's said that he and a lot of the other members would drink a lot, use drugs and kind of have. Yeah, they're like wife swapping.

[Corinne Vien]

There were big orgies.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yes.

[Corinne Vien]

In John Wayne Gase's life, he was an entertainer of all sorts of. In his, like, daytime, which. Yeah, yeah. He's a very layered person. And every single thing we learn about him feels so shocking and implausible. And it's just like, how did this person exist?

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yes. And again, there are so many people like this that exist. Like, there are people who entertain swinging and that type of lifestyle don't go on to murder people.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. But in the same way, John Wayne Gacy does remind me a little bit of the BTK killer in that he had this whole entire facade of who he was as a person and a family guy and social with neighbors and just like a normal, normal life. And then behind closed doors, it is the most sadistic and sick, vile torture and murder that you could think of, 100%.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And that is why I think it's so apropos that he then gets into clowning. I don't know if that's the verb you would use for what he does, but it makes sense. It's like this mask that he has to put on.

[Corinne Vien]

But the mask is scary.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

He has scary makeup, but he is scary. And that's like the whole, like, it's literally a metaphor that he wears.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. Okay, well, so Alan and John are out drinking, they're trying to pick up ladies, but they strike out. Alan wasn't really bothered by it, though. And then he sort of makes this. This advance at John. He said it doesn't matter, he doesn't need a woman because men are just as good. And then he invites John back to his house, and according to John, Allen made them some drinks. And the next thing he knew, he was naked and Allen was performing oral Sex on John.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yep.

[Corinne Vien]

In that moment, despite everything that was going on and maybe like the way that it happened, John did say it felt good. And so he continued to let it happen.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

And just like that, like that same night that he was in the coffin, pressed against that teenage boy, the next morning, he felt so overwhelmed with shame. Not for cheating on his wife, not for doing a thing that he didn't want to do, but because he thought Allen had outsmarted him. That is where the shame came from.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And it's almost like that's what he needed to tell himself. But I think deep, deeper, and like, psychologically it probably is the shame of, you know, his dad is such a rule follower. Everything that John does is wrong. There's society says, like, you should be, if you're a man, you should be with women. And the shame that he must have felt because his desires were for men.

[Corinne Vien]

Right. Or even just the need for control. Right.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And that. Yes.

[Corinne Vien]

Get you before you get me. Because his father was always in control. He never had the upper hand. The second he thought he did. There was a way that his dad could spin it.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah. There's so many different layers to this.

[Corinne Vien]

So many different layers. So after that night, John never told anyone about what happened between him and Allen. And, well, he did eventually, but not for a long time. Anyway, shortly after, he and his fiance, Marilyn, they get married. And over the next few years, he cheated on her constantly.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yep.

[Corinne Vien]

Seemingly with men and women. And all the while, he acted like he was this normal, conventional family man, hosting parties in their backyard, doing the things that, you know, the house and the white picket fence, things you do,

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

which you can only imagine because clearly he has all these other burning desires that are in the back of his mind constantly. And he's acting on some of them, but there's also a lot of them that he's not acting on, which I imagine that does a lot to someone psychologically.

[Corinne Vien]

Right.

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[Corinne Vien]

By 1967, he was 26 years old, happily married with two kids. And overall, he was succeeding at keeping up this facade. That's how the town viewed him. During that time, John and his wife had moved to Waterloo, Iowa. And there John managed three KFC restaurants and he was elected the VP of a local social club. So this is really, I think, a moment where we can recognize that he's becoming a person in power. Right.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And he likes that power.

[Corinne Vien]

But this is not enough for John because this was not what he really wanted. What he really wanted was that same feeling he got inside that funeral home, inside that coffin. And that continued to haunt him. And the dark desires he repressed for so long finally were rising to the surface. In 1967, 26 year old John Wayne Giese was the talk of his tiny Iowa community. He had a good job managing three KFCs. He had a wife, he had a one year old son and a baby daughter.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Also he was having everyone call him Colonel, like at his job, at his job. And like because he thought he was

[Corinne Vien]

so great at it.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And even in his social settings he was like, call me Colonel. Like I could just imagine him being like this boisterous person in social settings, just pumping his own ego.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. And like in his political aspirations that he had too. He had some really strong opinions about like littering and things like that. So he, he was very involved and made his voice heard by a lot of people.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yep.

[Corinne Vien]

So he had big dreams of becoming the town mayor and maybe even a state senator one day. But one night in August, all of that came crashing down.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

John smiles as he takes in the scene unfolding in his basement. His wife and kids are away for the night, so he's taking the opportunity to have some fun. On his way home from work, John spotted one of his colleagues kids walking down the road. 15 year old Donald Voorhees. John pulled over and the two got to talking. John asked Donald what he was doing out all by himself and Donald told him he was coming home from his girlfriend's house. So John saw This as an opportunity. Putting on his best fatherly voice, he asked Donald if he and his girlfriend had slept together yet. And it seems like Donald said no, because John then suggested something. He had some dirty movies back at his house, and he would be happy to show them to Donald so that Donald could learn a thing or two. Donald went along with it, and now the two of them are on John's couch drinking and watching porn together. And once Donald was nice and drunk, John made his move.

[Corinne Vien]

Everything about this is wildly inappropriate.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Absolutely. It's like abusing your role of power, which is all a common theme with John. And this is also something that he does with multiple of his victims. He invites them over to his home, gets them drunk, and then makes a move on them.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. And many of his victims are kids that are runaways or don't have good family lives. And so he's supposed to be this figure who has more power, who seems to have life together. And maybe they're seeing a little bit of like a friend or a mentor in him.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Well, he takes advantage of that 100%. And especially someone like Donald Voorhees. His dad works with John, so he knows John, he recognizes him. He trusts John in the sense that he's like, I've seen him around, I know him. He's not a stranger.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah, it's certainly couldn't have ever thought of what would come next. So that night, John forced Donald into oral sex. And over the next few months, he did the same, Just several other local teenagers using a mixture of blackmail, manipulation, and shame. He kept them quiet about the abuse,

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

which is also so sad, because when you think about the cycle of abuse and how John was abused and molested, growing up and silenced, and now he's doing it to others, and it just breaks my heart.

[Corinne Vien]

And even the neighbors, after the fact, after everything came out, they said that they would see in the middle of the night, young men, teenage boys, going into the house with John, and they would hear screaming at times. But they didn't think much of it because I don't think they wanted to accept what they were seeing because it was so starkly different from who they thought John was.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah, it's like the bystander effect.

[Corinne Vien]

It is. So all of these boys kept quiet about what happened to them, about John's abuse, until March of 1968, when Donald told his first father what happened. And then John was arrested and John was arrested.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Would you want to be like, woohoo, he got arrested.

[Corinne Vien]

But no, we're going to be upset about what happens because. Well, so John saw himself as the victim here in this really twisted sort of way that he had created his mind. He blamed Donald for setting him up. No matter what he did, it was always someone else's fault that he did this or whatever. So once he was out on bail, John bribed one of his employees to get revenge. And for $300, the employee beat Donald in the middle of the night in the woods to try to stop him from testifying.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

It didn't work, thank goodness, but how horrific. Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

Poor Donald. It's like he can't get away from this guy.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

So in May, John was convicted, and in December, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. His wife, Marilyn, filed for divorce, and John never saw her or his kids ever again.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And I will say I. I'm very proud of Marilyn in this moment for just getting out of there.

[Corinne Vien]

Right.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Like, props to her. It's really hard and abusive relationships to walk away, and she did.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. And she saved herself and her kids in that situation, because I can't even imagine having the children grow up in that house when they get to a certain age, too. It's hard to even think about. Yeah. But the cycle continues. So John didn't fall into a deep depression like you would think he would after losing his wife and losing his kids? No. He is in denial. It's everyone else's fault. Right. So he lied to his fellow inmates about his conviction, telling them that he was framed for being part of a grand political constitution conspiracy, not for raping a child.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right.

[Corinne Vien]

And that kept him from falling apart until a year into his sentence, when his father died of cirrhosis, a liver disease caused from prolonged alcohol abuse. And John wasn't allowed to go see him because he was incarcerated.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right.

[Corinne Vien]

And John was a little bit surprised at how much this loss devastated him, but it really did affected him so deeply to his core, because I don't think he recognized how much his father basically played a huge role in who he was.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And also, we're not psychological professionals, but I can imagine that that loss is complicated on many levels, because now that his dad is gone, he.

[Corinne Vien]

From your abuser, in a way.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

But he can also never get the approval he always sought.

[Corinne Vien]

True. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So in his grief, John's internal battle grew. And there he sat, imprisoned for a crime that he knew he committed.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

His wife swore he didn't before he didn't.

[Corinne Vien]

His wife is gone, children gone. And his father was right. John was useless. He was a broken man who would Never amount to anything. Sitting here in prison, caught for his crimes, he felt his father had seen it in him since childhood. And that was a feeling he could no longer ignore. That was his truth. He was useless. And these feelings plagued him. And he continued to do what he did best. He would bottle them up, he would ignore them, and he would blame everyone else.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yep.

[Corinne Vien]

But no matter how hard John tried, these feelings were still there, always lurking beneath the surface, driving every decision he would make. So he kept his head down. He did the best that he could trying to stay out of trouble in prison. And in 1970, his efforts were awarded. After serving just 16 months of his 10 year sentence, John is released on parole for good behavior. How is that allowed?

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

It's also upsetting because shortly after being released, he broke his parole. Like he did attack another young boy who. Who reported it. And it went.

[Corinne Vien]

It went nowhere.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

It went nowhere.

[Corinne Vien]

But wasn't it. Wasn't it because they thought that John would be more believed than the kid. The kid. And so they thought that it wasn't worth.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah, there's a lot of negligence in this case because. Because again, John was so charming and beloved by this guy.

[Corinne Vien]

He was the guy around town.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

So now 28, he returned to his hometown of Chicago, and he got a job as a cook at a local bar. And he told the people that were closest to him that he would never go back to jail, that he was turning over a new leaf. He was going to be exactly who they always thought he was. Right.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Where do we think this is going?

[Corinne Vien]

Well, I think we all probably recognize his name, so I think we all know where this is going.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yep.

[Corinne Vien]

His records were eventually sealed, keeping his crimes hidden from prying eyes, which is, again, really upsetting.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right. Because it's not like he was a minor. Like, how. How did that happen? No, I have questions.

[Corinne Vien]

It wasn't really clear why they were sealed, but this can be done to help people with criminal convictions turn their lives around, which John seemed to be doing. But he didn't stay on the straight and narrow for very long because almost immediately, he assaulted several male sex workers. Several. About two years after his release, his crimes escalated. And In January of 1972, John picked up a young runaway named Timothy McCoy at the bus station. And John invited Timothy back to his house under the guise of letting Timothy get some rest until the bus arrived. And then, just like he did with so many of his other victims, John gave Timothy alcohol and forced him into oral sex.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yep.

[Corinne Vien]

And after that, John passed out on his bed and According to John, the next thing he remembers is that he woke up to the sight of Timothy standing over him with a butcher knife in his hand. And so now John says that he is reacting instinctively. Right. He thinks Timothy is about to attack him. And so, so he struggles over the weapon, he drags him onto the ground, and in the chaos, John stabbed Timothy to death multiple times. Timothy had not been trying to attack John, and John only realized this after brutally killing Timothy. He walked into the kitchen and saw that there was food being made and realized that Timothy had been making them breakfast and had just come with the knife to go wake up John.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I mean, there's so much to unpack here, but I think it's so he says, right? It's all so he says. Like Timothy is now deceased, murdered by John. So the story gets to be spun and told from John. And as we can tell, as we've talked about in this episode, John is really, really good at lying to himself.

[Corinne Vien]

Right.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Lying to everyone around him. So we'll never really know what happened.

[Corinne Vien]

We don't. John claims this was an accident, but whether it was intentional or an accident, this was the very first life that he took.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

And he wasn't about to call police and confess to it. Right. So instead he put Timothy's body in a shallow grave in the house's crawl space. The police never came looking for Timothy. Nobody knew that John had been with Timothy. And so he went about life as normal. Right. Like everything is just normal in John's life. There's not a dead body that he murdered underneath his house.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And also this is common with killers, after they do commit their first murder, there's this like fear of are they gonna get caught? And then when they don't, the control, the excitement, the cockiness. Yeah, exactly.

[Corinne Vien]

It becomes confident. Yeah, yeah. And apparently between all of this, he has time to start dating again and he finds a new relationship. So a few months later, after his first murder, 30 year old John reconnected with an old flame from high school named Carol Hoff. And the two planned to marry in July. But just nine days before the wedding, John's dark side re emerged.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

It's June 22, 1972, and John Wayne Gacy cannot sleep. He watches the minutes tick by on the clock as his mind wanders. Sometime after midnight, he leaves his sleeping bride to be and climbs into his black Oldsmobile and cruises Chicago's north side. The car rumbles slowly along the streets dotted with seedy nightclubs and dive bars. Flickering street lamps cast warp shadows on the grubby buildings. And this is not the first time he's come out here, because by now he is a regular in the area. He knows exactly which alleys to go down and which ones to avoid. As he drives, he forgets all about Carol, back at home in bed, and turns his thoughts to the young men working the streets. John heads to a spot he's been to before and pulls over in front of a young man. He rolls down his window and flashes some newly installed red spotlights on the roof of his car. The sex worker approaches cautiously, and John pulls out a phony police badge out of his pocket. He threatens to arrest this young man unless this young man climbs into his passenger seat. Then the two of them take off, weaving through darkened roads until John finds a secluded area where the two of them can be alone. There, under the false threat of arrest, he sexually assaults the young man, mocks him, and then kicks him out of the car. This whole time, John has a smile on his face. When he's finished, he goes back home, takes a shower, and crawls into bed with his fiance.

[Corinne Vien]

Just one week later, John and Carol tie the knot. They are now married, and these newlyweds now with two kids. Because Carol had two kids from her previous marriage, they live in bliss, Right? There's maybe the honeymoon phase. Right.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I already don't trust men. And this is just really doubling down on that distrust.

[Corinne Vien]

This is even like, there's a little bit of the Ted Bundy pulling into this, too, where it's like, there's the people that they date that it's like, do you know what's happening? Do you have suspicions?

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right.

[Corinne Vien]

There's more victims being added to the list, even if they weren't the ones he was targeting to kill.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Well, then also just in general, do you know anyone? Can you ever actually know? Do I even know you? Who are you? Who am I sitting beside? I don't know. I don't know what you do after hours.

[Corinne Vien]

That's true.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I do know you spend a lot of time with Noah.

[Corinne Vien]

I'm a mom, so I know what I do after hours, which is not get any sleep.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

But it's crazy to think that you could be living in a home with someone, right?

[Corinne Vien]

Yes.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Married to someone. And while they sleep, and you don't really know them at sleep, they could be slipping out, doing God knows what.

[Corinne Vien]

And if you see them slipping out, too. I feel like this is something that Carol also had talked about. Like, he was never around soon after the honeymoon phase. Yeah, he was never around she watched him leave in the middle of the night. He would sleep for, like, two hours at a time, if that, and just disappear. And she started to just, like, not care, not want to know. Right. Like, and then she seems so disconnected.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And she could probably think, like, he's just having an affair, because that's, like, the worst my mind would want to go to.

[Corinne Vien]

I certainly wouldn't think he was a ma. Like a serial killer.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right, exactly.

[Corinne Vien]

And that he was stuffing bodies in

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

our home in the basement. Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. So after about a year of bliss, Carol started feeling a little bit neglected because John was working really late all the time. He was busy with a new construction company called Painting, Decorating, and Maintenance. PDM for short. And this is a company he owned and launched, so he was heavily involved in it. But Carol suspected that those late nights that took him away from home were really just an excuse and that he wasn't actually at work.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right.

[Corinne Vien]

But like you said, she thought that he was just having an affair. And she did poke around a bit and tried to kind of, like, do her own sleuthing to see who's he having an affair with. What's going on? And she found some dirty magazines hidden in the garage filled with pictures of naked men. And she didn't really know what to think of this discovery. Right, Right. Because they were married, and she didn't know what to do. And for a moment, she decided she would just ignore it. But shortly after, she spotted John leaving the house in the middle of the night with a young blonde boy. And this time, Carol tried to confront John and ask, what is going on? I saw you with this kid. Like, what? What's going on? And he completely dismissed her, that it is none of her business.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

The cycle of abuse continues. Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

So he turned it into a pity party, of course, because everything is. He's the victim here. Right. And he was insisting that he was working around the clock to pay for their house and to take care of his mother and them and the kids. And deep down, Carol knew that this was a lie. But she was like, oh, my gosh, this is, like, very sad. I don't know what's going on. And he's. He's very passionate about whatever excuse he's giving me.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Emotionally volatile.

[Corinne Vien]

Right. And so she backs off. She leaves John free to do whatever he wants. She doesn't pay attention to it. She ignores it. She doesn't ask questions about it. John hires teenage boys for his construction business. He was already working with teenage boys at the kfc. So his whole Career is surrounded by

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

teenage boys, plus, which is not a mistake.

[Corinne Vien]

He worked as a cousin with kids. He has children around him constantly. So he hired teenage boys for his construction business only to manipulate and sexually assault them. So this was basically like his stomping grounds. And again, he's in a position of power. He is their employer. A lot of these kids, they are desperate for money and they don't have the solid homes to go home to. And so they kind of have to stay in a way, or they feel that they do.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

If they refuse his advances, he pretends that this was all a big joke. This was the test. Ha ha ha, ha ha. Aren't I so funny? With all of John's extramarital endeavors, he became less interested in playing the part of the perfect husband. And actually he had pitched to Carol that they stop having sex entirely. And Carol was like, wouldn't be happier to stop having sex with you. You gross, gross man. So John slept on the couch most nights, if he was even at home, which oftentimes he wasn't. And usually he was out on the streets cruising for sex workers. Cruising for his next victim. He posed as a homicide detective at gay bars. He called himself Jack Hanley. He doesn't look like a Jack.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

No.

[Corinne Vien]

On the side, he continued to hire desperate young men and continued to attack them and sexually assault them. Yeah. By 1975, John was now 33 years old. He already had so many victims at this point, and it had been three years since he killed Timothy McCoy. Throughout that time, he continued to insult the boys that he hired at his company. And though it didn't escalate beyond that like it had with Timothy, that changed July 31st of that year when a familiar rage overtook him.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

It's early in the morning and John is driving home drunk and disappointed. After hours of cruising his usual spots, he is returning empty handed, woozy from too many glasses of scotch. He sways in and out of his lane, and he's almost back home when he notices a familiar face on the side of the road. It's one of his employees, 18 year old John Bukovich, who goes by Little John. That makes Gacy Big John, a nickname name he liked a lot. He pulls over and Little John lumbers up to his car. It's clear that he is just as drunk as Big John, if not more. And now that he's full of liquid courage, he's got a bone to pick with his boss. He demands back pay that he says he's owed. So John invites him to come sit in the passenger seat and says they'll sort it all out. And he says his wife and kids aren't home so they can deal with it back at his place. Little John agrees, but he seems to get angrier with each passing minute, and by the time they're at John's house, he's threatening to beat Big John to a pulp. When they get inside, John gets the boy even more drunk and tries to defuse the situation. When that doesn't work, he drunkenly restrains Little John, calling it a magic trick. He pulls out handcuffs that he carries when he's posing as a homicide detective, and he tricks Little John into putting them on, swearing up and down. He's just trying to show the young man something. Once the young teenager has his hands behind his back, there is no need for John to keep up the facade. He throws the boy to the floor and sits on Little John to restrain him. The last thing John remembers is laying down next to his victim and blacking out. And when he wakes up the following morning, there's a rope wrapped tight around Little John's neck and he's no longer breathing.

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[Corinne Vien]

And this would become John's M.O. right? There was a lot of sitting on his victims doing this sort of magic trick to get them in a position where they couldn't fight back.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah, it's horrible.

[Corinne Vien]

It's really horrible. And on July 31, 1975, 33 year old John Wayne Gacy claimed his second victim, 18 year old John Bukovich. He buried little John in his garage and covered the evidence for the concrete,

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

which also, like, I just am still so stuck on how is he doing all of this work under his house and people are not calling it in or suspicious of it.

[Corinne Vien]

I. People didn't want to accept, I think, what they knew was happening.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

Or maybe, I don't know, because he

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

kept saying that he was like digging holes to lay pipework for his sewage system. That was like the lie he kept spinning to people and even and to

[Corinne Vien]

his own family because they were like, what is this rancid smell in our house? And he was like, oh, don't worry about it, it's just sewage. And then he would hire more boys to come cover it with Lyme and

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

try to cover some of them to dig their own graves.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. So though police questioned him after the murder, he was never considered a serious suspect.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I'm pretty sure little John Bukovich's parents knew that John was gonna go confront Big John at some point about the money he was owed. And so John's parents were like, check his employer. Yeah. Because we know that he was gonna go ask for the money. And John's like, oh, we figured that out. And he went on his way with his money.

[Corinne Vien]

It's just so wild that the police were so close. Right. Like, he would take so many lives, but after just two lives, the police were alerted of him being a potential killer. And yet nothing came of it.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Nope.

[Corinne Vien]

So getting away with it, that really made John just feel even more confident. And he became even bolder with his actions. And he started to indulge in his sadistic desires. And it gave him a really big rush, one like nothing else. So he started going out more than ever. And he paid even less attention to his wife and her two kids. And it was like he basically gave up on that part and was just giving Carol excuses if she ever did ask. Though I don't think she asked often because they were not in a good place at this point.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Cause it's clear Carol was just playing a part for John. Like, he wanted to look like this normal. He needed a wife.

[Corinne Vien]

Even though he was clearly attracted to men. Although men is not even the right word, because he was attracted to boys and murder and. And kids.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And then once he was getting so confident with his crimes, he was like, oh, I don't need Carol.

[Corinne Vien]

Right. I can do without anyone getting in the way.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

Luckily, Carol, even if she had started to see things that were going on and maybe having some suspicions, she, in October, said she wanted a divorce from John. And once she was out of the house, John really embraced his dark side wholeheartedly because he. He had no one to sneak around in the dead of night. So he spent nearly every night either looking for sex or looking for another victim. At the same time, though, he was very careful with keeping up appearances during the day. And he joined a new social group called the Moose Lodge to make connections. And that is how he got involved with the Jolly Joker Clown Club. So this was a small organization within the Moose Club that mostly performed for kids at holiday parties, and there was a lot of demand for it. Actually. There were hundreds of kids who would show up at these events. And ever the public servant, right. John, he's such a community guy. He agrees to join the Jolly Joker's ranks. But he wasn't just doing it for them. John took to clowning almost immediately, and he said that it acted almost like a tranquilizer for him. So it was a way of him being able to, like, hide beneath a costume and run away from him.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Well, because for so long, he's been trying to hide that dark side of him inside of his, you know, physical self and to the public. But when he puts a mask on, like, he. He literally is hiding.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah, He's. He gets to be a completely different person. Who's John? Not him. John spent hours crafting his characters, who he called Pogo and Patches, which is

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

also interesting that he had two Personas,

[Corinne Vien]

and one was good and one was bad. It's literally his day and night. Yeah, it's still him.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

So he got everything that he needed for this costume. He had professional makeup, detailed puppets, balloons, special props for his shows, and by all accounts, he was actually really good at it. He was a great clown. And every time he performed, he left kids smiling and laughing. And he really loved the limelight. He loved to be the center of attention, and he got a lot of praise for it. And this, again, just, like, built up even more confidence in him and allowed him to be more brazen in other areas of his life.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I don't have a fear of clowns, per se, but I think if I walked into The Jolly Joker Club. I would be afraid like that. Like a room full of clowns. Because I'm also imagining, like, really bright lights, like, almost like hospital lights.

[Corinne Vien]

I don't know how many clowns are there?

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I don't know. But I just. The way I'm picturing it in my mind is way creepier than a Halloween horror. Nights clowns in mazes.

[Corinne Vien]

Well, I do wonder, despite some of his costume makeup being quite creepy in terms of, like, what clowns typically look like who perform for children, I do wonder if he gave off those vibes, because he did say that it made him feel more like he could act like a kid again and kind of, like, relive some of his youth. So I think he was, as a clown, being this really, like, wholesome, joyous type of character.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

As Pogo.

[Corinne Vien]

As Pogo, yeah. Not as Patches.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

That's. Ugh.

[Corinne Vien]

It's so bad.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

It's so creepy.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. Don't look up pictures of him unless you're watching on YouTube. And then you're welcome. You're welcome for the nightmares. But even when he was dressed up in this costume and trying to escape himself and just be the kid and have the childhood that he wish he had, those feelings of frustration and loneliness and rage, it just still started to fester and bubble to the surface. He could not keep it down for long patches. And when he felt like that, a different side of the clown came out.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

In the summer of 1975, John bounces through a park dressed as Pogo the Clown. He forces a smile onto his painted face, taking exaggerated steps so he doesn't trip on his big red shoes. The sun beats down, soaking his collar in sweat. It is just too hot to be wearing all of these layers. Kids swarm around him, screaming and giggling, but he doesn't feel the usual sense of fulfillment. Instead of feeding his ego with their attention, they seem more like annoying, needy little mosquitoes. He knows they don't want to laugh with him and hear his jokes. They only want the candy he has in his pocket. He looks at their swollen, greedy faces. He's already given out treats to most of them, but they lie, claiming they haven't gotten any yet. John laughs in his clown voice, teasing them. He scampers playfully away while trying to suppress the fury he feels building inside of him. As gently as he can, he scolds the children who chase him. He doesn't have enough candy for everyone to get an extra share, but they plead with him anyway. They lie, lie, lie. One of them, a particularly persistent six year Old trails Pogo like he's stalking him. He tugs on the clown's sleeve, begging for candy with glassy eyes. Meanwhile, John can see gumballs and chocolate kisses bulging out of his little pockets. It's too much to bear. Maintaining his forced grin, John bends down to the little boy, pinches the kid on his cheek. Not a playful pinch. This is meant to be, to hurt. And the boy's eyes fill with tears. John bends even closer, his round nose pressing against the child's face, and he whispers, get away from me. He finishes by cursing the boy out in disgusting detail. The kid yelps and scurries away crying. And for the first time that afternoon, Pogo actually has a genuine smile smile on his face that reminds me so much of the scene in the more recent it where they're at the park and Skarsgrd as Pennywise is under the bleachers and the little girl has like the lollipop.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah, it's also, I mean, it's just. This is also just reminiscent of like John Wayne Gacy's attitude and just the way that he went about so many of his crimes. Because for as many people as he murdered, he also came close to murdering so many more. And then randomly would be like, oh, now I need to care for you. It was like this weird thing of like, I wanna hurt you, but now I don't.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I mean, it's the battle that's going on in his head, right? And I know that when he was first arrested and only spent 16 months in prison, he was examined by a psychologist and determined to have antisocial personality disorder. And then, I know later in life, like they looked at him and we can also look at. There's plenty of psychological examinations of John Wayne Gacy and he is riddled with psychological disorders. Yeah, the DSM hates to see him coming.

[Corinne Vien]

Oh, God. Well, despite the occasional slip up, John's performances as Pogo the Clown became legendary around town. And he performed at Children's Hospital and he was even a regular fixture at birthday parties. So this went beyond his social club. He was now the clown at the town. And usually he did this without any kind of payment, like it was just for his joy. I know that part, or maybe the enjoyment of the children, I don't know. But yeah, no, he didn't ask for payment for this, usually.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Interesting.

[Corinne Vien]

He spent so much time clowning that it was hard to see where he actually got the energy for all of his clowning. Especially given that this man never slept.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right.

[Corinne Vien]

Most of his days he was Working long hours in construction, managing dozens of projects. And in the evenings, he had his social club, a bowling league, dates with friends, volunteer engagements for the local Democratic Party. And now he's also clowning. And several times a year, he also threw these massive, massive block parties in his neighborhood. And he was in charge of also organizing an official parade. So, like, this guy had a million commitments.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah. What? I love sleep too much. Like, I can't even fathom.

[Corinne Vien]

I can't recognize my thoughts enough to have three of these. Not that this is us. We're not giving him praise for this. We just don't understand.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

It's also just frustrating because imagine what he could have done with that energy.

[Corinne Vien]

Right, Right. And in ways, he was doing good in many different areas, which maybe is why he was doing so much, was to make up for what he was doing outside of that.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

So, yeah. That alone, all of those things would be way too much for most people. But once night fell, he did not fall asleep to recover from his long day's work. He instead drank and smoked and partied and killed.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

Between 1975 and 1978, he murdered at least 30 boys and young men.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

His M.O. resembled the way that he killed John Bukovich. He would invite his victims back to his house. He would get them high or drunk, and sometimes he offered to pay them for sex. Then he would pull out a pair of handcuffs. Sometimes clown toys came out, too. And he showed his victims a magic trick. He would demonstrate how he could break free of the cuffs, acting like it was all for fun. And then he would say, hey, you should try this, too, and convince them to put the cuffs on themselves. But once the cuffs were on, John would immediately drop the act. And then that is when he would sexually assault his victims, torturing them in many horrific ways, and eventually would strangle them.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I mean, he had one victim that he truly tortured for hours and hours and hours.

[Corinne Vien]

There were a few, but who got away. Yeah. Are you thinking of the one that had asked to be killed, like, during the torture because it was so much.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Oh, probably.

[Corinne Vien]

And then John, his response was. I'm getting to it.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah. Awful.

[Corinne Vien]

When he did kill his victims, once they were dead, John stashed their bodies under his bed for the night, and then he would sleep soundly above them, usually in a drunken stupor, which is

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

so similar to, like, part of his origin story. That night in the. In the morgue in Las Vegas, where he crawled into the casket with that body.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. The next day, he would stuff the corpse in a Crawl space in the garage. He would layer quicklime and cement over the bodies to block the smell. Although it never really went away entirely, people could definitely still smell it. And since he owned a construction company and definitely had plenty of access to cement, nobody thought it was really weird that he would buy so much of this material or these materials. And also since he lived alone at this point, there was no one asking him really what he was doing. After three years of this, he started to feel super invincible and a little more brazen, way more confident. But it was only a matter of time before he made a mistake. On December 11, 1978, he met a 15 year old named Robert Pest at a local drugstore. Witnesses overheard him offer Robert a job. And a few hours later the boy went over to John's house to talk more about the work. And then the boy was never seen again.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I'm also pretty sure he met him like at a local store where John Wayne Gacy had like gone into the store, seen him working there, left, came back, talked to him about this job, and then Roberts mother came to pick him up from work. And Robert was like, hold on, I'm going to talk to this guy about a job he has for me. And was never seen again.

[Corinne Vien]

Right. And this was John's big mistake because his previous victims were oftentimes runaways or kids who were very disconnected to their family.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

Robert was not right.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

So his mom is like, obviously, like, who was that strange man he talked to?

[Corinne Vien]

Because clearly he had people looking for him immediately.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Immediately, yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

So for the first time in decades, John became a serious suspect. Authorities finally investigated the 37 year old and discovered his criminal history. And when they put him under around the clock surveillance, John started behaving very strangely. He drank heavily, he acted erratically. He actually started hanging out with the officers assigned to follow him, which I'm like, what was their response? Are they, does he view it as hanging out? What are they doing in response to this? Because this doesn't seem like an appropriate hang session.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I think they were letting him talk. Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

On December 19th, he invites the officers into his home.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I do think this is really interesting that now that the heat is on him, he's feeling the pressure and it's the first time in years he's really, really feeling like, oh shit, I made a mistake and they're watching me.

[Corinne Vien]

And either he's trying to seduce them in a way just similar to Ed Kemper, who really did outsmart so many authorities, or he is just so completely blinded by how many times that he has gotten away with it, that he thinks that he's invincible. They can't get him. They can. Or maybe he even gets off on the idea of the them walking around these bodies and not knowing what they're on top of.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Well, he invites them into his house. Officers Robert Schultz and Ronald Robinson stand in the cold rain, staring daggers at John Wayne Gacy's back as he unlocks the front door. They have a strange relationship. John knows he's a suspect in Robert Pest's disappearance, but he treats the officers like they're his pals. And today he's invited them in for a drink. So Robinson and Schultz exchange a knowing look as they head into the living room, because they've been planning for this. So Robinson is going to distract John while Schultz takes a look around to see if he can find anything suspicious. And when John goes behind the bar to make them drinks, the officers spring into action. Robinson makes small talk while Schultz excuses himself to use the bathroom. He walks through the hallway, passing by a darkened room full of clown paintings. And he knows the kids love John's act, but he's always found it creepy. And it's one thing to perform as a clown, it's a completely other thing to have an entire room dedicated to paintings of them. Schultz makes it to the bathroom, flips on the light and the exhaust fan because he wants to make some noise so John doesn't hear him as he looks around. To really sell it, he flushes the toilet for good measure. And as he finishes up, the heater kicks on. And that's when he smells it. The unmistakable scent of rot.

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[Corinne Vien]

At first, Schultz actually thought that this was just a sewer leak in John's house, which is basically the exact same excuse that he was giving to neighbors

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

and to the boys that worked for him that he was hiring to dig in the basement.

[Corinne Vien]

Yes. But it did not take Schultz very long to realize what he was actually smelling. Two days later, the police got a search warrant. And on the afternoon of December 21, 1978, they took a look around John's crawl space and found various objects that made them realize there was a lot more hidden under there.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And it's tough because with that first search warrant, it was specifically in regards to evidence of Robert. And so when they didn't find any DNA evidence of Robert, but they found all these other objects, like a high school ring and driver's licenses, they went back and got a second warrant. And they were like, this is a much bigger thing. We think there are. Who knows what is potentially buried in that crawl space. So they got the second warrant, which

[Corinne Vien]

also so scary, the time between leaving that house and trying to get a second warrant from a judge, because what if all of that evidence was wiped in that time? If John runs it from before.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah, but so they get the second warrant, and they go back to the

[Corinne Vien]

crawl space, and after just a few minutes, they found who, Four bodies in the crawl space. And that was more than enough to place John under arrest. And once he was in custody, he actually confessed to everything, which I kind of find shocking because he blamed everyone else for everything. So I. I'm shocked that he was able to bring himself to give details of what happened, I guess.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

How do you. There's. Okay, there's a couple things here that we could discuss. One, how do you walk your way or talk your way out of this now that all these bodies are found in your crawl space? Two, I think the pressure was really intensifying on him that there's probably a little bit of relief that he doesn't have to lie anymore. And there are a lot of discussions around serial killers and killers in general. Where is there, like, a desire to be caught?

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. And even the way that he did talk about his crimes in those confessions and in those interviews, it was. It was almost like, casual in a way, where maybe he did want to be Caught like what you were saying, or. He just loved attention. And now this was a new way of getting attention. Right. He was still the center of attention.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And there's a lot of commentary on how he remembered so much detail. Like, we talked last week about Ed Gein and how he had blackouts, have memory. But with John Wayne Gacy, he is very like, I was present. I was aware of what I was doing. It was premeditated.

[Corinne Vien]

And he would reference old victims. Oh, just like I did to that boy. I did to this one, too.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vien]

So John provided a formal statement where he admitted to murdering about 30 young men. The police had found him just in time because John also admitted that he was planning to cover the whole crawl space in concrete in January, basically making them inaccessible. And had the police had the search warrant, then they probably would have never found these bodies.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right.

[Corinne Vien]

So the evidence was not sealed away forever like John McGizzy had planned. And instead, he waited behind bars while investigators kept digging and digging and digging. And by the time John went on trial about a year later, on February 6, 1980, he was charged with 33 murders, which at the time was the largest number charged to one person in U.S. history.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

That's. I mean, that's a devastating amount.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah. He was found guilty for all of them, and he was sentenced to death. John spent the next 14 years on death row. And at first, he loved to talk to the press. He craved the attention. And like Ted Bundy, his story became part of the myth of the American serial killer. The unassuming monster next door, only with a twist. And the killer clown was born. But eventually, John's old habit of denial returned. He started insisting that he had never really confessed to all of those murders. Right. And during the original confession, he'd never asked for a court reporter, so there wasn't official written record of exactly what he had said at the time, which

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

feels like the fault of the court 100%.

[Corinne Vien]

So in his appeals, his lawyers claimed that he wasn't mentally competent to stand trial, but none of that helped his case. On May 10, 1994, John Wayne Gacy was executed by lethal injection in Crest Hill, Illinois.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

There's just so much to unpack with this story, and there's also so many elements of it that we, like.

[Corinne Vien]

Great.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Grazed over. But, like, there is this whole discussion and question of, did John Wayne Gacy have an accomplice? That's the word I was looking for. Yes, an accomplice.

[Corinne Vien]

Oh, that did come up, because one person who did get away said that they felt like, there was someone else in the room with them while being attacked very brutally by John Wayne Gacy for hours.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Right. And then also, I think John Wayne Gacy sent one of his clown paintings to another man, and it was someone who was suspected of committing other crimes. And, like, the note on the back was very ominous and vague. And when reporters asked him or police asked him what the message meant, he was like, I don't know. You tell me. Like, very, very vague and creepy about it.

[Corinne Vien]

Which it does make me upset that even once he was in jail awaiting his death sentence, that he still was kind of getting what he wanted, which was this praise and this attention because he was drawing these paintings and he was selling them insane to the public. And he was also hiring out other prisoners to draw clown paintings for him as him to sell.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Didn't they make a law where criminals and inmates can't make money profiting off of their crimes, like writing books and stuff like that?

[Corinne Vien]

I don't know. I hope so. But I know John Wayne Casey. That definitely wasn't the case. And even at the time of the defense attorney wrote one of the books about him. Yeah.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Because why not monetize off of it?

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Am I wrong? But we went to the Zach Bagans museum in Vegas. Does he own a John Wayne Gacy brown painting? I think yes. Yeah. That museum is dark, disturbing.

[Corinne Vien]

Which actually this just made me think when that man was being attacked by John Wayne Gacy and felt like there was a second person. I do wonder if the second person was truly a second person or if there was some sort of, like, darkness and dark demonic energy that was following John Wayne Gacy because he was like, what a perfect feast to have. This, like, deeply horrific, horrible, like, energetic vampire, but also just, like, true monster that's killing people. If you're this. This evil entity, he's a great partner.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Or is it like the movie Split, where because his victim might have been unable to see properly, is John, like, personality having these conversations and arguments and.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Oh, that's so unsettling.

[Corinne Vien]

We didn't even talk about this, but there was one person that he invited over, and when they came in, he was in his clown outfit.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And I feel like that's what translates a lot to the screen. It's that killer in the street that's wearing the clown costume, even though John Wayne Gacy never did that. Like, he. Yes. Maybe this one instance, John was dressed up as Pogo the Clown. He wasn't dressed up as Pogo the Clown for a lot of his other Right, Yeah. For a lot of his other crimes. So clearly the things that John Wayne Gacy did to his victims were truly horrific. And the way that he maintained this double life is. It feels inhuman and impossible. The way he used his clown character as a cover to avoid suspicion is terrifying and makes him the real life Pennywise, not just in appearance, but in action. And so let's talk about Pennywise.

[Corinne Vien]

Okay. Let's transition Bill Skarsgrd, because I'm terrified for the actual, like clown figures. Now. I said I wasn't afraid of clowns at the beginning, but now I'm thinking of John Wayne Gacy as a clown. Now I'm like, ugh, yeah, sick.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

So you're like inundated with that image. Yeah. And if we do like a side by side of like Tim Curry and then Bill Skarsgrd, Tim Curry's terrifying. Okay, so Pennywise first appears in 1986 in Stephen King's published novel It. And that's six years after John Wayne Gacy was sentenced to death. So then the book was adapted into a movie in 1990 with the iconic Tim Curry playing Pennywise in a two part TV movie. And then in 2017 they made the remake with a sequel in 2019 with Bill Skarsgard taking on the part. And also they are on HBO Max, they're making a TV series with Skarsgrd reprising his role as Pennywise in a show called welcome to Derry, which I am so excited for. So excited. There's obviously some differences between all the different versions, but when it comes to Pennywise, this character is very, very consistent. He haunts the quiet community of Derry, Maine, which on the surface seems like a wholesome American small town, not quite Chicago, where John lived, although the town where John grew up, like the neighborhood's motto was an island in the city, because people say it was pretty quiet as well. But if you haven't seen or read the book, here is what it is about and a little bit more about Pennywise. He mainly goes after kids and technically he's not a clown, but he presents as a clown. He's an actual monster, like a supernatural entity that can transform and take the form of his victim's fears, Pennywise being one of them and the main character of the film. And Stephen King has said that he was always pretty terrified of clowns and thought they were really creepy. And that was his inspiration, which is a sentiment that we all share, and that it wasn't directly inspired by John Wayne Gacy. But I feel like the timing and the similarities, it's hard to just ignore those.

[Corinne Vien]

Right.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

What do you think about. Have you seen the original and the new? Yeah. What do you think?

[Corinne Vien]

I love old movies, but I always feel like the scarier ones are the newer ones. Just because of Hollywood's CGI abilities and just the way, especially when the fears are taking over the screen for those kids, you actually. Or I felt like I actually was experiencing those fears with them. So while I wasn't necessarily afraid of Skarsgrd, I was afraid of the settings that those kids were in.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And with, like, modern technology, the way that they can do visual effects and stuff are way more haunting.

[Corinne Vien]

Georgie.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And I will say so. Tim Curry was like a comedic actor. So his role and, like, appraisal and his role of Pennywise was a little bit more, like, jovial and fun and like, ooh.

[Corinne Vien]

Whereas you gotta lure the kids in. Right, Exactly.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Whereas Skarsgrd was, like, immediately scary.

[Corinne Vien]

Right. He was a stalker. Yeah. He was so scary in his costume that one of the children was so scared of him, like, in a particular scene that they hadn't rehearsed so that they could get a true reaction from the kids. That's so scary that the child immediately started crying. And Bill had to break character and, like, console the kid and be like, no, no, no, it's just me. It's just me. Like, this is. I. It's a mess.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Poor kid.

[Corinne Vien]

It's a mess.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

That kid probably is in therapy.

[Corinne Vien]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Okay. But I have a question, because we've talked about the Tim Curry Pennywise, and we've talked about the Bill Skarsgrd Pennywise. But there's another Pennywise we need to talk about. It's me.

[Corinne Vien]

Oh, Sabrina dressed as Pennywise when we were on tour for our other show. Two girls, one ghost. And it was terrifying. I'd say yours might be the worst. I.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

There is. Like, while I am scared of clowns, and I wouldn't say I'm drawn to becoming a clown in any regard. There was a comfort in being. Or just in general, there's a comfort in being in costume. Especially a creepy costume.

[Corinne Vien]

Right.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Because I know I'm like your full face paint. Yeah. And I sat there, like, crusty, cross

[Corinne Vien]

legged, talking about the conjuring house.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

There is something appealing about being in a creepy costume for Halloween because you

[Corinne Vien]

get to fall into a character. You get to hide behind the mask,

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

which is why we love Halloween.

[Corinne Vien]

You're a different person. Yeah, we love Halloween and we love wearing costumes, but we're not hiding from the same things that these monsters are hiding from.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Yeah. So I think it's fair to say John Wayne Gacy and Pennywise have had a huge impact on how we all view clowns in pop culture. But I think people have always found clowns unsettling. It wasn't just John Wayne Gacy who put that into our minds, because the Joker appeared in the first solo Batman comic back in 1940. So this villainous clown trope has existed for some time.

[Corinne Vien]

Right. And we also have a couple friends that collect haunted objects. And one of their most common recipients, I guess, like, the things that they receive the most are porcelain clowns from people who are like, this has to be haunted. This is so creepy. Take away my porcelain clown.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

They have, like a whole box.

[Corinne Vien]

Clown box the clowns. Yeah. But after John's crimes came to light, clowns suddenly got a hell of a lot scarier. And suddenly it wasn't just this vague, eerie feeling that you get from them. It was that you have no idea who could be lurking behind this makeup. And in the case of Pennywise and John Wayne Gacy, it turned out to be a monster. To me, that sense of normalcy is probably the scariest part of John Wayne Gacy's story. That he could just exist in his community under this mask of being this, like, normal family guy and the successful business owner and probably a person that a lot of parents even encourage their kids to look up to, in many ways, because of his successes and his involvement. Yeah, he used his social influence to take advantage of the vulnerable. These poor boys, these runaways, these young men that he felt wouldn't be missed and unfortunately weren't for a really long time, which is why he got away with so many murders. And because he seemed to be such a pillar in the community, people let things slide. Police were very slow to investigate him, were more likely to believe him. And I think the big takeaway from all of this is sometimes the most evil people are the ones that we don't expect.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

That is the scariest part.

[Corinne Vien]

Often they're exactly the opposite. It is the men who masquerade as caretakers, confident leaders, and even clowns.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

So the takeaway I have from this episode is don't trust men, don't trust clowns, don't trust anyone. Don't even trust the person sitting next to you.

[Corinne Vien]

Right. And remembering that can help.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Not remembering what I said, Remembering what Corinne said.

[Corinne Vien]

Well, no, remember what you said.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Okay, sure.

[Corinne Vien]

It can help protect you from the real life monsters, and it could help stop someone like John Wayne Gacy before they even start. Thank you so much for listening. We are your hosts, Sabrina d' Anaroga and Corinne Vien. Join us next Tuesday for another peek inside another Crimes of Infamy here at Crime House. We want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard heard today, reach out on all social media rime House. And don't forget to rate, review and follow Crimes of Wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe and comment below what you think.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

And I know we said in the last episode we wanted to ask all of you what we should call you and how we should sign off and say goodbye to you. Last night I was thinking the way that you were saying mommy was so crazy creepy that I almost want to say bye mommies to everyone. Like you're all our mommies.

[Corinne Vien]

That sounds creepy.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

I know we don't have to, but in my mind I'm saying, okay, let's see what you think of you.

[Corinne Vien]

Let us know what you think. We'll let it be a boat.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

We won't.

[Corinne Vien]

We won't make it.

[Sabrina Dianarroga]

Hates my idea and this is why I don't trust her. But yes, we'll see you next week and eventually we'll figure out what we're saying to close out our episodes. But just know in my mind I'm always saying, bye mommies. Bye Mommy. See you next week.

[Vanessa]

Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Before today's episode, I want to tell you about another show I think you'll love. Crime House and A and E are teaming up on the podcast version of the famous true crime series the First 48. Each week, Carter Roy takes you inside a landmark homicide case. The interrogations, the dead ends, and the breakthroughs in the critical first 48 hours. Listen to and follow the first 48 every Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.