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True Crime Garage
A Killer Halloween /// Part 2 /// 881
00:50:44
Welcome into the terrifying Garage of horrors. It’s an old and dark structure filled with stories of murder and mayhem. This week we explore this great country by taking a “killer tour” of sorts. On tap we have tales of killers like John Wayne Gacy, Ed Gein and even more killers from different cities that are sure to have you looking over your shoulder this Halloween.
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- [00:00]
Ted Danson
Hey everybody, Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co host, Woody Harrelson. It's called Where Everybody Knows yous Name. And we're back for another season. I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more. You don't want to miss it. Listen to Where Everybody Knows yous Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson.
- [00:27]
Woody Harrelson
Sometimes.
- [00:28]
Ted Danson
Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:31]
Podcast Advertisers (Gabe Wiedman, Max Silvestri, Jenny Slate)
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- [01:30]
Woody Harrelson
Foreign.
- [01:40]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick. And with me as always, ladies and gentlemen, the lemonade and biscuits of True Crime. Here is the Captain.
- [01:53]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, it's good to be seen. Good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.
- [02:00]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Today we are still sipping on this fantastic double IPA Graffiti highway by Troggs. This one is sneaky people, so watch your back. They mask the high alcohol content perfectly with a fruit forward IPA. Tastes too good to be 9.5% ABV. So step lightly. Friends garage grade four and a quarter bottle caps out of five. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good garage friends. First up, a shout to Hannah from Scranton, Pennsylvania.
- [02:36]
Woody Harrelson
And a big we like your jib and tall cans in the air goes to Caitlyn in Princeton, Texas.
- [02:41]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
And let's go out west and give a cheers and a shout to Christy in Fresno, California. And last but certainly not least, also in Cali, we have Charlie from Benicia, California. Everyone we just mentioned, they went to truecrimegarage.com and helped us out with this week's beer fund. And for that, we thank you.
- [03:01]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, pwwan Beer Run. If you're in the spooky season mood and you want to support the garage, go to truecrimegarage.com and check out our store page. And Colonel, that's enough of the business.
- [03:13]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah, check out the store page. It'll scare the hell out of you. All right, everybody, gather round, grab a chair, grab a beer, let's talk some true crime. As strange and just as out there as the Ed Gein story is House of a Thousand Corpses. Weird. There is another guy from the same state, Wisconsin, down in Milwaukee, where after several police blunders, they eventually found a lot of similar trophy slash necro hobby materials like they did at Ed Gein's House of Horrors. This is the Dahmer Apartment of Horrors located in Milwaukee from Martin Fido's the Chronicle of Crime. The big headline in his book says, Jeffrey Dahmer, Milwaukee Cannibal monster. And it goes on to say, gay cannibal monster caught in Milwaukee. Parts of his 17 victims stored in his flat. And there's a picture of the Journal newspaper out of Milwaukee with the headline that reads body parts litter apartment.
- [04:43]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah. Every time I hear the the name Jeffrey Dahmer, I think to myself, what was that smell?
- [04:52]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah. Fido writes of what finally led to the discovery of Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment. And anybody that's familiar with the story, and a lot of our listeners are here because it's been told so many times, told in the garage. We've talked about it on, off the record several times. But Fido writes here, despite the failure of Milwaukee's finest, DMER had only two months and four more victims to go. So this is after they basically returned a victim to Jeffrey Dahmer. Fido writes, On July 23rd, Dahmer picked up 32 year old Tracy Edwards, a heterosexual who was not willing to join in sex play or drink drugged coffee. But Dahmer got a handcuff on one of Edwards's wrists and used that and a knife to hold him prisoner for four terrifying hours. Edwards escaped. When Dahmer's attention flagged, he stopped two policemen in a patrol car and asked them to release him from the handcuff. After hearing his story, they went back to Oxford Apartments to investigate this strange homosexual kidnapper. DMER offered the solen explanation, quote, I just lost my job and I wanted to drink some effing beer. End quote. He resisted their attempts to come into his flat. An attempt to arrest him resulted in a struggle which ended with Dahmer screaming on the floor. A thorough inspection of the flat uncovered, you know, it's a fine Englishman when he's referring to the apartment constantly as a flat.
- [06:47]
Woody Harrelson
Right.
- [06:48]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Shout out to the late great Martin Fido. I was a big fan of his work for many years. So a thorough inspection of the flat uncovered the following. A human head in the fridge. Three heads.
- [07:00]
Woody Harrelson
Well, that's where you keep a severed.
- [07:02]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Head in the floor freezer. Well, apparently he keeps them in multiple.
- [07:07]
Woody Harrelson
Spots as long as they're the freezer.
- [07:10]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
A human heart in the fridge, freezer compartment. A blue barrel jammed with body parts and bones. Two skulls in a computer packaging box. Three skulls and some bones in a filing cabinet. Two skulls in a kettle. A penis and some hands and another kennel.
- [07:32]
Woody Harrelson
Well, this was such a blunder by law enforcement because it wasn't just that they released a victim back into the custody of Dahmer. But like I said, this, this neighbor, she called law enforcement multiple times and she called the landlord multiple times because there was a funky smell coming.
- [07:53]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah, funky's probably pretty understatement, right? Yeah. Fido goes on to write, the Milwaukee cannibal's career was over and Dahmer was dragged in custody, howling like a mad dog. He has a little small caption in here. So what's cool about this book is, and it's completely at Fido's discretion here, but some of the larger cases, you know, when you come across them, when you turn the page and it takes up two full pages because this is, this is one of those large coffee table style books, Dahmer takes up two full pages. Some of these other crimes, I will say to Fido, it's a little surprising that, that they only took up a, a portion. But again, he's covering two full centuries of true crimes of true crime in this book. And the caption here that I wanted to get to Captain, this discusses Dahmer and race. And Fido writes, while Milwaukee's policemen, regrettable failure to take the complaints of black witnesses seriously may justify the race protest demonstrators led by the Reverend Jesse Jackson in the wake of the murders. The secondary suggestion, that Dahmer himself was racially motivated, seems ill founded. Dahmer's victims break down into the following categories. 1American Indian, 1/2 Jewish, Puerto Rican, 1 Hispanic, 1 Asian, 2 Caucasian, 11 black or African American. This mix is very close to the demographic population of the poor districts of Milwaukee and Chicago where Dahmer made his pickups. So it seems certain that he took his victims opportunistically at random. With all his faults, Jeff Dahmer is no racist, although he found the worst possible way of demonstrating his freedom from prejudice. So in fact, what we kind of learn about Dahmer over the years was quite the opposite, wasn't it? He had an attraction to, right. African American men. He was sexually attracted to African American men. That was kind of his preference, it appears, and very much less has to do with some of these killers trying to target a certain race because they don't like them for whatever reason. Not here with this one. It appears his crimes were all sexually motivated, as disturbing and as bizarre as they were all sexually motivated. And it appears to me he was attempting to get men that he was physically attracted to and in some weird ways, wouldn't you say, kind of emotionally attracted to them in. In Dahmer's weird way as well, back to his apartment to. To ultimately become his possession. Not his. Not his companion, but his possession. He seemed to want to keep them forever.
- [11:08]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, he almost wanted, like, a playthings live sex dummy and then. Or a live sex doll that he could control. But I think the. The lack of seriousness that the law enforcement took in this case was more so because they didn't want to deal with the homosexual community as opposed to, well, we're not taking this serious because they're coming from minorities. I think it was more like, well, we don't want to get involved. This is a homosexual spat. And.
- [11:45]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Well, Right. Incorrect in a way. Homosexual would be minority as well. But I get. I totally get what you're saying. And. And you're. You're absolutely right. It's. It was a different kind of prejudice. As far as the Milwaukee police go, as you're saying, not so much against African Americans, more of, I'm a beat cop. This appears to be some kind of gay spat that I don't. That I don't understand, don't really want to get involved with. And that's. Look, when you take. When you don't take the time to attempt to understand a situation, regardless of who's involved in it, you're not doing your job as a police officer. And in fact, horrifically so in one of these cases, we know that they. The police sent the victim right back into the. The clutches of the killer.
- [12:36]
Woody Harrelson
Now, I would argue that anybody in that apartment complex that was calling law enforcement or calling anybody to, hey, something's going on here. Somebody needs to look into this. I mean, all I would have took was one call being answered by the landlord and doing a house inspection to go, oh, we need to call. We need to call law enforcement.
- [13:04]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
We need to call a lot of people. Right?
- [13:07]
Woody Harrelson
This guy has a lot of freezers in here.
- [13:09]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Who you gonna call? Because it seems like there would be everybody that you want to want to call. So, you know, we had talked about Dahmer wanting to control his victims, keep them, make them his. His sex slaves or play things in. In Johnny's book, the the Serial Killer Travel Guide Across America. He there's a lot of dark, very dark humor in the book. And he refers to this as bang zombies, which is, you know, pretty grotesque term. But but really does kind of sum up probably what Dahmer had, at least in his mind, right. Of what he was attempting to do. And then from that book, the Serial Killer Travel Guide Across America, there's a stop just like we're stopping here in Milwaukee today. There's a stop there in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and they Write Jeffrey Dahmer, aka the Milwaukee Monster. Kill 17 span of activity from June 1978 to July 1991. Stating fun fact, Dahmer's favorite movies were the Exorcist, The Exorcist Part 2 and The Exorcist Part 3.
- [14:26]
Woody Harrelson
And I Diverse.
- [14:27]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah, he was really into that franchise.
- [14:29]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah.
- [14:30]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Johnny goes on to write, Milwaukee is also home to the apartment building where Dahmer committed his atrocities. While the building where Dahmer committed his horrific murders was torn down in 1992, the lot still sits empty today. They say if you listen closely on a moonless night, you can hear the distant cries of those who suffered within its walls. Johnny goes on to write, Dahmer took his first life in the summer of 1978. A few weeks after he graduated high school. He picked up a hitchhiker named Stephen Hicks and brought him back to his house ostensibly to drink beer, but the goal was to have sex. Hicks wasn't into that. When he tried to leave, DMER killed him by hitting him in the head with a 10 pound dumbbell. Sorry to go into the, the graphic nature of this, but we would later learn, right, because Jeffrey Dahmer later stated and he, he spoke at length about some of his crimes with, with law enforcement, with documentarians and, and his father. But Jeffrey Dahmer later stated regarding the Hicks murder that he struck Hicks twice from behind with a dumbbell as Hicks sat in a chair. When Stephen Hicks fell unconscious, Dahmer strangled him to death with the bar of the dumbbell, then stripped the clothes from Stephen's body, he says, before exploring his chest with his hands and then masturbating as he stood over the corpse. Hours later, Jeffrey Dahmer dragged the lifeless body down to the basement. The following day, Dahmer dissected Hicks's body in that basement. He later buried the remains in a shallow grave in his backyard. Several weeks later, he unearthed the remains and pared the flesh from the bones. So paired, you know, basically very intricately taking the flesh Removing it from the bones, he dissolved the flesh in acid before flushing the solution down the toilet. He crushed the bones with a sledgehammer and scattered them in the woodland behind the family home. Remember, he's still living at his parents home at this time. His parents are completely on the outs at this time. He says that he threw Stephen Hicks's necklace and the knife that he used to dismember him from the Bath Road bridge into the Cuyahoga River.
- [17:11]
Woody Harrelson
Do we have a, a better understanding of the dismemberment? Because a lot of times the killer will dismember the victim to dispose of them. But it doesn't seem like that was necessary in this case.
- [17:25]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Well, to me it feels like he, Dahmer, had the privacy and a lot of time to put in the efforts to make making sure that the victim was never found. Right. So in 1978, back then, there's not a lot of convictions without a body. There's not a lot of even murder charges when you have a no body case.
- [17:51]
Woody Harrelson
Right.
- [17:52]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
And unfortunately, with everything that we just went through, I mean, there's no body. He pretty much obliterated the, the entire body. And he had the time to do so. Keep in mind too, one thing about Dahmer is he had some level understandment with things like taxidermy and, and roadkill and dead animals.
- [18:16]
Woody Harrelson
Right. So maybe it was just a continuum, maybe it was just a continuation of what he was doing with those animals.
- [18:25]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Well, and I, I think that he had a level of know how to that the first time killer probably would not have had. So example here would be he buries the body in a shallow grave in the backyard, and then several weeks later, he unearth the remains to then remove the flesh muscle tissue from the bones. Okay. And then he's going to completely destroy the flesh muscle tissue in one manner and then use a different method to destroy the bones. You can look at this in a couple of different ways. Very likely two things are happening here. He is probably haunted by the body in the backyard, in the shallow grave. Haunted in a sense of it could be easily found. Right. The ground may appear to be disturbed. And we talked about this with several serial killers that we have covered in the past where they, some of them say that, you know, right after I killed this person, I just immediately expected to hear police sirens, that everybody knew what I had done. And it was only a matter of time before they came to get me, before they came to collect the evidence and lock me up and throw away the key. So he May have been haunted by the body in the backyard. By that sense, he also probably may have known going into this that it's going to be far easier to commit this act of removing the flesh from the bone. If I simply wait. Right. The decomp starts to set in. The breaking down of the tissues and the cells is going to make this less of a tedious effort on my part. It's going to go much quicker. I hate to say it, Captain, but he. He did an excellent job of completely destroying and obliterating this body and the evidence. I mean, with. With the exception of maybe the knife in the victim's personal belonging necklace could be found in the Cuyahoga River. But that's, you know, that's no small river.
- [20:31]
Woody Harrelson
Right. And how far did it travel from his property?
- [20:37]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
And time is the killer of evidence and water. Yeah, a lot of times. Killer of evidence.
- [20:41]
Woody Harrelson
But it's also fascinating with these killers how there's so many similarities. Like you were talking about the, the isolation that Dahmer had for a time period in his family home, in his childhood home, but there's nobody there. They just left him alone. And you see those similarities. And like Ed Gein, the isolation on the. On the farm.
- [21:06]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yes. And very likely the. Some level of mental illness. I hate to use that term because I feel like it. These guys, you don't want to lump them in with people that are clearly nonviolent, people that don't have the. That have no desire to do any of the terrible stuff that we've just discussed today.
- [21:27]
Woody Harrelson
Mental illness is a spectrum. Right, Right.
- [21:29]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
It's, It's. It's an all kind of encompassing term. But this, to me is mental illness be damned. This is mental disturbancy. Like, it, this is. This is a whole another level here. And, and to put it in its simplest of forms, Jeff Dahmer did that for us because later he says it wasn't just that, you know, I desire to have sex with this man that I brought back to my home. And we're having drinks and we're getting along, we're hanging out, we're palling around. It wasn't just that he. He wasn't into what I was into there. Part of his psychosis, too, is, as he put it to police, was, well, I killed Stephen Hicks because the guy wanted to leave and I didn't want him to.
- [22:18]
Woody Harrelson
Right.
- [22:19]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
And so in a way, he's keeping him. And then you have to wonder with the bang zombies or whatever, whoever wants to call it, whatever. We've reviewed plenty of Serial killers that mention things like slaves for the afterlife or my victims are forever my slaves or my property. And this seems and appears to be the first step, nay, giant leap toward that mindset.
- [22:49]
Woody Harrelson
Well, these individuals become monsters. We don't become monsters our, ourselves just because we show some sympathy to these killers that showed no sympathy to other humans and viewed humans as less than. And again, somebody could go, well, he was isolated, so he wanted to keep this individual there. But let's remember this is an individual that didn't care about the life. It was more his wants and desires and he's going to do anything to carry out those wants and desires.
- [23:30]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Well, and the other thing too is he turned away from any other type of companionship, relationship, human interaction that he could have that was available to him at the time. Now his, his mom was a bit of a train wreck herself. Her, the dad was a bit check. His dad was a bit checked out. There was a lot of problems between mom and dad, but he, he had a sibling, he had a brother that he could have attempted to make an emotional connection and have a good solid relationship with. He, he, he knew people at school. You know, there were people in his high school, there were people in his neighborhood. He didn't, he didn't go to great lengths and efforts to have real meaningful relationships with other people. He went to great lengths and efforts to attack.
- [24:19]
Woody Harrelson
Possess.
- [24:20]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Possess sexually assault this, this poor, this poor young man, this victim.
- [24:25]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, because there's so much information about Jeffrey Dahmer. You see individuals that tried to reach out to him, try to look after Jeffrey in high school, in the army, after the army, in college, even at that apartment complex, there's individuals there that try to look after him, try to invite him to gatherings or even try to set him up on, on dates.
- [24:57]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
The woman that, that alerted the police that something was going on, the woman that, that alerted the landlord that something was going on. She tried to befriend him and seems like would been, would have been an incredible, an incredibly wonderful neighbor to have. So yeah, he, he turned his back on, on all that. Yeah, he turned his back on. So yeah, let's not, let's not feel an inch or an ounce of sadness for this man telling us later that he, that he was very much alone.
- [25:31]
Woody Harrelson
Well, that's where I disagree. I think we can view these people with some sadness or sympathy or, and that doesn't make us monsters in turn that, that shows that we have humanity.
- [25:45]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
The court found Jeffrey Dahmer sane, surprisingly guilty on 15 counts of murder and sentenced him to 15 life terms totaling 957 years in prison. Jeffrey Dahmer was severely beaten by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver with a metal bar. Oddly enough, a metal bar very similar to how Dahmer killed his first known victim, a metal bar from the prison gym, and then died while incarcerated. Scarver claimed, quote, God told him to do it. End quote. All right, Captain, Trick or treat.
- [26:25]
Woody Harrelson
I'll start with trick.
- [26:26]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
I have a feeling you'll get this one for sure. I know it. In fact, what kind of ship has two mates but no Captain?
- [26:35]
Woody Harrelson
I know nothing about ships.
- [26:36]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
A relationship. All right, treatment. This is. Well, the relationship one's pretty fitting for all the stuff we discussed about Dahmer. From the Serial Killer Travel Guide. Here comes your treat. They say if in Milwaukee, which. Which I say I will certainly go to someday. In fact, a while back, the boys from Generation Y were talking to us about setting up some kind of event with both podcasts involved. And I kept saying, let's do Milwaukee. It's like the, like the northern middle between Kansas City and Columbus. So I assume it's a great sports town. A great beer drinking town, of course. Anyway, the travel guide says, check out the Miller Brewery Tour. It's a 170-year-old factory with an awesome outdoor beer garden.
- [27:31]
Woody Harrelson
Foreign.
- [27:40]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
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- [28:54]
Katie Nolan
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- [29:23]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
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- [32:31]
Woody Harrelson
All right, we are back, you ghost and ghouls. Cheers, mates.
- [32:38]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Cheers to you, captain. Now this for our next stop, our fourth stop. This is from another great Martin Fido book. This time he is paired up with Paul Beg, another fascinating gentleman. Paul Begg is acknowledged worldwide as one of the leading authorities on the Jack the Ripper mystery. He has worked in newspapers, television and publishing. He has written extensively on Jack the Ripper. This is from American Justice, Great crimes and trials for you old school followers of true crime television. This is American justice, the TV series in book form. Stop number four. Here we go, captain. Norwood park is neither part of the city of Chicago nor part of the city of Des Plaines. The city police departments are the two conurbations have no jurisdiction over crimes committed here and have to leave them to the county Sheriff's Department. In December 1978, the citizens of Norwood were not a little surprised to find the Des Plaines Police staking out 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, home of Nice Mr. Gacy, the fat and friendly building contractor who had lived there for seven years. So heading out to Chicago.
- [34:05]
Woody Harrelson
Old Gacy.
- [34:07]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Old Gacy. Both Geen and Gacy are, as we said, if true crime were a town, they would be the talk of the town right now with making headlines again. Once again, both of them with Netflix and Peacock exploring their lives and. And their crimes and. And some of the stories about them.
- [34:31]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, I was a little disappointed in the Ed Gein monster series. So I'm looking forward to Peacock redeeming the true crime world with their biopic, if you will, of John Wayne Gacy.
- [34:47]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
And then we go back to the Chronicle of Crime 1978. The headline here, killer clown stuffed boys under his house in the picture that they chose to include that Fido included in the book. Here, I'll read the caption to you. It says, first lady Rosalind Carter unwittingly shakes hands with America's worst mass murderer, John Wayne Gacy. And of course, it's a picture of the first lady shaking hands with a serial killer, an infamous serial killer that we now know is responsible for 33 murders. From the serial killer travel guide across America, we have Norwood Park Illinois John Wayne Gacy aka the killer clown kills 33 plus span of activity January 1972 to December 1978 John Wayne Gacy. He was born on March 17, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. His father was an alcoholic who physically and verbally abused his son. Gacy married into a wealthy family and relocated with his lucky bride to Waterloo, Iowa. Gacy took over management of the family's Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and, and was well known in the community as a good family man. And it goes on to say at the time he was a member of the local JCS where he would provide fried chicken and insist on being called Colonel. Yeah. Thanks for including that. Well, it makes sense if he was, if he was running the Kentucky Fried Chicken, he would want to be called Colonel.
- [36:35]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah.
- [36:36]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Let the record reflect.
- [36:38]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah.
- [36:39]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
That I have never insisted that I be called Colonel. I just, they dubbed me that somehow. So when he's out in Waterloo, Iowa. Right. John Wayne Gacy, he gets convicted in 1968 of a sodomy charge of a teenage boy in Waterloo, Iowa. He gets 10 years imprisonment for this. He served 18 months. Let me read from the travel guide here. It says after serving 18 months in prison, Gacy was paroled in 1971 and moved back to the city of Chicago. That July, he remarried. So he got divorced. He remarries. But things didn't work out all that well as Gacy was charged with the attempted rape of a young man. The charges were dropped when the victim failed to appear in court. The marriage didn't last. Who would have saw that coming? Didn't last. Gacy's second wife divorced him due to her husband's moodiness and obsession with homosexual magazines. Yeah.
- [37:44]
Woody Harrelson
But also, if your partner is accused of something that you probably think they did, even though law enforcement can't prove it, probably time to move on.
- [37:59]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yes. And, and look, I think the travel guide there sort of only scratches the surface with what was going on.
- [38:09]
Woody Harrelson
Right.
- [38:10]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Because we have more than just the, the pornography and things like that that he's bringing into the house. So he's, he's pushing back on his wife in the relationship and saying, you know, I don't really care about this marriage. I don't really care about this relationship. I'm going to come and go as I please. And his business is sort of taking. He's a contractor, but he owns businesses and they're. The businesses are taking off around this time. So he is coming and going as he pleases. And he's staying out very late. He's drinking A lot. And he's not much fun to be around. And then this is from out of the Mouths of Serial Killers by Mary Brett. A bit of a caption here says Gacy opened what he called a club in the basement of his home where he allowed teenage workers of his to socialize, play pool and drink. Gacy was known to only socialize with the young males.
- [39:06]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah, but again, when we talk about these similarities, you go, there's people in society that were trying to have relationships with these individuals and they were choosing the relationship that they were going to have with their world. And I think some of it, if you really start dissecting the minds of these killers, their obsession and drive for these sexual, violent acts starts consuming their whole life. So every minute becomes about these obsessions. And so some people can go, well, there was isolation with Dahmer.
- [39:52]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah.
- [39:52]
Woody Harrelson
But he was still going out to clubs to be around a certain individual. Bath houses, which would have been his ideal type for a victim. And so, same way with Gacy. Well, I'm going to have this hangout club for my victim type. It's. It's really fascinating shit.
- [40:16]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah, exactly. And then as far as you know, see, Gacy's the exact opposite though, right? Like, Gacy is gregarious. He's. He's fun to hang out with or at least puts on. Puts on a show until he tries to kill you. Well, and he's raising money for the Democratic party. He's. He's throwing parties at his house. He had bodies in the crawl space. And he's inviting like hundreds of people to these backyard summer parties, and hundreds of people are attending these parties. He's successful. There were people in this community that said, you know what? This is a guy that you should aspire to be like, this is a guy that is successful. He's outgoing, he gives back to the community. He's. He's offering jobs to, to many people. I mean, you want to talk, we talk about cubism with BTK and how he was able to fool his family and his community and church and where he worked. Gacy is that times 10. And I mean, he managed to get married twice to smart and in one case, well, to do women. And I think what happened with him was once they got in a living situation, he could no longer keep up that image full time.
- [41:37]
Woody Harrelson
Right, the cubism. Yeah, yeah. But also one of the things that all these serial killers that you've talked about so far have in common is smell.
- [41:47]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
There's a lot of stench involved, a lot of Stink.
- [41:50]
Woody Harrelson
Something stinks here.
- [41:51]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
So this says, remember he served that 18 months, and then it says he murdered his first victim in 1972, had murdered twice more by the end of 1975, and then murdered at least 30 victims after his divorce from his second wife. That divorce took place in 1976. And the travel guide goes on to say investigators obtained a warrant to search Casey's house. While searching his home, investigators entered the crawl space. And you said it. You said stink, you said stench. A rancid odor was quickly noticed. And then during that search, they found what belonged to a teenager who had disappeared, a ring that had belonged to a teenager that had been missing for a year. And then with that finding, investigators were able to obtain a second search warrant for Gacy's home. Because of this evidence ultimately going off of memory here, Captain, it was the investigation into the disappearance of the Plains teenager Robert Piste that led to Gacy's arrest that took place December 21, 1978.
- [43:05]
Woody Harrelson
Well, I'm sure they show this in the, the Peacock dramatization of John Wayne Gacy, but many times law enforcement was in his house and then openly asking him, what's that smell?
- [43:20]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah, so, so listen to this. We talked about the arrest on December 21, 1978, and the travel guide says on December 22, 1978. So the next day, Gary, Gary Gacy, realizing that the police were going to find out what he had been up to, he confessed to some of the murders. Later we learned that 28 of those victims were buried in shallow graves under his house. He later explained to police, quote, there are four Johns, John the contractor, John the clown, and John the politician. The fourth John went by the name of Jack Hanley, who was the actual killer. I guess police decided to settle on arresting the John that was sitting in front of them.
- [44:08]
Woody Harrelson
Well, I think a fascinating angle, if you want to research somebody like John Wayne Gacy, is the angle because he was such a community driven individual, or at least one of his personalities were. And I, and I guess you could make an argument that was it a split personality or, or was it just a side that he was choosing to show? But so many victims were they. Were those victims just victims of his alone? Is it possible that some of the victims weren't just victims of Gacy, but Gacy and somebody else or multiple people? Because we do have that eyewitness that claims that that got away. And it seems like especially these serial killers that have a high body count, you go, there's normally somebody that got away. But I I believe his eyewitness account was that there was more than one person there.
- [45:07]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah. And I think, thankfully, I. And luckily, I think that there were. In Gacy's. In the Gacy story there. There may have been more than one that got away. There is a lot. You're right. There's a lot of suspicion on that there. And then we talked about in. In this book that was the inspiration for today's episode, a lot of sort of dark humor along the way. Here's some. Here's some dark humor from. From the. The Colonel world, not to be mistaken, with chubby Gacy there. So Gacy gets busted in 1978. Right. The authorities are very much busy digging up his house. Crawl space, garden, garage, yard. He put some of the bodies in the river. He was. He. He had said something sort of sly on the slide to a neighbor or someone that he was thinking about moving because he was running out of room. Meanwhile, he's living alone in this nice house.
- [46:15]
Woody Harrelson
Right. But again, isolation.
- [46:16]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
He is. Well, I don't know that I would say isolation with. With Gacy. I mean, he. He stayed in. This guy was the opposite, opposite, complete opposite of isolation. And with him and Bundy, it was weird that they kind of shared that very outgoing nature and trait, but both of them being political, politically involved as well, and. And very much involved with their communities at times. And I had often wondered with Bundy and Gacy, was that all a part of the ruse? But. But I think it goes back to something you're talking about. Is it some form of split personality? And Gacy almost says that to the police, right? There's four johns, the contractor, the clown, the politician, and the killer. And I think I can agree with that. And I think you're right that it is some kind of split personality, because I don't see Bundy using his involvement in his communities as a way to find and get victims or have access to victims. And I don't see that with the exception of John Gacy, the contractor, the businessman. He doesn't appear to be using those avenues to get victims either. So it must just be their outgoing nature that they have. Anyway, so back to the. The dark humor here from. From my world. So Gacy gets busted in 1978. The authorities busy digging up his. His home, figuring out what happened. What number of victims do we have here? Who are the victims? It was years before they had identified some of these victims. Some were very quick. Some took a long time. So years back, Captain, I knew this older dude from Chicago. He lived There in the later 70s, early 80s. So these folks there were bombarded daily with Gacy news, Right? Gacy news, Serial killer, clown news in their home city, day after day, each and every day. What do you call someone from Chicago? Chicago in Chicago. I like. How about Chai Towner? That sounds much. Or Windy City native? All right, anyway, so all that's going on in 1978, and they're busy putting together the case against Gacy. In 1979, Pink Floyd drops their now incredibly famous album. In the middle of all of this, the song Another Brick in The Wall, Part 2 is on the radio Friday, November 23, 1979. The day after Thanksgiving, 1979. The album is released a week later on November 30, 1979. And kind of a weird side fact here. Did you know they were still recording portions of that album earlier that. That very month?
- [49:08]
Woody Harrelson
Wow.
- [49:08]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Anyway, I'll save that for the Boom Boxes and Bangers podcast. So in some very perverse humor, the Chai Towners, because of Gacy and all the news that was coming about and that song coming out all sort of at the same time, the Chai Towners were singing. Instead of another brick in the wall, another stiff in the crawl. On the morning of May 9, 1994, John Wayne Gacy was transferred to Stateville Correctional center to be executed. They're going to carry out his death sentence. Amen. That afternoon, he was allowed a private picnic on the prison grounds with members of his family for his last meal. You know, all the killers that we've talked about, this is the only guy that made it to the execution. The other guys died of. Of cancer. Gacy died. Sorry. Gein died of some kind of complications to cancer. Groves died of hepatitis C and liver failure. Dahmer was killed by another inmate in prison. So Gacy makes it to his execution for his last meal. He ordered, of course, a bucket of kfc, Kentucky Fried chicken, French fries, a dozen fried shrimp, fresh strawberries, and washed it all down with a Diet Coke. That evening, he received the last rites from a Catholic priest before being escorted to the execution chamber. John Wayne Gacy was executed on May 10, 1994. His final statement to his lawyer before his execution was that killing him would not compensate for the loss of others and that the state was murdering him. His final spoken words were reported to be kiss my ass. Although prosecutor William Kunkel later stated this just recently in 2020, that these words were spoken to a prison official and were not part of any official statement prior to Gacy's execution. John wayne Gacy was 52 years old when he was executed by the state of Illinois.
- [51:30]
Woody Harrelson
Well, Chicago always reminds me of one of my favorite characters, Julius Pepperwood. Ex cop, ex marine and one of the best quotes. I'm from Chicago. Thin crust pizza? No, thank you. I'm from Chicago. Julius Pepperwood.
- [51:45]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
So speaking of quotes, this from the book out of the Mouths of Serial Killers. This is John Wayne Gacy. A John Wayne Gacy quote. This says if Jeffrey Dahmer doesn't meet the requirements for insanity, then I'd hate like hell to run into the guy that does.
- [52:04]
Woody Harrelson
Very good point.
- [52:05]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Well, the guy that did was Ed Gein from the same state. Right. Wisconsin's like, nope, Ed Gein unfit to stand trial. Dahmer. Sure, sure. All right, last one for the week. Happy Halloween, everybody. Trick or treat, Captain. Let's do trick for season.
- [52:22]
Woody Harrelson
Okay, let's do trick first.
- [52:23]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
This is a nice Halloween themed riddle for you.
- [52:27]
Woody Harrelson
I have got none of these right so far.
- [52:30]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Well, in all fairness, you didn't know you were going to be peppered with riddles.
- [52:36]
Woody Harrelson
Yeah.
- [52:36]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
During today's garage appointment. All right, here's the riddle. I have a name, but it isn't mine. You don't think about me while in your prime. People cry when I'm in their sight. Others lie with me all day and night. What am I?
- [52:55]
Woody Harrelson
I don't know.
- [52:55]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Ed Gein would tell you, that's a tombstone, baby. That's a tombstone. All right, treat anybody in Chicago knows this. Anybody that's been to Chicago more than once, I would think would have to know this treat. If and when in Chicago, you must, must, must go to the super dog drive in. They have been there since 1948 serving up the best super burgers and shakes and of course, hot dogs. So go and get you a Chicago dog. And just like my old high school mascot nickname, that's Dawg Dog.
- [53:45]
Woody Harrelson
Foreign. Thank everybody for joining us here in the garage. Hope we kept you company during the spooky season. Hope we kept you company if you're running around with your kids doing trick or treat. Colonel, do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners?
- [54:07]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah. And if you want to terrify the neighbors, just go out there and you could bark at the moon like Ozzy Osbourne says, or dance in the moonlight. Yeah, yeah, of course. This week, Captain, recommending the serial killer travel guide across America, your coast to coast tour of terror by Johnny Trevisani with Brian Whitney. This isn't your typical road trip companion. This was the inspiration for this week's episode. So thank you to Johnny and Brian. The Serial Killer Travel Guide Across America is a darkly fascinating guide, an unconventional look that takes readers on a darkly humorous journey through the United States, exploring notorious locations linked to infamous serial killers. And this one, we're going to go two books. Let's do two. And this one works well in tandem with the Serial Killer travel guide. It's titled Serial Killer Quote of the day 365 days of serial Killer Uncut and In Their Own Words, also by Johnny Trevisani. You can find those great titles and many more wonderful recommendations on our recommended page at our website, truecrimegarage.com if you'd.
- [55:21]
Woody Harrelson
Like to treat yourself and support the garage at the same time, go to truecrimegarage.com click on the store page 2025 Halloween merch. It's only here once. We're not going to sell it next year. It's done very soon. So treat yourself, don't trick yourself, just treat yourself. And until next week, be good, be.
- [55:49]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Kind, and don't worry.
- [55:59]
Woody Harrelson
Sam.
- [56:27]
Katie Nolan
Hi, I'm Jenny Slate and believe it or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.
- [56:32]
Podcast Advertisers (Gabe Wiedman, Max Silvestri, Jenny Slate)
I'm Gabe Wiedman. I'm Max Silvestri and we've been friends for 20 years and we like to reach out to kind of get advice.
- [56:39]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
On how to live our lives. It's called I need you guys.
- [56:42]
Podcast Advertisers (Gabe Wiedman, Max Silvestri, Jenny Slate)
Should I give my baby fresh vegetables?
- [56:45]
Katie Nolan
Can I drink the water at the hospital?
- [56:47]
Podcast Advertisers (Gabe Wiedman, Max Silvestri, Jenny Slate)
My landlord plays the trombone and I can't help him to stop.
- [56:51]
Katie Nolan
You should make sure that you subscribe.
- [56:53]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
So that you never miss an episode.