Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Making Sense of of the Death Penalty with Karen Conti, esq - Episode 14

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Welcome to another episode of the Makes Sense Podcast with Dr. JC Doornick and a very special guest Karen Conti. In this episode we will be Making Sense of The Death Penalty as well as the idea of defending someone that the world perceives as a monster?  Our guest is none other than Karen Conti, defense attorney for John Wayne Gacy and author of the best selling book, “Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy..    Connect with Karen Conti: Instagram: @karenconti23 Websites: www.karenconti.com New Book “Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy” - https://amzn.to/3xRG4sW   Sponsor: Makes Sense Academy: https://www.skool.com/makes-sense-academy/about  Connect With Dr. JC Doornick: https://zez.am/makessense    Highlights: 19:20 - Gacy had co-conspirators that went free? 27:01 - Does anyone deserve the death penalty? 30:46 - Why did Gacy do what he did? 34:08 - Did you build a relationship with him? 36:43 - What were his final words before his death? 40:59 - What happened to your name and career in the aftermath?   #makessense #makesensepodcast #makessenseacademy #riseupwithdragon #karenconti #johnwaynegacy #deathpenalty   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hmm, make sense. Hey, great morning, everyone. This is Dr. J.C. Dornick, and welcome to a special edition. They're all special of the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast. Very, very excited about this extension of what we're calling the interview series. As you know, the podcast format has kind of laid the foundation and shared with you a lot of language and verbiage of this concept and the science of making sense. But as we move into the interview process, and what's unique about these interviews is we're not just looking to hear from people and have good conversation. We're also trying to take the science of making sense and help the audience really, really understand some of these topics and theories.

And sometimes they're a little bit out of bounds. And this will be one of them. I just want to tee this up. Our guest today, very, very special human being that I had the opportunity to share the stage with. And what's interesting about her, she's a fantastic speaker. And as soon as I met this individual, I said, you know, I don't know what she does, but I'm sure she's really good at it. So I got to meet Karen Conti and Karen has this really, really interesting story. You know, I mean, she's got this amazing background as a lawyer and she has a radio show that she hosts.

And she just does a multitude of things. And we'll get into that a little bit. For those of you that have never, you know, heard me or my wife talk about it, we kind of have this little, guess I would say guilty obsession with this concept of the serial killer. What that means is we're just fascinated how somebody could actually go out and do those things. So the science of sense making is sometimes most interesting in the realm of things that don't make sense. We're open and curious to anything. So I come to learn that Karen Conti is actually launching a book, which is happening as we speak.

It's so exciting. I look at the book cover because this is what she was speaking about. And it says, killing time with John Wayne Gasey. And then I come to learn that Karen was one of the defense attorneys during the phase of the whole John Wayne Gacy thing, which we know a lot about during the time he was on death row. So it's just a fascinating story that my wife and I have not really, really made sense about. So we're very excited. I'm going to tell her that she can come on right now. And I just want to welcome to the Make Sense podcast, Karen Conti.

Dr. J.C., it's so good to see you again. I know. I know. I remember we had this. conversation out in the hallway where I started to like really figure you out and I'm like, she's very interesting. I remember I texted my wife and I'm like, because my wife is not amazed by too many people, but when I told her about your book and what your experience has been, she was like, oh my God,

you have to get her on the show. So I'm so excited that you've taken time out of your busy schedule to be here with us. So as you can imagine, there's so many interesting things that we want to talk about in this realm. But I want to share with you, it's interesting, when we decided that we were going to do this show and we were in the waiting game for it, naturally, I was thinking about what do I want to ask her questions about? So it started off with all of my questions that I wanted to find out about John Wayne Gacy and all that stuff. But you know what? Like, for the most part, we've seen his documentaries and we've, because we're a little bit obsessed with that stuff. So quickly,

my wife and I said, that's not what's interesting, you know, because we're always looking to make sense of something on this show. We're actually changing the name of this episode to making sense of defending a serial killer because we realize what the really interesting story is here is not only what that experience was like, but also just the idea of how it came to fruition and what it must be like to be a human being embark on this journey and the potential ridicule involved and all of that stuff. So that's the topic we're excited about. Let's get into that, but let's begin And I love to ask this question. Karen Conti, what's it like to be you these days?

And what are you working on and what are you excited about? Well, I'm excited about a lot of things. I like to have my hands in a lot of different things at one time. I find that I'm happier when I sort of diversify my energies. Because being a lawyer, like a lot of professions, it's all consuming. You could spend all day, every day, 10 hours a day, seven days a week doing your job. And that's not something that's very healthy or that makes me. me happy. So I practice law. I have my own little firm in Chicago where I practice mostly family law.

I take on other things as well. I'm general counsel to some different organizations. And I have a radio show. I've done radio for 30 years. I'm on WGN. I have a two-hour talk show where I talk about legal issues, current events from perhaps a legal standpoint, constitutional issues, criminal issues, and I take calls. And I also am a legal analyst. And I do national and local analyzing various. cases that go on, whether it's a criminal case, constitutional case, or consumer-type issue. The local Fox, I've been there for 25 years as the designated legal analyst. And now I wrote a book. So I'm adding author to my resume, and it's making me very, very happy. It's exciting. And without knowing you all too well, I just feel compelled to say,

I'm proud of you. Thank you. Very exciting. Just quickly, maybe in a little bit of, you know, one or two minutes, how did you come to take interest in the law? Well, I've always been a person that's driven by fairness. And I think it's because I'm a middle child. So my older brother got the freedom to do what he wanted to do. My sister was younger and she got spoiled. So I was always in the middle and I didn't think I was treated very fairly. So I was always arguing with my parents in a nice way, in a respectful way. And I also grew up in an era where we looked up to politicians. We looked up to the John F. Kennedys of

the world. And I, in my back of my mind, thought, I would like to do that. I'd like to be some sort of leader, you know, whether it's local or statewide. I've gotten rid of that, that ambition in my life, given the state of politics today. But I always thought the law would be an avenue for me to do all kinds of other things and to get a really good education and to be prepared and to be in the know for whatever, whatever came my way. And the career's been good for me. That's interesting. I have a son that is, we always said he would be a great lawyer. And the reason why we found ourselves saying that like you is that we just always noticed how important justice was for him and, and that bad people went away and, but everybody deserves a chance because sometimes we make mistakes and stuff. And he is

actually now found his, you know, just organically, uh, he's involved in, uh, criminal forensics, but in the cyber, you know, computer land and stuff. So he's, uh, I think it's called computer forensics. and it's just interesting how my son is just compelled to catch bad guys and things like that. So the reason why I asked that is because, you know, this is a pretty interesting thing that you got involved in. And I'd love to, you know, kind of lay the foundation for this conversation by asking you kind of, how did this whole thing happen? Because there's two sides of that. And I'd love you to try to, you know, or attempt to cover this.

One of them is that I'd love to know, like, how you had this opportunity to even be, asked to represent. I think you were the only female that ever got involved in his defense team. So there's the opportunistic component of it. But also there's this other piece where you don't have to accept all the work that you're given. You know, I'd love to hear a little bit about why you decided to do this. Well, I've always been against the death penalty. Even when I was a young child, my parents reminded me about having arguments. And my parents were both in favor of the death penalty. So I was kind of, I don't know where I got it. I don't know. I don't know. where I got the idea that I was against it, but I was. And, you know, of course, you talk about it,

but you never do anything about it. Gacy committed his crimes while I was in high school. So, you know, I remember that time. It was a loss of innocence for the Chicago area. It was, it was horrifying. I don't think I even understood it really as a teenager. What was really happening and what Gacy actually did are that people in this world were capable of those evil acts. But flash ahead, now I'm a lawyer. I went to college. I went to law school. I've been a lawyer for six or seven years. I'm still relatively inexperienced and I certainly never handled a murder case or a death penalty case with 33 young men and boys killed. So I was driving down the road with my law partner and my husband and we turned on the radio and we heard Gacy had had an execution date set and we thought,

wow, they haven't executed anyone in Illinois for a long time. Oh my gosh. Are they really going to do this? And then I said, wouldn't it be weird if we were called upon to represent him? Just laughing it off. And in a couple days, that's exactly what happened. My husband and I had argued before the United States Supreme Court on a First Amendment issue a couple of years back. So our name was kind of up in the ranks as far as First Amendment lawyers. And Gacy had some issues other than his death date that he wanted someone to represent him on some really truly frivolous issues of civil litigation that the prison was suing him for monetary damages because he was making money while he was incarcerated. And Gacy wanted to talk to First Amendment lawyers. and wanted to talk to him about how to defend his case. I wasn't interested in that, but I was interested in going down to death row, a place I had never been, and to talking to the most prolific serial killer in the history of the country at that time. This is what's interesting about a case where a monster, perhaps, where everybody is like, everything

steers towards guilty and it's been proven and everything like that. This person actually sought you out, was looking for somebody of your nature as somebody that could help him with his case. But here you are, not really caring so much about that, but just being fascinated at this phase of your career to have the opportunity, because I mean, there's the death penalty thing. And I want to go into that a little bit more. But it was almost like an experiential thing. Like you're like, hey, I can't turn this down. Is that the way it was? Absolutely. And, you know, I've talked about this quite a bit. I think you and I have this conversation about curiosity. And we're all born with innate curiosity. But I think a lot of,

the way a lot of us lose that because we don't want to take chances and we don't want to expose ourselves. We have too much to lose or maybe we don't have enough time. But I have always been curious about everything. I mean, I like reading the newspaper and reading the article that I don't have any interest in just to see what it's about. And this to me, I mean, how could I say no? I mean, first of all, as you and your wife are obsessed a little bit with serial killers, as many of us are, I've always been obsessed with the Jack the Rippers and the Black Dahlia's and, you know, the Ted Bundys of the world. I've read all those books. I've seen all those shows. I'm fascinated with the worst of the worst. This idea of meeting somebody who is so evil and capable of such

terrible acts, but yet got away with it for years, I had to see that. I had to experience that. Even if nothing came from it, even if I wasted time and money and effort, I wanted to have that experience. This is such a fascinating part of this conversation, because I've kind of teased the idea in, you know, our newsletter and in our communities that I was going to be interviewing you and also shared it with friends and family. And it's interesting to observe the reaction that people have because one of the things that we very much acknowledge here is we all have this knee-jerk program response to things. And it's based on how we were brought up and, you know, and programmed to do so. That's a whole other conversation. But I noticed that some people were like,

ooh, that sounds interesting. And others were almost offended by it. So the, idea of you and I, and I want to add some color, but also balance things out, when I say that my wife and I are obsessed with serial killers, we're not obsessed with that in the idea of like, wow, I can't believe that must have been, it's not about that. We're obsessed with the idea that something like that could even happen. Because one thing, and we'll get into this, because you had the opportunity to actually meet this individual, but we always look and say, is that a non-human? Because as a human being, we talk about this dark passenger that everybody carries. Like, God forbid anyone could ever plug in and find out what we were thinking.

But the idea of individuals that take these dark thoughts and don't erase them immediately and come to fruition, that's what's fascinating to us because, I mean, at the end of the day, even though people look at these individuals as monsters, they are human beings. Am I right? Well, they are. And this is, you know, I think it's easier to paint. a John Wayne Gacy or a Jeffrey Dahmer with a brush to say they're inhumane, therefore they're inhuman.

And what was surprising, again, I shouldn't have been surprised because when you meet somebody like this, you think, what, are they going to have a tattoo on their head that says evil? No, you never would have gotten away with one, let alone 33 had he looked evil. He was nondescript. He was jovial. He was engaging. He was charming.

He was glib. And when you see that, he's not. frightening, but it's frightening that people are among us who don't appear to be evil. It makes you wonder who else is next to me who might be evil. And John Gesey had a side of him that was very human. He went to church, you know, he was a hard worker. He was a good husband to his two wives. He was a good father. He volunteered. He mowed the lawn for his neighbors, elderly neighbors. He was a good brother to his sisters. He was all of that. And then he would go out at night and he would brutally murder and torture young men. So like it was a compartmentalized type of evil, but the side that I saw of him

was human. And this is where we're going to go. You know, it's interesting about this idea. One of the things that I'm always doing when I'm listening to people talk is I'm creating visuals around it in different scenarios, acknowledging them. It almost sounds like the reason why we paint the picture of these people being inhuman and monsters. And our anger towards that is due to the fact that we're just pissed off that they somehow flew under the radar and got away with it. A great example of this is the other day, my daughter, we have this beautiful 14-year-old daughter who goes to this like very privileged school.

The other day, an intruder made it into the school. And thank God nothing happened. There was no weapons and stuff like that. And this man was arrested. but the reason why everyone was so angry at him. It wasn't so much him and what he did is the fact that he got away with it. So it's just a fascinating thing. You probably heard this, but a psychologist told me this many years ago, and I think it's true.

Whenever you're angry, it's because there's fear. And it's almost always true if you think about it. And in that case, you know, there's anger because he got in, but it was because of fear, because we all know what happens when people with guns come in. a school. And we don't need to go there. But I think it's the same thing with the gaseys of the world. People are angry at me. They're angry at him. I get it because they're afraid. And they're afraid for their children. They're afraid for themselves. And they don't want to be around people who are capable of murdering people. And I get that. And I get that that anger is projected on me.

Well, so let's let's start with that then. It's one thing to have your fascination struck and look at your husband and say, oh my God, like we have this opportunity. But once you move from that to, and this is obviously the reason why everybody should get this book, because it's just a delightful. I got access to a little bit of a beta read of it, and it's just fantastic. I mean, there's no way we're going to put as much color to this conversation as you will get from the book. Take us to that moment where you went from being intrigued by the idea to deciding to defend somebody that was obviously guilty. I mean, that's an interesting concept, is to be high. to defend somebody that is 100% guilty and just so evil.

What was that like for you to make that decision? Because you can understand that there's your experience there, but now you're going to be looked at in a certain way. Well, first of all, you have to understand we as lawyers represent people who do bad things all the time. And I represent guilty people all the time. And sometimes a success for me is to have them go to jail for less than 40 years. That might be a real win.

acquittals for people who are guilty are very uncommon. I mean, it happens, but it doesn't happen very often. And even in civil cases, I represent men who beat their wives. I have represented asbestos manufacturers. I've, you know, represented people who, you know, have wrongfully strangled women in the workplace. I can tell you the bad people I've represented. That's what we do. And so that's not the issue. The issue to me when we were down there was, wait a minute, our government is going to take the life of this person. And when they do, then all these people are next, all these people on death row, some of whom might be actually innocent, many of whom might have been convicted because of racist beliefs or even prosecuted because of racist beliefs because we know statistics on the death penalty that if you're black or brown, you're probably more likely to get the death penalty. And if the victim is white, you're even more likely to get the death penalty. And there's a lot of incompetent counsel running around. And although Gacy didn't have any of those defenses, you know, he was white, he was guilty, he had really good lawyers, I knew that I was not representing Gacy.

I wanted to represent everybody in the cause against the death penalty so that the next person that was up on, you know, for the execution, maybe they'd look at it and scrutinize that conviction a little bit more carefully. I'm so happy that you said it that way because I think this is one of the biggest struggles, you know. Our knee-jerk reflex would be to look at you and just. observe that you represented this monster and just make an assumption that like you're in it for the money or whatever or you get your kicks on just shaking things up but what a fascinating different

perspective which is very makes sense podcast to just acknowledge the fact that the law has to run its course even in these absurd cases because if it didn't and to Certain biases and emotions and feelings were the way that we determine who gets killed and who doesn't. The problem with that is that the potentially innocent people who need people like you to like uncover and say, hey, this person's not, you know, we just uncovered this. This person's not guilty. It's so fascinating. What other thing, JC, I wanted to say is that we as defense lawyers, I know we get the ridicule and the hatred and all of that.

I'll take it. I'll take it all. I'm a big person when it comes to that. but you need us in this system because if we fail and we don't do our job, then somebody goes and walks free. And it's in my book. We don't have to touch upon it. But Gacy had other co-conspirators that helped kill some of these young men and boys. It's almost certain that that's the case. But for some reason, that wasn't flushed out and those two young men walked away. And so again, I think that my job is important because we want to make sure that the right person goes to

jail or if we're going to execute people, if we're going to be in the business of doing that, we want to make sure that that's the person who did it because we don't want someone else out there perpetrating the crimes. So fascinating. It's funny. There's something called cognitive bias and that represents, we speak about this a lot when you've made your mind up about something, meaning you've chosen your perception and created an opinion. There's just this phenomenon where you'll only want to talk about things that support your job. decision and anything else is going to be against that. So it makes sense why people can say, I don't like her for doing that and there's nothing else. But another interesting thing,

and it kind of falls under the Mandela effect is, you know, I watched several documentaries on Gacy and I'm only now remembering that there was a theory that there were co-conspirators that I completely overlooked because it didn't support where my mind was going about him. So that's That's so fascinating. Let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsor. The Make Sense podcast is sponsored by the Make Sense Academy, co-created by both myself, Meeker, aka The Chicken and The Dragon. The Make Sense Academy is a live interactive community where like-minded, solution-focused,

curious seekers of expansion gather daily in a mastermind setting with both Chicken and Dragon, where they have access to premium content, online courses, and powerful collaboration and networking, all for $24 a month. The Make Sense Academy and its members are solely responsible for funding the Make Sense podcast. So feel free to reach out to us at www. www.Rise UpwithDragon.com and check out the Make Sense Academy, risk-free, with a money-back guarantee. Now, back to the Make Sense podcast. So let's get into the things that people want to know.

I can watch this stuff on a video, and you can and listen to attorneys talk about what it was like. I mean, like one thing I found interesting about Gacy was how he was just one of these people that was almost proud of what he did and to explain in detail everything that he did. And then there were also aspects of him where he claimed to not really remember where he put a body. And, you know, so you weren't really sure if he was telling the truth, if he was psychotic. And I know that there was this whole attempt to plead insanity. But what was it like for you?

you to be around this guy? Like maybe take us through the first time you met him and what that felt like. Well, again, he was not intimidating. And you've seen the movies with Brian Dennyhy, who's a huge guy. And Gacy was none of that. He was five foot nine. He was portly, you know, when you spend time in prison for 14 years, you've got the prison pallor.

And he just did not look like somebody who was capable of the things that he did and that I knew he did. I had read about them. I had read the horrors of what he inflicted on people. and you just can't, you can't put the two together. He was engaging. He was funny. He was, he was kind of a know-it-all.

And if you think about it, if you know the sociopathic personality or the narcissistic personality, there's a sense to them that they're always manipulating. And you wouldn't know this unless you knew ahead of time that he was one of those. And so you realize that you were a pawn for him. So he would elicit information from you that he could use later. He would figure out how best. to use what you knew or who you were to his advantage. And he did that with everybody. And he did it instinctively. It wasn't even like, I have to do this. That's the way he maneuvered. And so once you knew that,

you realize that he was a compulsive liar. He was deceptive about everything. He was in denial about who he was and what he did. And he was somewhat proud of what he did in that he didn't think there was anything wrong with it. That's how he was wired, that he did not have a conscience when it came to what he did. And I'm quite sure at any given time, if he were released from prison, he would go out and do it again. And on that note, I just want to let your listeners know that that was never our goal is to get him out. I mean, Gasey didn't even want to get out of prison. He told me I'm safer in here, which is to say something on death row. But no, it was just to, it was just to lift the execution or get a stay. It was never to have him released because a sociopath is

always a sociopath. Yeah, it's interesting. Just from what I learned about this individual, the idea of getting a stay would just probably be more directed around him, experiencing the attention he was getting for a little longer. So I guess when I'm, you did a great job of painting a picture of how he physically not a scary person. But, you know, when you're looking at this guy, knowing what he's done, you know, in the movies, they would just like with Clarice and Hannibal Lecter, you know, they really, they really made us realize that Clarice knew that if he could get her hand, his hands on her, he would just kill her. So were you, were you afraid of him because of that? Or was it more you being interested and

curious about him? What was that like for you to sit there and listen to him, for the most part, talk nonsense? First of all, I will say I was not afraid of him. Never. From the beginning, or toward the end. First of all, I wasn't his type. Second of all, as I said, he was a manipulator. I had a use for him. So there's no way he was going to harm me. And I would say that his evil conduct was very compartmentalized. He could, like I said, live a very normal, moral life. And then he would do these things. So he wasn't going to fly off the handle and rape and murder me. What was interesting, though, that a lot of people think that we were behind the plexiglass like you see in the movies. In Illinois death row at the time, you were in this bullpen

with all of the killers and serial killers and multiple killers and psychotic killers in Illinois, the worst people of the worst. And they're all walking around free in this area. So while I wasn't afraid of Gacy, the other's not so much because a lot of them were very uncontrolled when it came to psychotic, like psychotic behavior and probably unmedicated psych. psychotic behavior. So yeah, talking to him, I wanted to talk to him. He lied. He, like I said, he deflected things. And but once in a while, I would get a kernel of truth that was reading between the lines. And it fascinated me. Even when it wasn't helpful to my representation of him, I was so curious to talk to him about some of the issues and his family background and what

he thought about things, just to kind of get into the head of someone. It's making me look at the name of the book, killing time. What that implies is that it was just like you passing time with this guy that on his way to death rose. Is there anything to the name like that or is it just a cute, you know, connection? Well, I kind of liked the double entendre of killing time because we spent a lot of time together. And the other part of it is obviously it was killing time for him. So, and so I just thought it kind of aptly summarized what was going on at the the time. Always want a little catchy, catchy title in your book. Here's the question that I think my listeners are probably wanting to know, because you mentioned

it before that prior to even having this opportunity, one of the things that you were intrigued by in the realm of justice was this idea of the death penalty. Because a lot of people have the, they just have opinions about the death penalty. I'd love to know what your opinion is about the death penalty and naturally did he deserve it. Was he a candidate or is a nobody a candidate for the death penalty? Well, a lot of people will say, why should we abolish capital punishment? And I always say it the opposite. Why should we have it? Again, you know, I don't want to get preachy about it in my book. I hope I'm not preachy. And I actually did talk about cognitive bias in my book. It's funny that you mention it because people who are against the

death penalty, I'm not going to convince you otherwise. But I give the reasons and you can take them or leave them or research them or research them. And I think my position is that nobody deserves the death penalty. I mean, everybody deserves to die. We're all going to die. And I just think the government being involved in ending someone's life is very serious for a number of reasons. One is its final. On Illinois death row in a 15-year period, we had 12 people exonerated and 12 people put to death. When I say exonerated, I don't mean on technicalities. I mean on actual innocence. This was after Gacy. And that's why our very conservative Republican governor abolished the death penalty. He said, I can't do this. It's not a good batting average when 12 walk free and 12 are executed. So we get it wrong all the

time. The worse the crime, the more likely an error is going to be made because jurors, when they are faced with horrible evidence, have a real inclination to just want to convict. And I understand that. It's human nature. I'm afraid. And if there's any chance that that guy did it, I'm putting him away or killing him. So we get it wrong. You know, again, racial disparity. One of the things that's really practical is that it costs a lot more to kill somebody. The whole process is more expensive. There's more forensics. There's more defense and more prosecution fees. Idaho is getting ready to spend $750,000 to build a firing squad chain. Use that money and prosecute pedophiles. I mean, put more people in jail. That's a ridiculous waste of money, in my opinion. So a lot of states actually have gotten

rid of the death penalty to save money. Although taxpayers say they don't want to pay for someone in prison, it's much cheaper just to throw them there and throw away the key. Those are just some of the reasons. If we all of a sudden had a surprise visit from one of the family members, that's where that cognitive bias comes in. And we have to understand that if you take two people with completely different perspectives and opinions, they're both right. So I think that's the space that I like to sit in is hear both sides and make sense of them. Like when I hear you talk about the reason why, you know, it's one thing to say, I'm not, you know, an advocate of it. I don't think anybody should have, you know, that type of a death.

If I'm on the other side of it, I'm automatically thinking that you're crazy and things like that. But if I take the time to understand it, and that's what the concept is, is to make sense of it, and look at the 12 versus 12, then I can have a better understanding of why you said that, just as I could listen to a family member that lost a loved one. And you want to talk cognitive bias. I could, all bets would be off. I just would stop believing in anything that I believed in. So it all makes sense.

What I'm curious to know, and I don't know if you got this from him or, because this would be based on you creating an opinion. And I know that your, your job was not to like create a psychological profile on him. But a very, very challenging concept of looking at somebody like a Manson or a Dom or or a gasey is to just understand why they did what they did. You know, you see you learn a little bit about his upbringing and things like that. But after meeting him, I want to ask this question the right way without getting too much, you know, firing feedback from my listeners.

Did it make sense how he came to this idea that what he was doing was okay based on you meeting him and learning about his upbringing? Or is he just pure evil, you know, working for the devil? I don't think anyone is born evil. That's my thought. Baby, how can a baby be evil? I just don't believe that. Gacy had a difficult upbringing, but I would say that it wasn't more difficult than a lot of us have. You know, he grew up in the 40s and 50s with the father who was an alcoholic. He was abusive physically and emotionally. His mother was lovely, but she was passive. That was a very common dynamic back at that time. And Gacy was beaten. He was always a kind of a weak kid, didn't like sports. or anything was effeminate in a way. His father was relentless in calling him homophobic names. Gacy was sexually abused a couple of times when he was young. He had a couple of head injuries, significant head injuries,

which they say can change your impulse control and your ability to be empathetic. And then he was also raised in a very strict Catholic environment, so this being gay back at that time was completely unacceptable. So if you add those things all together with maybe a slice of organic problem, that maybe he was born with, you have this idea and the psychologist will opine that he was going out and killing himself over and over again when he was killing these boys. And when you think about that and how chilling that is, it makes some sense, but you know what, J.C. will never know for sure. And I try in my book to explain or delve into it and I've known his family for 30 years.

And I talk to them about his upbringing and none of it makes much sense, really. You just remind everybody, and this is a very complicated conversation in itself, but you remind everybody that once you make a determination or create what we call an opinion on something, all you've done is just take your best guess with your current reality to say, this is what I think. But I always challenge people and say, you know, is there an exclamation point at the end of that? Or is there, are you open and curious to learning more? So it's a fascinating thing when a human being makes a decision on something. And then even though what they've decided on, like, let's, I'm not going to use Gacy as an example,

but I'm sure there's been situations where somebody's been proven guilty and put on death row. And then facts were brought to the case that proved that maybe they're innocent. And certain people will ignore that because they've already committed to a decision. And that's probably one of the most important gill sets of the legal system to adopt is to be open and curious. a scientist is not interested in what's right and wrong. They're always open to what's better. You know, so it's interesting. God, there's so many different things I want to ask about this.

Were you with him till the final days? I mean, were you there for his execution? Or, you know, what role did you play in that? Or once you got this First Amendment thing done? Did you create a relationship with him? I mean, did you, in any way, shape or form feel like you had to a relationship with him. I don't know how to better ask that. Well, first, I, um, I had a relationship with him. I had to. I had to have, I have to have a relationship with all my clients. And believe me,

I have clients I don't like. Okay. I don't approve of what they did or I just don't like their personality or I think they're mean-spirited or whatever. But I have to find something I like about them because I have to step in their shoes and I have to advocate for them. And it's, I would be a bad lawyer if I just blindly went to court and said, okay, you know, get this guy divorced and he wants his kids, but I don't really want him to have his kids. I mean, I can't do that. I've got to zealously advocate within the bounds of ethics for my clients. So I had to understand Gacy. I had to find some commonality with him. And that wasn't that hard to tell you the truth, because we're both from Chicago. He grew up in a bungalow. I grew up in a bungalow that looked exactly like his. I knew some of the places where he

lived and he worked. And so those kinds of things helped me bond with him so I could do my job because he was very difficult. He was confrontational and he was oppositional. And so the other male attorneys could really get very little traction with him because he was really harsh with them. But with me, because I'm a woman, I'm quite sure it was my gender, he was softer with me and he would be a little more open and we'd have a conversation that was kind of frivolous. And then I could talk to him. I could kind of warm him up and get him to do what we needed him to do. I'm not saying, I guess I could say manipulate in a way because, you know, I knew what was in his best interest, but I needed him to sign off on it. So I did develop a relationship. You asked me about the execution. We were not

allowed to be there with him at the execution, which I found to be wrong. I think, you know, we're entitled to a lawyer right from the beginning. Our system hasn't, you know, right, when you're arrested, you know, throughout all the appeals and everything. But for some reason, in Illinois, we weren't allowed to be there. Actually, the victim's families weren't even allowed to be there. It was just a lottery. So the media was there, which I don't know. I wanted to be there, J.C., I really thought if I'm going to do this case,

and I know the inevitable is going to be that he's executed, I didn't have any illusion that I was going to somehow, you know, change the world here. But I thought it was important for me to be there with him. And to experience it, no matter how horrible it might be to watch, I thought that was really important, but I wasn't allowed to do that. Now, I know that his, well, I should say, I read that his final words were kiss my ass. So I don't know, I don't know if that's true, but maybe you can tell us. So then maybe you can tell us the truth behind that. But I guess what I was going to ask is what were his final words to you?

Do you remember? I do. but I'm going to save that one for the book. I will tell you that the day of his execution, I was the one who gave him the news that the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected his final appeal. And we had a conversation about it. I was the one who broke the news.

I said, this is it. And he took us aside, he took my partner aside, separately took me aside, and he thanked me for everything I had done. And we had a couple of jokes between us. And I said goodbye to him. But for all that stuff, you should read the book because it was really difficult.

And people go, he was a monster, Karen, how could you even feel anything? He was a human being. And he was going to be executed. And I had this idea that I wanted to call the authorities because he's going to be executed in five hours. But it was the authorities who were doing it. It was so backwards to me, so strange. And then all of his relatives walked in at the end and all of his neighbors and his friends and his political cohorts. all these people who loved him unconditionally, knowing what he did.

And they were sobbing and saying goodbye to him. I mean, it was very confusing to say the least. And it was difficult despite the fact that he was kind of a shell of a person. So fascinating. And I love just that moment where you took us to this idea of why he maybe communicated better with you as a female. I know, you know, through some of the research that we did, in a certain way, he was intimidated by men because of his preference for them. In fact, I think he was quoted as when he was in that phase where he was explaining what he did to these people, but more specifically why, I think I recall him saying that one of the main reasons he killed people was not to just get his rocks off, it's because he was afraid of them telling on him or something like that. Is there any truth to that as far as you know?

Well, I think that's part of it. He had been convicted in Iowa of a sodomizing a young man, and he went to jail. He got a 10-year term. He only served two. And I think when he came back to Chicago at that point and started his crime spree, that he knew that he had to kill his victims. And I also think it escalates. I think when people have these fantasies that are tied, sex is tied to violence,

which is completely foreign to most of us, but that is definitely what goes on in their heads. And so these fantasies of doing these things become real. And then it needs to escalate in order for him to get more enjoyment out of it, as horrible as that sounds. So at the very end there, there was one night he went out and killed three young men. I mean, he would go out, find them, abduct them, bring him home, torture him, kill him, rape him, go out for a second one and go out for a third one.

That's how bad it had gotten. And he was heading toward, you know, getting caught as most serial killers do. They almost want to get caught at the end because it's just, it's a frenzy for them. It's horrific. So fascinating. Yeah. And I don't want to get into the details because the purpose of my podcast is usually to lift people to a higher level. But, you know, I would say, you know, read Karen's book.

It's got so much more information. And you can hear, you know, that little bite that she said you have to read the book to here. You know, Karen, when I met you before I knew what you do, you know, I was introducing you on stage and things like that. And I just didn't really start getting the gears running about the whole John Wayne Gacy thing, although that is a big part of your story. But you're very, very successful and well put together. She's a fantastic speaker. If anybody ever needs a speaker for a stage, I mean, Karen is just, you know, a rock star in that sense. But I guess as we kind of move to the end of this interview, what I'm curious to know is, because you just explained your perspective and your

experience, but what was the aftermath? Did you experience some ridicule? And was it something that tarnished your reputation? Or was it something that catapulted you? Because I'm seeing you as a thriving, successful person right now. And I've heard other stories about how things like this could be somebody's demise. Was this a catapult for you? Like, what was the aftermath like? And how did you manifest the life that you have now? And this is part of the book. You know, it's not what happens to you in life. It's how what you do with it. I'm a firm believer in that. And while I was going through this, oh, the hate mail. Judges hated me. Everyone hated me. You know, I still get hate mail to this day. But I will tell you when I was done and there was this collective societal relief that he was

executed, then people would say, you know, how could you represent him? But then they'd say, well, what was he like? Tell me your story. And I didn't want to tell my story for a number of years. It's been 30 years. My book is finally coming out. But things happened in a positive way. 30 days later, after the execution, a former football player named OJ Simpson took a drive and a white Bronco, accused of killing his ex-wife and her friend. And I became a legal commentator because people at CNN and MSNBC and Fox, they all knew my name. And I had given interviews because because of Gacy. So I became a legal analyst. A local radio station came up and said, do you want a radio show? Sure. My law professor, I had tried one. I have one death penalty case that I lose. And he comes and he

comes up from Champaign, Illinois, and he says, I want to make you a law professor. I want you to teach the death penalty. So like all these positive things happened as a result of this horrific representation. And I do believe, and you see this, like Marsha Clark, right? She's a good lawyer, But she lost a case that a lot of people thought she should have won. She ends up with a million-dollar book deal in a television show. Alan Dershowitz is on all the TV stations because he represents bad people. It doesn't make you a good lawyer to represent a bad person, but people kind of put you on a pedestal because you're a novelty. Or they think you're tough or they think, well, if Gacy hired her, she must be good.

But so there's this weird thought that when you're associated with bad people, that you're actually a good lawyer. I'll go with it. I don't know. It served me pretty well in the last 30 years. Fascinating observation of behavior that you have a front row seat to see is if I truly, truly, truly despise something or someone, I won't even want to talk about it. But there seems to be, even in the people that would send you hate mail or ridicule you, but then follow up with wanting to hear about it. Is there an interesting observation? I mean, God, you have such an interesting perspective there as being the person that maybe gets lashed out at. Is there a universal fascination with death? Or what is it about human beings? I don't know if you feel comfortable answering a question like this, but I notice this too. I notice that people that claim they don't want to talk about something, whether it's politics or religion, because they're so hell bent on their own opinion. opinion, or even death, the death penalty or serial killers,

seem to still watch the shows and be fascinated. That's a good point because there was just a show that came out two years ago where I was interviewed episodically throughout the piece. And I all got this all. Don't say Manhunter because that's our show. No. No. And it was a well done piece.

But I mean, all these emails and all. And I realized that each and every one of them had watched the entire thing. Right. because they knew the different episodes that I was in and would remark about what I said. What are you doing watching a Gacy docu-series if you are so appalled by it? Turn it off. You know? So again, I think that people are obsessed with it.

I think people are fascinated with evil. And I think that they still, but they're addicted to it. They want to see it. They want, they're fascinated by the best of the best. The Olympic athletes, you know, everyone wants to watch the Olympics. You know, everyone wants to watch the Olympics, right? Same with these bad people. Like, how bad can you be?

We love that. We love bad. And I don't know that that's ever going to change, but I think that being associated with that whole phenomenon, I think I get the brunt of it. And I think the lawyers get the brunt of the bad association. Yeah. Sex, drugs and rock and roll and add death to it. I'm, you know, a lot of people don't want to admit this. They'll just kind of like poo-poo social media.

in general, but look at the viral videos. They're not, you know, of Karen and I talking about, you know, moral compasses and things like this. It's, it's those things. It's so fascinating. So, you know, that's my message as we kind of come to the end here is human beings are just, it's an illusion that you're in control of your brain the way it is. You know, there's a lot of stuff going on that you've picked up along the way.

And if you're engaging in things like TV and news and, you know, social media, you're consuming stuff that you claim you don't like with regularity, and that ends up being what you assume with regularity. So maybe you're not in as much control of your thoughts as you'd like. And that might be why you're so fascinated by these people that act out like this is because, you know, somewhere inherently in yourself, you know that there's this version of you that could be adequate. control. So final words on the death penalty. You have your finger on that pulse. What's the future of the

death penalty? Is it something that is going to kind of stay where it is or go away more or come back full force? Well, in Illinois, they abolished it over 10 years ago. Nothing to do with me. I'd like to say it did, but it didn't. And it's falling out of favor. I think 23 states have either abolished it or have a moratorium on it for various reasons. It's being sought less by prosecutors. Jurors are not giving it, even in some of the school shootings you're seeing. The juries are saying, no, I'm not going to give this kid the death penalty. If there's a person who should have it, it should be like one of these young men. I just think that all the countries, the Western countries have abolished it. Very few countries use it. And I think that our younger generation doesn't have the stomach for it.

I think that, you know, if you look at the polls, the public opinion for the death penalty is way down. It's lowest it's ever been in my lifetime. And my guess it's going to be abolished here. And we're going to, maybe not in our lifetimes. But I think I think our government's just going to say, we're out of this business. We're going to put people in jail, throw away the key, and we're just going to stop using it as a punishment. And I don't know what the statistics are about, you know, the death penalty and just people going free and all of that stuff. But I know that there's money involved.

in keeping people. So I think that the perception out there is that we can't keep them all. So it's not like some sort of a purge strategy. What's the most people that have ever had the death penalty in a year? I couldn't tell you, but it's probably upwards of 500. But last year, we had 25 executions. I think that was an all-time low. So you can see we're, you know, we're not clearing out jail cells by executing people. And listen, if you're in Texas or Florida, and you are a getaway car person, you could do the death penalty while in Illinois, you might get two years. So if you look at the way it's used, it's just kind of a freak show, as one of the justices on the Supreme Court said, it's very freakish how it's administered. There's really no rhyme and reason.

And if you're going to be executing people, you think we would have some sort of national standards set put in place. But again, I just see this is not, I think our generation is going to say no to it. Yeah, I'm going to agree with you on that. Just as a perception at this time, I think that people are becoming a little bit more open and curious to looking at multiple sides of things. I think that people are challenging, you know, the old way of doing things. I mean, if you think about it, it's an interesting thing to ponder as you go through things like the death penalty is to go back to when it was first created and it was created by people

that did not look so much at the other side of things. God, this conversation can go here or there. Just for everybody that is listening to this episode and you in some way, shape, or form feel like I made an opinion about it. I was just stating all of the sides of it. So, Karen, so honored to have you here, so excited about your book. Guys, at the time of this recording, you know, Karen's book is actually going out into the public the next day, which would have been the...

I believe the 26th of March, 2004. And we're going to help her promote that. But if you haven't gotten a hold of her book and this topic fascinates you, or you're infuriated by it, but still feel compelled to want to know about it. You're one of those people. Go get the book. And there's other reasons to read it. I mean, again, like, just because you're in favor of the death penalty,

I totally respect that. But that's not exactly what the book's about. There are some very uplifting and empowering things. the book that I think everybody is going to have a nice takeaway from. I know that sounds weird buying a book about Gacy, but the book is really about the journey through something that's very difficult and coming out at the end in a better place. Well, that's something everybody can relate to. So, Karen, if somebody wants to find out more about you, I mean, I googled you and there's just an endless supply of Karen Conti information there. But, you know, what we'll share in the show notes,

What's the best way for people to engage in? Best way is just to go to Karen Conti.com. And there's an email address there. Hello at Karenconti.com. It all comes to me. And if you have any questions, I usually return all calls and those types of things. And I hope you buy my book and like it. And if you ever want, like you said, if you want me to speak at a book club or whatever

at a library and I can do it, I would be happy to share my experience with you. What a fantastic conversation. I know that my wife is going to probably yell at me and say, you should have her this, you should ask her that. So we might have some sort of a follow-up. But with regards to defending a serial killer, that whole aspect, it makes sense. It makes sense. I get it.

And I think that you did a great job of showing us some things that we might have had as a blind spot. So you're a fascinating person, perfect for this show. and it was an honor and a privilege to have you. Thank you so much. Thank you, J.C. Take care. Makes sense.