True Crime All The Time - John Wayne Gacy Part1

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

John Wayne Gacy is one of the most infamous serial killers of all time. In the 1970s, Gacy raped, tortured and killed at least 33 boys and young men in the Chicago area. Gacy was very well-known and liked in his community and he enjoyed dressing up as a clown to entertain the neighborhood kids. He was the perfect example of a monster hiding in plain sight.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss John Wayne Gacy for their 150th episode of the podcast. In this first part on Gacy, we'll explore his childhood and some of the things that he experienced that shaped his life and may have influenced his future behavior. We will get into Gacy's first act which involved his first wife and family in Waterloo, Iowa. This is also where Gacy's predatory behavior began to take shape.You can support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise and donation informationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

and welcome to episode 150 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in True Crime. Mike Gibson, give me, how are you? Doing all right, man. How about you? I'm doing great. I'm excited for this 150. Yeah, you should be. I should be. Yeah. And so should you. You know, I am. It's a big number. I was thinking, I'm just glad to be here. At least I'm not like that guy that's got wrapped up in the middle of night, rolled up like a douche or whatever. That song I heard coming in. Yeah, I don't think that's it. but it does sound like that. I will give you that.

When I sing the song with it, that's what I'm saying. You say douche, I'm sure. It's blinded by the light, right? Yeah, wrapped up like a douche. I actually don't know what he says for sure, but it does sound like that. It does. So, 150. Yeah.

I think everybody knows what we're doing because it's in the episode. We picked John Wayne Gasey, but I kind of went back and forth. I originally had picked Eileen Warnos. That was going to be 150. Had it planned out for months, had been doing research, had been doing some writing. But for some reason, I could not get Gacy out of my head. He was like he was there in the back. Yeah.

And he just kept popping up. Is that why you have a clown outfit on? No. Well, that's completely separate. It has nothing to do with Gacy. Okay. That's something that's happening later on after you leave. Okay.

I feel much better, I think. Yeah, I can't tell you about it. Yeah. I don't want to know. Yeah. So, you know, there's a number of factors. Number one, like I said, it kept gnawing at me. You know, maybe it was because I mentioned him for some reason in an episode not that long ago.

Yeah. Maybe it had something to do because the fans put up a poll on one of the T-Cat Facebook pages. Yeah. And they were trying to figure out who we were going to do. Gacy was the overwhelming favorite. That didn't hurt. Never does. Whatever the reason.

I did change my mind. I decided it was time for you and I to delve into John Wayne Gacy. This is a guy, a killer that has fascinated me probably since I first got into true crime. And obviously, that fascination has grown over time as I've become more and more immersed into this world that you and I. operate. But I think before we get any further, right, we've got some business to take care of. Let's do our Patreon supporter shoutouts. We had David Brinkerhoff jumped out to our highest level. Hey, Brinkerhoff. Christina Honeyman. What's going on, Honeyman? Our good friend Jamie McLaughlin. Thanks, Jamie. Bearden. Beard. I always forget the beard. I was like, you're not even waiting for me to get out the full name.

Hey, Jamie. Christina Hayden jumped out to our highest level. Hey, Christina. Kat Whitaker. What's up, Kat? Julie Adams. Hey, Julie. Travis Schaefer. Hey, thanks, Travis. Kipper Westbrook. Good day.

Kippa. Sharon Woody. Hey, Sharon. Roseanne Carlino. Hey, Carlino. Sophie Klaus. Hey, Sophie. Leah.

Hey, Ella. Kelly Shore. What's going on? Are you sure? I'm sure. Okay. Janice Mills. Hey, Janice.

Janine Heinz. What's going on, Janine? Cole Strausser. Thorson, Andrew. Thorson sounds like a... Thorson sounds like a... Thorson sounds like a... Vig.

Viking is good, too. Because there is a law firm here where we live, and Thorson is one of the names in it. It is. That's why you said that. To me, that's like a Viking, like a real strong name. It is. Baby Godzilla. What up, baby?

David Cluxton. Hey, David. Jessica Webb. Hey, thanks, Jessica. And Danny Lee. What's up, Danny? And then if we go back into the vault, Gibbs. Just go back.

This week, we selected Paula Collins. What's up, PC? So we appreciate that. We appreciate the long-term support from people like Paula. We appreciate all the new supporters as well. We had some PayPal support. We had Keela Acker-Ludkey. Alicia Little.

Hey, Alicia. Lynn Milliken. Hey, thanks, Lynn. Craig Feuderer. Feuderer. And Shaila Green. Sounds famous. She is famous now.

We just said her name. Well, that too. No, I'm just kidding. You know, big shout out to all of those folks as well. So at the time that this is out, we have a true crime all time unsolved episode. It's on Marlene Warren. Yeah. And we tried to find a tie-in with Gacy, right?

Once we figured out we were doing Gacy, we tried to find a tie. This is as close as we could come. These cases really have nothing to do with each other. They don't. Other than the fact that Marlene Warren was killed by. by a clown, by a person wearing a clown outfit. Yeah, killer clown. Now, the one thing I will say, we'll get into the investigation and all that.

This is a different type of unsolved for us. I think if this is an unsolved that a lot of T-Cat folks will really like because somebody has been arrested for Marlene's murder. Right. So it's still unsolved, technically. Correct. But there is some finality. to it. And I know there's a lot of T-Cat listeners that don't like that part of Unsolved where

they don't know what happened. There's a little bit more finality in this one than most unsolved. Yeah, definitely a good one to check out, especially like you said, if you're not used to listen to them because of that, come on over and you'd be happy. It's a good one to try out. And then the reviews are in. Yeah, make sure you check out the reviews are in. I put it out this week on the T-Cat feed on our feed just to give some folks a chance to listen to it. So hopefully they do. Hopefully they like it. They subscribe and our numbers go up. All right, man, we know what we're getting into here with Gacy. I guess for me. And I think probably for a lot of other people as well, Gacy is fascinating for a number of different reasons. But one in particular, I think, is because this

guy had like two different personas. Not that we haven't covered quite a few killers who have had this before, but it's almost like Gacy really had it. On the one hand, he was this husband, father, typical great neighbor who ran his own successful business. He had a lot of friends. He was very well liked. This was not the, I'm sitting in the basement, crossing off names, wearing lipstick, I'm going to hunt you down type of killer. Right. This guy was very well known in the community, very well liked by many, many people. With the family aspects, I kind of go back to episode two, you know, Kiklinsky being such a badass, but yet, you know, this loving, family man would do anything for his family.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's strange how people can compartmentalize and kind of make the separation. This is my one life. This is where I eat dinner with the wife and the kids and we watch Love Boat and whatever was on back in the 70s. But here's my other life where I am raping and murdering young.

boys and young men, it's kind of hard to imagine how that works. Yeah, it's definitely scary. I think that that scares me more than the person that's on all the time. Oh, sure. Even BTK was shut it off for a while and you're like, man, uh, don't like that. Don't like somebody that can do that so easily. And when you talk about gacy, right, you have to bring up the fact that he liked to dress up as a clown. He liked to entertain children around the Chicago area. You have all of that, what you would think is good. And then like I mentioned, you have this other side, a man who raped, tortured and murdered so many boys and young men. And the number is staggering, right? 33 confirmed victims. Man, 33. Yeah. And the authorities, like in a lot of cases, believe that it could be

higher. And the fact that he used his crawl space, right, to hide many of his victims. That's something we'll definitely get into. Many of his victims have been identified, but not all of them. So I think gives when you take all of this into consideration, the two sides of gasey, the high number of victims, the killer clown aspect, as he would become known as. And I think you have to factor in that it happened in the Chicago area, right? Because that's a big deal. Chicago's a massive city. It makes Gacy one of the most infamous killers of all time. And it doesn't matter one single bit that all of this happened over 40 years ago.

What Gacy did still captivates people today. And I think part of that is something. something that you touched on. Gacy didn't seem all that scary in real life. You're not walking down the street and seeing John Wayne Gacy and thinking, oh my gosh, you better watch out for that guy. Right. He's going to be trouble. No, he looked like your average dumpy, slumpy guy neighbor next door. Now, what he did is scary as hell. Oh, yeah. But to look at him, you would think, that's just an average schmo. Yeah. You weren't concerned. But I think like you said it, the fact that he was able to do both live these two separate lives, to me it's one of the scariest parts of the whole thing. Yeah, to have that internal switch.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we'll get into all of it. It's like somebody sitting here doing a podcast, just a normal guy. But when they leave here, they're not a normal guy, you know? Yeah. You're making the assumption that you're a normal guy when you're. you're here, and I would debate that. Oh, I was talking about you. Oh, you were talking about,

see, I don't leave here. Yeah. So you say. So I say. But, you know, obviously, there is a lot to unpack here with Gacy. And it's going to take us a number of episodes to do it. So I think we dive right into his background. Let's find out what little John Wayne was like growing up. That's what I'm calling him, Little John Wayne. Little John. Or Little John. Just don't call him a little Wayne. Little Wayne.

Because then you can get trouble with Little Wayne saying, hey. Well, isn't there a little John too? Little John? And he's the one that goes, hi. All right. So let's dive into his background. Gibbs. Let's find out what little John Wayne was like growing up.

He was born on March 17th, 1942, which happened to be St. Patrick's Day. Oh, St. Potty's Day. He was born in the Chicago area to John Stanley Gacy and Marion Gacy. But John was born with a congenital heart defect. He had an enlarged heart. As do I. I think we're going to find a lot of similarities as we go through this thing between you

and John Wayne Gacy. It's going to be scary. Well, just the day I found out I had one, I was like, what the, you know, but. Exactly. That's for another time. But yeah, interesting. his parents had him a little later in life. John was their second child, but their only son.

So they already had a daughter named Joanne at the time John was born. And they would have another daughter, Karen, two years later. But his father was 41 years old. So he's the middle kid? Yes. Just like I. Just like you. Yeah.

So dad was 41. His mom was 33. Not that that's old, but it's a little later in life. It is. Yeah. to have children than some folks. The family made their home on the north side of Chicago. John Stanley worked as an auto repair machinist.

And John's mother, Marion, she worked in a pharmacy until she made the decision that she was going to stay home and raise their kids as a lot of mothers did back them. Yeah, they sure did. And how was it that they were able to do that, Gibbs? Well, back then. This guy wasn't a CEO of a company. He wasn't making Buku dollars. Why is it that it seemed like back in the 40s and 50s and maybe even into the 60s,

it was easier. It was simpler times for you to make it in a one, a single income household. Yeah. Is it because you didn't have all these ancillary payments? that we do today, you didn't have cell phones and you didn't have cable and internet and I don't know what the reason is. Netflix and all that stuff. But it is much harder in today's environment if you want to have all those things,

obviously. Oh, yeah. To live with a single family income. A lot of people did it back then. Oh. Many, many people. My mom stayed home. Another thing you have in common with John Wayne Gais.

That's true. So we have this weird connection gives that. kind of popped up at me. John Wayne, right? Famous actor. Yeah. I don't know if Gacy was named after him. He could have been.

I never found it in any of the research. But what is strange is that his mother's name is Marion. Right. Which also happens to be John Wayne's first name, real first name. It's kind of a strange connection. It is. Some type of tie in there, I'm sure. But life was not great in the Gacy household.

How many times? do we start off episodes saying that. You know, John Stanley the father was an abusive alcoholic. We tend to say that quite a bit as well. Yeah, we do. There are reports that Marion drank as well, but it was hard to figure out to what degree. I don't know if she was an alcoholic, but I think she liked to drink. But either way, it was definitely nowhere to the level of John Stanley.

family. You know, this guy was abusive. He would come home from work. He would go down in his basement, drink his drinky drinks. And then it was almost as if he was looking for someone to get upset with to get the belt off and hit. Yeah. He was an abusive guy. Very violent. A lot of guys like that, you know, are being told at work every day what they have to do. by authority figure. You think that has something to do with it? Yeah, and then they come home and letting their frustrations out. Yeah.

Can't control their frustrations. No, they want to be in control and let their authority fly and they do it after they start drinking. Yeah, that might be something to that. And obviously the alcohol would not help that. It would, it would amplify that. Oh, yeah. You know, to a major degree.

But no one was immune to this abuse, right? It applied to everybody. John Stanley once hit his wife Marion so hard that her bridge flew out of her mouth. That's rough, man. That's rough. You shouldn't hit your wife at all, right? Nobody, no husband should lay their hands on their wife. But to picture a husband punching the woman that he's married to so hard that it causes

her dental work to fly out of her mouth. That's like, you know, what you see in a price fight, slow motion. Right. In a rocky movie. That's what I'm picturing. That's brutal. Not in the kitchen. No, it shouldn't happen in the kitchen at all.

But I do think Gibbs a lot of the abuse and maybe the vast majority was directed at young John. And it started very early. We're talking three, four years old around the same time of this kind of brutal assault on John's mother. His mother left John's father briefly after this incident happened. But it only lasted a few days. She took the kids, but came back after a few days, moved back in with John Stanley and lived in the family home. So I get the sense that John's mother was trying to protect him, protect his siblings from their father. I also get the feeling that she was probably in a very tough situation.

She was a homemaker. She wasn't working. She wasn't making any money of her own. She may have felt at the time that she had very few options. Well, I believe that happened a lot back then and probably today where the spouse feels like they are trapped in a situation that they just can't get away from or get out of because they don't have the money, right? or they had the guilt of the kids or whatever.

They just can't get away from the abuse. It's sad. It is sad. So no doubt, John's father was a big drinker. And when he got drunk, he got violent. This was a guy that just had a very short fuse when he was drinking. And there were guys like that. Oh, yeah.

Those are the, I mean, there's always been alcoholics. Always will be alcoholics. I can handle the alcoholics that are on the one side. Yeah, like the fun. There's some people that are just fun. or just they're happy, they're laughing, maybe. Yeah, it's the mean ones.

Yeah, mean, there's nothing worse than a mean drunk. Yeah. He whipped John Wayne just about every chance he got. It's what it seemed like to me. And it wasn't like he beat him only when John did something wrong. Not like that would make it any better, but sometimes at night, you know, after he had been drinking, he would just come out up from the basement and decide that, oh, John needed a beating.

It's beating time. He hasn't done anything, but you know what? Yeah. I'm going to beat him anyway. I'm going to make you a man before you're seven. There was no warning. There was nothing. A lot of times I think that John did too warranted or that preceded it.

He whipped him with belts and reportedly Gibbs once whipped him with one of those big straps of leather that they used to sharpen up old-timey razors straight razors yeah you know what I'm talking about I don't know what they call those when you go to the old barber shop they would you'd see them flicking the straight razor back and forth on the leather strap I remember that I'm sure it has a name I have no idea what it is but you remember what those look like oh yeah nice and wide it now it's no fun to get whipped with anything but can you imagine taking a major ass whipping with one of those. No, it reminds me of when I used to get whipped with those big white,

those wide white belts back in the 70s, man, you know, it covered more of your ass, so you felt it. They did have some, some wide belts back in the 70s, but still nothing as wide as one of these things. Not as wide is not as thick either. Yeah, they were thick, too, these big pieces of leather.

So the thing about John Wayne Gacy is that like a lot of boys, Gibbs, I think he was looking for his father's approval. I mean, aren't most of us boys as were growing up and some of us as men still do still looking for our father's approval. But he never got it. You know, John was overweight as a kid. He couldn't play sports like the other boys did because of his whole. heart problem, he had seizures, which forced him to take anti-seizure medication. He had a lot of stuff going on. And I think that John's father was ashamed of him.

Deep down, above everything else, I think he was ashamed of him. His dad's probably disappointed. He doesn't have this boy that can go out and play ball and do all this stuff that, you know, he thought his boy should be doing. Yeah, he probably looked at. at his neighbors, his buddies, he looked at their kids. They're out there tearing it up on the baseball diamond or whatever it is. And here he has this son that because of illnesses and other things can't do any of that. I just think he felt really let down or just I think ashamed is a

better word. I think he was ashamed. Well, and he's not going to help the situation by beating you know, his son down verbally. Which he did. Now, I've, I've mentioned. I've mentioned. I've mentioned. mention the physical abuse. There was a lot of verbal abuse too, like you're talking about. Which in some cases is worse than the physical abuse can be when it's in your head mentally. When you're the person that you idolize is constantly telling you that you're blankety blank, right? You're a piece of shit. Yeah. It's going to play on you over time. No, you could be right. Yeah, I don't know that because I never went through either one of those. So I can't. Yeah. I can't speak on it. But you said it could be.

and I think you're right, it could be to some people. He ridiculed his son, told him that he wasn't good enough. He would never amount to anything. Basically, like I said, he told him on a regular basis, you're a piece of shit. You'll always be a piece of shit. Well, guess what? When you feed people affirmations day in and day out, negative or positive, you know, they're going to start believing some of those things, potentially.

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oh. Oh. Well, it's kind of hard to figure out how to respond to that. Yeah. Apparently, he stole them all the time. He would hide them in different places and he would play with them. You know, I think later on he would, he came out and he said he liked the feel of them. The silkiness of the. The silkeness of the. gulkiness of her undergarments of the, yeah. Between the ages of four and seven, John was caught twice, touching young girls in a sexually explicit way. Now,

that's not a good thing. It's not going to go over well with any parent. No. But of course, the way that John's dad chose to handle it was by beating him. I think most of us as parents would figure out a better way to address this situation and, you know, maybe with counseling or whatever we needed to do, John Stanley's just going to try to beat it out of it. I'll just get this out of your

system my way. There are some indications that during some of these more violent beatings that John received, he was hit in the head by his father and knocked unconscious. And the reason I bring it up is because of the massive amounts of head trauma that you and I see with some of these serial killers. Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, this is lining up to be exactly what you would think, the beginning of a serial killer. Or yeah. So if I said John Wayne Gasey and you didn't know anything about him. Right. You would probably picture his childhood to be pretty much exactly what we've just said. Yeah, exactly. Pretty crappy, bad parents. abuse, both physically, verbally.

You would have to say trauma. It fits the profile. It does. It does. He would have more head trauma down the road as well. At the age of nine, John was sexually molested by a friend of his father's. But John never told anyone saying later that he was too afraid of what his father would do to him. Yeah.

If he found out. because he'd probably blame John on making the guy I want to touch him. It was probably a rational fear. I mean, based on what he had gone through, I don't think he was wrong to feel the way that he did. It's just sad when a child could be sexually assaulted, sexually molested, and be afraid to tell their own parents. Yeah, they had no safe. No safe place. Yeah, no safe place to turn, nobody to talk to.

What are you supposed to do, but swallow it and bottle it up inside and go on? Yeah, it's always weird to me, because even in some cultures, I know when the daughter is raped, the family shuns her. And I'm thinking, I think you're right, yeah. She was raped. It's not her fault. But now you want nothing to do with her. I don't get it. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a cultural thing, which, and again, I don't get it.

When John was 11, he was playing on the play. ground. He was hit by a swing in the head. He was knocked out. And the blow caused some blood clots in his brain that would have some pretty major detrimental effects on him for years to come. They caused blackouts for like three or four years. So see now, I mean, it's really building up the stereotypical serial killer signs. Not like you said before. It, it seems they've like a prototypical childhood for many of the serial killers that we talk about. But he's having these blackouts for years, but it wasn't until years later that it was diagnosed. The reason why he was having these blackouts were because of the head injury and the blood clots,

he was given medication. But he went for years without any type of help in relation to the blood clots. and the blackouts. Over the next few years, John was caught multiple times wearing women's underwear, often his mothers. There was one report that said, one time when she caught him, Gibbs,

she made him wear the underwear to school. To me, that's just playing into probably the fantasy. What he wanted to do already. Yeah. Is that the, I catch you smoking. I'm going to make you smoke a whole pack of cigarette.

type of tough love. Yeah, it's a little different, though, because, right, you're trying to make them sick with all the smoking. That's true. We're here, unless you made him wear the underwear outside his pants. Yeah, I didn't get that part. Not going to really have an impact. I don't know what it was designed to do.

I'll agree with you there. And let's just assume it didn't work because of what we know John Wayne Gasey is going to do in the future. Maybe he just came home and said, Mom, these keep bunching up. And she's like, do you have another pair that is not so bunchy? Yeah, exactly. I'll wear those tomorrow. I don't like the bunching. I do think Gibbs, it's rough being caught by your mother for any number of things, right? And you can insert a number of different examples, but being caught wearing your mom's underwear, that's got to be at the top of my something I don't want to experience list. Yeah, I would hate if I ever decided to wear my mom's underwear. So you might at your age now decide to wear them?

Oh, no, not now. Oh, because you said if you ever to do decide. I meant as a kid, if I ever had him wanted to wear my mom's. I thought you were letting something out there. No, no, no, especially not today, no. But he would never want to be found out doing that, you know. It just, and I don't know what that fascination is. So we covered Russell Williams up in Canada.

And this guy love putting on girls underwear. And bikinis and all kinds of different garments. I just don't, I don't know what the thrill is. Yeah, this is one of the things that I really struggled with. We know later in life that John Wayne Gacy is going to target boys and young men. So why? As a youngster, was he fascinated with women's, underwear. I think Gibbs, he was struggling with his sexuality at a very early age. I do believe that.

But, you know, getting back to being caught wearing your mom's underwear, can you imagine how awkward the dinner table would be after that would happen? I wouldn't be able to look my mom in the eye. I wouldn't even want to be in the same room. I would be so embarrassed. It would be tough for sure. And we're going to talk about it in a little bit. But, you know, to add on to it, Gacy was married to different women. He had children. So I'm really not sure at what point he became conflicted about his sexuality. But like I said, I think it started pretty early in life for him.

And I think he just struggles through his whole existence. John Wayne Gacy attended a private Catholic school for most of his education. He transferred to a public high school, but things weren't any better for him there. I mentioned he was pretty much bullied and teased throughout school. Yeah. For one thing, by the time high school rolled around, he was hardly ever there. And we've talked about some of the ailments that he suffered from. At one point, he nearly died from a burst appendix.

So he was out from school quite a bit. Yeah. his grades in school were terrible. Even though his IQ, I've seen it pegged in the range of 115 to 120, which is good. It's good. Yeah. I think he was a fairly smart individual. And I think we'll see that as the episodes progress. But I think, you know, between missing so much time for medical issues and the torment that he received from fellow classmates, he didn't get good grades. That's a big deal. It is, but he probably didn't want to be there. No, he didn't want to be there. Anybody that gets bullied or is made fun of on a regular basis at school is not going to want to be there.

They're not going to want to put their all into their classes. Their grades are probably not going to be that great, as they would be if they were happy. Yeah, I mean, you can concentrate a whole lot better if you don't have to worry about what the bullies in the classroom are going to do to you later. Yeah. Or trying to do to you right at that moment. Yeah. During his senior year, he switched high schools a bunch of different times. I think he went to like three or four different schools. His senior year. That's strange, right? Very strange. Yeah. Usually by your senior year, number one, you're ready to get the heck out of there, but you've developed a lot of friends. throughout the years and you want to kind of ride into the sunset of your high school days with

them. Not for John Wayne Gacy. He didn't have that. He was looking for a better opportunity. The problem is he never found it because every school he went to, it was like the same thing. He still ran into the same type of boys. Yes. So ultimately, he never graduated. And I think that should tell you a lot about his educational experience. It was not good. He was a senior transferring schools to try to find some place where he could fit in. He couldn't do it. So he said, you know what? I'm leaving. As a senior, he said, I'm not even going to graduate. I'm done. Now, keep in mind, even though he's older, his father is still demeaning him, still physically beating him. Right. He's 17, 18 years old. now at this point. But then something very strange happened, or at least I found it to be strange,

his father helped him buy a car. Now, for most fathers and sons, that wouldn't be strange at all. It would be the norm. But for this pair, given their history and everything they've gone through, it just seemed downright odd. Very odd to me. So the deal was that John would make the payments to his father. But really, the car just became another way for his father to control and punish John. So anytime his father got upset with him, he'd either take the keys or Gibbs, he would take a crucial part of the car out.

Well, being a mechanic, he knew what he could do. Yeah. So it just wouldn't run. Yeah. So John would get in to start the car and it wouldn't start. I'm out of here, Dad. I'd had enough. Yeah, good luck with that.

See how far that gets you. It was not a good. scene. Yeah. At one point, Gacy contemplated becoming a priest. He decided against that. He did get involved with politics. He helped out one of the local Democratic campaigns. But I think the stuff with his dad and the car, I think it was the last draw for John. So at one point, when the car was working, he took off and drove to Las Vegas. And he said, you know what? I'm a out of here. I'm done. He got a job at a mortuary. Oh. A little Bernie Tita action. Yeah. For those of you that remember Bernie. People don't talk

back to you. They don't. Or maybe he wanted to catch Elvis. I don't know if Elvis was out in Vegas by that time. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. A little Viva Las Vegas. Viva Las Vegas. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much. but he was only in Vegas for a few months. But during those few months, Gibbs allegedly had some interesting, I'll call it, type of contact with some of the dead bodies at the mortuary. Interesting contact. That's what, that's my euphemism for I think he was fondling the dead bodies.

Oh, okay. And when they figured it out, he got fired. Because one of the things I believe they do not look kindly on at the mortuary is fondling dead bodies. Yeah, that's not good. I think it's frowned upon at the very least, most likely a fireable offense. I would think it would be. It should be. So he returned to Chicago and enrolled in a business college, which for the life of me,

I could not figure out how he got into this business college when he never graduated from high school. You know, he must have lied about his graduation. I'm sure he did. And I'm sure it was much easier back then without the computers that we have today. Maybe he forged transcripts. I don't know. I never found the actual way that he did it. But the thing about it was he did very well in business school. He got good grades. It was almost as if he had finally found something that fit. We mentioned it. was a fairly smart guy. I think getting out from high school and the shenanigans that go on in high school with the bullying and the teasing, he probably didn't experience that same level of that in business school, right? People are there to work. They've got plans. They've got goals.

They've got things they want to get done. What I did think was very strange was that he moved back in with his parents. That is strange. Because he experienced the freedom of being in a way. Exactly. Without being beaten. You would think once you got that first taste of freedom, right? The last thing you would want to do is to move back in with your parents in his case,

because he had experienced so much crap growing up. But maybe he had no other choice. It wasn't like he had a ton of money or had a great job. But things were going to get better. for John Wayne Gacy on that front. Because in 1963, he graduated from business school. And he got a job with a well-known shoe company. I think it was called Nunn Bush.

Oh, yeah. They make some pretty good shoes. They do make really good shoes. Now, they're no Johnston and Murphy, which is my favorite. I know you like that shoe store. Every time you and I go through an airport that has a Johnston and Murphy, I always have to stop in and see what they got. I know.

I'm like, where'd you go? when I'd look back, I'm like, oh. Which is strange because I buy the exact same shoe. Yeah. Every time. I think they call it the Ferguson. They've changed it to call it the Ferguson. I don't know what I'm going to do when they stop making it.

It's like the most comfortable shoe I've ever owned. Yeah. So when they start to wear out, I just buy another pair. But with this shoe company, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, started off as a salesman, and began working his way up the ladder. And the thought that popped into my head, Gibbs, was think about all the customers that John Wayne Gacy came into contact with in a job like that. Right. When he was starting out, he was a salesman. Yeah. So, you know, back in the day what a shoe store was like, you went in. They actually fitted you. Oh, they took their time to put that little, well, today it's like a little metal slide rule thing. But back then it was one of those wooden.

thing that you put your foot in. Oh, I don't remember that. That must have been before my time. It'll measure the size of your foot and how wide it was. I only remember the metal ones. Oh, yeah. They used to have wooden ones back in the day. And maybe they still do that at some places.

But, you know, in the society that we have now, most of the time you walk in, you're just grabbing whatever you want off the shelf. We got a lot of self-serve, right? We do. Nowadays. Back then, there was a lot more emphasis placed on customer care. Oh, yeah. Let me help you with that.

The guy would push down on the top and see where your toe was and make you walk around, come back, push it in. Yep, you're okay, son. Good old days. Then he would check your inseam. Yeah. That's when it got weird. Oh, they weren't supposed to do that? Wow.

At a shoe store? No. Oh, okay. So. But I think one of the questions that you have to ask is were the thoughts already swirling around in his mind about murder back then, right? As a salesman, he's seeing a lot of people come in. Sure. Was he already scouting potential victims as he helped fit them for shoes?

I think this is the type of thought that should scare us all, right? As we go about our daily lives interacting with so many people as we do, how many of those people are having murderous thoughts in their heads and how many of them are at that very moment scouting for a potential victim. It could potentially happen. You could be sitting across a car salesman, give them in all your detail, private information,

nicest guy you've ever met. You're going to have people not wanting to buy a new car. And they're sizing you up. But it is a scary thought. It is scary. You never know. Now, I did recently see something published on

the number of serial killers throughout the decades. Right. It has thought to have gone down dramatically, which I think we all would agree. Sure. You know, 60s, 70s, even into the 80s was kind of the heyday. I think every decade since, it's gone down dramatically. Harder to pull it off.

Yeah, much harder. Doesn't mean that people don't kill. I just think it's very hard to get away with the numbers. Right. You know, a Gacy, a Wayne Williams, a Bundy, an Israel. keys. The technology is out there, I think, to catch most of these people before they would ever get to that point. Plus, you have all these lepslews out here solving it before the police do. That's true. You know, our listeners are like, yeah, I already know who's doing these.

Got it figured out. Yeah. So things are looking up, right, for John Wayne Gasey. Graduated from business school. He's got this new job, probably going to lead to a nice career. And then things began looking up on the personal front, the romantic front. He fell in love with a woman named Marilyn Myers, who was someone that he worked with at the shoe company. I think Gibbs, he was actually her manager at the time, but they began dating and it wasn't long, maybe eight, nine months before they married in the fall of 1964. Marilyn was from Waterloo, Iowa, and she came from a pretty prominent family. And they had some cash.

Marilyn's father bought three KFC restaurants, which is no small feat. No. You and I were talking the other day about how much money it takes to open, you know, a fast food restaurant. But we never could figure out how to get Gibby's chicken and nuggets a go. Gibby's chicken and nuggets? Yeah. Or Gibby's chicken nuggets?

I don't know. So you got chicken and nuggets. That's right. What are the nuggets made out of? Chicken? No, no. It's too costly. Something else.

Mystery meat. So, you know, it's kind of a big deal, right? To own three KFC restaurants. So the couple decided, you know what? We should move to Iowa. And that's exactly what they did. They moved to Waterloo, Iowa. and John Wayne Gacy started managing these KFC restaurants.

Now, my assumption gives is that along with managing the restaurants, he probably did some eating of KFC as well. Think you're looking good. And it does seem as though this is a guy that had trouble passing up a good meal. He was probably grabbing drumsticks two at a time as he walked by the chicken rat. And that extra crispy stuff is pretty darn good. Now, I'm not casting any aspersions on him for that. I actually don't think I could manage a restaurant or even work in a restaurant like that.

You know me, Gibbs. I get hungry. I feel like I would be very tempted to grab a fry, grab a nugget, not at your restaurant, snatch me a drumstick. I don't know if I could pass it up. You'd be eating a lot, man. My self-control is not very good. No, not a place for you.

But what an amazing. gig for John Wayne Gacy. Right. He marries this woman whose father just happens to have money and says, hey, come run my three KFC restaurants. Here's a guy gives that starting out was floundering in life. Didn't graduate high school. Now he's like this mini Colonel Sanders. Impressive.

I read where he even asked people to call him the colonel. That's bold. That is bold. By the way, it's Colonel Gibby now. And nuggets. Not chicken nuggets, just nuggets. My nuggets. Gacy got very involved with the JCs, which is a nonprofit organization designed to help young men develop their personal and leadership skills through service to others. I'm not all that familiar with it, but it sounds like a good thing, right, from that description.

The problem is it puts Gacy in direct contact with a lot of young men. On top of that, I'm sure there were a lot of young men that worked at these KFC restaurants. Sure. I remember the JCs back in the day. They always sponsored all the haunted houses in this area. You're right. I do remember that. But he got to be a pretty big deal with them.

He was elected as the vice president. It's like the head Puba. Or the grand Puba. Yeah. Or the head honcho. What are those things? There are some reports that it was around this same time frame that Gacy had his first sexual encounter with a man. So we're heading down the road that we knew we were going to, right?

We know that ultimately that's where this case takes us. So in 1966, John and his wife had their first child, a son. named Michael. This is where my head started to spin a little bit because I thought, weren't you born in 1966? Yeah, it's Michael G. So your name's Michael. Yeah. You were born in 1966. You were also at one point a contractor ran a contracting business of some sort. As we'll find out Gacy did later. There are a ton of similarities between, you and John Wayne Gacy, how do you know that you're not the son of John Wayne Gacy? And I like KFC chicken.

Well, a lot of people like KFC. Me, not so much, but. I don't know. Why I know. Do I know? I'm not sure. There's a mystery there. There's a lot of mysteries with you.

Yeah. Well, when I was younger, I did think I was adopted for a good chunk of my early years. You just never know. I don't know, man. I have so many doubts about you. So in his book, buried dreams inside the mind of a serial killer. This author named Tim Cahill states that after the birth of Michael, Gacy's parents came to

Iowa to visit, which in most families you would expect, right? The first grandchild, hey, we can't wait to get out there. Yeah. We got to see this little grandchild of ours. Most people wouldn't think that maybe of John's father, but Cahill says that during the visit. Gacy's father apologized to him for the years of physical and verbal abuse. And apparently he told him, quote, son, I was wrong about you. That's a pretty big thing. That's a huge thing, man. It had to have been huge to John Wayne Gacy. We mentioned it up front. I really do think even with

everything his father did to him, he was searching for his father. He was searching for his father's approval, as do a lot of us, that had to be a big point in his life, to hear those words. It doesn't take all the pain away, but I think it's kind of reassuring that maybe there's a chance that moving forward, they're going to have a decent relationship. Yeah, I mean, for a guy that heard nothing for years, but you're nothing, you're worthless, you're never going to amount to something to now hearing, hey, I was wrong about you, you're doing pretty good. And can I get a free bucket of chicken every week? There might have been some of that. I don't know. I still wouldn't let him watch my my child. Oh no no way. No way in hell would I let him

watch my child. So as it relates to the statement that John Stanley made, well, he was somewhat wrong about his son, but not completely wrong, right? We know what John Wayne Gasey's going to do. obviously his dad doesn't know what he's going to do. And you could say, would he have done what he's going to do if the dad didn't? That's always the thing. That is always the thing with me. How can it be a coincidence, Gibbs, that we talk about so many killers, and I'll say serial killers especially, that have some of the most jacked up childhoods that you can

imagine, you can't tell me. that that's just a coincidence that they had such a horrible childhood involving psychological and verbal abuse, got smacked around, hit in the head, and then develop these murderous feelings later on. Now, on the flip side, just because you went through that doesn't mean you will become a killer or you will develop, you know, some of these murderous thoughts. But you can't tell me there's no correlation. whatsoever. I just can't believe it. You have to feel there has to be some connection. Yeah.

The next year, John and Marilyn had a daughter that they named Christine. So when you look at this period of Gacy's life, it seems like it's going very well. Yeah, pretty calm. This guy has a great job. He's making a boatload of money. Kind of American dream. Two kids. Nice job. Great wife. Yeah. I mean, what else could a man ask for? But for Gacy, it wasn't enough. We know that his attraction to boys is going to pop up. And it's around this time that it really starts to ramp up. Now, maybe it had been there for a long, long time. But this is when he was finally going to act on it. I don't have a great sense of, when this attraction to to younger boys started to really become strong for him. He could have been harboring it for many, many years and just never acted on it, but he's going to. And he's going to start with the many young males that he employed at the KFC restaurants he managed. So I guess Gibbs, Gacy would invite these young males over to his house.

and they would gather in his basement. He made like some little type of clubhouse down there. He had a pool table. Okay. And he would give the kids alcohol. And buckets of chicken. Probably buckets of chicken as well. I'm sure he had chicken everywhere.

So they drank alcohol. They played pool. But at the same time, he is trying to see which of these young males were open to his section. advances. So it seems to me as though this is where it really started. Right. He has these employees from his KFC restaurants. He's saying, you know what? Come over to my basement. Here's alcohol. Play some pool. Well, that's strange. A little bit. Yeah, I think so. Now, he's only in his middle 20s. He's like 25 years old. So it's not like he's a 50-year-old man hanging out with 17, 18-year-old kids.

He is 25, but still, he's married with two kids. That part to me is weird. I think it's weird. Sure. Plus, he's given underage kids alcohol. Yeah. But then when you add on the fact that he's testing them, right, he's making sexual advances and trying to figure out who, if any, of these kids are open to them.

So it's like my old wrestling coach slapping me on my backside and finding out if I was okay with it or not? No, I think we're going way farther than that. Okay. Because to me in high school, that was just what gym coaches, basketball coaches did. There was a lot of ass macking. In the shower? No, not in the shower.

You didn't say in the shower. Oh. Sorry, I should have clarified. No, it was just like good play. I don't know why I don't know why there was so much ass macking back then, but that seemed to be the thing. Yeah. But here's where I think Gacy was pretty smart about the way that he went about this. So he's making these sexual advances.

Probably not overtly, right? He's being kind of sly about it. Right. Trying to figure out which of these kids might be up for something. and I guess if any of them got pissed or, you know, said, you know what, dude, I'm not into that. He would play it off and say that he was testing them. To make sure they weren't into that. Yes, exactly.

Now, I was testing you to see what you would say, almost as if I'm putting you on the defensive. Yeah. Why are you upset with me? I was testing you, you passed. If you had said the other thing. I'll kick your ass out of here. I would have known. It's pretty ingenious if you think about it.

Yeah. Because it gives him this sort of built-in thing. If the other person gets offended, boom, it's automatic. I just say this. Right. And it pretty much diffuses the whole situation. It doesn't make me look the way that I really am or that these people think that I am. The other thing that Gacy did.

pretty much throughout his life is he really said a lot of rhetoric railing against homosexuality. This is another ploy that he used. So he was anti-gay. Yes. And on the outside. Very boisterous or vociferous about about it. Vocal is a better word. Again, kind of smart. He's trying to throw people off from the way that he really is. Definitely building a really strong cover. Yes. So as I was researching this case, I was really heavy into the Waterloo paper. I was looking in there.

I mean, I searched through a lot of newspapers, but I really got to digging into the Waterloo paper back in the 1967 time frame. Yeah. Gacy's name happened to pop up a couple of times. once in September of 67, he was involved in a three-car crash where he got rear-ended. The article said that the 25-year-old John Wayne Gacy was in good condition after receiving injuries to his back and legs. Just an innocuous little blurb in the paper, right?

It's the kind to which hardly anybody would pay any attention. You'd skip over that. Sure. Nobody's going to read that. he made the same paper again in both November and December of that year. In November, there was a story about some J.C. breakfast that he was in charge of. And then in December, it talked about a request that he made at a city council meeting to do some work on his driveway at his house.

You know, these are just small, trivial things that you would find in any city paper. City paper. But compare it to what is about to come. out about John Wayne Gacy. And we're not even talking about the 33 victims in Chicago. No. It's going to come out that Gacy has already been sexually assaulting young boys. And he's going to do some serious time in the pen. Yeah. And he's going to lose this seemingly perfect life that he's built for himself. But all of that and more is to come in part two of our John Wayne Gacy coverage, which will be out next Sunday night. I'm still thinking about here's a guy, like you just said,

pretty much has it all. Well, one thing I didn't mention, he's managing three restaurants. Yeah. One of the papers said that his salary was like $15,000. What do you think that would be today? Beep-bo, people, people. Well, I would think he'd be. you know, 80,000 easy. I think it was 120-ish. Yeah, I believe that. That's believable. So he was making very good money.

Yeah. Again, great wife, two very, very young kids. Very respected in the city. Vice president of the JCs. But, you know, we're going to see this again later on in Chicago. He does pretty much the same thing. But he's always as that underlying deal. And that's the part that I just can't figure out, right?

You have it all. But maybe to him it wasn't all because he had this compulsion that drove him to want to be with young boys that he knew he shouldn't be with, right? He knew it was against the law. It was wrong. But his frog demon is stronger. That's the only thing that I can think of. But I think to most people, you just can't make sense of it. My wife likes chocolate a lot.

Yes, she does. She has a compulsion to eat chocolate. But she knows it's not good for her. So she doesn't eat it all the time. That's probably not a great analogy, but it's the one that came into my head. She's eating it right now when you're not up there with her. She probably is. But that's it.

That's it for part one of John Wayne Gasey. Gibbs, we've got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Let's hear them. Hey, Mike and Givie. It's Dave from Pawtucket, Rhode Island. I know you're a fan, a family guy that is an actual place. I've been listening for probably close to two years now.

I'm a student. I'm in my last year's student teaching before I become an elementary teacher. And I wake up super early and I want to do work, and I put my AirPods on and listen to you guys. Love it. All my side hustles actually is doing body removals, so I go pick them up for funeral homes and drop them off. So I've seen a lot of stuff that you guys talk about, which also makes it interesting for me. I've been a fan for a long time.

It's my first time falling. I had to wait for that's almost done with true crime all the time. My next venture is going to be true crime all of time. So keep doing what you're doing. Love it. Thanks. Bye. So my side gig is body removal.

Just said it kind of nonchalantly. I didn't even know that was the thing. Why was I Uber in back in the day when I could have been in the body removal business? Well, you still can be. Vents need some help, but we don't talk about it on this. Did he call you? Yeah. say he's got something coming up yeah we'll check it out but i like this guy i respect this guy you know

he's going to school he's finishing school he's got a side hustle he's listening to us at the same time he's got a lot going on yeah and it's all good stuff i like it too and he wears earbuds earbuds oh yes it the wireless thing air pods air pods that's a new thing all the kids wearing oh my gosh dude you just sounded like you were 97 years old is that one of down kings that the kids are wearing these days. I can't believe you just said that. I got to get myself a pair. I have some.

Yeah, I know. I wear them all the time. I'm going to get me a set. You are not that old. How much they cost, man? I don't know, 150 bucks. Oh, I can't get them. If I'd have said $5, you would have said, I can't get them.

I'd be on the border, best about it. Oh, my God, I have the funny story. Michelle from Atlantic, Iowa. I was very pregnant, eight months pregnant, and I sold my husband's Ford, Festiva and I had to jumpstart it and I included a case of oil in the trunk. I thought you'd enjoy that one. Love you guys. Oh, the Ford Festiva. Now we're going to get, now that's one I don't think they still make like they do the Fiesta. I don't even know anymore, man. I'm afraid to say.

I know. It's hard, it's hard to figure it out. But the Festiva, I think might have even been lower on the rung than the fiesta if I remember. I don't remember for sure. Just threw in a case of oil. Maybe I'd have to be like, and the beer. Because I'm going to need all this beer as I'm walking back to the gas station when this Festiva breaks down on it. It is a funny story, though. So if you're buying a car and somebody says, you know what, I'm going to throw in a

case of oil with it, there should be some red flags there. Something should be going off. Yeah. Yeah. My daughter said that her roommate's car was kind of acting up or something. And she said, well, she, you know, she has to put a quart of oil in it a day. And I said, I don't think that's good. Yeah.

I think you should, I think you should have her take that to a mechanic immediately. Yeah, I don't think that car's going to last much longer. That's what she's burning a day. That seems like a lot of oil. Hey, Mike, hey, Givie. This is Marissa from Birmingham, Alabama. And I'm a fairly new listener. I've only been listening for maybe three or four months now.

But I absolutely love your podcast. It is my favorite true brown podcast. And I felt inspired to give you guys a call to the voicemail because I was listening to the Keith Hunter Jefferson case. And he actually murdered his girlfriend on my birthday, the actual day that I was born, March 10, 1995. So that's insane. But I've also noticed that a lot of crimes, a lot of trial, and a lot of people die in

March. Have you guys noticed that? If you have, let me know. All right. Thank you so much. And keep you on time ticking. I have not noticed that specifically. It's a conspiracy against you. March? Yeah. Well, so let's talk about it. Why would that be? If that's true, let's just assume that more people are killed in March than any other month of the year. Maybe they're coming out of that winter, man. Maybe. Yeah, if it's like, oh, finally. Especially if you know, if you're talking about the East Coast, the northeast. Yeah. Could it be that killers are less active during the winter months and March is kind of

the first month where it starts to warm up a little bit? I mean, we're making stuff up here, but who knows? There could be some validity to it. There's a reason they call it March Madness. It's not that, but I get what you're saying. Hey, it's just Petra Lisa. I just listened to your review of Wenger 16999. I'm laughing hysterically.

Then I heard the Chuck Norse comment and reminded me of a Chuck Norse sign that we have hanging up at dispatch. The Chuck Norse called 911 just to see if he can help out. Have a great day, guys. Bye. All right. So that's our dispatcher friend Lisa. She's calling True Crime all the time to talk about our new podcast, the reviews are in, and the winger, 1699,

the biggest Swiss Army knife in the history of the world. You need a tow truck to carry it around. You do. But we did talk about Chuck Norris. Yeah. And I think some of the Chuck Norris stories, memes, jokes, I think they're hilarious. They are. They really are.

And I don't even know how they spawned. But you and I worked with a guy that seemed to know everyone. Oh, man. He sure did. He had one for every occasion. And they were all funny. Yeah. Cracked you up every time you got it.

But that's, that is funny, right? Chuck Norris calls in. the 911 just to see if there's anything that he can help with. Yeah. He doesn't have any problems because Chuck Norris would never have a problem. Yeah, he takes care of it all. He's an ass kicker and problem solver. Exactly. All right, Gibbs, we had mailbag to, uh, William Barber Jr. sent us some great stuff. So he's a Louisville cardinal fan. So he sent you a Louisville cup that you're drinking out of right now. I got my Louisville cup right here. Louisville. Now you're calling it Lewisville on purpose. That people can see if they watch our Patreon weekly video. Yeah, it's cool. He also gave you a

lanyard and a keychain. And then knowing that I'm a big Wildcat fan, he sent me all the same stuff in UK form. So to me, that's a real fan that can actually go out and purchase some UK stuff, you know, being a rival. That's a fan of true crime all time. It's probably difficult form. I'm sure it was. Although he has. He has. someone in his family that actually played for the University of Kentucky. Oh, well, maybe he sent them to go get the stuff and say, bring it back to me. But he was a good player too. Yeah.

He really was. That's cool. And then Janice Hubbard sent us a bunch of candy that's hard to find nowadays. We must have mentioned it on one of the episodes. You know, we like some of that candy that you can't find. Yeah. Much. Some of the things I've never heard of.

She did send us something called road apples, which I think is supposed to be slang for horse poop. Oh, okay. It does have a picture of a horse on the front. Nice. But I tried one and they're delicious. I'm like a good little horse poop to get you going. Yeah. All right, buddy. That's it. That's it for another episode of True Crime All the Time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.