Background
John Wayne Gacy was a building contractor who lived in the Norwood Park area on Chicago's northwest side and was known in his community as a friendly neighbour. He took part in local events and appeared in a clown costume at charity functions. This respectable image helped the crimes go unnoticed for a long time.
Between 1972 and 1978 at least 33 young men and boys were killed. Many of the victims had gone to Gacy's home, often on a pretext such as work, and many families were left for years not knowing what had happened.
What happened and the arrest
The investigation gathered pace after fifteen-year-old Robert Piest disappeared in Des Plaines on 11 December 1978. Police turned their attention to Gacy and arrested him on 21 December 1978. Searches beneath the house uncovered numerous remains. Investigators ultimately accounted for 33 victims: 26 were found in the crawl space of the home, three elsewhere on the property and four had been recovered from the Des Plaines River.
Gacy was convicted of 33 murders in 1980 and sentenced to death on 13 March 1980, which at that time was the largest number of murders attributed to a single person in the United States. His lawyers argued insanity; the jury rejected that defence.
Execution and identification work
After a long appeals process Gacy was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois on 10 May 1994. The case did not end there, however: some victims remained unidentified for decades.
In October 2011 the Cook County Sheriff's Office launched a renewed effort to identify the unnamed victims using DNA profiles, asking relatives of men who went missing in the 1970s for samples. As a result William Bundy (2011), James Haakenson (2017) and Francis Wayne Alexander (2021, through forensic genealogy) were given their names back; five victims remain unidentified.
Where it stands today
The Gacy case is often cited as a reminder of how seriously reports of missing young people should be taken and how important solid records are. Today the focus is on restoring the victims' names and stories and giving families answers after decades of uncertainty. On this page Dark Location remembers the victims through their own identities rather than through the offender.