John Wayne Gacy

John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994), also known as the Killer Clown, was an American serial killer and rapist who was convicted of the sexual assault and murder of a minimum of 33 teenage boys and young men in a series of killings committed between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. John Wayne Gacy, Jr. had a horrible childhood and was severely abused by his father. Gacy also was molested often by family friends. His murders were largely homosexual love interests. See wikipedia for details of his life.

All of Gacy's known murders were committed inside his Norwood Park Township, Cook County, Illinois home. His victims would typically be lured to this address by force or deception, and all but one victim were murdered by either asphyxiation or strangulation with a tourniquet (his first victim was stabbed to death). Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space of his home. Three further victims were buried elsewhere on his property, while the bodies of his last four known victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River.

Convicted of 33 murders, Gacy was sentenced to death for 12 of these killings on March 13, 1980. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994.

Gacy became known as the "Killer Clown" due to his charitable services at fundraising events, parades and children's parties where he would dress as "Pogo the Clown", a character he devised himself.

Identified victims
Only 25 of Gacy's victims were ever conclusively identified. By the time of Gacy's trial, a total of 22 victims had been identified. In March 1980, two further bodies unearthed from Gacy's crawl space were identified via dental and radiology records as those of Kenneth Parker and Michael Marino, two teenage friends who were reported missing on October 25, 1976, the day after they had disappeared. However, DNA analysis conducted in 2012 has confirmed that the 14th body exhumed from the crawl space—initially believed to have been Michael Marino—was misidentified.

In May 1986, the ninth victim exhumed from Gacy's crawl space was identified as Timothy Jack McCoy, Gacy's first victim. One further victim was identified in November 2011 through DNA testing as William George Bundy, a 19-year-old construction worker who was last seen by his family on his way to a party on October 26, 1976. Bundy had apparently worked for Gacy before his murder. Shortly after Gacy's arrest, his family had contacted Bundy's dentist in the hope of submitting his dental records for comparison with the unidentified bodies. However, the records had been destroyed after the dentist had retired.

Suspected misidentified victim
 * Michael Marino (14) October 24, 1976

Unidentified victims
Eight victims remain unidentified, seven of whom had been buried beneath Gacy's crawl space, with one additional youth buried approximately 15 ft (4.6 m) from the barbecue pit in his backyard. Experts used the skulls of the unidentified victims to create facial reconstructions. Based upon Gacy's confession, information relative to where the victims were buried in his crawl space relative to Gacy's identified victims, and forensic analysis, police were able to determine the most likely dates when his unidentified victims were killed.

On October 11, 2011, Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart announced that investigators, having obtained full DNA profiles from each of the unidentified victims, were to renew their efforts to identify all of them. At a press conference held to announce this intention, Sheriff Dart stated investigators are actively seeking DNA samples from individuals across the United States related to any male missing between 1970 and 1979. Test results thus far conducted have confirmed the identification of one victim, ruled out the possibility of numerous other missing youths as being victims of Gacy and solved two unrelated cold cases dating from 1972 and 1978 respectively.

In October and December 2011 respectively, two youths whom investigators had initially believed were likely matches to unidentified victims of Gacy were found alive. One of these individuals, Harold Lovell, had disappeared from Aurora, Illinois in May 1977 at age 19. Lovell was located in Florida and subsequently reunited with his family. The other individual, Theodore Szal, had disappeared from Glen Ellyn, Illinois in March 1977 at age 24. Szal was located in Oregon and had also worked in construction before his disappearance.

In September 2012, sheriff Thomas Dart announced that through efforts made to identify Gacy's unidentified victims, investigators had solved an unrelated cold case relating to a 21-year-old Peoria, Illinois youth named Daniel Noe, who was last seen alive on September 30, 1978. His remains had been found near Mount Olympus (Utah) in 2010.

Efforts to identify Gacy's unidentified victims solved one further unrelated cold case in May 2013. The case solved was that of a missing 16-year-old named Steven Soden, who was last seen alive April 3, 1972, in New Jersey. Soden's sister had contacted investigators in 2011 to submit a DNA sample for comparison with Gacy's unidentified victims. Although not a match with any of Gacy's victims, the DNA samples provided matched those of an unidentified body found in April 2000 in Burlington County, New Jersey, close to where Soden was last seen alive.