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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with Your
Speaker 5: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 4: John Wayne Gacy raped, tortured, and murdered thirty three boys
Speaker 4: and young men, bearing most of them in the crawl
Speaker 4: space under his Chicago home. Karen Conti was in high
Speaker 4: school at the time, watching the bodies being removed on
Speaker 4: the television news. Fourteen years pass through a twist of fate, Conti,
Speaker 4: now a young and inexperienced attorney, is called upon to
Speaker 4: handle Gasey's final death row appeals. The serial killer soon
Speaker 4: becomes her most famous, difficult, and haunting client. Thirty years
Speaker 4: after Gasey's execution, Conti looks back through the eyes of
Speaker 4: a seasoned professional on the legal and media circus that ensued,
Speaker 4: and her countless hours of detailed conversation with the killer clown.
Speaker 4: We hear for the first time about Gasey's gruesome bodybook.
Speaker 4: Were there more victims conspirators involved in the murders? What
Speaker 4: secrets were buried with him? If one were to ask Conty,
Speaker 4: How could you represent such a monster? She would respond,
Speaker 4: What you really want to know is what was he like?
Speaker 4: This book answers that question. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 4: this evening is Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy defending
Speaker 4: America's most evil serial killer on Death Row with my
Speaker 4: special guest attorney, media personality and author Karen Kanti. Welcome
Speaker 4: to the program, and thank you very much for this interview.
Speaker 2: Karen Conti, Hi Dan, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, and congratulations on this book, Killing
Speaker 4: Time with John Wayne Gacy. Extraordinary book. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you read it. I'm glad you liked it.
Speaker 4: Now tell us where you were personally and professionally in
Speaker 4: October nineteen ninety three and your partner Greg Adamski before
Speaker 4: you take us to October nineteen ninety three and the
Speaker 4: fateful drive that you had listening to the radio with Greg.
Speaker 2: Well, I've been a Chicago area in native my whole life,
Speaker 2: and I went away to college and law school also
Speaker 2: in the state, and at that time in the ninety three,
Speaker 2: I had been out of law school about six or
Speaker 2: seven years, and I had never handled a murder case.
Speaker 2: I had never handled a death penalty case, and I
Speaker 2: would say that, you know, when you're six or seven
Speaker 2: years out, you're still inexperienced attorney. I was practicing law
Speaker 2: with Greg who was my life partner and law partner.
Speaker 2: We had a boutique law firm in Chicago, which means
Speaker 2: it's a small firm. We did criminal defense, we did
Speaker 2: civil litigation. We did a variety of things, and had
Speaker 2: argued before the US Supreme Court a couple of years back,
Speaker 2: so we had gotten some high profile cases and had
Speaker 2: handled some important things, but nothing as significant as a
Speaker 2: death row appeal.
Speaker 4: Yes, you're right that you were litigators, so you were
Speaker 4: used to going to trial, not just drafting wills and contracts.
Speaker 2: That's right. There's really kind of two kinds of law.
Speaker 2: One is where you're drafting things, whether you're cutting a
Speaker 2: deal in a business setting, where you're papering a deal,
Speaker 2: or you're writing, like you said, a will or a trust.
Speaker 2: But litigation is a whole separate area. It's two people
Speaker 2: suing each other for money, damages or obviously criminal work,
Speaker 2: which is the government bringing charges against a person. So
Speaker 2: it's a much more active practice. It's very contentious and
Speaker 2: to me it's more exciting.
Speaker 4: Now. Tell us about this drive home to suburban Chicago
Speaker 4: and you're with Greg and you're listening to the radio
Speaker 4: and you hear an announcement. Tell us about what is
Speaker 4: announced and the conversation that ensues.
Speaker 2: Well, John Wayne Gacy, just by way of background, was
Speaker 2: a serial killer back in the seventies. He was arrested
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine, tried in nineteen eighty, and was
Speaker 2: sentenced to death. So flash I had. This is fourteen
Speaker 2: years and Illinois really didn't have a lot of death penalty,
Speaker 2: a lot of executions going on. In fact, there was
Speaker 2: only one in my lifetime, and it was one where
Speaker 2: the defendant wanted to be executed, so there was no hoopla.
Speaker 2: So Greg and I are driving home to oak Park,
Speaker 2: which is the first suburb over from Chicago, and we
Speaker 2: hear on the radio that Gaysey's execution date has been
Speaker 2: set from May tenth, nineteen ninety four, and we both
Speaker 2: looked at each other and we said, Gaysey's going to
Speaker 2: be executed. I didn't know Illinois was using the death penalty.
Speaker 2: I mean, we didn't even think about it. We thought
Speaker 2: about it, and we kind of recounted the horrible crimes
Speaker 2: and where we were when those crimes were being uncovered.
Speaker 2: I was in high school at the time. People were
Speaker 2: taking bets about how many bodies were going to be
Speaker 2: taken out of his home. It was terrifying. It changed
Speaker 2: the fabric of Chicago. As a young person, it was
Speaker 2: really impactful because I didn't understand what that meant and
Speaker 2: that these kinds of people actually existed. But now it's
Speaker 2: fourteen years later, and I turned to Greg and I said, well,
Speaker 2: would wouldn't it be unbelievably interesting if we represented him?
Speaker 2: And we just laughed it off because obviously we were
Speaker 2: not death penalty lawyers and we had no connection with Gasey.
Speaker 2: But that changed very soon after that conversation.
Speaker 4: Yes, you talk about very soon, you say, one week later,
Speaker 4: and two days after the execution date is announced, you
Speaker 4: get the call. Tell us what Greg says and what
Speaker 4: was the call.
Speaker 2: Well, a call came from some family member who was
Speaker 2: kind of doing Gaysey's work and trying to put together
Speaker 2: some legal defense for him. But strangely, the call came
Speaker 2: in and what Gasey wanted was a lawyer to help
Speaker 2: him with some civil matters that he had pending. They
Speaker 2: were trying. The government was trying to get him to
Speaker 2: pay for his incarceration. There's a law in Illinois that
Speaker 2: says that if you are able to pay for the
Speaker 2: cost of incarceration, the government can bring a lawsuit for
Speaker 2: a good reason. He was evil, he was guilty, and
Speaker 2: he was not unrepentant, and Gacy was making money on
Speaker 2: his paintings, and the prison wanted to bring a lawsuit
Speaker 2: and they did, and Gacy wanted us to represent him
Speaker 2: because we had done some First Amendment work before the
Speaker 2: US Supreme Court. Frankly, Dan, we had no desire to
Speaker 2: represent him in anything civil. Why would you care about
Speaker 2: your money when your life is being threatened in seven
Speaker 2: months time. But Greg was like, Oh, we're not going
Speaker 2: to do this. And I was like, we have to.
Speaker 2: We have to go down to death row and we
Speaker 2: have to see what death row is like, and we
Speaker 2: have to talk to the most evil man in the
Speaker 2: history of our country at that time. He was the
Speaker 2: most prolific serial killer ever. And I was so curious.
Speaker 2: I wanted to look evil in the eye. I wanted
Speaker 2: to see what caused that, what caused him to be
Speaker 2: he was? Who is he?
Speaker 4: Is?
Speaker 2: He normal? I just wanted that experience. I'd read everything
Speaker 2: about his case. I read a lot about his psychology.
Speaker 2: I was fascinated. So a few days later there we
Speaker 2: were going down six and a half hours south from
Speaker 2: Chicago to visit John wayn Gazy.
Speaker 4: You also talk a little bit later in the book, though,
Speaker 4: that you came to this honestly there's a curiosity as
Speaker 4: an attorney, but you also talk about your background and
Speaker 4: what you term in an obsession. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Well, I've always been fascinated by serial killers, and now
Speaker 2: I'm very relieved to know that I'm not alone. People
Speaker 2: are very fascinated by serial killers, as you know, and
Speaker 2: I think people are fascinated by the best of the best,
Speaker 2: you know, the Olympic athletes that we see, and people
Speaker 2: are likewise fascinated by the worst of the worst. And
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, I used to watch all
Speaker 2: the shows and read everything about Jack the Ripper and
Speaker 2: later on about Ted Bundy, and so I really was
Speaker 2: fascinated with those stories. And I knew quite a bit
Speaker 2: about all of them, including John Gacy because he was
Speaker 2: a homeboy, so you know, we had read all the
Speaker 2: books about him that were written. There was a. There
Speaker 2: was a couple there were a couple of movies docu
Speaker 2: dramas with Brian Denihey, that I had watched, and so
Speaker 2: I knew that story pretty well.
Speaker 4: Now, you say you were sixteen years old at that time,
Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy eight, but even at that time you
Speaker 4: regarded the death penalty as wrong.
Speaker 2: Tell us why I always thought the death penalty was
Speaker 2: wrong even before I was sixteen, because I do remember
Speaker 2: having conversations with my parents, who were both in favor
Speaker 2: of it, and I would argue all the time. I
Speaker 2: think I was a born lawyer, but you know, I
Speaker 2: just kept saying, it doesn't make sense if you kill
Speaker 2: somebody and that's wrong, how could the prosecutors kill you too?
Speaker 2: That makes no sense. That it's wrong for that guy
Speaker 2: to do it, it's wrong for the other people to
Speaker 2: do it. And that was my logic, and that's always
Speaker 2: been my logic. And when I started taking classes in
Speaker 2: college about criminology and then in law school, I became
Speaker 2: more and more entrenched in my position that the death
Speaker 2: penalty is something I don't believe in. I don't think
Speaker 2: it deters crime. I think it's too expensive, it puts
Speaker 2: a focus on the criminal and not the victims. It's
Speaker 2: racially unjust in a lot of ways for a lot
Speaker 2: of defendants, and it's not applied equally throughout the United States,
Speaker 2: and the rest of the civilized world doesn't have it
Speaker 2: when but I never handled a death penalty case, so
Speaker 2: I didn't have reason to shout out about it or
Speaker 2: to represent somebody against it, But it was something that
Speaker 2: was always ingrained in me that it was just wrong.
Speaker 4: Now let's get back to this adventure, and you're going
Speaker 4: to see with Greg to visit John Wayne Gacy. And
Speaker 4: with everything you know about the case and everything you
Speaker 4: say that you were affected by this case and this
Speaker 4: story for so many years. So with that, you're going
Speaker 4: to Minard Correctional Center to visit John Wayne Gacy. Tell
Speaker 4: us about the experience.
Speaker 2: Well, all the preconceived notions that I had were kind
Speaker 2: of thrown out the window, because first of all, you
Speaker 2: think that you're going to be behind plexiglass like in
Speaker 2: the movies. Well, that wasn't the case in death row
Speaker 2: in Illinois at the time. We were led into this
Speaker 2: bullpen where all of the people on death row who
Speaker 2: had visitors that day, whether it was a minister a
Speaker 2: girlfriend or a lawyer. They were all milling about walking
Speaker 2: around free range. And as a lawyer in Chicago, we
Speaker 2: kind of know who the serial killers are and who
Speaker 2: the people on death row are. I mean, I'm saying,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, that guy killed four people. That guy
Speaker 2: killed three, this guy used to eat body parts. I mean,
Speaker 2: these are like the most horrific people you can imagine.
Speaker 2: And here we are walking in you know, thinking to myself,
Speaker 2: Gaysey is probably the least intimidating of all these people here.
Speaker 2: So that was the biggest shock. And you know, seeing
Speaker 2: Gaycy was also putting your preconceived notions away. You have
Speaker 2: this idea in your head that I'm going to be
Speaker 2: able to tell how evil he is what I don't know,
Speaker 2: a tattoo on his head, that he's going to have
Speaker 2: fangs dripping with blood. I mean, you don't really think
Speaker 2: that's going to be the case, but you think I
Speaker 2: can distinguish an evil person from a non evil person.
Speaker 2: Gacy was short. He's five foot nine. He was kind
Speaker 2: of dumpy. He was you know, had that prison pallor
Speaker 2: I call it, which is for years of not going
Speaker 2: outside and eating crummy food. And he was just not
Speaker 2: intimidating whatsoever.
Speaker 4: So you are curious and you want you don't quite
Speaker 4: understand why he would want to file these this make
Speaker 4: these filings with an imminent execution in the wings. So
Speaker 4: you want some explanation of why you would do that,
Speaker 4: and so does Greg. But tell us about the conversation
Speaker 4: and tell us about overall when it came to you
Speaker 4: that you needed to be involved in his case. But
Speaker 4: in as far as the death penalty went, well, it came.
Speaker 2: To realize that Geese was very oppositional and very confrontational,
Speaker 2: and he made a lot of bad decisions. Like that's
Speaker 2: probably the mildest thing I could say about John Gaysey.
Speaker 2: He you know, he didn't know what was good for him,
Speaker 2: He didn't know where he should focus his energy, and
Speaker 2: he was really fixated on this lawsuit brought by the government,
Speaker 2: and you know, we talked about it, and we talked
Speaker 2: about possible defenses, and Greg and I were both really
Speaker 2: not interested in representing him on that. I mean, we
Speaker 2: weren't going to get paid, so like, what would be
Speaker 2: the purpose of doing that. It's just spinning your wheels
Speaker 2: on something. And so but we used the time to
Speaker 2: talk to him and we chatted with him. Gacy was
Speaker 2: very glib, he was very engaging, he was very funny.
Speaker 2: We talked to him a little bit about some of
Speaker 2: his appeals in the past and about his life on
Speaker 2: death row, which we were very interested in. We dined
Speaker 2: together on prison affair, which was really disgusting, and so
Speaker 2: at the end of it we didn't promise to do anything.
Speaker 2: We told him we were going to think about it.
Speaker 2: But as soon as we left the prison, I turned
Speaker 2: to Greg and I said, we have to get on
Speaker 2: the death penalty team. I don't care about his civil actions.
Speaker 2: I want to be part of the fight to have
Speaker 2: the execution lifted. And again, just for your listeners, Dan,
Speaker 2: we never thought about getting him out of prison. It
Speaker 2: was not about exoneration. It was not about letting him
Speaker 2: go free. That was never going to happen, and that
Speaker 2: was never our goal. The goal was simply to not
Speaker 2: have him executed.
Speaker 4: So Greg undertook that and you were you were to
Speaker 4: convince Gacy that you could be involved along with Greg
Speaker 4: in the death penalty fight.
Speaker 2: Right the next day, I got on the phone with
Speaker 2: Gasey and I told him, you know, we'll help you
Speaker 2: with your civil stuff, but we need to be on
Speaker 2: this team. You need help. You have two excellent death
Speaker 2: penalty lawyers already engaged. I said, we can help them.
Speaker 2: We have resources, we have law clerks, we have some
Speaker 2: experience and appellet work, and we want to be on
Speaker 2: that team because we think it's important to try to
Speaker 2: save your life. And strangely, Gasey didn't want us on
Speaker 2: that team, and so I had to convince him that
Speaker 2: was in his best interest to have more hands on
Speaker 2: deck than fewer, which was the most bizarre thing in
Speaker 2: the world that I have to convince a serial killer
Speaker 2: that I'm going to lend my support to his team,
Speaker 2: and he's fighting me on it. So but I finally
Speaker 2: convinced him that it was a good idea.
Speaker 4: You said they had two experienced death penalty attorneys, and so,
Speaker 4: needless to say, Greg did convince him those two that
Speaker 4: you would join forces, didn't he?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, when you have a team of lawyers,
Speaker 2: you have a lot of egos. Mine probably the least
Speaker 2: of the of the four of us, but you know,
Speaker 2: everyone wants to do it their way, and it really
Speaker 2: does make sense to have one lawyer kind of take
Speaker 2: the lead and create the plan and then have people
Speaker 2: execute it on it. Otherwise too many cooks kind of thing, right,
Speaker 2: But so so Greg, who had a sizeable ego, you know,
Speaker 2: had to you know, basically back down a little bit
Speaker 2: and take the lead from these other two lawyers who
Speaker 2: were clearly more experienced than both of us were.
Speaker 4: So everybody's divvied up into specific roles. What is your
Speaker 4: specific role in this team?
Speaker 2: Well, everyone worked on the appeals, including me. I took
Speaker 2: the role as sort of the spokesperson because one of
Speaker 2: the things, one of my goals is that the death
Speaker 2: penalty is really largely based upon public opinion. Over the years,
Speaker 2: it's waxed and waned in popularity. After World War Two,
Speaker 2: the approval rate plummeted because of the Holocaust and things
Speaker 2: like that. So I thought that if I could make
Speaker 2: the statement that the death penalty is wrong, even for
Speaker 2: John Wayne Gacy, I was not only advocating for Gaycy,
Speaker 2: but I was also advocating for other people on death row,
Speaker 2: not only in Illinois but other states, to make the
Speaker 2: statement that it's racially unjust that people get wrongfully executed
Speaker 2: all the time. Gaysey didn't have any of those defenses,
Speaker 2: but other people did. And I thought that we can
Speaker 2: just move the ball down the court just a little
Speaker 2: bit to try to make that statement. So I was
Speaker 2: out there at the press, I was doing a lot
Speaker 2: of interviews. I had all my statistics, and I tried
Speaker 2: not to be preachy about it, because everyone has an
Speaker 2: opinion about these kinds of issues, like the death penalty.
Speaker 2: But I really thought if I could educate the public
Speaker 2: a little bit, maybe I could move the ball. And
Speaker 2: so that was my main thrust.
Speaker 4: At the same time, you were very familiar with the
Speaker 4: crimes of John Wayne Gacy. You referred to a book
Speaker 4: called Buried Dreams, and you got Greg up to speed
Speaker 4: via the details that contained in that book. But you
Speaker 4: wanted the truth from John Wayne Gacy, and you wanted
Speaker 4: some answers to how this could have happened, and you
Speaker 4: asked him those relevant questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bury Dreams. It might be out of print now,
Speaker 2: but it is really the best book on the gay
Speaker 2: sy crimes, and it has a lot about the Gaycy
Speaker 2: trial and about Gaysey's background. It's very well done. Gasey
Speaker 2: confessed to the crimes when he was first arrested. My
Speaker 2: understanding is that he had escalated as a lot of
Speaker 2: serial killers do what he needed to satisfy him. At
Speaker 2: first in frequency did not work anymore. So he was
Speaker 2: really getting out of control. And there was one night
Speaker 2: he killed three boys, abducted one, brought him home, went
Speaker 2: back out three times. So it was I think it
Speaker 2: was wearing on him, and I think he was relieved
Speaker 2: when he was finally caught, and so that relief resulted
Speaker 2: in him explaining what he did. He had names of
Speaker 2: some of them, he had almost a photographic memory of
Speaker 2: where he buried them in his basement and his crawl space.
Speaker 2: And but thereafter he started denying that he ever confessed
Speaker 2: and told everyone who would listen that he's the victim
Speaker 2: and he didn't kill and of them except the first one,
Speaker 2: and that was self defense. And that was just Gacy
Speaker 2: lying and manipulating, which is very much par for the
Speaker 2: course for a sociopath. But you're right, Dan, I did.
Speaker 2: I did try to ask him of those questions, and frankly,
Speaker 2: it wasn't even relevant to my representation because most of
Speaker 2: our issues related to the method of execution and things
Speaker 2: like that as opposed to actual innocence, because we're you know,
Speaker 2: that was that ship had already sailed, but I wanted
Speaker 2: to know, John, if you're lying, you're lying to me,
Speaker 2: like how did all of those young men and boys
Speaker 2: get buried in your house? If you didn't do it,
Speaker 2: come on, ga, he tell me, you know, and he
Speaker 2: just wouldn't address it. He had all these different read
Speaker 2: between the lines, theories about who else could have done it,
Speaker 2: but it was all just bs.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That was Gaysey in denial about what he did.
Speaker 4: It is interesting the things he did eventually tell you
Speaker 4: regarding filming again, some shocking information in your book in
Speaker 4: that I'd never read this before at all, that you
Speaker 4: talked about investigating Gaycy being out of town and some
Speaker 4: good evidence that he was out of town at several
Speaker 4: of the murder dates, and also tell us a little
Speaker 4: bit about that information.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm going to kind of gloss over some
Speaker 2: of it because I do want people to read it,
Speaker 2: because that really is one of the I would say
Speaker 2: first times maybe someone has made these claims. But Gacy
Speaker 2: kept telling us he was out of town during some
Speaker 2: of the crimes, and we kept thinking, you're lying again
Speaker 2: like you always do. He said, go get the records
Speaker 2: therein the storage unit, the evidence unit. So we went
Speaker 2: there and we got his business records, and he kept
Speaker 2: meticulous maniacal records because gets how Geesey was. And it
Speaker 2: had receipts, and it had dates, and it had his
Speaker 2: contracts that he had with different organizations where he was
Speaker 2: building or rehabbing certain ice cream shops and drug stores.
Speaker 2: And sure enough, there were several times where he was
Speaker 2: clearly out of town when the boy or man went missing.
Speaker 2: And even if you took a few days on either
Speaker 2: side of it to say, like maybe they were wrong
Speaker 2: about the date, he was not in town anywhere near
Speaker 2: when these kids were missing. The next part of that was,
Speaker 2: you know, there were two young men living with Casey
Speaker 2: at the time after his second wife moved out, and
Speaker 2: they forced these two young men were apparently having sex
Speaker 2: with him. They were working for him, and they testified
Speaker 2: a trial that they actually dug the trenches under the
Speaker 2: crawl space. Their contention was they didn't know Gaycy was
Speaker 2: murdering people, and they never buried the bodies, but rather
Speaker 2: they just they just dug the trenches. All right. To me,
Speaker 2: that makes no sense. How do you how do you
Speaker 2: how do you dig trenches and not know why you're
Speaker 2: digging trenches. Gaycy was so poortly he couldn't have gotten
Speaker 2: out in that crawl space, especially carrying bodies and laying
Speaker 2: them like lined up. It was unbelievable. My clear belief
Speaker 2: to my dying day is that those two young men
Speaker 2: helped Gacy or actually committed some of those murders.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's incredible. Let's get to what he said about
Speaker 4: what could be some form of rationale to why this
Speaker 4: all happened, And that's the relationship he had with his father.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had a father who was an alcoholic and
Speaker 2: who was very abusive mentally, emotionally, and physically. He beat
Speaker 2: Gacy in the basement of all places, which might be
Speaker 2: telling from a psychological standpoint. His mother was a very
Speaker 2: lovely woman, but passive. But this at the time, this
Speaker 2: was going on nineteen forties, nineteen fifties, This was not
Speaker 2: a you know, this was not a typical because that
Speaker 2: was the time where women stayed at home and men
Speaker 2: went out and they drank too much and they you know,
Speaker 2: they spanked their kids. And I'm not saying it was
Speaker 2: the best upbringing, but it certainly people with that type
Speaker 2: of upbringing didn't kill thirty three people. He did have
Speaker 2: a situation to situations where he was sexually abused when
Speaker 2: he was young. And he also had a couple of
Speaker 2: head injuries, and I talk about that in my book,
Speaker 2: having access to his family members who detailed some of
Speaker 2: these facts that I don't know that anyone ever really
Speaker 2: talked about. And as we know when you study true
Speaker 2: crime and you study death penalty cases in particular, sometimes
Speaker 2: head injuries when you're young can affect a part of
Speaker 2: your brain that has to do with empathy and also
Speaker 2: impulse control. And if you look at the Hillside Strangler
Speaker 2: and Son of Sam and many, many, many of these
Speaker 2: serial killers I had serious, if not one, but two
Speaker 2: head injuries when they were young. So you combine all
Speaker 2: those things, and then you also add to it that
Speaker 2: Gacy was probably a homosexual. He started to understand that,
Speaker 2: and that was definitely at odds with how his father
Speaker 2: wanted him to be and how the Catholic Church wanted
Speaker 2: him to be. This was a different time where this
Speaker 2: was not an acceptable thing to be. So all of
Speaker 2: those things and maybe the guilt of feeling those feelings.
Speaker 2: The psychologist will say that maybe he was trying to
Speaker 2: kill himself each time he killed one of these victims.
Speaker 4: You talk about not acceptable at that time, that's certain
Speaker 4: in society there was no acceptance of homosexuality. But the
Speaker 4: father was very specific saying you're going to grow up
Speaker 4: to be a queer, and was admonished him for all
Speaker 4: of the things that were not masculine, which John Wayne
Speaker 4: Gacy seemed to enjoy and had, has you right, a
Speaker 4: pretty good relationship with as sisters at that time and
Speaker 4: his mother, so it was much more. Again, it was
Speaker 4: a shame, a guilt, and it had to it seemed
Speaker 4: to have a major factor in this when he denies
Speaker 4: as even a homosexual later on.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and just think about it for your listeners who
Speaker 2: don't remember who John Wayne was. But he was the
Speaker 2: macho cowboy you know of the movies, and his father
Speaker 2: named him John Wayne Gacy because he was thinking his son,
Speaker 2: his only son, was going to be this macho guy
Speaker 2: who likes sports and hunting and all those things. Gasey
Speaker 2: wanted nothing to do with it. He wanted to stay
Speaker 2: home with his mother and cook and garden and do
Speaker 2: those kinds of things, and he just was. His father
Speaker 2: was relentless about criticizing him for that.
Speaker 4: Let's get to what you and Greg are proposing to
Speaker 4: do to extend John Wayne Gacy's life. Tell us what
Speaker 4: would be successful in your fight for John Wayne Gacy
Speaker 4: and what you employ, what you're looking for, and the
Speaker 4: kinds of things that you're doing to defend him in
Speaker 4: this death penalty suit.
Speaker 2: Once the death date is set, and that was set
Speaker 2: before we met him, all of the traditional appeals have
Speaker 2: been exhausted. So there's state appeals and it goes to
Speaker 2: the federal court, to the US Supreme Court, comes back down.
Speaker 2: There are all kinds of tangent issues, and so it's
Speaker 2: a whole medley of appeals and those were all done.
Speaker 2: So by the time we got to it, we had
Speaker 2: to be creative, and you know, we had to attack
Speaker 2: the method of execution. We had to say that it
Speaker 2: was inhumane, we had to say it was against international treaty.
Speaker 2: We we you know, made all the arguments we possibly could.
Speaker 2: But the problem was that because Gacy was literally the
Speaker 2: most prolific serial killer ever in the history of the country,
Speaker 2: not just Illinois, and he was so unrepentant, and he
Speaker 2: was selling stuff from jail and making money on his crimes,
Speaker 2: and everyone hated this guy and even people who said
Speaker 2: I don't believe in the death penalty, They're like the
Speaker 2: gaycy exception is, yeah, he should be executed. So what
Speaker 2: I'm saying is that when the judges got these appeals,
Speaker 2: even though they were very well researched, we had, you know,
Speaker 2: they were very well written, they were well presented, the
Speaker 2: judges were hearing nothing of it. No elected judge is
Speaker 2: ever going to reverse anything in a case involving John
Speaker 2: Wayne Gacy. They would be not only not re elected,
Speaker 2: but they probably would be physically assaulted. This was how
Speaker 2: high the tension was in Illinois at the time. So
Speaker 2: even though we were making some arguments that may have
Speaker 2: worked with other defendants, they were going nowhere with John
Speaker 2: Wayne Gacy.
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Speaker 4: So tell us about John Wayne Gacy because you travel
Speaker 4: back in the book to his execution date because of
Speaker 4: it's on the verge in nineteen ninety four and John
Speaker 4: Wayne Gacy on death row, and tell us a little
Speaker 4: bit more about your experiences. You talk about how things
Speaker 4: had changed in your legal career. But the attitude you
Speaker 4: say from judges and from any men and other attorneys
Speaker 4: was very, very interesting and disconcerting for you.
Speaker 2: I naively thought that everyone would understand that we were
Speaker 2: just doing our jobs and that everyone deserves a defense,
Speaker 2: especially when the ultimate punishment, death is on the table.
Speaker 2: I may have understood that the public wouldn't be pleased,
Speaker 2: and that we as lawyers get associated with the bad
Speaker 2: acts of our clients. I understand that, but I didn't
Speaker 2: think that other lawyers and judges would be as critical
Speaker 2: and harsh. I have many situations during this time where
Speaker 2: I would go to court on another matter and the
Speaker 2: judge would pull me in the chambers and say, what
Speaker 2: are you doing. You're making us all look bad. Let
Speaker 2: the guy die, Thinking to myself that you're a judge,
Speaker 2: don't you understand that the system is set up for
Speaker 2: zealous advocacy on both sides. Prosecution probably had fifty lawyers
Speaker 2: working on it, casey had four. We were going to
Speaker 2: do what we needed to do. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: a lot of the bad press, you know, was focused
Speaker 2: on me because I was out there talking more than
Speaker 2: the other lawyers. And I think because I was a woman,
Speaker 2: and I'm not whining about being a woman. I like
Speaker 2: being a woman, and I think females have something to
Speaker 2: add to being lawyers in different ways. And I think
Speaker 2: I have always used my femininity, you know, to listen
Speaker 2: to people, to be empathetic with people, and to convince,
Speaker 2: you know, the courts to do certain things in ways
Speaker 2: that maybe men can't. But the criticism was largely focused
Speaker 2: on me. And it wasn't just criticism, it was threats.
Speaker 2: I had death threats, I had a bond threat and
Speaker 2: it continued on and on. I mean, to this day,
Speaker 2: I'm sure this book being published will bring people out
Speaker 2: of the woodwork and they're going to focus, you know,
Speaker 2: not on the issues or anything else or how bad
Speaker 2: Gaysy was, but they're going to focus on me. And
Speaker 2: I've just known that that's the case, and I'm just
Speaker 2: going to have to accept that.
Speaker 4: You mentioned that your team would have to get very creative,
Speaker 4: and especially you and Greg. And so you found a
Speaker 4: professor Boyle, and so he had a novel idea and
Speaker 4: it seemed to work. Tell us about how it seemed
Speaker 4: to work and then what happened afterwards?
Speaker 2: It seemed to work until it didn't. How about that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: So my law professor, you know, this was years later.
Speaker 2: I called him up and I said, you know, can
Speaker 2: you help me with can we think of something? And
Speaker 2: he came up with a really great idea to file
Speaker 2: in the Intercommission on Human Rights, which is this commission
Speaker 2: in Washington, and it has to do with enforcing treaties.
Speaker 2: And so he found a portion of a treaty that
Speaker 2: said that you cannot use Nazi research to you know,
Speaker 2: to do anything like that. It's off limits. Nazi research
Speaker 2: is so horribly acquired that we can't use it, even
Speaker 2: if it's for a good reason. Well, the lethal injection
Speaker 2: machine in Illinois was invented by not a doctor, not
Speaker 2: an engineer, by about a guy who was a Holocaust revisionist,
Speaker 2: that's what I can say about him. And he used
Speaker 2: Nazi research to devise this lethal injection machine that had
Speaker 2: failed in other states, didn't work, clogged, you know, which.
Speaker 2: You know, people say, I don't care how someone gets executed,
Speaker 2: but you can't can't torture someone to death. And so
Speaker 2: we used that statute the treaty and said you can't
Speaker 2: use this machine because it violated international law. We had
Speaker 2: a couple other cool and unusual punishments under international law.
Speaker 2: We filed it and we won. It was the only
Speaker 2: thing we won. It might be the only appeal that
Speaker 2: Gacy won, and fourteen years he was on death row.
Speaker 2: But when it came to enforcing it, our governor looked
Speaker 2: at that order that said the execution should stop, and
Speaker 2: our governor ignored it.
Speaker 4: Now afterwards, you're going to I guess you're via telephone.
Speaker 4: You're talking to John Wayne Gacy. But there's another visit
Speaker 4: to me in our correctional centater and Greg can't come,
Speaker 4: so he suggests one of your associates named Ellen. Tell
Speaker 4: us who Ellen is and how experienced or inexperienced she is,
Speaker 4: and tell us about your experience together at Minard.
Speaker 2: Well, I would say Ellen was not as curious as
Speaker 2: I am. She didn't really want to go. She was
Speaker 2: just out of law school. She had a master's and
Speaker 2: a lot of grace. She was very intelligent. She was
Speaker 2: very beautiful, tall, and you know, dressed beautifully. And I
Speaker 2: had a convincer to go with me. I said, you know,
Speaker 2: how could you pass this up? You may never get
Speaker 2: a chance to do this again. She wasn't convinced, but
Speaker 2: she went down with me and we got a lot
Speaker 2: of attention at the prison, as you can imagine, which
Speaker 2: always happens when you're a female, but in some ways
Speaker 2: you feel a little bit protected because everybody there knows
Speaker 2: that you're there to try to save a life, and
Speaker 2: they also know that if Gaysey goes, then the rest
Speaker 2: of them are going to go as well. So it
Speaker 2: was it was an interesting That was one of the
Speaker 2: chapters that probably was a little bit lighter because there
Speaker 2: was a lot of huber that went on there because
Speaker 2: she was so frightened about what was going on, and
Speaker 2: she met some of the state's most evil serial killers
Speaker 2: and killers. And that was the That was the time
Speaker 2: where my birthday gifts were given to me by Gacy,
Speaker 2: which was of course the horrible paintings that he created
Speaker 2: while he was in prison.
Speaker 4: Yes, you provide Brents of that in your book. I
Speaker 4: thought the is it c shatty something about the sea
Speaker 4: scaping exhibited quite a bit of talent, and I thought
Speaker 4: it was quite good.
Speaker 2: Actually in person, maybe it's not so much. They really
Speaker 2: aren't very good, you know, and I don't even know
Speaker 2: that he actually did all of them, but he certainly
Speaker 2: made some money. And you know, you can look around
Speaker 2: and these things are still being sold for way too
Speaker 2: much money. In my view.
Speaker 4: He thought it was a big deal to give you
Speaker 4: those gifts, and you didn't let them down in that regard.
Speaker 2: No, I thanked him profusely. You know, I took them
Speaker 2: home and put them on the ground face down.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now, maybe this is giving a little bit away.
Speaker 4: Tell us about Ellen and her legal career afterwards.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Well she did not like the experience. I mean,
Speaker 2: nothing bad happened, but she I think decided she did
Speaker 2: not want to be associated with our law firm like
Speaker 2: many people, you know, we clients quit us. We had
Speaker 2: Like I said, I got kicked out of a restaurant
Speaker 2: just because people were looking at us and making, you know,
Speaker 2: making comments about how could we represent a serial killer
Speaker 2: and a child killer? So, I mean she just literally
Speaker 2: took her stuff out, quit her job, moved down to Florida.
Speaker 2: I think she's writing Wills down there. Now.
Speaker 4: You had you said it was a strange sort of
Speaker 4: bond or an odd bond. But you did have a
Speaker 4: relationship with John's sister Karen, Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you know one of she she just wrote
Speaker 2: a book called The Silent Victim, and it's about how
Speaker 2: people who are family members of convicted killers really are
Speaker 2: grieving too. And she had no idea about any of this.
Speaker 2: In fact, she said, if John didn't tell her, yes,
Speaker 2: I did commit these crimes, she would to this day
Speaker 2: still deny it because the John she knew was kind
Speaker 2: and generous and funny and a good brother, protective, a
Speaker 2: good father, you know, all of those things. And a
Speaker 2: lot of people said that about Gaycy. So when he
Speaker 2: was convicted, I mean and she everyone had to change
Speaker 2: their names and everyone had to move away. You know,
Speaker 2: that became a horrible process. But she had no ability
Speaker 2: to stand out and say, look at me, I'm a
Speaker 2: victim too. I mean, she to this day talks about
Speaker 2: the family and of the you know, the victim's families,
Speaker 2: about how she feels horrible, like could she have done something?
Speaker 2: Could she have recognized this? Could she have stopped Gaysey
Speaker 2: from becoming who he became? And she has no ability
Speaker 2: to be righteous in her grief. And listen, the state
Speaker 2: executed her brother and she's still grieving that. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's there are all different sides of this case and
Speaker 2: in all different ways you can be empathetic with the
Speaker 2: people affected by this for horrible bunch of crimes.
Speaker 4: Tell us about life on death row for John Wayne Gacy.
Speaker 2: Well, you or I would be appalled at the lack
Speaker 2: of freedom, the fact that you're living in a room
Speaker 2: that's half the size of a parking space. Minard has
Speaker 2: been condemned over and over again. People have died from heat,
Speaker 2: people have died from cold. It's an old place. It's dangerous.
Speaker 2: Imagine running around with you know, two hundred of the
Speaker 2: worst criminals in Illinois. He was stabbed when he was
Speaker 2: there by a guy who's just out of his mind,
Speaker 2: who I ended up meeting on one of my trips there.
Speaker 2: He was truly frightening. So the food is horrible. You know,
Speaker 2: Gaycy didn't even go outside because he knew he was
Speaker 2: a target and he was safer inside and not in
Speaker 2: the yard. It's a horrible place. The guards are not
Speaker 2: the nicest people in the world generally, and they're not
Speaker 2: really that interested in protecting anyone. They're mostly interested in
Speaker 2: keeping themselves safe, which I think I probably would would
Speaker 2: be too if I were a prison guard. So it's horrendous.
Speaker 2: One day in the prison, like spending six hours, it
Speaker 2: seemed like eternity. It would seem like a month. You
Speaker 2: walk out of there, you thought the calendar had just stopped. Wow,
Speaker 2: And it's so stressful and awful. And if people don't
Speaker 2: think that's punishment, it's punishment. Although I will tell you this,
Speaker 2: people like Gacy adapt in prison, and Gacy adapted pretty
Speaker 2: well because he had regularity. He knew when his meals
Speaker 2: were coming, he had visitors, he had correspondents, he had
Speaker 2: a routine that he followed, and I think that was
Speaker 2: preferable to his psychology then going out and doing what
Speaker 2: he did, even though I will tell you if Gacy
Speaker 2: had an opportunity to get out of prison, he would
Speaker 2: have gone right back to killing people, no question in
Speaker 2: my mind.
Speaker 4: And there's lots of evidence just from this book that
Speaker 4: he really reveled in that notoriety. He really enjoyed that
Speaker 4: he did.
Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of hard to describe, but you
Speaker 2: think there would be shame that he was being called
Speaker 2: certain things, and he was being called horrible things, and
Speaker 2: he would make jokes about it, and he would you know,
Speaker 2: there's one part of my book that you might recall, Dan,
Speaker 2: where I was talking about Henry Lee Lucas, who was
Speaker 2: a serial killer in Texas who had been spared execution
Speaker 2: by Governor Bush. And they were tagging him with like
Speaker 2: two hundred murders, and I don't think he committed all those.
Speaker 2: I think they were just trying to close the books
Speaker 2: on certain crimes. But I started talking to John about it. It
Speaker 2: was like, hey, you know, Henry Lee Lucas is going
Speaker 2: to beat your record. Well, he did not like that
Speaker 2: at all, and he started arguing with me about how
Speaker 2: those were not crimes that he committed. The government is
Speaker 2: just tagging in with all those, and he just fought
Speaker 2: me and fought me, and it was really interesting because
Speaker 2: I saw that truly he was prom of what he
Speaker 2: did as sick as that is. That's really the case.
Speaker 4: Now let's get to some of the things that really
Speaker 4: are Again, you will face criticism for and you have,
Speaker 4: and not not only you, but some of the real
Speaker 4: arguments you have against the death penalty. And you chose
Speaker 4: a case that one of the most if not the
Speaker 4: most reviled man in America at that time, and yet
Speaker 4: you still thought this person deserves not to be killed,
Speaker 4: not to be executed. So tell us all of the
Speaker 4: reasons why this was important to you. What's your case
Speaker 4: against the death penalty? Even for guys like John Wayne
Speaker 4: Gacy and guys like the Despicable Ripper Crew that you
Speaker 4: read about in this book as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I'm just opposed to it on all aspects.
Speaker 2: And you know, I've traveled quite a bit. I've travel
Speaker 2: to fifty countries this point in my life, and everywhere
Speaker 2: I go I talk to people about the duct penalty,
Speaker 2: and they are mostly stunned that we still haven't. They
Speaker 2: don't understand why we're still executing people. I mean, Europe
Speaker 2: has abolished it, most of the Western countries have abolished it,
Speaker 2: and we use it. We're right up there with Bangladesh,
Speaker 2: China and some of those countries Pe. I think Pakistan
Speaker 2: as far as executions. So instead of saying why should
Speaker 2: we abolish it, I always think of it as why
Speaker 2: should we have it? And number one, it doesn't deter
Speaker 2: I will tell you this. If it deterred people from
Speaker 2: committing crimes, in particular murder, I might just say, okay,
Speaker 2: I can let down my morality arguments here and just say, Okay,
Speaker 2: if it's going to save a life, let's execute people
Speaker 2: and it'll set a precedent for others. But that's just
Speaker 2: not the case. In fact, the most murderous states are
Speaker 2: those that have more executions, Yeah, to deters someone from
Speaker 2: doing it again. If you execute someone, I understand that,
Speaker 2: But if you compare it with life in prison. When
Speaker 2: I say life in prison, actual life in prison without
Speaker 2: the possibility of parole, it doesn't deter any more people
Speaker 2: than an execution. So you know, it's racially it's invoked
Speaker 2: in a racially discriminatory matter. Not just the defendants are
Speaker 2: mostly are largely higher percentage of brown and black people,
Speaker 2: but also the victims. If the victim is white, the
Speaker 2: chances of the defendant getting the death penalty a skyrocket.
Speaker 2: It costs more to execute people. People don't understand that,
Speaker 2: but you will see if you look at the stats.
Speaker 2: There's really no disputing it. It costs more to try
Speaker 2: and have the appeals on death penalty case. Why because
Speaker 2: there's more precautions that get involved, so there's more lawyers
Speaker 2: and forensic people. Even the executions are expensive. And Idaho
Speaker 2: they're just getting ready to spend seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars on a firing squad chamber. You know, take
Speaker 2: that money and prosecute more kid killers, you know, don't
Speaker 2: use it to just execute someone which is not going
Speaker 2: to really help anything. I do think there's an argument
Speaker 2: that the death penalty is too easy, and that being
Speaker 2: in prison for sixty years under the conditions I just
Speaker 2: described might just be more punishment than killing somebody. And
Speaker 2: you know, there's all kinds of other there's the moral issue,
Speaker 2: and I suppose most importantly is people get executed all
Speaker 2: the time who are actually innocent of the crimes. And
Speaker 2: if you think that that's not the case, you have
Speaker 2: to look at Illinois and just google twelve exonerated, thirteen executed.
Speaker 2: Put that in there. In a period of time of
Speaker 2: about I would say fifteen to twenty years, we had
Speaker 2: twelve people, twelve or thirteen people actually walk out of
Speaker 2: death row, not on technicalities, but because they were actually innocent,
Speaker 2: and about the same amount were executed. And that's a
Speaker 2: really poor batting average. If you can't get it right
Speaker 2: for a death penalty case, you shouldn't be in the
Speaker 2: business of killing people. And our very conservative Republican governor
Speaker 2: thought the same way, always in favor of the death penalty.
Speaker 2: He took one look at this when he was governor
Speaker 2: and he said, I can't in good conscience continue to
Speaker 2: use the death penalty in the state, and you can
Speaker 2: imagine how popular that decision was, but in my view,
Speaker 2: it was the right decision and a courageous one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's no legal foundation when all those people have
Speaker 4: been proven exonerated, and thank God for DNA. In that regard,
Speaker 4: you would think that that would be a cornerstone of
Speaker 4: the judicial system that you could not have that that
Speaker 4: should be ingrained, that you can't have that, So the
Speaker 4: death penalty would again be reversed or abolished because of that,
Speaker 4: that even one innocent person be put to death, would
Speaker 4: be should negate all of it. And you know, it's
Speaker 4: very interesting you say you went to fifty countries being
Speaker 4: born in Canada, we don't quite understand your laws because
Speaker 4: regarding death penalty, because it's the inherent unfairness of having
Speaker 4: one state have a death penalty where they're hurrying the
Speaker 4: person to death row and execution, another state like California
Speaker 4: where you're on death row but almost no one gets executed,
Speaker 4: it seems, and then another state where they're very adamant
Speaker 4: and the death penalty is applied. So there is no
Speaker 4: federal law like in many countries like Canada, where that
Speaker 4: murder law criminal law would be federally applied. You wouldn't
Speaker 4: have a state by state application of something just by
Speaker 4: virtue of having that. That's an inherent unfairness completely. So
Speaker 4: I the understand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like in Texas you could be a
Speaker 2: getaway driver and get the death penalty. In Illinois you
Speaker 2: could be the getaway driver where there's a murder committed
Speaker 2: and do four years in jail. So it's just not
Speaker 2: applied evenly. And and you know the other thing that
Speaker 2: you have to understand is when you have a really
Speaker 2: bad crime that's a death penalty eligible crime like multiple
Speaker 2: deaths or a child or you know, a torture or
Speaker 2: something like that that enables the prosecution to go for
Speaker 2: the death penalty, you have jurors who are so horrified
Speaker 2: about the crime that they're more likely to get the
Speaker 2: wrong guy because and so so the police and so
Speaker 2: the prosecutors they want to close the crime. They want
Speaker 2: to they want to close the book on the on
Speaker 2: the chapter. They want to make sure you know, we're
Speaker 2: doing justice, and in so doing so, many bad decisions
Speaker 2: are made. So with the more horrible the crime, from
Speaker 2: what I see, the more likely you're going to get
Speaker 2: a wrong decision.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in so many ways too, that death penalty has
Speaker 4: this undue leverage against the defendant, so that he would
Speaker 4: lead guilty to avoid the death penalty with the threat
Speaker 4: that this is an imminent death penalty case and you're
Speaker 4: going to be executed, so you better not take a chance.
Speaker 4: And an attorney has advised something like that even.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, going back to the Gacy case,
Speaker 2: you know, and there's a lot of people who will,
Speaker 2: you know, give me criticism for this, but think about
Speaker 2: how important it is for the defense lawyers to do
Speaker 2: their jobs, because I truly believe those two young men
Speaker 2: are out there and they helped Gaycy commit these crimes,
Speaker 2: if not committed a few of them on their own.
Speaker 2: They certainly, in my view, hid the bodies. They certainly
Speaker 2: had culpability in what went on. They may have even
Speaker 2: procured some of these young men for Gaycy. I don't
Speaker 2: have facts on this necessarily, but I will tell you,
Speaker 2: if defense lawyers do their job, we make sure that
Speaker 2: the right person gets punished, you know, because you don't
Speaker 2: want the wrong person to get punished and have the
Speaker 2: other one out there continuing to do their bad acts.
Speaker 4: Let's use this as an opportunity to hear these messages.
Speaker 4: You say that he may have had accomplices, David cram And,
Speaker 4: but you're not saying that there's any possibility of John
Speaker 4: Wayne Gacy being not guilty. You're just saying that these
Speaker 4: people knew a lot more than the police ever determined
Speaker 4: from them.
Speaker 2: Yes, I believe Gaycy was guilty of many of the murders, absolutely,
Speaker 2: But I believe that these two young men were recruited
Speaker 2: by him, and they were in some way. You know,
Speaker 2: he honed their taste for it and gave them self esteem,
Speaker 2: and gave them jobs, and gave them money, and gave
Speaker 2: them drugs and alcohol and allowed them to live with him.
Speaker 2: And I think all of those things maybe turned these
Speaker 2: otherwise okay kids into murderous apprentices. And that's not the
Speaker 2: first time that's happened. There was a case down in Texas,
Speaker 2: the Dean Choral murders, where he did the exact same thing.
Speaker 2: He recruited two young men to procure some of the
Speaker 2: victims and to help with the crimes and to help
Speaker 2: with the disposal of the bodies. And these kids, by
Speaker 2: all accounts, weren't really evil kids. They were just sucked
Speaker 2: into the vortex of this guy who promised them things
Speaker 2: and picked them because they had bad family homes, they
Speaker 2: had bad parental relationships, and were able to get these
Speaker 2: kids to do the most immoral, horrible things you can imagine.
Speaker 4: You say that it might have been the case where
Speaker 4: the prosecutor and maybe even the police, but at least
Speaker 4: the prosecutor wanted to make a much simpler case and
Speaker 4: it happens as far as the narrative, so that they
Speaker 4: didn't dig too deep and there was no charges against
Speaker 4: these two or anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was easier for the prosecution just
Speaker 2: to tag Gacy with all of them. It would have
Speaker 2: complicated it had the young men also been accused, and
Speaker 2: who knows what would have happened. You know, I don't
Speaker 2: mean this in a bad way because the prosecutor who
Speaker 2: just passed away, Bill Huncle was a friend of mine,
Speaker 2: became a friend of mine, and I respect him greatly.
Speaker 2: But you know, he got the world record serial killers.
Speaker 2: I mean, he had a great career afterwards because he
Speaker 2: was the one who put Gacy away for all of
Speaker 2: those crimes. And I think those kinds of considerations are
Speaker 2: I understand those considerations. But again, it was frightening to
Speaker 2: me that those two young men were walking around. One
Speaker 2: of them committed suicide, by the way, the other one
Speaker 2: is still with us.
Speaker 4: You're right about something called the bodybook, which I had
Speaker 4: never heard of. Tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 4: body book.
Speaker 2: One of the visits we had with Gacy, he was
Speaker 2: sitting there and he had this notebook and it was
Speaker 2: very thick, and it had the words bodybook on the
Speaker 2: front of it, and I said, what is that? And
Speaker 2: he kind of kept it like he was like possessive
Speaker 2: with it, didn't want to show it to me, and
Speaker 2: I give it to me. I want to see this.
Speaker 2: So I opened it up and it was just terrifying.
Speaker 2: He had color coded tabs of all the victims were
Speaker 2: found on his property. They had on the pages were
Speaker 2: pictures of their high school yearbook, pictures, their pets, the
Speaker 2: house where they lived, maybe a clip from their little league,
Speaker 2: you know, sports story, and then almost always and a
Speaker 2: little short about the person being found, either found by
Speaker 2: in the Gacy house or when they went missing. And
Speaker 2: remember this was at a time, you know, we had
Speaker 2: this done. It was like in the nineteen eighties. There
Speaker 2: was no internet, you know, there was no googling this stuff.
Speaker 2: You had actually go to the newspaper and go to
Speaker 2: the microfiche and copy it and find old papers and
Speaker 2: take these things together. And that's what someone had done.
Speaker 2: Gacy had retained a private investigator from Canada to put
Speaker 2: all these things together, and it was just astounding, and
Speaker 2: obviously this was his souvenir book. But I asked him,
Speaker 2: I said, why did you do this? And he said, well,
Speaker 2: I just want to see if all of these young
Speaker 2: men like had something in common so I could figure
Speaker 2: out who actually killed them. And you know, my BSM
Speaker 2: meter went off on that one. But he also called
Speaker 2: it the body Book, and I questioned him on that.
Speaker 2: I said, these were human beings, John, why are you
Speaker 2: calling them bodies? And he would he said something. One
Speaker 2: of the times I asked him, he said, what were
Speaker 2: their parents? Where were their parents when they went missing,
Speaker 2: as if to say they were to blame for getting
Speaker 2: killed and ending up in his cross space, Which was
Speaker 2: the most one of the most chilling things he ever
Speaker 2: said to me, because it just demonstrated how he dehumanized
Speaker 2: those kids. He just they were nothing to him. They
Speaker 2: were deserving of what they got, and that is probably
Speaker 2: that's the most evil part of Gaycy that I ever.
Speaker 4: Saw you write about death day, and that's what you
Speaker 4: call the chapter. And there are the last legal briefs
Speaker 4: that you and Greg file and requesting a stay of execution,
Speaker 4: and you're waiting for the answer, and you go back
Speaker 4: to that. He's been transferred to Stateville and via helicopter.
Speaker 4: So he's pretty excited, it seems when you come there
Speaker 4: and visit, tell us about this last day, his behavior,
Speaker 4: his attitude, and what was said. Tell us a little
Speaker 4: bit about that.
Speaker 2: I'm going to leave some of the for my readers
Speaker 2: because I think that it's something that I'd like to
Speaker 2: have my readers look at themselves. But I will tell
Speaker 2: you this, Gaycy to the end was very excited he
Speaker 2: had He went up to Stateville the first time in
Speaker 2: fourteen years he had been out of his prison. He
Speaker 2: was in a new prison. He was allowed to have
Speaker 2: his last meal there. He was allowed to have all
Speaker 2: of the lawyers who represented him over the years, his neighbors,
Speaker 2: his friends, his family were all allowed to visit him.
Speaker 2: At one time. He was allowed to kind of walk
Speaker 2: around and talk to everyone, albeit in handcuffs, and he
Speaker 2: was thoroughly enjoying himself. And it was really bizarre because
Speaker 2: I can't imagine knowing that you have a date with
Speaker 2: death a certain minute to the on the clock, that
Speaker 2: they're going to put that lethal injection into your arm.
Speaker 2: And here he was like he was at a cocktail
Speaker 2: party and not a lethal cocktail party. It was surreal
Speaker 2: and it really was difficult for me to watch that
Speaker 2: because he had was not coming to grips with what
Speaker 2: was going to happen to him. And maybe that was
Speaker 2: better for him. Maybe being in denial at that point
Speaker 2: in his life is a good thing.
Speaker 4: Can you describe the mood you say, describe it a
Speaker 4: certain way, the mood of the crowd and the media
Speaker 4: that was assembled. Just give us a little as it's
Speaker 4: very vivid. How you describe it in the book.
Speaker 2: It was like a circus, and there were cameras from
Speaker 2: all over the world, Italy and England and South America.
Speaker 2: They were covering this. And there were people lined up
Speaker 2: along the path to Stateville. There were kids who weren't
Speaker 2: even born when Gaycy was, you know, convicted, and there
Speaker 2: were people dressed up as clowns. There were drums beating,
Speaker 2: people were drinking alcohol. This was a school night. This
Speaker 2: was a Monday night in May, and it was really
Speaker 2: unsettling because again, I think that if the government is
Speaker 2: going to take a person's life for committing horrendous crimes
Speaker 2: like Gaycy, that this should be a very solemn and
Speaker 2: somber kind of atmosphere. You know, he's going to be executed. Okay,
Speaker 2: if you think that's good, that's good. Let's have some
Speaker 2: respect for the victims' families. Let's have it happen, and
Speaker 2: let's be done with it. But there was so how
Speaker 2: much focus on Gaysey that I thought to myself, how
Speaker 2: could the victims' families even like this, you know, when
Speaker 2: their names were not even mentioned and it was all
Speaker 2: about Gaysey and it was all about him being executed.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I've just found it really, I found
Speaker 2: it really Circuslike.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you say that John Wayne Gacy had said something
Speaker 4: about you being involved in this case and your future career.
Speaker 4: Can you tell us what he said?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to gloss over that a little bit,
Speaker 2: but he had some final words for me that are
Speaker 2: in my book, and he was absolutely right about them.
Speaker 2: The idea being that I'm going to be forever associated
Speaker 2: with John Wayne Gacy. I didn't really think that at
Speaker 2: the time, but it's very true. And even now, after
Speaker 2: all these years, when I finally decided to write my book,
Speaker 2: because I all those years that I didn't write it,
Speaker 2: people kept telling me, you have a story, Please tell
Speaker 2: your story. It's interesting, it has some lessons in it
Speaker 2: for everybody, and some actually lighter notes and positive things
Speaker 2: and empowerment coming out of it. But I just didn't
Speaker 2: want to stir that up again because it was very
Speaker 2: negative at the time. But I can't help it. Everyone
Speaker 2: who knows who I am, when they introduced me, it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: here's Karen. She represented John Wayne Gacy and his death
Speaker 2: row appeals. That's just like my tagline. And even though
Speaker 2: I don't do death penalty work, I don't even do
Speaker 2: criminal work anymore, I'm still introduced that with that tagline,
Speaker 2: and it's never going to end. That's what my obituary
Speaker 2: we'll read. I'm quite sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you' write that soon after the OJ Simpson Trial
Speaker 4: of the Century occurred, and you were ready and you
Speaker 4: were prepared. You had done so much work doing press conferences,
Speaker 4: and you were had been prepared to do the necessary
Speaker 4: sound bites and to be very effective when you did
Speaker 4: anytime you did it, do a press conference and whenever
Speaker 4: you spoke on behalf of John Wayne Gacy and the
Speaker 4: death penalty lawsuit that you were filing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it was less than thirty days after
Speaker 2: Gaysey's execution when OJ Simpson took that little drive in
Speaker 2: his white Bronco. And so of course when the media
Speaker 2: started to cover it, I was on their list because
Speaker 2: I had on a first name basis with people from
Speaker 2: CNN and Fox and MSNBC and all my local stations.
Speaker 2: And so I became a legal analyst, and that was
Speaker 2: a direct result of having represented Gacy and preparing myself
Speaker 2: and doing my homework and learning how to speak to
Speaker 2: the media. I've also had radio shows for over thirty years.
Speaker 2: Almost immediately after Gaysey, the local station in Chicago, one
Speaker 2: of the bigger stations, offered my law partner and me
Speaker 2: a radio show, and we took it and we won awards,
Speaker 2: and I've had radio shows pretty much ever since. I
Speaker 2: have one right now in WGN, which is one of
Speaker 2: our major am stations. So some of these things that
Speaker 2: happened to me that were good, where as a result
Speaker 2: of something that was really bad. And that's kind of
Speaker 2: a lesson that I tried to teach in my book,
Speaker 2: which is we will all have bad things happen to us,
Speaker 2: whether it's professional, whether it's personal, depths in our family, illnesses,
Speaker 2: getting fired from a job, whatever your adversities are, they're
Speaker 2: actually good for you in the long run. Not to
Speaker 2: say it death is ever really good. What I'm saying
Speaker 2: is it makes you more resilient. It can make you
Speaker 2: more resilient, It can teach you lessons, It can teach
Speaker 2: you what you're really made of. And I'm not sure
Speaker 2: that I would have learned what I was really made
Speaker 2: of had I not done gacy that really put me
Speaker 2: through a lot of different kinds of tests, and I
Speaker 2: think I came out more resilient and a better person
Speaker 2: and a better lawyer.
Speaker 4: And I guess you must be somewhat satisfied the progress
Speaker 4: that the death penalty is being abolished in many states.
Speaker 4: Give us the stats on how many states now doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Illinois abolished it twenty eleven, and I would say
Speaker 2: it's somewhere between twenty and twenty five states have either
Speaker 2: abolished it, put a moratorium on it, or in effect
Speaker 2: they just don't use it anymore. So we've got about
Speaker 2: half our states not really using it. And even as
Speaker 2: the states that use it, prosecution prosecutors are seeking it less,
Speaker 2: jurors are giving it less, even for some of these
Speaker 2: horrendous school shootings. The jurors just don't have the stomach
Speaker 2: to give the death penalty to a young person. And
Speaker 2: I think it's just the tide is changing. I think
Speaker 2: that the fact that other countries don't use it, the
Speaker 2: fact that younger people are much more sensitive to these
Speaker 2: kinds of things, that there is a complete change in
Speaker 2: the polls. And I think it's the lowest right now
Speaker 2: that it's been in over one hundred years as far
Speaker 2: as the approval rate for the death penalty. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's going to happen in my lifetime,
Speaker 2: but I do see that in the near future there
Speaker 2: is going to be an abolition of the death penalty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so congratulations on your work in that regard.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm not sure that I move that needle
Speaker 2: any with John Gasey, but I'd like to think that
Speaker 2: I'm at least a little part of it.
Speaker 4: Yes, I want to thank you so much for coming
Speaker 4: on and talking about killing time with John Wayne Gacy
Speaker 4: defending America's most evil serial killer on death Row. For
Speaker 4: those people that might want to check out your other
Speaker 4: work on do you have a website and do you
Speaker 4: do any social media?
Speaker 2: I do? You can just find me on Facebook of
Speaker 2: the usual at Karen count twenty three. My website is
Speaker 2: where you should go for anything related to gaysey, if
Speaker 2: I do book clubs and speaking engagements, and or if
Speaker 2: you want to ask me a question, it's www Karenconty
Speaker 2: dot com. And my radio show WGN Radio can go
Speaker 2: on and listen to all my podcasted episodes Legal in Nature,
Speaker 2: and I have some really interesting guests. But thank you
Speaker 2: for giving me that opportunity.
Speaker 4: Dan, Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure killing
Speaker 4: time with John Wayne Gacy defending America's most evil serial
Speaker 4: killer on death Row. Thank you so much for this
Speaker 4: interview Karen Conti, and good night, good night,