Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them. Gaysey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK. Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 1: journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 2: Good Evening, an eight part miniseries, The John Wayne Gacy Murders,
Speaker 2: Life and Death in Chicago is the first ever historical,
Speaker 2: comprehensive and chronological mini series to study the life and
Speaker 2: crimes of the infamous serial killer, from his birth to
Speaker 2: the ongoing investigation of identifying unknown victims. This is the
Speaker 2: groundbreaking documentary project that filmmaker John Borowski has dedicatedly worked
Speaker 2: on for five years, uncovering extraordinary new facts and dispelling
Speaker 2: certain myths about the case. Barowski features important and exclusive
Speaker 2: interviews he conducted with leading psychologists, childhood friends, arresting officers, prosecutors,
Speaker 2: Gasey's Death Row, attorney employees, and victims family members in
Speaker 2: order to create the definitive documentary regarding John Wayne Gacy.
Speaker 2: Feature this Evening is the documentary miniseries The John Wayne
Speaker 2: Gaysey murders, Life and Death in Chicago with my special
Speaker 2: guest writer, author, and documentary filmmaker John Barowski. Welcome back
Speaker 2: to the program, and thank you very much for this interview.
Speaker 3: John Borowski, thank you for having me again.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. And congratulations on the John Wayne
Speaker 2: Gacy Murders Life and Death in Chicago documentary mini series.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been a long time coming,
Speaker 3: and definitely proud of it and glad it's been released
Speaker 3: to the world for everyone to, you know, watch this
Speaker 3: chronological epic of Gaysey's life.
Speaker 2: This is a definitive story, the definitive film and exploration
Speaker 2: of John Wayne Gacy, totally comprehensive. I applaud you for
Speaker 2: this incredible body of work.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. And that was what I really
Speaker 3: wanted to do, you know. I had seen other documentaries,
Speaker 3: of course, researched and read all the books, and I
Speaker 3: found like in some of these other documentaries, they were
Speaker 3: somewhat scattered, they would jump back and forth in timelines,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to My ultimate goal was to create
Speaker 3: a epic mini series where you could study Gaysey's life
Speaker 3: and crimes from his birth to even to now, with
Speaker 3: all these conspiracy theories going on, because you get a
Speaker 3: more fuller picture of how Gasey became what he became,
Speaker 3: and a lot of that is instilled in the childhood.
Speaker 3: And that's where I begin with in the series, in
Speaker 3: his childhood.
Speaker 2: Now, just before we start, we'll just tell our audience
Speaker 2: your role in this entire documentary film series. You're the producer, writer,
Speaker 2: and director. I'll just tell us I interviewed you in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty about your book, John Wayne Gacy Hunting a Predator.
Speaker 2: Just tell us briefly about the genesis of this film series.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it began a little over five years ago. I
Speaker 3: was thinking of what my next project was going to
Speaker 3: be a I actually was in the middle of working
Speaker 3: on a documentary on Jesse Pomroy, the boy Killer from
Speaker 3: Boston in eighteen seventy four, which I still want to
Speaker 3: return to. But then a friend of mine had the
Speaker 3: same camera that I had, so he said, well, let's
Speaker 3: do something where we could do two camera shoots. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, Well, and I started thinking of a project,
Speaker 3: and I started looking into Gacy, and he's very contemporary
Speaker 3: to me in that respect because the serial killers I
Speaker 3: usually focus on are late eighteen hundreds through early nineteen
Speaker 3: hundreds American serial killers, and I knew that would be
Speaker 3: a challenge as well, doing something even though it was
Speaker 3: forty years ago the case, or when he was arrested,
Speaker 3: over forty years ago, there is still people. There are
Speaker 3: still people alive and relatives of the victims. So I
Speaker 3: was very careful about that as well. And I looked
Speaker 3: into the case and I thought, wow, there are similarities
Speaker 3: between Gaycy's life and mind. I grew up in Chicago,
Speaker 3: we both grew up on the Northwest Side. Both of
Speaker 3: our fathers are buried in the same cemetery. We both
Speaker 3: went to the same high school. Obviously, he was kicked out, obviously,
Speaker 3: and we're both gay. So I thought, Okay, now this
Speaker 3: is something that I could bring my personal experience to
Speaker 3: and tell the story and really flesh it out as
Speaker 3: far as all of these different aspects of not only
Speaker 3: Gaycy's life, but what was going on in Chicago and
Speaker 3: America at the times he was growing up.
Speaker 2: In this extraordinary film series, you have exclusive interviews with
Speaker 2: forensic psychologist doctor Helen Morrison, also a clinical social worker,
Speaker 2: Catherine Clevenger, and also Stephen Gianagelo. He is a author
Speaker 2: and criminology professor. Tell us about John Gasey's early life.
Speaker 2: He was born in nineteen forty two in Chicago. Tell
Speaker 2: us about his early life as you do and you
Speaker 2: tell in this film through the interviews with the three
Speaker 2: people talking about the psychology and the origins of John
Speaker 2: Way Gasey's psycho sexual development in this film, tell us
Speaker 2: about some of the information garnered through these interviews.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know it was. I was somewhat lucky enough
Speaker 3: to be in Chicago while the majority of these experts
Speaker 3: that I interviewed were still in Chicago or in the
Speaker 3: Chicago Land area. I flew one of the interviewees in
Speaker 3: from Texas, but everyone else was still here, So I
Speaker 3: was lucky in that and the first episode there are
Speaker 3: only three interviewees. But as the mini series goes on,
Speaker 3: each segment has to do with that part of Gaysey's life.
Speaker 3: So I try to best possible to contain those areas
Speaker 3: within themselves, so we don't see the police who arrested
Speaker 3: Gasey until we get that point where he's being under investigation.
Speaker 3: I wanted Helen Morrison to give an account of Gacy's
Speaker 3: childhood because Helen Morrison interviewed Gacy's mother and Gacy himself.
Speaker 3: So Helen Morrison was Gaysey's psychiatrist who spoke for the
Speaker 3: defense at the trial. And I also wanted someone to
Speaker 3: talk about child abuse, how that affects the child, especially
Speaker 3: growing up, and that's why Cathy was important in that.
Speaker 3: And Steve gin Angelo I've worked with on other projects.
Speaker 3: He's great on camera, and he's a great author. I've
Speaker 3: actually published one of his books and going to publish
Speaker 3: another one of his soon. And at the whole beginning
Speaker 3: is very important for me of any of these serial killers,
Speaker 3: because I believe that these serial killers form what they
Speaker 3: later become in their formative years as a child. And
Speaker 3: I've seen this through studying serial killers. And it's interesting
Speaker 3: that you could watch my Gaycy miniseries. You could watch
Speaker 3: the entire first episode, watch the entire eight hours, and
Speaker 3: come back to that first episode and see the parallels
Speaker 3: between what's in his childhood and what happens later in
Speaker 3: his life. So those are two key things I wanted
Speaker 3: to touch on in the first episode. Obviously, I think
Speaker 3: the world knows, or many people know, that Gaycy was
Speaker 3: abused by his father verbally and physically. His father also
Speaker 3: abused his sisters, not as much as Gaycy. His father
Speaker 3: actually hated Gaycy himself, and he would abuse their mother sometimes.
Speaker 3: The father would abuse you know, his mother sometimes as well.
Speaker 3: But the Gaycy's mother, Marian, put him through a lot
Speaker 3: of tortures as a child. She gave him enemas when
Speaker 3: he was very young baby. She thought he was ill.
Speaker 3: She thought he had some sort of a heart condition.
Speaker 3: So not only was she giving him medicines, which she
Speaker 3: wasn't a pharmacist, so she was just trying out different
Speaker 3: medicines on him. I have no idea where she obtained
Speaker 3: them from, but this obviously affected Gacy later in life.
Speaker 3: But also, and this happens we see with other serial
Speaker 3: killers that have issues with their mothers. She would coddle Gacy.
Speaker 3: So because she thought he had an heart issue, she
Speaker 3: wanted to protect him from ever getting hurt by anything.
Speaker 3: So that means she wouldn't let him play sports at school,
Speaker 3: She wouldn't let him hang around with other boys running
Speaker 3: around doing things, And so Gacy developed this affinity to
Speaker 3: hang out with his mom and his sisters and do
Speaker 3: more feminine things or gentle thing, you know, working in
Speaker 3: a garden, you know, building some things. You know, he
Speaker 3: had a paper route, but he was always industrious ever
Speaker 3: since he was a kid. But you do. I don't
Speaker 3: want to give too much about the first episode away,
Speaker 3: but like I said, I wanted to make sure there
Speaker 3: were parallels between his childhood and what comes later, because
Speaker 3: I've read these books about Gasey and there are factual
Speaker 3: and fictional information in these books about Gasey's childhood and
Speaker 3: not much as really fleshed out. And that's exactly what
Speaker 3: I wanted to do. And not many people realize how
Speaker 3: much Marion his mother had kind of to do with
Speaker 3: also that negative upbringing of him by using him as
Speaker 3: a test subject for these different pharmaceuticals, she was giving.
Speaker 2: Him other than these maybe psychosomatic or in her mind,
Speaker 2: these illnesses that didn't exist. But he was plagued by
Speaker 2: certain actual alements, and he was in and out of
Speaker 2: hospital as a young boy, wasn't he.
Speaker 3: Yes, And they never found throughout Gasey's life from when
Speaker 3: he was a child until he was under investigation and
Speaker 3: in Waterloo, Iowa, when he went to prison, and eventually
Speaker 3: when he was studied in Chicago after he was arrested
Speaker 3: he showed no abnormal signs of anything physiological or psychological.
Speaker 3: Everything came up on tests perfectly. But as Kathy in
Speaker 3: the documentary explains, that children can have these, their children's
Speaker 3: bodies or anyone really could have this reaction to some
Speaker 3: sort of a stressor, and they can't the body itself
Speaker 3: could go into these seizures. And that's what would happen
Speaker 3: with Gacy. He would have these seizures, he would black out,
Speaker 3: and usually they were around times when he was most
Speaker 3: likely extremely nervous or anxious because he lived in that
Speaker 3: environment almost twenty four to seven, you know, other than
Speaker 3: when he went to school, because it was a constant
Speaker 3: stressor at home for him. That's the other thing I
Speaker 3: didn't understand. I read a lot of these books and
Speaker 3: they said some would say he definitely had a heart condition.
Speaker 3: You know, these things happened, but you know, even when
Speaker 3: I interviewed the experts, they knew he was you know,
Speaker 3: he would manipulate them and use that as a tactic.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it may have been real, but other times, you know,
Speaker 3: I think he may have used it to his benefit,
Speaker 3: outlining the fact that he had this supposed issue already.
Speaker 3: And I think, like many conmen and serial killers. Gaycy
Speaker 3: learned as he went along and how he could manipulate people.
Speaker 3: And I think that also started in his childhood kind
Speaker 3: of with you know, his mother in that way, and
Speaker 3: just continued.
Speaker 2: In this film. You talk about that, this idea that
Speaker 2: the mother was overprotective and then she thought he was
Speaker 2: sickly and so he didn't participate in any physical activity
Speaker 2: fearing that he might get hurt or something. But this
Speaker 2: was at direct odd to his father's attitude towards homosexuality,
Speaker 2: but more importantly his attitudewards femininity and masculinity. And he
Speaker 2: thought that all of the things that his son was
Speaker 2: interested in were surely going to make him not grow
Speaker 2: into a real man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's a perfect storm in the Gaysey household.
Speaker 3: Obviously from his birth, you know, he was given, you know,
Speaker 3: the name of John Wayne Gacy, modeled after the iconic
Speaker 3: American Western hero John Wayne, and so already from the
Speaker 3: second he was born, he had something to live up
Speaker 3: to in his father's eyes. And you're right, so after
Speaker 3: he started doing these feminine things, not hanging around with
Speaker 3: other boys, he did have a best friend, Barry Boshelley,
Speaker 3: who's also I believe he's in the first episode and
Speaker 3: he was Gasey's best friend. But yeah, all of those
Speaker 3: things affected him, and his father began viewing him negatively
Speaker 3: because he did those feminine things. So again it was
Speaker 3: a catch twenty two. He couldn't play with other boys
Speaker 3: or do sports because his mother wouldn't let him, and
Speaker 3: so he's doing these you know, alternate things to have
Speaker 3: fun and he has this one best friend. But that's
Speaker 3: about it. And talking about he grew up during the
Speaker 3: nineteen fifties, which was like one of the worst time
Speaker 3: for anyone to be gay in America or you know,
Speaker 3: even the world. But I believe his issues definitely being
Speaker 3: gay started like obviously adolescent, you know, teenager years. But yeah,
Speaker 3: he grew to hate himself because his father hated him,
Speaker 3: and he would hear all these negative things from his
Speaker 3: father about homosexuals, about femininity, you know, and the mum.
Speaker 3: When the father would abuse Gaycy, the mother would stick
Speaker 3: up for the father and say, well, you know, he
Speaker 3: does a Molly column and that's the way it has
Speaker 3: to be, you know, So she went along with his abuse.
Speaker 3: So yeah, there were definitely all these issues going on,
Speaker 3: and it was difficult for Gaysey at that time period
Speaker 3: because anywhere you look, you look at religion, your school,
Speaker 3: your work, your home. In the fifties, everything was negative
Speaker 3: against homosexuals. And that comes into play too, because I
Speaker 3: feel that was an important part of Gaycy's psychology and
Speaker 3: his creation when you look at later what happened to
Speaker 3: these young boys. Gasey hated himself, and I believe, and
Speaker 3: many do believe also, that he took it out on
Speaker 3: these other young boys because they were something that he
Speaker 3: would never be. Handsome, young, attractive, cool, and he was
Speaker 3: never like that, so he took out his rage on
Speaker 3: these young victims.
Speaker 2: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 2: these messages. Now, you talk about that he was hospitalized,
Speaker 2: but the strangest thing was it seemed like, and then
Speaker 2: you have psychologists to attest to this, that he was
Speaker 2: having what we would now call a panic attack or
Speaker 2: an anxiety attack, and some of the features or the
Speaker 2: feature of that was that he would pass out unexpectedly.
Speaker 2: So tell us about how those anxiety attacks that we
Speaker 2: would now recognize, how they were treated.
Speaker 3: Then well, the further you go back with psychology and
Speaker 3: psychiatry kind of gets very fuzzy because, especially if you're
Speaker 3: looking at the fifties, even through the seventies and maybe
Speaker 3: even into the eighties, anyone that took anyone to their
Speaker 3: family to see a psychiatrist. They didn't have therapists back then.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like that they had mental institutions and mental
Speaker 3: hospitals that they would admit people to. So that was
Speaker 3: about it. You know. Even later, when I interviewed Larry Finder,
Speaker 3: who is the Assistant State's Attorney, he said he couldn't
Speaker 3: even go for therapy even if it was available then
Speaker 3: because as an attorney, the word would get out and
Speaker 3: he wouldn't have work anymore. So there was one point where,
Speaker 3: because of these issues with Gaycy, because of these the
Speaker 3: passing out and the seizures, his mother did take him
Speaker 3: to the hospital and there was a doctor there that
Speaker 3: asked her to admit Gacy, and she didn't want to,
Speaker 3: and later she said she wish she wouldn't have done that.
Speaker 3: But you also have to realize it's that time period.
Speaker 3: If she admitted her son and people found out, they'd
Speaker 3: be labeled as crazy. That's what they called them back then.
Speaker 3: Your son's crazy, your whole family's crazy, and nobody wanted
Speaker 3: to be labeled as especially in the nineteen fifties where
Speaker 3: everyone was supposed to be this perfect family. So it's
Speaker 3: very interesting that he was presented with these stressors and
Speaker 3: he had these anxiety and panic attacks. But back then
Speaker 3: they didn't know what those were. They had no idea
Speaker 3: what panic attacks and anxiety were. And now we could
Speaker 3: look back, as Kathy does and explain what was going
Speaker 3: on with Gaysey. And that was very important for me
Speaker 3: to do in this mini series because, like I said,
Speaker 3: I had read many things about Gaysey and his childhood
Speaker 3: wasn't really fleshed out, and I wanted to make sure
Speaker 3: I did that.
Speaker 2: One of the very more interesting topics that you touch
Speaker 2: on in this film series is the idea that he
Speaker 2: has some fascination with his mother's panties and then that
Speaker 2: behavior continues as he gets a little bit older and
Speaker 2: somehow collides or morphs into some of his sexual orientation.
Speaker 2: As you have the psychologist explain, can you explain this phenomena?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very interesting. It's a fetish and the panteasing
Speaker 3: didn't have anything to do with, you know, his homosexual tendencies.
Speaker 3: It was more of a fetish. He liked the soft
Speaker 3: feel of the panties, the silky and what he would
Speaker 3: do is he would steal panties off clotheslines or from
Speaker 3: his mother's drawers and he would masturbate with them because
Speaker 3: of the soft, silky feel, and because he was so
Speaker 3: embarrassed of stealing these panties, he would bury them. And
Speaker 3: eventually the family did find out and they saw him
Speaker 3: bury him one time, and his father forced him to
Speaker 3: wear the panties all day and belittle him. But what's
Speaker 3: interesting is when I went to his childhood home, not
Speaker 3: his first childhood home, but the second one on Minard.
Speaker 3: When I went there, the owners let me film the
Speaker 3: entire house from top to bottom. So what you're seeing
Speaker 3: in my miniseries is the inside of Gacy's house where
Speaker 3: he grew up from I believe around age ten until
Speaker 3: he finally left in his late teen's early twenties. And
Speaker 3: I had went to the house twice to film. First
Speaker 3: time filmed all the interior, but I had to go
Speaker 3: back because I wanted to get the exterior again and
Speaker 3: another part. And the second time I went, I went
Speaker 3: downstairs underneath the house and right where the basement is
Speaker 3: there's like a little area under the porch and when
Speaker 3: you look at it, it pretty much looks like a
Speaker 3: crawl space. I almost exactly like a crawl space.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And it's that area where Gacy buried the panties. And again,
Speaker 3: you know, I wanted to make these connections that Gacy
Speaker 3: was embarrassed of stealing the panties when he was a child.
Speaker 3: So what did he do when he was embarrassed by something?
Speaker 3: He buried it. Now you flash forward later in life
Speaker 3: when he's burying these young boys under his house and
Speaker 3: his crawl space, it's the same concept. He was embarrassed,
Speaker 3: he was shamed, and that's what he did. So I
Speaker 3: wanted to make a lot of those psychological connections, you know,
Speaker 3: and his behavior because I had never, you know, really
Speaker 3: seen that done anywhere, and I thought those things were important.
Speaker 3: And you know, again, I hope people watch the entire
Speaker 3: mini series and then go back and rewatch it because
Speaker 3: a lot of these issues in episode one and two
Speaker 3: and even three come up later in the series. In
Speaker 3: case his.
Speaker 2: Life, you have this extraordinary witness that becomes Casey's best
Speaker 2: friend at a young age, and it's Barry Boshelly and
Speaker 2: it's important because we have heard about the abuse from
Speaker 2: his father, that he was abusive, but he tells a
Speaker 2: story that's just more specific about how how much of
Speaker 2: this abuse did he endure, and how regular was this
Speaker 2: and of what nature exactly.
Speaker 3: Yes, and back then there was no child protective services,
Speaker 3: so again families wanted to keep these issues within the family. Now,
Speaker 3: Barry Bishelley, he was friends with Gaycy as a child,
Speaker 3: and what happened was his doctor was the same family
Speaker 3: doctor as Gaycy's family, so he heard what happened, you know,
Speaker 3: through the grapevine, what happened with Gacy. There was this
Speaker 3: one point where his father beat him with a two
Speaker 3: by four and knocked him out and he was pretty
Speaker 3: much almost dead, and then the father took him to
Speaker 3: the doctor. But of course, you know, at that time
Speaker 3: period again keep it quiet. Oh he fell, this happened, whatever,
Speaker 3: you know, and there were no investigations like that. Back then.
Speaker 3: Everything was kept within the family and in the units.
Speaker 3: There was nothing. Nothing could be let out in the
Speaker 3: fifties that your family is ill or sick or crazy,
Speaker 3: or there's something wrong with you. And Barry's a great
Speaker 3: resource because he actually was there. He grew up with
Speaker 3: John Wayne Gacy, so again it was important for me
Speaker 3: to have first hand interviewees in this documentary. I wanted
Speaker 3: friends of Gacy, victims, relative the prosecutors, the detectives, you know,
Speaker 3: almost everyone except probably three or four people in my
Speaker 3: documentary met Gaycy, talked to him, prosecuted him, worked with him,
Speaker 3: Tony Antonucci, who was a survivor who got away from Gacy.
Speaker 3: And it was again when I formulated this mini series,
Speaker 3: I wanted all these important people, and you know, I
Speaker 3: got as many as I could, and I was happy
Speaker 3: with that. But this was such a huge case. I
Speaker 3: mean hundreds and hundreds of people involved, and even more
Speaker 3: than that when you look at the web of how
Speaker 3: many people Gaycy affected and the case affected.
Speaker 2: Well, you provide this evidence in this film series about
Speaker 2: he tries to fit in at high school by going
Speaker 2: on a heterosexual date, and you have this dramatic evidence
Speaker 2: that you provide that he passes out when they're trying
Speaker 2: to consummate, when they're fooling around with each other. And
Speaker 2: again psychologically, we relate back to the incredible pressure he
Speaker 2: has being a homosexual. Having to keep that secret, especially
Speaker 2: from his father, would have as his mother said, would
Speaker 2: have killed him if he would a knew and this
Speaker 2: idea that he couldn't conform, he couldn't perform. He was
Speaker 2: not interested in heterosexual sex. And he passed out again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you could see that that was from the
Speaker 3: anxiety and the stress of what he was going through.
Speaker 3: So again, I do believe there are times where it
Speaker 3: was real. But you could have taken him to a
Speaker 3: hospital that day and they would have found nothing wrong
Speaker 3: with him, which is strange, but it's all in his
Speaker 3: mind and how his body reacts to that. Interesting with
Speaker 3: women in Gacy's life, his first wife he had married
Speaker 3: and lived with in Waterloo. Then his second wife he
Speaker 3: had lived with in Chicago with her two daughters. His
Speaker 3: first wife he had two children with, Michael and Christine,
Speaker 3: and his second wife, Carol, she brought she had two
Speaker 3: daughters already and I believe they were I don't know,
Speaker 3: between six and nine years old. But they were ruses.
Speaker 3: They were cover ups for Gasey's being a homosexual his
Speaker 3: first wife. It's interesting because when you read the newspapers
Speaker 3: and official reports from the case, there was one account
Speaker 3: where the prosecutor of the case said that Gasey tied
Speaker 3: a young man up to the bed while Gasey was
Speaker 3: having sex with his wife, so they were swingers, him
Speaker 3: and his wife. Out there. Gasey was involved in these
Speaker 3: illegal gambling and prostitution rings. So eventually, when he was
Speaker 3: convicted of sodomy on a young man out there, of
Speaker 3: course the first wife divorced him and got the majority
Speaker 3: of everything. But they were ruses. You know that The
Speaker 3: second wife, Carol, I found extremely interesting because here he is.
Speaker 3: She sees him outside at night bringing young men into
Speaker 3: the garage, and then she goes into a garage and
Speaker 3: there's a blanket and a red light in there and
Speaker 3: a mirror, so obviously he's having sex with these young
Speaker 3: men in the garage, and all these pieces of evidence
Speaker 3: are adding up, and that's what she thinks. And because
Speaker 3: he told her, well, I'm bisexual.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 3: She thought, well, you know, obviously he's more into the
Speaker 3: young men than he was into her, because he seemed
Speaker 3: to be spending most of the time with them, and
Speaker 3: she was a housewife. She kept the house clean, she
Speaker 3: kept everything fine at home. That way, during the day,
Speaker 3: when he was at work, he could get his work done,
Speaker 3: and then at night he could go hunting for his victims.
Speaker 2: It Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these
Speaker 2: mesas I wanted to go back just a little bit,
Speaker 2: because there's some incredible information that you went part here
Speaker 2: that again seems to be directly involvement to his sexual development,
Speaker 2: in that he has another fight with his father when
Speaker 2: he's almost twenty years old, and then moves to Las
Speaker 2: Vegas and has a particularly interesting job, and some of
Speaker 2: the things that later he is convicted of seemed to
Speaker 2: have been formulated during this time and this work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when he went to Vegas, he found a job
Speaker 3: at a funeral home, so he was transporting dead bodies
Speaker 3: to the funeral home. And his mother herself said in
Speaker 3: a newspaper that Gaysey told her that he was sleeping
Speaker 3: in the morgue with these bodies. And then I found
Speaker 3: a quote from Gasey that said, ever since the age
Speaker 3: I believe of sixteen, he said he was interested in death,
Speaker 3: and so here he is at this funeral home. Now,
Speaker 3: there have been numerous accounts of what may have happened
Speaker 3: at the funeral home. One of them is that Gacy,
Speaker 3: you know, was working there, and it was a young
Speaker 3: man in a casket and he crawled into the casket
Speaker 3: with the body and slept with it or did something
Speaker 3: with it. And another story says, well, one of the
Speaker 3: workers there at the funeral home found clothes next to
Speaker 3: the casket, whether they were Gacy's or the kids. And again,
Speaker 3: you know, they covered things up at this time period.
Speaker 3: But I think one of these things, and I tried
Speaker 3: to illustrate this in the miniseries that you know, did
Speaker 3: these things really happen or were they fantasies of Gacy?
Speaker 3: One time he said that there was a corpse, a
Speaker 3: male corpse, that came in with an erection. Now, there
Speaker 3: are such thing as death erections. Most likely they may
Speaker 3: not have lasted that long. Usually they happen during a
Speaker 3: traumatic event like a hanging or a traumatic death, and
Speaker 3: the male body produces his death erection, but it doesn't
Speaker 3: last that long. So did that actually happen? Did Gacy
Speaker 3: see a male corpse, a young male corpse at the
Speaker 3: morgue with an erection? Who knows? But again whether that
Speaker 3: was real or fantasy. Having sex with these corpses or
Speaker 3: doing whatever he wanted to with the corpses comes up
Speaker 3: later again, when he's in Waterloo, and he tells one
Speaker 3: of these young men to play dead, and the young
Speaker 3: man said that in the newspaper. So a lot of
Speaker 3: people don't realize this aspect of John Wayne Gacy. He
Speaker 3: wasn't a necrophiliac. He didn't search for young men to
Speaker 3: kill and just have home with their bodies and savor.
Speaker 3: He wasn't like Dahmer, but he did do things to
Speaker 3: their bodies after he murdered them himself. He said that
Speaker 3: he would put the bodies under the bed or in
Speaker 3: a closet before throwing them in the crawl space. So
Speaker 3: and then Robert Piece, the last victim, he said, well,
Speaker 3: another John Wayne Gacy thing is he said he had
Speaker 3: two personalities. And he said, well, I didn't have sex
Speaker 3: with peace corpse, but Jack may have, and that was
Speaker 3: his alternate personality. So basically he was telling him us
Speaker 3: after he killed the young man, he had sex with
Speaker 3: his body. So when I read about all of these
Speaker 3: incidences and I put them together again, that's one thing
Speaker 3: I never saw any book or documentary do, and I
Speaker 3: think that's pretty important because it is all about death.
Speaker 3: And he said he had a cemetery under his house
Speaker 3: and he savored the thing that Gasey savored the most
Speaker 3: is his knowledge of these things happening and no one
Speaker 3: else knowing. And he could lie and crack jokes, just
Speaker 3: like his photographer Marty Zelenski said he could tell us
Speaker 3: he had fifty bodies in his basement. We'd say, yeah, whatever, John,
Speaker 3: because Gasey would joke about everything. Oh yeah, hey, I
Speaker 3: got to get some beers and bodies out of the trunk.
Speaker 3: He would say things like that, so nobody would even
Speaker 3: believe him if he did say he did all these things,
Speaker 3: and even his friends at the end when he was
Speaker 3: going on this death run, they didn't believe him either.
Speaker 2: You have this extraordinary interview with Tony Antonucci, and it's
Speaker 2: very important because he really outlines the victimology because he
Speaker 2: was able to not be assaulted by John Wayne Gacy,
Speaker 2: but Gaysey certainly attempted to do that. And it's very
Speaker 2: interesting some of the things he says, like he didn't
Speaker 2: realize how much danger he was in when he was
Speaker 2: in extreme danger with John Wayne Gacy. Can you just
Speaker 2: give us a little bit of what he testified to
Speaker 2: and what he says in this film documentary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he says that Gasey would play mind games with
Speaker 3: him and other workers. He would sit them down and
Speaker 3: question them and go through this whole spiel about asking them, well,
Speaker 3: are you homosexual? What if somebody wanted you to perform
Speaker 3: homosexual acts on them? And this was his way of
Speaker 3: vetting these kids to see if they were somewhat amenable.
Speaker 3: Maybe if he gave them money, they would do something
Speaker 3: sexual with him. And I think anyone that was around Gaysey,
Speaker 3: the people that testified later, the detectives, everyone, everyone that
Speaker 3: met Gaycy personally and would say, you'd never know that
Speaker 3: he did these things. They said, he's funny, jovial, he'll
Speaker 3: make you laugh, and people thought he was an all
Speaker 3: around great guy and that was his ruse, and that's
Speaker 3: how he got away with these things for so long.
Speaker 3: And Tony Antonucci. It's a frightening experience when you think
Speaker 3: about it, because Antonucci said he would play mind games
Speaker 3: with his workers or his victims as he did with Tony,
Speaker 3: and that's how he would feel them out. It happened
Speaker 3: that twice. That one time that Antonucci had went to
Speaker 3: set up a Democratic office with Gasey, and Gaysey had
Speaker 3: tried to grab him and grab his behind and he
Speaker 3: thought he was just testing him, because Gasey said, this
Speaker 3: is how the test my workers. Again, you know, his
Speaker 3: excuses and cons for getting away with things. And then
Speaker 3: he was playing wrestling with Antonucci and he wound up
Speaker 3: putting handcuffs on him, and Antonucci got out of the
Speaker 3: handcuffs and put him on Gaysey. And the biggest, you know,
Speaker 3: one of the most well known minds ever is when
Speaker 3: Tony says that Gasey told him that you're not only
Speaker 3: one of the only ones to get out of the cuffs,
Speaker 3: but you're the only one to get them on me.
Speaker 3: And of course Tony didn't know what was going on
Speaker 3: at that time, and it was very important for me
Speaker 3: to ask Tony directly, Okay, well then why didn't you
Speaker 3: go to police? Why didn't you do because that's the
Speaker 3: first question in everyone's mind, and I wanted to make
Speaker 3: sure in this mini series I confronted some of these
Speaker 3: people and asked them these difficult questions. And like you said,
Speaker 3: it was the time period, and he thought Gacy was
Speaker 3: just kidding around. After Gasey most likely tried to kill him,
Speaker 3: he slept at Gacy's house another night and was still
Speaker 3: worked for him a lot of people don't realize that,
Speaker 3: but he trusted him and he thought it was just
Speaker 3: all a big game. And through Antonucci we also learned
Speaker 3: because he worked with Gaycy, the connection to when Gacy
Speaker 3: started in Waterloo, when he would do work out there,
Speaker 3: he would actually steal from businesses. And when Gaysey was
Speaker 3: doing his construction work, he would take Tony with him
Speaker 3: sometimes and he would say, well, we're going to steal
Speaker 3: this lumber. And then Antonucci would be like, well, aren't
Speaker 3: they going to know? And Gacy would tell him, well, well,
Speaker 3: if the cops show up, just pretend like you're taking
Speaker 3: it the lumber out of the truck and you're leaving
Speaker 3: it there, nobody's going to question you. And Gasey one
Speaker 3: of Gasey's famous lines is it's not illegal if no
Speaker 3: one knows about it.
Speaker 2: You have in the film you talk about Donald Vorhees Junior,
Speaker 2: sixteen years old, that was hired by Gasey and he
Speaker 2: was invited inside the house when Gasey's wife Marlon was
Speaker 2: out of town. He plays porn for the team, showing
Speaker 2: his mo He ties them up and says something very incredible.
Speaker 2: He said, you should invite death with open arms. He
Speaker 2: also has another person he takes to his home, Edward Lynch,
Speaker 2: and both of these people eventually go to the police.
Speaker 2: But it shows Gasey's guile and also his cleverness in
Speaker 2: knowing how the police will react, and he acts accordingly.
Speaker 2: And these people, these victims aren't believed, are they. No.
Speaker 3: Casey would always turn the tides on his victims and
Speaker 3: make himself up to be the victim. A lot of
Speaker 3: times if he was caught with a young man, he
Speaker 3: would say, well, this, it was consensual. He's into s
Speaker 3: and M that's why these things happened. And again, you're
Speaker 3: looking at these time periods back then. If that was
Speaker 3: the case, the police would most likely turn a blind
Speaker 3: eye and just walk away, because what do you do
Speaker 3: in that case. It's kind of a domestic disturbance, but
Speaker 3: it's not legal in a sense. You know, you're doing
Speaker 3: something that's illegal in America at the time, you know,
Speaker 3: just by having you know, being gay. So it definitely was,
Speaker 3: you know, tough times, but very interesting that he started
Speaker 3: these things in Waterloo and wanted them to play dead
Speaker 3: and invite death with open arms. It really says a
Speaker 3: lot and that was the beginnings of his career of
Speaker 3: crime in Waterloo, he learned how to be a master
Speaker 3: con and he started coming at one of these kids
Speaker 3: with a knife, and he would have started his murders there,
Speaker 3: but it just didn't happen until later.
Speaker 2: He gets recognized by a psychiatric analysis and he is
Speaker 2: The recommendation is that he should be sent to prison
Speaker 2: for as long as possible. There's no cure, lock him up,
Speaker 2: and he is a sexual predator and this is recognized
Speaker 2: when he again has scrapes with the law and evades
Speaker 2: eventual prosecution just before he does go to prison for
Speaker 2: the ten year sentence and then is released in eighteen months.
Speaker 3: What's interesting to me as well, And if we're talking
Speaker 3: about that, I want to go back to that Waterloo
Speaker 3: incident Gasey when the two boys went to the police
Speaker 3: Casey hired older teenager to beat up one of the boys.
Speaker 3: The older boy made a mistake of saying, and whether
Speaker 3: Gaycy told him this or not, he told a victim,
Speaker 3: you know you better, you know, lay off Gaysey and
Speaker 3: not prosecute him and don't go to the police anymore
Speaker 3: and don't continue this case. Well, eventually all three of
Speaker 3: those kids went to the police, so the older teenager
Speaker 3: ratted on Gaycy. And this is important because there are
Speaker 3: theories abound, but it's my theory that Gaysey acted one
Speaker 3: hundred percent alone. Other than you know, these kids he
Speaker 3: hired to build dig these ditches. He learned from Waterloo
Speaker 3: not to involve someone else because if you involve someone else,
Speaker 3: they could rat you out unless you have something on them,
Speaker 3: you know. And then when we talk about his prison
Speaker 3: lock up, he was released after eighteen months. Now, if
Speaker 3: he would have served his entire tenure sentence, and he
Speaker 3: was released because of the pear people at Waterloo, they
Speaker 3: made that decision. There were one or two people, and
Speaker 3: it's to me they're the ultimate culprit. But they couldn't
Speaker 3: predict what was going to happen. And if he would
Speaker 3: have been released ten years, he would have been released
Speaker 3: right around the same time that he killed his last victim.
Speaker 3: So all those thirty three young boys would have been
Speaker 3: alive if he would have served that ten year sentence.
Speaker 3: But how did he do it? He was a master
Speaker 3: con man, so in prison he played the good guy.
Speaker 3: He was so good there that they gave him a
Speaker 3: white shirt so he would stand out from the other inmates.
Speaker 3: He was special. He brought an entire miniature golf course
Speaker 3: which was donated. He had it sent to the prison
Speaker 3: and he built it with the other prisoners, which that
Speaker 3: miniature golf course is still at Animosa Penitentiary. Very interesting
Speaker 3: when he looked. He did a toy drive. He was
Speaker 3: a chef in prison. He was part of the prison choir.
Speaker 3: He knew what he was doing. He learned in Waterloo,
Speaker 3: he learned from Animosa Penitentiary. When he was let out
Speaker 3: of there, he was basically like a tiger being let
Speaker 3: out of a cage because he had all this experience.
Speaker 2: You have a fascinating interview with Greg godsick sister, and
Speaker 2: she talks about her mother's response and when Greg goes missing.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about this confrontation with the
Speaker 2: mother and Gacy and just some of the information imparted
Speaker 2: in this interview with Greg's sister.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was important for me to have a victim's relative,
Speaker 3: and I didn't want to bother the families. I really
Speaker 3: didn't reach out to the families. A contact of mine
Speaker 3: new Eugenia Godsick, Greg Godzick's sister, so I interviewed her
Speaker 3: and again, very sad but what happened was Gregory Godzick
Speaker 3: came home one day and told his mom and sister
Speaker 3: and family that, hey, this guy, this contractor is going
Speaker 3: to hire me. He came into my job. He said
Speaker 3: he'll pay me twice what they're paying me. And then
Speaker 3: his mother's like, oh, I don't know about that. And
Speaker 3: so then he did some work for Gacy for a
Speaker 3: couple of days and he was digging ditches and he
Speaker 3: told his mother, He's got us digging in his crawl space.
Speaker 3: We're digging these ditches. Well he didn't say they were ditches,
Speaker 3: of course they didn't know that at the time, but
Speaker 3: Gasey said they were for the issues with the rain
Speaker 3: water in the crawl space, so they had to dig
Speaker 3: these trenches. He said they were trenches, and the mother
Speaker 3: was kind of against it, but Gregory Godzick would still
Speaker 3: go and see Gacy. Gregory Godzick went out with his
Speaker 3: girlfriend one night and then said he was going to
Speaker 3: pick up a check and he was never seen again. Well,
Speaker 3: Gregory went to Gacy's place to pick up a check
Speaker 3: and that's when Gacy murdered him. And ironically enough, Gasey
Speaker 3: put Gregory's body in the same ditch that Gregory dug,
Speaker 3: so he dug his own grave, which is extreme sad.
Speaker 3: And then the mother went to Gacy's house because she
Speaker 3: didn't believe, you know, she kind of knew that, okay,
Speaker 3: he was seen last with Gasey. She confronted Gacy and
Speaker 3: he invited her in the house, so she was standing
Speaker 3: above her son's grave when she was in the house.
Speaker 3: I'm sure Gacy loved that, knowing his character, but he
Speaker 3: told her, oh, there was a voicemail on my voice
Speaker 3: message on my answering machine that he called. He said
Speaker 3: he ran off to Puerto Rico with someone, and eventually
Speaker 3: someone did call from Puerto Rico, so Gasey must have
Speaker 3: had that covered. Someone else must have called, which is strange,
Speaker 3: but I'm sure he set that up. And Gregory's mother said, well,
Speaker 3: can I hear the message? She said, oh, no, I
Speaker 3: erased it. So and then that was it. So for
Speaker 3: you know, these whatever two or three years until Gacy
Speaker 3: was apprehended, you know, there was Gregory just disappeared, like
Speaker 3: many of these other children.
Speaker 2: That Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now,
Speaker 2: people are more familiar now because of various documentaries and
Speaker 2: also the book by Courtney Lund O'Neill, and also the
Speaker 2: book Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy with Karen Conti,
Speaker 2: which is one of the other interviews that you have,
Speaker 2: incredible interviews that you have with John Wayne Gacy's death
Speaker 2: row attorney. So let's talk about the incredible information that
Speaker 2: was imparted to Detective Dave Hackmeister and also Detective Mike Albrick,
Speaker 2: and then when the audience learns and as well the
Speaker 2: world learns via these two detectives, the incredible ruses that
Speaker 2: Gaysey employs, the rope trick, the handcuff trick, and then
Speaker 2: the graphic and gory details of the murders themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, as the two off there were actually four
Speaker 3: officers that were surveilling Gaysey at the time. Mike Albrecht
Speaker 3: was a detective who are actually arrested at Gacy and
Speaker 3: Albrecht was on the night shift with Hackmeister. They were
Speaker 3: in separate cars. One of the strange things, well many
Speaker 3: strange things happened. Obviously, it kind of goes in the
Speaker 3: realm of absurdity, kind of like Goodfellas does. It's a
Speaker 3: true story, but you're kind of laughing at the absurdity
Speaker 3: of it and just being stupefied by it that here
Speaker 3: he is. He's telling the cops where he's going to go.
Speaker 3: He invites them over to his table to eat with him,
Speaker 3: drinks beer with them. They almost get into accidents. He
Speaker 3: takes them on high speed chases, and then at one
Speaker 3: point they're in a restaurant and he's sitting Gaysy's with
Speaker 3: Dave Hackmeister and he tells them, oh, man, it's great
Speaker 3: to be a clown. You could be at parades, put
Speaker 3: your arm around a woman, get a feel. It's awesome.
Speaker 3: And then he looks them directly in the eyes and
Speaker 3: he says, did you know that clowns could get away
Speaker 3: with murder? Basically telling him what he did. And I'm
Speaker 3: sure once again Gasey loved that. That was very chilling.
Speaker 3: So eventually, once Gacy is apprehended, you know, he gives
Speaker 3: these statements where he tells what he did to these
Speaker 3: young victims. He would trick them into handcuffs. He would
Speaker 3: tell them, I'm a registered clown here, look what I
Speaker 3: can do. And he had a key on him, so
Speaker 3: he would put the handcuffs on himself and he would
Speaker 3: get out of the handcuffs with the key. He knew
Speaker 3: how to do that trick. And then he would hand
Speaker 3: the keys to a young man and say here, you
Speaker 3: try it now. And once he tricked them into the handcuffs,
Speaker 3: he would tell them, well, you need the key, you're
Speaker 3: not getting out of the handcuffs. And then the next
Speaker 3: thing would be is he would put them through a
Speaker 3: night of tortures, painful tortures, rape. He would dunk their
Speaker 3: heads in water and revive them, try to drown them,
Speaker 3: beat them, just awful, awful tortures throughout the entire night.
Speaker 3: Some he would let go. Some he would kill. And
Speaker 3: if he wanted to kill them, he said he would
Speaker 3: let them go if he thought they were going to
Speaker 3: go to the police or tell other people about what
Speaker 3: he did with the vicary them and you know, being
Speaker 3: a homosexual, and he didn't want that out there. So
Speaker 3: what he would do is after the handcuff trick, he
Speaker 3: performed his what he called the rope trick. And he
Speaker 3: would take an ordinary clothesline rope, just a couple feet long,
Speaker 3: and he would put it around their neck, tie one
Speaker 3: loop in the back, put like a hammer handle or
Speaker 3: a stick in there tie another loop, and then he
Speaker 3: would there were three loops actually, and then he would
Speaker 3: twist that probably once or twice, maybe three times, and
Speaker 3: they would die with from a you know, suffocation from
Speaker 3: being choked by that clothesline within fifteen to thirty seconds,
Speaker 3: and there was nothing they could do. They would reach
Speaker 3: for their neck to try and pull the rope out,
Speaker 3: but they had to actually reach behind them and they
Speaker 3: couldn't reach the stick to get it out. And then
Speaker 3: what he would do is he would just take them
Speaker 3: to the crawl space door in his house, throw them
Speaker 3: down there, and either that day or the next day,
Speaker 3: he would bury them in one of the train which
Speaker 3: was already dug by some of these other teenage workers
Speaker 3: that he hired. And it was awful. Eventually there were
Speaker 3: thirty three bodies. At the end, there was no more
Speaker 3: room on his property, so he threw four in the river.
Speaker 3: He says five. They never found a fifth body, but
Speaker 3: there were twenty six in the crawl space right under
Speaker 3: his house buried. There was one in the garage, there
Speaker 3: was one in the driveway, and one under the addition
Speaker 3: of the house.
Speaker 2: Very interesting. We didn't talk about early on when he
Speaker 2: was having all kinds of problems in school, not really
Speaker 2: fitting in, being socially awkward. He joined the Cub Scouts
Speaker 2: and seemed to thrive somewhat in the Cub Scouts. And
Speaker 2: that's where he learned about the tourniquet. Not didn't he.
Speaker 3: Yes, And he even admitted that in an interview. He said,
Speaker 3: the only knot that I knew how to tie was
Speaker 3: the tourniquet. So it's again, I wanted to put those
Speaker 3: pieces together. And you know, all of these early experiences
Speaker 3: for serial killers ultimately lead them to what they do
Speaker 3: later in life.
Speaker 2: It's interesting for the officers, the detectives. He draws a map,
Speaker 2: a very accurate one, they say in retrospect, where exactly
Speaker 2: the bodies were, and he is crucial in trying to
Speaker 2: identify who these people were.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Gasey took pride in what everything he did, whether
Speaker 3: his whether it was his clean house or his construction work,
Speaker 3: he took pride in it. At first, when he was interrogated,
Speaker 3: he was wishy washy. Yeah, there's some I don't know
Speaker 3: how many you know, playing games with the detectives, but
Speaker 3: he knew exactly where they were. He knew exactly how
Speaker 3: many there were. He knew exactly where he threw them off.
Speaker 3: He threw them off the sprit Smith Bridge in Shanahan, Illinois,
Speaker 3: because he took them to the piling and he said,
Speaker 3: here's where I threw him off, right here. So being
Speaker 3: a contractor, he knew exacts any new numbers. And it
Speaker 3: was very important for me to have Larry Finder and
Speaker 3: Mike Albrecht on camera together talking about this because in
Speaker 3: over forty years of documentaries, no one's ever got them together.
Speaker 3: And I thought, well, these are the two, you know,
Speaker 3: people who stood in front of the cell when Gacy
Speaker 3: drew that drawing. Why the hell Holly would get these
Speaker 3: people together. And I thought, well, okay, it was meant
Speaker 3: for me to get them together. And they show you
Speaker 3: exactly what he did, and they talk about how he
Speaker 3: was writing and how the pen wasn't working at first,
Speaker 3: you know, and there are a lot of these conspiracy theories,
Speaker 3: and of course Gasey later said, oh, I didn't do
Speaker 3: these murders, and I don't remember drawing that, but yeah,
Speaker 3: that was a crucial thing, the drawing of the bodies
Speaker 3: in the crawl space, and you could even see Gaycy
Speaker 3: putting numbers on there. And there's one where he has
Speaker 3: thirty three. They weren't all in that crawl space, but
Speaker 3: I think he was new that total and he was
Speaker 3: kind of like working back from it.
Speaker 2: You have in the film about the discovery of the
Speaker 2: board with the holes for restraint for be able to
Speaker 2: restraint victims, and you say that Casey got this idea
Speaker 2: from the Houston murders and Elmer Wayne Henley and this
Speaker 2: henchman or the other way around Dean Coral.
Speaker 3: Yes, Gasey admitted that he was inspired by the Houston
Speaker 3: mass murders. Now these were before Gacy started his murders,
Speaker 3: but he obviously knew about them. And Elmer Wayne Henley
Speaker 3: would bring young teenage male boys as victims to Dean
Speaker 3: Coral and they would eventually torture them, rape them, and
Speaker 3: kill them, and they would bury them in a boat shed,
Speaker 3: which was in the boat shed was a dirt floor,
Speaker 3: so they buried them in a spot where no one
Speaker 3: but them really had access to and no one probably
Speaker 3: wouldn't find the bodies because they're under the ground there.
Speaker 3: And a few were buried on a beach somewhere, and
Speaker 3: when they buried them, they bury them in plastic bags.
Speaker 3: And they threw lime on them, quicklime, and that's what
Speaker 3: Gasey did with his victims as well. Very interesting. And
Speaker 3: they did have a torture board where they would handcuff
Speaker 3: their victims too, and that's how Gacy made this board
Speaker 3: to incapacitate his victims. Interestingly enough, there was one point
Speaker 3: where through a contact, I got to briefly speak on
Speaker 3: the phone with ELM Wayne Henley and I told him
Speaker 3: that and I said, Gasey said, you inspired him, you know,
Speaker 3: in the murder methods that he used on his victims.
Speaker 3: And I loved his response because he told me, well,
Speaker 3: he's got to blame somebody.
Speaker 2: That Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now,
Speaker 2: tell us about some of the other interviews that you
Speaker 2: have in this documentary, including Karen Conti and also very
Speaker 2: interesting somebody that experiences John Wayne Gacy behind bars, Ricky
Speaker 2: Carter at a correctional center. He's an officer.
Speaker 3: Yes. Again, it was my goal to get as many
Speaker 3: people who were involved with the case in the mini
Speaker 3: series of mine and the Minards segment is interesting, again,
Speaker 3: very strangely enough, very comical in a sense because the
Speaker 3: absurdities Gasey changed prison policy. By you, they were charging
Speaker 3: too much for our photocopies. They agreed with him, they
Speaker 3: changed prison policy. He was selling paintings. Ricky Carter is
Speaker 3: the guard who worked the day shift, I'm sorry, the
Speaker 3: night shift with Gaysey, so he relayed first hand information
Speaker 3: about what went on with the prison. Because there are
Speaker 3: a lot of these other misconceptions. Gacy never had a
Speaker 3: personal phone in his cell, but Gasey was selling paintings,
Speaker 3: writing books, writing letters, doing all these offensive things for
Speaker 3: the victims for fourteen years on death Row. Episode seven
Speaker 3: has the most interviewees in it. Karen Conti, who is
Speaker 3: his last attorney on death Row. She talks about what
Speaker 3: it was like there. The murder metal band Macabre, who
Speaker 3: sings songs on serial killers. They went to visit him,
Speaker 3: They bought paintings from him. He was extremely popular. He
Speaker 3: was really the first American celebrity serial killer in that
Speaker 3: aspect that all these people from all around the world
Speaker 3: wanted to visit him and write him and they could.
Speaker 3: Strangely enough, you know, it's different nowadays, but back then
Speaker 3: it was very easy. And the absurdity of it, of
Speaker 3: you know, what was going on in there and fascinating
Speaker 3: to me. How you know Rick Stayton, his collector, who
Speaker 3: is a collector and he would sell Gaycy's paintings for him.
Speaker 3: Just a fascinating look at the worldwide interest and appeal
Speaker 3: of Gacy as a serial killer.
Speaker 2: Again strangely, you know, it's interesting too. He galvanizes the
Speaker 2: public by making some money. It's reported he's making some
Speaker 2: money from these paintings and it outrages everyone, and then
Speaker 2: the state sues him for room and board, tries to
Speaker 2: stop him from painting again. He's litigious and wants to
Speaker 2: threaten them with a lawsuit if he can't continue, and
Speaker 2: so he does. And his career he's quite ambitious, according
Speaker 2: to your interviewee Rick Statten, that he is all about
Speaker 2: promotion and furthering his career in painting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he even painted Death Row. So he was always idustrious,
Speaker 3: ever since he was a kid, working and even in
Speaker 3: prison he was probably busy twenty four to seven. He
Speaker 3: had a logbook of everything he did every minute while
Speaker 3: he was in prisoned. He even compiled which I think
Speaker 3: is very disgusting. He compiled a big binder with information
Speaker 3: on all of his victims so he could look at
Speaker 3: this every day and salivate over very disgusting. But for
Speaker 3: fourteen years, that's what would happen. He would get banned
Speaker 3: from selling the paintings case, he would have the attorneys involved.
Speaker 3: You know, it was amazing, how you know the legal
Speaker 3: process actually helped Gaysey in prison.
Speaker 2: Strangely enough, you feature a reporter that gets a big
Speaker 2: break and a scoop and his name is Walter Jacobson,
Speaker 2: and he worked at CBS and he gets one on
Speaker 2: one with John Wayne Gacy, and it's fascinating to see
Speaker 2: or to hear about some of the things that John
Speaker 2: Wayne Gacy tells him in that interview.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really wish I could have used that interview,
Speaker 3: but you know, CBS owns the interview and they could
Speaker 3: charge what they want. I don't understand, though, why they
Speaker 3: would charge ninety thousand dollars for two minutes of footage
Speaker 3: to an independent filmmaker who's creating a factual documentary. Could
Speaker 3: I have put it in there, maybe, could have gotten
Speaker 3: away with it for fair use maybe, But you know,
Speaker 3: I never do that. I never, you know, would steal anything.
Speaker 3: Everything's you know, on the level and legit, and I
Speaker 3: have permission, But in one of the interviews, you know,
Speaker 3: Walter Jacobson asked him. He says, well, tell me about
Speaker 3: this one victim, this Bukovich, Butkovich, and he Gasey tells them, oh, no, Butkovich, No,
Speaker 3: he's not one of the five that I killed. And
Speaker 3: he said, you just listen to what you just said.
Speaker 3: You said he wasn't one of the five that you killed.
Speaker 3: And then Gasey said, oh, okay, you're right, you misunderstood me.
Speaker 3: Forget about that. So he slipped and admitted it right there.
Speaker 3: That interview was Gasey's first on camera interview at death Row,
Speaker 3: and it was important for me as a local Chicago
Speaker 3: and to have Walter Jacobson on to talk about his
Speaker 3: experiences everything, you know, through the execution because he was
Speaker 3: a witness to that as well.
Speaker 2: Statton talks about how much correspondence Gasey got thousands of
Speaker 2: letters and from all kinds of people, all kinds of
Speaker 2: walks of life, but also that he had a one
Speaker 2: nine hundred number and they would wheel a telephone in
Speaker 2: and he would just have basically recorded denial that he
Speaker 2: was guilty of anything at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he created this nine hundred number where you would
Speaker 3: call and just listen to him. Basically, he would go
Speaker 3: down this list of things he was accused of and
Speaker 3: he would tell, you know, his reasons why you know,
Speaker 3: he didn't do them, or he wasn't around and it
Speaker 3: couldn't possibly be him. So he would make money off
Speaker 3: of that as well, and most of this money was
Speaker 3: sent to his sister, you know, Rick would get a
Speaker 3: cut of it. But interestingly enough, what they would do
Speaker 3: in the prison is they would have this huge payphone,
Speaker 3: a huge metal payphone with a long line hundred you know,
Speaker 3: y hour to log line, and they would walk it
Speaker 3: down the death row and they would dial the number
Speaker 3: for the prisoners and hand on the phone and they
Speaker 3: would talk. So people would call Gasey and Gacy would
Speaker 3: call people in prison, which again is very fascinating, and
Speaker 3: he would spend time, you know, talking to these people.
Speaker 3: And there were many people out there that recorded their
Speaker 3: conversations and those are floating out there as well, and
Speaker 3: I believe some of those were used on some of
Speaker 3: these other documentary shows.
Speaker 2: In this series, you try to attempt to get some
Speaker 2: people to talk about the psychology of John Wayne Gacy
Speaker 2: and try to make some conclusions as to the formation,
Speaker 2: the origins of his sexual and his violent behavior.
Speaker 3: Yeah, several, there are I believe there are only two
Speaker 3: psychiatrist psychologists who are still alive from the case, and
Speaker 3: I did interview Helen Morrison. But when you really look
Speaker 3: at the statements that were given, you know, about Casey's psychology,
Speaker 3: it varied. It went everywhere from obviously narcissistic, some multiple
Speaker 3: personality disorder which he didn't have. So the defense and
Speaker 3: the prosecution had all these different theories. And again the
Speaker 3: one that I believe the most or favor is the
Speaker 3: one that he hated these young men. He hated himself
Speaker 3: and he took it out on these young men. So
Speaker 3: he saw them as symbolically, you know, killing that gay
Speaker 3: part of himself or that dirty part of himself that
Speaker 3: he was shamed about. There are so many experts. Bill Huncle,
Speaker 3: who was the prosecutor in the case, he passed away recently,
Speaker 3: But Bill Kunkle to me, was really the key master.
Speaker 3: Terry Sullivan, you know, obviously is a wealth of information.
Speaker 3: But there were times where I would email or call
Speaker 3: Bill Cuncle with a question and he would send me
Speaker 3: back a long email or talk to me on the
Speaker 3: phone in detail. He knew every aspect of the gay
Speaker 3: sy case, every single hair of the case, and he
Speaker 3: still did at the end when you saw the interview
Speaker 3: when I interviewed him, So you know, everyone, you know,
Speaker 3: Karen Conti gives a great perspective on gaycy because again
Speaker 3: she was there, she spent a lot of time with him,
Speaker 3: and she said, a lot of people aren't going to
Speaker 3: like this, but he was a very funny guy. She said,
Speaker 3: we had a lot of fun and we talked about things.
Speaker 3: And again, you know, there are many ways to deal
Speaker 3: with this darkness. And as we know, there are probably
Speaker 3: many officers who you know on a case and they
Speaker 3: joke about it because it's so deep. You know, you
Speaker 3: try to make this light of it rather than standing
Speaker 3: there crying about it because it is so awful.
Speaker 2: And you also tie in, you said that you are gay,
Speaker 2: and so you share that with John Wayne Gacy, but
Speaker 2: just the societal pressures. You say that gays were considered
Speaker 2: either criminal, mentally ill at that time, it was considered
Speaker 2: a mental illness, or just rejected from religion or society
Speaker 2: in general. And then to top it off with his
Speaker 2: father so adamantly stating that he hated homosexuals and effeminine men.
Speaker 2: That gasey again, like you say, I had this self loathing,
Speaker 2: but also the role of humiliation in that. A lot
Speaker 2: of people thought that and his parents thought that maybe
Speaker 2: humiliating him when he was caught naked with the girl
Speaker 2: down the street, or when he was caught burying the panties,
Speaker 2: that humiliation would be there to absolve his problems or
Speaker 2: cure him of his desires.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Kathy Clevenger does talk about that, and she said,
Speaker 3: that's the worst thing a parent could do, that, you know,
Speaker 3: humiliate them, because in their mind, that pairs sex with shame,
Speaker 3: and that's what he was. He was ashamed of having sex.
Speaker 3: He was ashamed of his sexuality, and that's kind of
Speaker 3: what they instilled at him by, you know, chastising him
Speaker 3: for touching this young girl. You know, when he was
Speaker 3: a little boy, they touched each other, got naked, whatever,
Speaker 3: And I'm sure it's somewhat a normal childhood thing, but
Speaker 3: they made it out to be the worst thing in
Speaker 3: the world. So at first thing he's learning about sexuality
Speaker 3: is that it's embarrassing, it's wrong. What are you doing?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And that goes into religion. As well. I'm sure that aspect,
Speaker 3: and when they forced him to wear the panties all day,
Speaker 3: the humiliation was a big part of creating him as
Speaker 3: who he was. And then you throw on the fact
Speaker 3: that he's a homosexual. In having these feelings again, you
Speaker 3: could see the storm inside of him which would lead
Speaker 3: to those blackouts and seizures which weren't health related but
Speaker 3: more mentally related.
Speaker 2: It's interesting when he is adamant that he's not homosexual,
Speaker 2: that he's bisexual, and then he has the rationalization why
Speaker 2: he's much different than the homosexual victims that he kills.
Speaker 2: Tell us how he reconciles this in his mind.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, in the ninth teen seventies there was a
Speaker 3: big gay liberation movement, so it was coming to the
Speaker 3: forefront of people's attention. So at that time for Gacy,
Speaker 3: it might have been a little hip or cool to
Speaker 3: say I'm bisexual, and of course that might have made
Speaker 3: him a little interesting or not in other people's eyes.
Speaker 3: But he wouldn't say he was homosexual. He would only
Speaker 3: go to as far as to say he was bisexual
Speaker 3: because that gives him somewhat of an out to say, well,
Speaker 3: I do sleep, I mainly sleep with and women, but
Speaker 3: I sometimes I have fun with men. So again there
Speaker 3: was this shame aspect, and that was his way of
Speaker 3: saying it, and he was adamant about it. Even when
Speaker 3: he was interrogated the first time, I'm not homosexual, and
Speaker 3: they said, he was very adamant about that, and that
Speaker 3: just shows you how society saw homosexuals at that time period.
Speaker 3: It definitely created issues with his mentality and psyche.
Speaker 2: What he said was that he didn't love them even
Speaker 2: though he had sex with them, so he kind of
Speaker 2: rationalized it like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And what's interesting, Karen County also said that Gacy
Speaker 3: stated that he never kissed a man above the waist,
Speaker 3: so it's you could see that, Yeah, he didn't love them,
Speaker 3: He just wanted to have sex with them. And you
Speaker 3: could kind of see that carry over to his victims,
Speaker 3: that they were just bodies. He would call them bodies.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't call them you know, people or victims. He
Speaker 3: would just say their bodies because that's how he saw them,
Speaker 3: and many serial killers do. Once they're done, they're just material.
Speaker 3: They're nothing. There's something to be played with or thrown
Speaker 3: away or discarded.
Speaker 2: I thought it was very interesting as well that he
Speaker 2: goes to prison for being a sex offender, and during
Speaker 2: that time he's in prison, his father dies on Christmas,
Speaker 2: and then you write that later on, even though he
Speaker 2: had this incredibly bad relationship, he routinely visits his father's grave.
Speaker 2: So I thought, psychologically this was a crucial moment in
Speaker 2: his psychological development.
Speaker 3: Yes, he you know, And that's the strange thing, the
Speaker 3: dichotomy and the duality of these serial killers. You know,
Speaker 3: at one point after he was apprehended, he was crying
Speaker 3: when he read a letter that he wrote to his mother.
Speaker 3: I do believe he loved his sisters, his mother and
Speaker 3: his father. I think that is possible, and there is
Speaker 3: that duality and that you know, kind of separation. But
Speaker 3: that was a big thing for Gasey because he never
Speaker 3: got to prove himself in his father's eyes, to be
Speaker 3: the man that his father wanted him to be. And
Speaker 3: very interestingly enough, Gacy told his second wife, Carol that
Speaker 3: one day she's going to read him about him on
Speaker 3: the cover of every newspaper. So, you know, he he
Speaker 3: had grand plans to become something, and he did. He
Speaker 3: became known throughout the world, but not for the right things.
Speaker 3: You know, he kind of accomplished what he wanted to do,
Speaker 3: what his father wanted to do, but just in this
Speaker 3: wicked way.
Speaker 2: Very interesting. One of the guests that you have I
Speaker 2: mentioned Greg Grey, God's sister, and I thought it was
Speaker 2: very interesting. She wanted to attend the execution and she did,
Speaker 2: but was not very satisfied with what happened there at
Speaker 2: that time.
Speaker 3: That's another perspective I wanted to show because I think
Speaker 3: Hollywood may be a little afraid of getting into more
Speaker 3: of these details. A lot of times they'll just gloss
Speaker 3: over things, and their documentaries they'll tell a little nugget
Speaker 3: of information, but nothing more. We don't hear about these things.
Speaker 3: I was shocked to hear that only the reporters, prosecutors,
Speaker 3: and people involved with the actual case were allowed to
Speaker 3: see Gacy's execution, where the family members of the victims
Speaker 3: were put in a windowless room with a telephone and
Speaker 3: somers and that's it. So they would sit there and
Speaker 3: they would get a call on that phone and say, okay,
Speaker 3: we're going to begin the execution process. And then of
Speaker 3: course there was a problem with the line, so there
Speaker 3: was a delay. And then she said after he was executed.
Speaker 3: They just called that phone. They picked it up and
Speaker 3: they said, Okay, he's gone, and that's it. I think
Speaker 3: kind of an injustice and a disservice to the victims' families.
Speaker 3: And there was a lot of that that we don't
Speaker 3: hear about. Supposedly there was this fund at the time
Speaker 3: for kind of like Chicago wrongful death victims or whatever,
Speaker 3: and that would pay out ten thousand dollars. And when
Speaker 3: the Godzak family tried to claim that because they paid
Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars for a private investigator before Gacy was apprehended,
Speaker 3: the city told them, no, we're not going to pay
Speaker 3: out ten thousand dollars to every thirty three you know,
Speaker 3: family members. Just interesting. How yeah. Yeah, And another thing
Speaker 3: I do want to mention to, you know, the police
Speaker 3: get a bad rap in all of these documentaries, and
Speaker 3: you know, I'm all about justice and injustice and shedding
Speaker 3: light on injustices. But I hope through my documentary I
Speaker 3: also illustrated that it was the time period. People don't
Speaker 3: realize that that yes, okay, Gasey, you know, someone says
Speaker 3: he was last seen with this boy that went missing. Okay,
Speaker 3: the police knock on his door, he invites them in.
Speaker 3: There's no smell. We learned that through my documentary. So
Speaker 3: the house is fine, there's no signs of struggle. They're
Speaker 3: not going to take fingerprints, they're not going to do
Speaker 3: forensics because they didn't have DNA typing at that time period,
Speaker 3: so they just walk out the door. You know, I
Speaker 3: don't fault the Chicago Police Department at all, because the
Speaker 3: districts didn't even communicate with each other, you know, and
Speaker 3: you know they were missing persons. That was it, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, they did the best. There was a one
Speaker 3: time where they put gaycy on a two weeks stakeout
Speaker 3: and they watched this The Chicago police watch this house
Speaker 3: for two weeks, so they did their due diligence, but
Speaker 3: it was the unfortunately, it was the lack of technology
Speaker 3: at the time period. Like the detectives said, here they are,
Speaker 3: you know, having Gaycye under surveillance, and their CBS don't
Speaker 3: work when they got too far away from headquarters, so
Speaker 3: they had to carry quarters to go to payphones. Yeah wow,
Speaker 3: I mean, this is the absurdity of the case. The
Speaker 3: biggest mass you know, serial killer in history, and the
Speaker 3: detectives are going to payphones with quarters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we've heard about this before, just the
Speaker 2: agencies didn't communicate. It wasn't routine, and they in the
Speaker 2: documentary you show that they had a little filing cabinet
Speaker 2: with little files and there was no real way of
Speaker 2: anybody updating or seeing the progress of any of the information,
Speaker 2: and there was no coordination to be able to do
Speaker 2: that in the first place.
Speaker 3: That's true, and you know, in a way, Gaysey did
Speaker 3: some good things. You know now they're the investigation is
Speaker 3: not himself, but the investigation is still ongoing because they
Speaker 3: have to identify for or five more victims which they
Speaker 3: haven't identified. And through that investigation, they found people who
Speaker 3: were thought to be dead who weren't victims of Gayy,
Speaker 3: but he found them alive. So there's that. Plus this
Speaker 3: nationwide database CODIS and another database were created that stores
Speaker 3: all the DNA from criminals from this crime scenes, the victims,
Speaker 3: the offenders. There's all that information now because they learned
Speaker 3: from the Gaycy case that they needed to do that.
Speaker 3: And then you know, when I was younger, I remember
Speaker 3: kids faces and information being put on milk bottles and
Speaker 3: milk carts. That was because of Gaycy. All these children
Speaker 3: were missing, so they said, this is another way that
Speaker 3: we could spread the news and have you know, the
Speaker 3: general public hopefully see one of these children and call
Speaker 3: in and report it.
Speaker 2: And also different protocols other than the seventy seventy two
Speaker 2: hours that they had to wait at that time before
Speaker 2: somebody could considered missing. So some good things from a
Speaker 2: very bad thing. Definitely, I want to thank you very
Speaker 2: much for coming on and talking about the John Wayne
Speaker 2: Gacy murders, Life and death in Chicago for people, this
Speaker 2: is a Waterfront Productions. Can you tell us a little
Speaker 2: bit more details how many episodes, when it was released,
Speaker 2: and how people can watch this extraordinary film series.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's an eight part mini series. It totals almost
Speaker 3: eight hours, and it was released late September, initially on
Speaker 3: Blu Ray and DVD, which I'm still selling from my
Speaker 3: store and that store dot John Borowski dot com. And
Speaker 3: they come with a limited edition autographed card which is
Speaker 3: autographed by some of the officials in the case. And
Speaker 3: then the end of October it was released on Amazon Prime,
Speaker 3: so you can view it on Amazon Prime for streaming
Speaker 3: or by the DVD or Blu Ray. And middle of
Speaker 3: this year. It's going to be on other channels such
Speaker 3: as to be in YouTube and some other iTunes and
Speaker 3: other channel outlets. I just wanted to put out there
Speaker 3: at first where I was able to control it. So yeah,
Speaker 3: The John Wayne Gacy Murders. It's on Amazon. The Gasey
Speaker 3: site is Gaseymurders dot com and my website is Johnbowski
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 2: and talking about your film series, The John Wayne Gacy Murders,
Speaker 2: Life and Death in Chicago. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: this interview, and have yourself a great evening and good night.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Dan, thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 1: Good night,