Episode 299: John Wayne Gacy, Part 2

The First Degree

Alexis Linkletter and Jac Vanek

True Crime, Society & Culture, News

4.5 • 10K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On December 11th, 1978, a 15-year-old boy disappeared after finishing work at a drugstore in Des Plaines, Illinois. Law enforcement was soon on the case and two days later, a search warrant was executed at a family home in the suburbs. But what investigators uncover in the coming weeks and months is beyond their wildest and most grotesque nightmares, as the public is left aghast when one of the country’s most infamous and prolific serial killers is exposed. Someone who killed not just Robert Jerome Piest, but at least 32 other boys and young men. Including 18-year-old Matthew Bowman, the uncle of Megan, one of two First Degree sources interviewed for these episodes. In part 2, a new voice joins the conversation in the form of attorney and author Karen Conti, who represented Gacy in his final death penalty appeal and wrote a book about her experience.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's a degree.
0:02.0	First degree.
0:04.0	First degree.
0:05.0	First degree.
0:06.0	First degree.
0:07.0	The first degree.
0:08.0	The first degree.
0:09.0	You see it on the news.
0:10.0	See it on the table and you see it on Facebook.
0:13.0	These things are supposed to happen in movies, not in real life.
0:16.0	There is nothing that indicated that he had the ability to do what he did and that alone is chilling because it makes you think
0:30.0	wow if he has that normalcy and that facade who else do I know that I'm surrounded by
0:37.5	walking you know into my law office or encountering in my apartment building, what are they capable of?
0:44.5	I knew this was going to be a high profile case and because this was one of the first
0:49.0	executions in a long time in Illinois, it was going to get even more press and this was my way to
0:54.4	stand up and make the arguments to the public and I have always said that it's
0:59.4	easy to say oh just kill, he's a monster.
1:02.7	I wasn't delusional.
1:03.8	I knew that this was probably going to be lost
1:07.0	and he was going to be executed the very minute
1:09.5	that he was scheduled.
1:10.6	But I was emotionally distraught and stressed out because this was on my watch and I felt that I needed to do everything possible.
	...

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