The

The For many of us, watching horror movies and listening to True Crime Podcasts is the closest we will ever

knowingly come to the killers living among us. But that wasn't the case for many young men

in America during the 1960s and

1970s. And the killer they would meet was quite unlike any other. He was born in 1942, Chicago.

John Stanley, our serial killer's father, was a mechanic and a World War I veteran who often beat and verbally

abused and tormented his son, a son who had become known as the infamous John Wayne Gasey.

John later recalled that the beatings from his father started when he was only four years old.

His mother, Marion, would often try to

shield John from her husband, but that only made the beatings worse. John Stanley would often

berate and belittle his son, calling him a sissy and a mama's boy for needing Marion's

protection. The beatings became so bad and so frequent that

John was perpetually afraid of getting into trouble. And that was why when a family friend began

molesting John when he was only seven, John kept it to himself instead of telling his father.

And John was always at risk of saying or doing the wrong thing. He wasn't like the other boys his

age. He was softer, quieter, and enjoyed spending time with his mother and sisters. A congenital heart

condition meant that he couldn't go out and play with the other children in the neighborhood,

or rough and tumble like the other boys liked to do. And his father's eyes, he was already a failure,

and that was something that John didn't believe he would ever be able to fix.

Things grew worse when John turned 11 and started experiencing blackouts and seizures.

Doctors discovered that he also had a brain clot as well as the heart condition.

They were able to treat the clot, but between treatments and other hospitalizations for a burst appendix, John had missed too

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