When we began this podcast, the concept was relatively simple. We wanted to tell a much more

detailed narrative of the investigation, arrest, and trial of John Wayne Gacy, but with a much

greater emphasis on remembering the victims that had been done previously, ever really, and of course

playing the Gacy tapes. They were, after all, the initial draw to the podcast.

Now, I get people wanting to listen to the tapes to hear what Gacy has to say for himself.

To me personally, I think I am most shocked when I hear his words at his terrifying lack of

humanity. I mean, we have all become desensitized by the amount of violence that we are exposed to

on a daily basis. Violence, which has always been a part of humanity, yet never in our existence

have we had the amount of information that we have at our fingertips. Every instance of every day

pumping our minds full of violent imagery that just never seems to end, and which really

only serves to lay waste to our senses. We become numb to it, not because we don't care,

but rather to protect our own psyches. So when we hear Gacy talk about killing with such an

utter disregard for human life, it bothers us to be certain, but it doesn't shock us to our

cores as it should, not need more desensitized. I'm sure there are listeners out there to whom

this notion may not apply, but they are the exception, not the rule. So we look for the answer

from Gacy. Why? Which we know will never come. Yet we are magnetically drawn to him in particular,

in this massive human drama, because he is the big soulless raging flame that we cannot take

our eyes off of. This results in all of us as consumers of information, to consider everything

in everyone else that make up this gruesome tale, to be nothing more than collateral damage,

background noise. It shouldn't be that way. We here at Defense Diaries have rejected this impulse,

and we have chosen to make Gacy the background noise. Instead, we are focusing on everyone and

everything else, I think for the first time, including when the case itself actually took place.

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