The Haunting of Houses for Children Arouses a Damning Desire to Burn Ghosts in the Fire: John Wayne Gacy

Cold Case Murder Mysteries

True Crime

3.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2019

⏱️ 294 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From 1972 to 1978, infamous serial killer John Wayne Gacy, the "Killer Clown" murdered no fewer than 33 young men and teen boys in his ranch home located in Cook County, IL near Chicago, a truth that came to light when the remains of 29 victims were discovered buried in the crawlspace of his house and elsewhere on the property. It was an atrocity that defied words, and left the investigators, in addition to the general public, wondering how any man could be such a cruel, heartless monster. And as they searched for answers in the cold eyes of the 36-year-old predator, what was lurking beneath in his soul revealed that the story started long before the murders, back when Gacy was just a little boy living under the tyrannical wrath of his abusive, alcoholic father. Join host Ryan Kraus for a journey back in time to explore John Wayne Gacy's childhood inside his father's house of horrors, and how it led to him creating his own one day.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everybody welcome back to Cold Case Murder Mysteries.
0:09.0	I'm your host Ryan Kraus returning for another foray into madness as we crack open the fascinating psychological
0:15.3	implications inherent within the crimes of infamous serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
0:21.0	We'll be exploring everything from the defining events of his abuse-riddled childhood,
0:25.0	to his vicious crimes, to the moment he was executed by lethal injection,
0:30.0	all in an effort to understand what made this guy tick.
0:33.0	Why did he kill?
0:35.0	From 1972 to 1978,
0:38.0	Gacy, a contractor and business owner who also worked part-time as a clown, entertaining at
0:44.1	children's parties, was responsible for no fewer than 33 murders of teen boys and
0:49.1	young men who were lured into his web of deception, mostly through the promise of employment at his company
0:55.7	for the purpose of paid sex, or with drugs. In combination with multiple other assaults,
1:02.4	and perhaps even more murders for which we remain unaware,
1:06.0	John Wayne Gacy solidified his name in the history books as a predator so dangerous and inhumane, he often found himself in the same sentence as
1:16.3	Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and other notorious criminals from that era.
1:21.9	He was a monster lurking in the shadows, but he did it with a smile.
1:26.8	Strangely enough, it's rumored the Gacy might have been the inspiration for Stephen King's
1:32.1	rendering of Pennywise the clown in his
1:34.5	1986 novel It. While I don't know if that's true, I can say two things for sure. One is that
1:42.2	there are significant similarities between the desires of
1:45.2	Pennywise and Gacy, as well as the same present in the thematic resonance of the fate suffered
1:51.6	by Pennywise and his victims in comparison. of the subsequent films adapted from the novel goes like this, You'll float too.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Cold Case Murder Mysteries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Cold Case Murder Mysteries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.