Crane - John Wayne Gacy: The True Crime Story of the Killer Clown

Every story has a beginning. Every human being, great or evil, was once just a harmless, small child. John Wayne Gacy was no different.

He was born on March 17, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, the only son and second of three children to John Stanley Gacy, an auto repair mechanist and World War I veteran; and Marion Elaine Robinson, a homemaker. Gacys paternal grandparents had immigrated to the United States from Poland, and he also had Danish heritage.

As a boy, Gacy soon became overweight, a trait that would lead to a serious lack of self-esteem as he grew up. But it wasnt his body that made his childhood a traumatizing period of his life. Despite his positive relationship with his sisters and mother, his father was an abusive alcoholic. One of his pastimes after arriving home from a tough day at work was to go down to the basement and drink brandy until he was drunk. Meanwhile, his terrified wife and children would wait for him at the dinner table until he finally finished and decided to eat. Failure to comply with this tradition meant taking a beating from the violent man.

Gacy often sought approval from his father, but never received a hint of paternal pride at all. Instead, the man would heap physical and verbal abuse on him from as early as age four, when he was beaten with a leather belt for disarranging some work components his father had assembled. Gacy was often belittled and compared with his sisters by his father, who labeled him dumb and stupid, and made him feel, in every single way, that he was not good enough for the man. Despite all of this, Gacy stated till his last days that he had never hated his dad.

His father would often whip the children with a razor strap until he felt satisfied that they were punished. Such was the case when, in 1949, he was informed that his son and another boy had sexually fondled a young girl. Gacy began to fear his fathers punishments so much, that later that year, he hid the fact that was being molested by a family friend--a man who would take him on truck rides and fondle him. Gacy believed his father would blame him for the abuse like he did everything else. However, his sister Karen stated many years after that the abuse had made them all stronger, having to toughen up against the beatings. She also added that the fact that Gacy did not cry while receiving the beatings made their father angrier as time passed.

Gacy was kept out of school sports activities due to a congenital heart condition, which, added to his already clumsy overweight body, caused him to be a victim of mockery and bullying. He was alienated by his peers and his self-esteem suffered as a result. At the age of 11, Gacy was struck on the forehead by a swing. The trauma caused a blood clot in his brain that went unnoticed until he reached the age of 16, when it was finally treated. However, before its discovery, Gacy would often suffer blackouts severe enough for him to spend months in the hospital, and consequently suffered in his grades. His father, a true bastard, believed that the blackouts were an attempt to gain sympathy and attention, and went so far as to say he was faking it while his son lay on a hospital bed.

Even one of Gacys few friends, a boy named Richard Dalke, was present during several instances when Gacys father abused him. He recalled instances when his father ridiculed or beat Gacy without reason. He once described an occasion when the man began shouting at his son with no provocation, then began to beat him. Gacy would simply protect himself by lifting his hands, never once striking back at his abuser.

John Wayne Gacy began an important incursion into politics at the age of 18, seeking the acceptance he had never received from his dad. He worked as an assistant precinct captain for a Democratic Party candidate, and despite further criticism from his father, became a candidate himself that same year. His father bought him a car, keeping the title in his own name until it was paid in full, but Gacy was only allowed to use it if he did as he was told. He grew tired of his fathers constant controlling and drove to Las Vegas, Nevada, leaving his home.

There, he briefly worked for an ambulance service before being transferred to work as a mortuary attendant. It was around this age that he began to realize his attraction to men, experiencing great turmoil over his sexuality. One night, he was left alone in the embalming room, and admittedly clambered into the coffin of a deceased male teenager, embracing and touching the body before feeling great shock at his own actions. This experience led him to return to Chicago, only three months after having left.