John Wayne Gacy’s Victims: The Chilling Truth Behind the Killer Clown
This article includes discussions of the rape and murder of children. Discretion is advised.
Peacock’s true crime drama Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy delves into the murders of the Killer Clown, and the truth of his crimes is just as horrific as depicted in the show. Serial killers have always fascinated people due to their twisted psychology and their almost inhuman actions. While many shows about serial killers exist, one of the best true crime series in recent years is Peacock’s John Wayne Gacy show. Rather than leaning into the exploitative and salacious approach of the ever-popular series Monster, the reviews of Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy appreciate how the series handled such a sensitive case respectfully. There are fictionalized elements within the show, but they largely stick to the facts of the serial killer’s crimes and the lives of the victims before their deaths. Sadly, John Wayne Gacy killed almost three dozen teenage boys.
John Wayne Gacy Murdered At Least 33 Teen & Young Adult Boys
John Wayne Gacy has remained one of the most notorious serial killers because of the brutality of his crimes and the fact that he mainly targeted teen boys. Most of his victims were tortured and/or raped before their deaths. Ultimately, he is known to have killed 33 people. According to PEOPLE, Gacy buried 26 bodies in the crawl space under his house, three were under the garden, and four more were dumped in the waterways. Because of the high number of victims, they’re too often lumped together as a statistic instead of individual people. Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy does a good job of showing them as people. I also feel it’s important to mention all of them individually. Here are the names of John Wayne Gacy’s identified victims and their ages at the time of death:
Timothy McCoy, 16
John Butkovich, 18
Darrell Sampson, 18
Randall Reffett, 15
Sam Stapleton, 14
Michael Bonnin, 17
William Carroll, 16
James Haakenson, 16
Rick Johnston, 17
Kenneth Parker, 16
Michael Marino, 14
William Bundy, 19
Gregory Godzik, 17
France Wayne Alexander, 21
John Szyc, 19
John Prestidge, 20
Matthew Bowman, 19
Robert Gilroy, 18
John Mowery, 19
Russell Nelson, 22
Robert Winch, 16
Tommy Boling, 20
David Talsma, 19
William Kindred, 19
Timothy O’Rourke, 20
Frank Landlingin, 19
James Mazzara, 20
Robert Piest, 15
Originally, eight victims were unidentified, but the bodies were exhumed in 2011 in an effort to figure out who they were (via BBC). Five victims remain unnamed at the time of writing.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office is still seeking help with identifying the other victims, so if you have any information. Please reach out to them.
As with most serial killers, there’s a chance that the number is higher than what’s known. What’s more, Gacy only admitted to 30 of the 33 known victims, then he changed the number to 45. That means he’s already lied about the number of victims. Plus, he’s a serial sexual offender and murderer, so he’s automatically untrustworthy.
How John Wayne Gacy Was Really Caught
Michael Chernus as John Wayne Gacy smiling creepily while sitting at his home’s bar in Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy
Like in the true crime drama Devil in Disguise, the serial killer was caught after Robert Piest went missing. His parents filed a missing persons report. His last known location was with Gacy, as he was trying to get a construction job. The police surveilled him and executed two warrants on his house. While he initially tried to play it cool, according to John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster by Sam L. Amirante and Danny Broderick, Gacy confessed his crimes to his lawyer, Sam Amirante, and his employees, David Cram and Michael Rossi. Meanwhile, Gacy maintained his innocence with the police until they found bodies buried in the crawl space. At that point, he confessed to everything. He admitted to killing “at least 30” teen boys and young men, but later said “45 sounds like a good number (via The Wrap). He even explained where the bodies were, drawing a diagram and driving them to the place where he dumped bodies over a bridge.
John Wayne Gacy Was Found Guilty & Died By Lethal Injection
Michael Chernus in Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy (2025)
The defense tried to make John Wayne Gacy seem incompetent to stand trial. As shown in Devil in Disguise, John Wayne Gacy also tried to convince people he had dissociative identity disorder with four personalities: the contractor John, the political John, the clown John, and Jack – who does the bad things. Instead, he was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. John Wayne Gacy pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. However, his tricks didn’t work. According to the book John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster, the jury only contemplated 1 hour and 50 minutes before finding him guilty of all 33 counts of murder. On May 9, 1994, John Wayne Gacy was executed by lethal injection, putting an end to his saga as the Devil in Disguise. Sources: PEOPLE, BBC, Cook County Sheriff’s Office, The Wrap, John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster by Sam L. Amirante and Danny Broderick
Release Date
October 16, 2025
Network
Peacock
已发布: 2025-10-17 01:45:00
来源: screenrant.com
