Youth, 19, Reveals That Gacy Twice Tried to Seduce Him
By William Recktenwald and Eileen Ogintz
A 19-year-old youth told in an interview Tuesday how he narrowly escaped two attempts by John Gacy including one at the Norwood Park Township Democratic Headquarters to force him into homosexual encounters when he was a 16-year-old high school student. “He said he would give me money if I would. … I said no, but he began to get pushy,” Tony R. Antonucci said Tuesday, recalling the first time John Gacy made sexual overtures toward him in May 1975. Antonucci, who also said Gacy tried to assault him a second time by handcuffing him, made his disclosures as two men who knew Gacy as an Iowa prisoner recalled him as being “a regular guy” who went to mass every Sunday, showed no interest in homosexual activities, and was unusually even-tempered.
“I saw him get punched in the eye once, and he just stood there,” said John Prenosil, now an Iowa corrections officer but who shared kitchen duties with Gacy in the late ’60s when both were inmates at the Iowa State Reformatory in Anamosa. “He got a black eye, and he just walked away.” Gacy, 36, an admitted homosexual who was serving a prison term for sodomizing a teen-aged boy, has reportedly told authorities that he has killed as many as 32 Chicago-area young men after having sexual relations with them. Antonucci said he and Gacy whom he worked for from May 1975, until May 1976 were cleaning the Norwood Park Township Democratic Headquarters at 7437 W. Montrose Avenue late one night when Gacy first made sexual overtures. Investigators say Gacy was a Democratic committee captain, and Township Democratic Committeeman Robert Martwick confirmed Tuesday that Gacy did cleanup work at the building. John had the key and after we got in, he started to make homosexual advances to me,” Antonucci said Tuesday. “I told him, no, I wasn’t interested, but he still got pushy. Then I picked up a folding chair and threatened to hit him with it.
“Well, that did it. He calmed down and started laughing. He said he was just kidding.” Antonucci was 6 feet tall, weighed 175 pounds, and was a wrestler for Gordon Technical High School at the time of this incident. The next time, Gacy came to Antonucci’s home late one night when he was alone, Antonucci said, carrying a bottle of wine, some heterosexual stag films, and a projector. Gacy told the youth he wanted to show him a “trick,” handcuffed him, and partly undressed him. However, the cuffs weren’t fully locked, Antonucci said, and he was able to grab Gacy, put one cuff on him, and force Gacy to free him. “You’re the first one to get the cuffs off not only that, but you got that one on me,” Antonucci says Gacy told him. “After that, he never bothered me again,” Antonucci said. But in prison where he told everyone that he had been wrongly convicted Gacy never gave anyone a glimpse into this side of his personality
He read the Wall Street Journal every day, talked about the restaurant he would open when he got out, and boasted of his prosperous business “investments.” “He seemed like such a normal guy I could never figure out how the first charge of sodomy happened,” said Prenosil. “I just figured he got drunk and didn’t know what he was doing.” Ray Cornell, who also served time with Gacy and now is Iowa prison ombudsman, said Gacy and he were part of a group that “just wanted to get our heads together and get out.” Gacy worked on a Christmas drive to recondition toys for poor children, led the prison Jaycee chapter, and was so successful in getting a miniature golf course built inside the prison walls that an Iowa newspaper wrote a story about him. “We basically were people who weren’t criminally oriented,” Cornell said. That’s why I was astonished as hell about this. “We’ve all done well except John.” to 5:45; Saturday, 9:15 to 5:30.
