Nine Victims of Gacy Buried
by Chicago (AP)
Nine victims of mass murderer John W. Gacy Jr., their identities unknown for 2fe years, have been buried in secret cemeteries with a prayer that someday their tombstones might bear names. The bodies of the nine, who were among Gacy’s 33 young male victims, were buried Friday in nine separate cemeteries to avoid creating a monument to the man convicted of more murders than anyone in the nation’s history. The location of the cemeteries was kept secret to avoid turning the individual gravesites into tourist attractions.
Gacy, now on death row in Menard State Penitentiary, was sentenced to die in the electric chair after being convicted March 12, 1980, in the sex-related slayings. The former contractor is appealing his conviction to the state Supreme Court At a joint nondenominational service in suburban Hillside, Dr. Robert Stein, the Cook County medical examiner who worked on the case, asked for God’s help in identifying the nine young victims. “Please Dear Lord, I don’t want to see them go to their final resting place as only so many numbers,” he told a small gathering that included mostly reporters and law enforcement officials. Stein said the embarrasment of the homosexual implications of the case may have prevented some of the victims’ parents from coming forward and identifying their sons.
Some of the victims may have been runaways, whose parents never suspected their sons were Gacy’s victims, he said. And police suspect that some parents want to keep on hoping their sons are alive. Eleven months ago, the medical examiner’s office released photographs of the reconstructed faces of the nine victims, along with basic descriptions height, weight, hair color. The photos showed sculptures created from the victims’ skulls. Stein said about 50 serious inquiries came from people who thought they might have recognized one of the victims.
But none of the inquiries panned out Officials had kept the remains at the county morgue, reluctant to bury them because they would start to decompose again, possibly destroying some sign of who they were. The service Friday at the Oakridge Abbey was organized by funeral officials from the Chicago area.
“We want to provide the parents or family (with the service) … to give them some sense of finality,” Moriarty said. Before the service began, each of the nine numbered bronze caskets covered by yellow flowers was carried by white gloved pall bearers up the marble steps to the chapel. Each of the nine gravestones will be engraved with the date of the burial and the words, “We Remembered,” on behalf of the people of the city, Moriarty said.
