Terrible Secret Masked by Public Service
by Chicago (AP)
Behind the masks of a clown of public service of fatherhood was evidence of something terribly wrong with John Wayne Gacy Jr all ignored until skeletons were found in his home He had been convicted of sodomy with a 16-year-old boy in 1968 and accused of attempting to rape a teen-age boy in 1971 and of raping a 27-year-old Chicago man last March. At least three times parents gave Gacy’s name in filing missing persons reports on their teenage sons. His former mother-in-law said she had complained to Gacy that his house smelled “like dead rats” But until last Thursday when the 38-year-old construction company owner reportedly confessed to sexually molesting and murdering 32 boys and young men, Gacy lived a prosperous prestige filled life with ambitions of running for elective office. Since then 15 bodies have been found buried in Gacy’s home in an unincorporated area just northwest of Chicago. Another body found in a river was linked to the Gacy investigation.
THE CHICAGO Tribune reported in Thursday’s editions that Cook County Medical Examiner Robert Stein and sheriff’s investigators are using a map drawn by Gacy to find the bodies. The map, a rough floor plan of the house, reportedly drawn last Friday indicates that 27 bodies are on Gacy’s property the Tribune said. Five bodies were reportedly thrown in a river. “So far the map has been completely accurate” said one investigator quoted by the Tribune. “We have no doubt that we will find 27 bodies in the places he has shown us” Robert F Martwick, Democratic township committeeman who nominated Gacy in 1975 to an appointed job as secretary treasurer of the Norwood Park Township Lighting Commission said of Gacy. “He was very hard working and popular in his community always giving (block) parties and dressing up like a clown.” The commission maintains streetlights in the unincorporated areas of the township.
MARWICK SAID he urged Gacy for the job “based on his activity in the neighborhood. He said he wanted to make it a better place to live and said that someday he wanted to run for elected office” Martwick told Gary that to run for office he should become “well known in the community to help people out” As part of that campaign Gacy designed a clown outfit had himself photographed in it and entertained at parties and in children’s hospital wards. Gacy passed out cards saying he was a Democratic precinct captain which Martwick said Gacy never was. But Marwick said he didn’t stop Gacy from using the cards “because he was such a good worker.” Martwick said he was impressed when Gacy offered to provide a crew of young construction workers to clean up the township Democratic headquarters free “You don’t find people like that every day” Martwick a prominent Chicago lawyer said he made no background check on Gacy “We can’t fingerprint everybody we appoint to office although maybe we should”
MARTWICK SAID he “wouldn’t even want to guess” if Gacy hoped to gain political stature to shield the darker side of his life “But nothing would surprise me now” Martwick said “But I believe he just had two personalities one of which I never saw.” Gacy’s attorney Sam Amirante said Gacy “was a good solid citizen who helped his neighborhood” Amirante serves as the attorney for the lighting commission of which Gacy is a member “he wrote the checks to pay the bills and kept the minutes of the monthly meetings” Amirante said lie said he would make no other statement on Gacy’s behalf now Another mask obscuring the homosexual behavior that sent Gacy to prison world were two marriages and two children “John came across very straight” Gacy’s first wife told the Chicago Tribune He was a “likable salesman who could charm it right out of you” She asked not be identified by her current name.
SHE BORE TWO children by Gacy but divorced him in 190 a year after he was convicted in Iowa on the sodomy charge After he was paroled, he married the former Carole Hoff in 1972. She said that just before they separated, he “started bringing home a lot of pictures of naked men” They divorced in 1976 on grounds that he was seeing other women. The second Mrs. Gacy’s mother who asked not to be named had lived in Gacy’s home and said it always smelled “like dead rats” When Gacy was sentenced to 10 years in prison on December 3 1968 the judge said: “Unsatisfactory in many respects as imprisonment is at least that will insure for some period of time that you cannot seek out teenage boys to solicit them for immoral behavior of any kind” If he had served the full term Gacy would have left prison this month. He was paroled in 1970.
AN ATTEMPTED RAPE charge filed against him in February 1971 was dropped after the complainant did not appear in court. John Butkovich 17 of Lombard disappeared July 31, 1975, after going to Gacy’s house to pick up a paycheck “We gave Gacy’s name to the Chicago police” said Butkovich’s mother Theresa. “We gave them Gacy’s name, and they tried to talk to him, but he didn’t want to talk, so they just dropped it. They (the police) thought he (John) had run away. They did not think it was serious” On December 11, 1976, Greg Godzik, 17 of Chicago disappeared. His parents said they told police he worked for Gacy, but they said the police did not follow up. Lt David Nlozee news affairs director for the Chicago police said officers follow up every missing person report but he noted that 23,000 such reports existed at the time Butkovich disappeared.
“WE LIVE IN A democratic society and we can’t go out making arrests based on what some parents think” he said. Asked about other missing person cases involving Gacy he said: “I can’t say how many others were mentioned in connection with Gacy.” On December 11, 1978, Robert Piest, 15, of Des Plaines, disappeared. His mother told Lt Joseph Kozenczak of the Des Plaines Police that Robert was last seen talking to Gacy about a summer job. Kozenczak discovered Gacy’s sodomy conviction lie went to question Gacy and the next day he and other investigators found evidence at Gacy’s home that led to his arrest. Kozenczak said he was particularly interested in the case because he has a 15-year-old son who attended the same high school as Piest.
