Timothy Jack McCoy (16)
Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie County, Iowa
Death
3 Jan 1972, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois
Tragically, Timothy McCoy was one of the victims of Illinois serial killer and sex offender John Wayne Gacy who raped, tortured, and murdered at least 33 young men and boys between 1962 and 1977. His conviction for thirty-three murders (by one individual) then covered the most homicides in United States legal history. Gacy was sentenced to death and was executed by lethal injection at Statesville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994. He became known as “The Killer Clown” due to his public performances as a clown prior to the discovery of his crimes and is one of the most prolific serial murderers in Chicago history.
On January 3, 1972, 16-year-old Timothy Jack McCoy who was on his way to his father’s home in Omaha, Nebraska except his bus was not due until noon. He was lured into Gacy’s car from Chicago’s Greyhound Bus Terminal. Gacy took McCoy on a sightseeing tour of Chicago and then drove him to his home with the promise that he could spend the remainder of the night and be driven back to the station in time to catch his bus. Prior to McCoy’s identification, he was known as the “Greyhound Bus Boy”. Gacy claimed he woke early the following morning to find McCoy standing in his bedroom doorway holding a kitchen knife. He jumped from his bed and McCoy raised both arms in a gesture of surrender, accidentally cutting Gacy’s forearm. Gacy disarmed McCoy, banged his head against the bedroom wall, and kicked him against his wardrobe. McCoy kicked Gacy in the stomach, doubling him over. Gacy then grabbed McCoy, wrestled him to the floor and stabbed him repeatedly in the chest. As McCoy lay dying, Gacy claimed he washed the knife in his bathroom, then went to his kitchen and saw the makings of breakfast on the table. McCoy had set the table for two; he had walked into Gacy’s room to wake him while absentmindedly carrying the knife. He was “Body #9” and was buried in his crawl space and later covered his grave with a layer of concrete.
