Killer Clown.
Jenn and I have spent the first half of the month tackling all things Ed Gein on the Murder Made Fiction podcast, but we’re also discussing one of the most prolific killers of the 1970s in John Wayne Gacy. In advance of the Michael Chernus-starring Peacock series, Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, we dug into the queer killer’s backstory.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gacy embodied several conventional serial killer traits:
- He had a physically and emotionally abusive father
- He may have been sexually molested by a family friend
- He was a smooth-talker with political aspirations (shades of Ted Bundy)
- He was a husband and a father, despite maintaining a double-life
Like many of the cases we’ve covered, there’s also a heart-breaking close call, including a ten year prison sentence in Iowa for underage sodomy charges. That lengthy sentence was ultimately reduced to less than a year because of good behavior and (in classic 1970s fashion) when Gacy moved to another state, his criminal records were sealed and never communicated to the Illinois police.
Alas it was the vulnerable teen boy population of Uptown Chicago who paid the price. 33 young men lost their lives to Gacy, whose penchant for sexually abusing his victims before murdering and hiding their bodies in a crawl space beneath his house is worse than most fictional horror films.
As Jenn and I look ahead to how Peacock’s eight-episode fictional version will play out, listen to our Gacy primer for more details, including the bizarre fact that despite Gacy’s “Killer Clown” nickname (and the evocative imagery that accompanies virtually every media representation), the clown stuff has virtually nothing to do with the murders.
If you want even more Murder Made Fiction, be sure to check out the pod’s Patreon feed, where Jenn and I have 110+ hours of bonus content, including episode by episode coverage of Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story as well as Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy.
The post Before Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy Was the Most Prolific Queer Serial Killer [Murder Made Fiction Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
