For those of you old enough to remember..what do you remember? (Chicago: lease, new house)

[glass_of_merlot]

For those of you old enough to remember of John Wayne Gacy..
What do you remember...of the time he was active on the news?

[hendersj31]

I remember them talking about buried bodies in his basement. Creeped me out big time.

[rrah]

I was a teenager in the Chicago television viewing area. I remember the clown costume and the bodies being buried in the basement. I have some vague memory of seeing police at his house searching for more bodies. Because homosexuality and bisexuality were still pretty much not spoken about and unaccepted at that time, the fact that he raped and killed boys added some extra shock to the whole story for many.

[ChicagoMeO]

They had to rename the address of his home, it was so bad.

[Curly Q. Bobalink]

I remember very well, being that I was about the same age as his victims at the time. He would offer "construction helper" jobs to young guys he would meet in fast food places, on the street, etc. After gaining their confidence, he'd offer to "show them a magic trick", where the young guy would have to be put in cuffs or have their hands tied, and then it would be lights out for the kid. Rape, then murder and burial in the crawlspace of his Des Planes home, and unfortunately the kids would be enticed to dig their own grave as part of the pre-magic trick "work". Something like 33 bodies were exhumed from under that house, if I remember correctly, and others dumped locally were linked back to him as well. They tore the house down after the investigation, I don't know if anyone has ever rebuilt on the lot.

A freaking monster is what he was, and if there was ever a poster child for the death penalty, it was he. And, it took far too long, he was allowed to consume way too much oxygen and taxpayer dollars languishing on death row before he got the needle. Justice would have dictated he be hit on the head, raped to death by a herd of gorillas, then dumped into a hole under the prison. I don't know whether there is a "Hell" or not, but if there is, my guess is Satan shoves a daily pineapple up his tush, ala "Little Nicky". One can only hope.

[KB71]

Originally Posted by Curly Q. Bobalink

I remember very well, being that I was about the same age as his victims at the time. He would offer "construction helper" jobs to young guys he would meet in fast food places, on the street, etc. After gaining their confidence, he'd offer to "show them a magic trick", where the young guy would have to be put in cuffs or have their hands tied, and then it would be lights out for the kid. Rape, then murder and burial in the crawlspace of his Des Planes home, and unfortunately the kids would be enticed to dig their own grave as part of the pre-magic trick "work". Something like 33 bodies were exhumed from under that house, if I remember correctly, and others dumped locally were linked back to him as well. They tore the house down after the investigation, I don't know if anyone has ever rebuilt on the lot.

A freaking monster is what he was, and if there was ever a poster child for the death penalty, it was he. And, it took far too long, he was allowed to consume way too much oxygen and taxpayer dollars languishing on death row before he got the needle. Justice would have dictated he be hit on the head, raped to death by a herd of gorillas, then dumped into a hole under the prison. I don't know whether there is a "Hell" or not, but if there is, my guess is Satan shoves a daily pineapple up his tush, ala "Little Nicky". One can only hope.

House was rebuilt with different address number. If I recall correctly, street was Summerdale? I know it was Northwest side of the city, near Norridge, and I lived a few miles from it. I remember also listening to the news coverage on the radio the night of his execution and people were holding vigils near that home. I always wondered why someone would want to live on that property, even if the house was demolished and rebuilt.

[2nd trick op]

The Gacy case "broke" not long after the conclusion of the first of Ted Bundy's two trials, and other serial-killing cases (Henry Lee Lucss, Dean Corll, Wayne Williams) emerged about the same time. And death-penalty cases have been a subject of controversy in Illinois for a long tine -- the state went over five years without a legal execution back in the Fifties. Gacy made a near-perfect poster child to "take the fall" for all the other inmates under death sentence back then, though Illinois executed at lease one, possibly two other prisoners around this time

It's also worth noting that the majority of Illinois' execution cases have long originated in Cook County, just as a disproportionate share of Indiana's originated in Lake County (Gary and environs); blood-lust is stronger in the impersonal culture of a large Metro. But most homicides still occur in situations were perpetrator and victim know each other, and on the lower rungs of the societal ladder.

Serial murder has probably become less common due in part to the proliferation of both security cameras and criminal databases, and I expect this trend to continue. Ditto for the death penalty, because as much as some of those vermin deserve it, a life sentence with no hope of parole, particularly in a sensory-deprived"supermax" environment, constitutes a form of punishment in a league of its own.

[glass_of_merlot]

I live just a couple of miles from his old address now and I have seen the"new house".
But I'm curious if his old neighbors still live there and what they have to say about it all. How come nobody suspected or heard anything. That's just crazy.

[pvande55]

It hit close to home for me, as my cousin (RIP) knew a girl who was dating Robert Piest. There were posters all around Des Plaines (lived there at the time) asking have you seen... We all thought he met with some foul play, maybe a fight, and figured it would be an isolated incident. We were certainly not expecting what came out when the case broke. And we had just gotten over the Jonestown incident.

[Doggz3]

I grew up on the Northwest side. I remember driving by the house on Summerdale with some high school buddies one cold winter night while the cops were still conducting their investigation with help of contractors, etc.