Murder Weekly - Crime, Espionage, and Murder Thrillers · Caloroga Shark Media / Short Crime Mystery

"THE KILLER CLOWN: JOHN WAYNE GACY'S 33 VICTIMS - PART 1"

·24 min·1 clip

Police entered 8213 West Summerdale and found the crawl space filled with bodies.

1. Murder Weekly opens a two-part John Wayne Gacy special built around the killer clown, 33 victims, and the 29 bodies found under 8213 West Somerdale Avenue. 2. Reed Carter identifies himself as the host and says the episode follows Gacy's double life, his victims, and the investigation that exposed him. 3. The episode asks how a successful contractor, Democratic precinct captain, and Pogo the Clown hid six years of murder in suburban Chicago. 4. Gacy's childhood is described through an abusive alcoholic father who beat him and called him a sissy, which the narration links to his need for control. 5. By age 18, Gacy was working in politics, and in 1964 he married Marlon Myers and moved to Waterloo, Iowa for his father-in-law's KFC business. 6. His first major conviction came in December 1968 after he lured a teenage boy to his house, gave him alcohol, attacked him, and was sentenced to 10 years in the Iowa State Reformatory. 7. After 18 months, Gacy was paroled in June 1970, returned to Chicago, and started PDM Contractors in 1971. 8. The business gave him access to teenage workers, and in 1972 he bought the ranch house at 8213 West Somerdale Avenue, which became his killing ground. 9. The episode describes Gacy's public persona through neighborhood parties, children's hospital clown work, charity events, and a photograph with First Lady Rosalind Carter in May 1978. 10. The narration says Gacy's method was to lure boys with construction jobs, alcohol, marijuana, restraints, torture, and a garrote-style rope trick. 11. Named victims include Timothy McCoy, John Butkovich, Gregory Godzik, John Sick, John Prestidge, Matthew Bowman, and Robert Gilroy. 12. The episode notes that several victims remained unidentified and were listed only as Victim 10, Victim 26, and Victim 28. 13. Jeffrey Rignall's March 1978 account is highlighted as a survived attack in which Gacy chloroformed him, assaulted him, and dumped him in Lincoln Park. 14. Reed Carter says police declined to file charges after Rignall reported the assault, and he argues that a house search then could have exposed the bodies earlier. 15. The investigation shifts on December 11, 1978, when 15-year-old Robert Piest told his mother he was meeting a contractor about a summer job at Nissen Pharmacy in Des Plaines. 16. Lieutenant Joseph Kozenczak learns Gacy has an Iowa sodomy conviction, obtains search warrants, and places Gacy under 24-hour surveillance. 17. The December 13 search turns up handcuffs, police badges, a Neeson Pharmacy receipt, and books on homosexuality, but the crawl space is not fully searched. 18. On December 21, officers return, smell decomposition, dig in the crawl space, and uncover the first bodies, turning the house into a mass-grave crime scene. 19. The episode has an urgent, documentary style with repeated recap lines, direct narration, and a timeline built around dates from 1968 to 1979. 20. Listeners who want true-crime timelines, investigation details, and Chicago history will get the most from this episode, while people avoiding graphic serial-killer cases may skip it.

As heard by us

A grim, fact-led true-crime account about disguise, missed warnings, and the horror hidden under a suburban home.

John Wayne Gacy is presented as a study in disguise: a respected contractor and community figure by day, a predator of teenage boys by night. The episode keeps its focus on the victims, the crawl space under 8213 West Somerdale Avenue, and the long chain of missed connections…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the Gacy case, stripped to the facts and the failures.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Murder Weekly - Crime, Espionage, and Murder Thrillers