Obviously this is not something that should be celebrated at all because he was a horrible person responsible for the deaths of at least 33 people even though it could have been more. The remains of 29 of them were found on his property and Gacy had killed so many people that even though he was at this point cooperating with police entirely and basically doing a tell-all, he honestly couldn't remember how many people he had murdered.
He was known as the "Killer Clown" because of the fact that in his spare time he liked to dress up and play a clown at charity events and there is some talk about this is how he became so good at interacting with what was his victim of choice which was teenage boys.
This is just one more reason to not like clowns if you ask me, long before It and American Horror Story I have always found clowns to be quite creepy.
"Pogo the Clown" or "Patches the Clown" were the personalities of clown the he portrayed and from an outside perspective anyone would have seen Gacy as just being a normal neighbor who worked hard at his job and owned his own construction business but also cared enough about the community and especially children to volunteer his time at children's hospitals. He was well-respected in the neighborhood and regularly hosted parties where hundreds of neighbors and even politicians would attend. This might be part of the reason why he was able to get away with the murders for so long.
Gacy claimed that his first murder was actually an accident but it was how it was that he discovered that the process of murder was the "ultimate thrill" and said in a later interview that he experienced mind numbing ecstasy from the experience.
It was 1972 and Gacy was legitimately trying to help a 16 year old named Tim McCoy who Gacy randomly encountered at a bus station early in the morning who was waiting for his bus that wasn't departing until the following day. Gacy took the McCoy to his house without forcing him to go and told him he could stay there until the following day and John Wayne would drive him back to the bus station.
The following morning, McCoy appeared in Gacy's bedroom brandishing a kitchen knife and Gacy attacked him thinking that McCoy was trying to kill him, a scuffle ensued and McCoy accidentally cut John, Gacy then stabbed him repeatedly after wrestling him to the ground.
Then Gacy went to the kitchen contemplating calling hte police and discovered that Tim McCoy had actually prepared breakfast for 2 and was simply waking Gacy up and absent-mindedly carried the kitchen knife into Gacy's bedroom, startling him into an accidental fight. I know that when I first wake up I am not at my most coherent and sensible.
Just think, if it hadn't been for this accidental breakfast incident the "Killer Clown" might never have been born. I see no reason to not believe Gacy about this encounter because when he revealed this information he was in custody, had no reason to believe that anything he would say would change that, and was as they say "dead to rights."
It's hard to imagine someone being as proliferate a killer as Gacy was today with all of the CCTV action we have going on but it is also a bit of a testament to the ineffective nature of police work that the man wasn't caught much sooner because several of the victims were actually employees of his construction firm. Also, one particular victim's parents were so certain Gacy was involved that they made 100 phone calls pleading with the police to investigate Gacy further but this never happened.
John Wayne finally made a mistake when he lured his final victim to his home because there were ties back to him. He had been speaking to a pharmacy owner about a potential construction job and then told a staff member that his firm hires boys his age for nearly double what he was being paid at the pharmacy. When the boy's mother came to pick him up, the boy told her that he needed to go talk to a potential employer about some construction work.
When the boy failed to come home, there was an easy trail leading back to Gacy and a warrant to search his house was obtained where they discovered the remains of nearly 30 boys all over the place in the house.
The original house was demolished in the 1980's but there is a house that stands on the property now. I wonder if that house has an increased or decreased value based on the fame of the land that it sits on? Here is the house today.
The house has been on the market since 2019 and the real-estate listings that I have read make no mention of the fame of the land it is built on. Check it out here. Would you live in it?