POGO - KILLER CLOWN

What started as a pastime became my favorite recreation; I am talking about watching and analyzing psychological thrillers. I have seen quite a few over the years but there’s one that stuck with me. It was, “John Wayne Gacy - the clown killer”.

Why did this stay with me? It’s because this one stood out for its sheer gruesomeness, and was downright ghastly, grisly, lurid, and macabre! He murdered, sodomized, raped, and tortured 33 boys, and young men from 1972 to 1978 without getting caught.

Whenever I saw these movies or series, I always wondered: “How could he/she/they do that?” What kind of a human being would do that? Do they not have any regard for others? The naive me would say, maybe not. That's what it was. Me being naive. Now if you ask me the same question, I will have many answers.

Background 

John Wayne Gacy was born in a blue-collar family and was brought up in a fairly strict home environment. Since childhood, he had been interested in rather “feminine” tasks like gardening and cooking for which he was reprimanded by his father continuously. John had been mentally, and physically abused by his alcoholic father for his lack of “masculinity”. He showed signs of sexual confusion since early childhood but repressed his desires due to the societal and parental pressures that prevailed then. When he grew up, he abided with societal norms and got married to a woman and fathered two children. The marriage was successful superficially but had cracks beneath. His wife claims that she knew about his husband’s homosexual tendencies and the “business” he did in the garage with the boys.

In his professional life, he saw great success. He became a very renowned contractor with active participation in social and charitable organizations. He was well respected in the community.

How did it all begin? 

The first incident happened in 1968 when he sodomized a young boy and got convicted for it. He was sentenced for 10 years but got released on payroll within 18 months because of good behavior. This marked the beginning of his serial killing spree. He went on unsuspected for almost 10 years until 1978. In 1978, one of Gacy’s victims, Robert Piest, was reported missing. Police learned that Gacy was the last person known to have seen him alive. This caught everybody’s attention. Police managed to get a search warrant for Mr. Gacy’s house but he was clean. Something did not add up. The investigative officers thought that there was more to it. During the search, one of the officers smelled something foul but couldn’t identify it so based on a hunch they started 24*7 surveillance on John Gacy hoping to catch hold of something. One night they caught him selling weed to a teenager. This was enough to get them another warrant and put him off the street. The second warrant turned Gacy’s life around. The intuition and the foul smell led the investigative team to discover 29 decayed bodies buried in his basement. But that was not the end of it. There were 4 more missing persons whose bodies were not found. Where were they? 

How did it end ?
During the trial, the defendant's lawyers plead not guilty on grounds of insanity. He was sent to Iowa State Men’s Reformatory (Anamosa State Penitentiary) for a psychiatric evaluation. After a thorough evaluation, the doctors concluded that John suffered from paranoid psychosis (schizophrenia) with multiple personalities. The investigating officers during the search found porn and law magazines in Gacy’s house which made them question his insanity plea. They believed that his actions were pre-planned and did not spawn out of “psychotic episodes”

The jury deliberated for less than two hours and found Gacy guilty of 33 charges of murder; he was also found guilty of sexual assault and taking indecent liberties with a child. At the time, his conviction for 33 murders was the most for which any person in U.S. history had been convicted. 

He was executed in 1994 via lethal injection.

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Psychological analysis 

John appeared to be very charming and mentally sharp which allowed him to interact with kids without much reluctance. He was charmingly manipulative as he could get his victims to come with him voluntarily. This side of him was a facade. Once he got them comfortable, he would unleash his inner repressed desires where he would be the dominant. His sexual desires were indicative of his tense relationship with his father where he was never good enough. He had a type. He would only go for lean and petite guys whom he could overpower. For him, these boys were just toys that he used to fulfill his sexual fantasies. He would torture, rape, murder, and bury them. His acts were primarily motivated to experience the sexual thrill he would get by instilling fear and control over his victims. He laughed a lot when he forced one of his potential victims to lower his pants just for fun sake. Gacy liked to see how people would reach under psychological pressure and  interpreted it as a test to see if his victims would fight back. This behavior gave him a kick. He dismissed his victims as “male prostitutes” and sighed them out as a part of a laundry list which highlights lack of remorse of any sort. He was emotionally unstable.

Other highlighting traits were his boastful nature and grandiosity which were evident during his interviews. He started his confession by saying "I have been the judge ... jury and executioner of many, many people” showing that he wanted to exert control over the narrative. Gacy arrogantly claimed to have dug only five of the victims' graves while his employees dug the remaining trenches so that he would "have graves available". During his interaction with his last victim, Gacy duped Piest into donning handcuffs before saying, "I'm going to rape you, and you can't do anything about it". He had no regard for another human being ever. NONE.

His lack of guilt/remorse, grandiosity, manipulation, coercion, pathological sexual aggression and blatant disregard of others are indicatives of anti-social personality disorder.

Clown avatar
He said that acting as a clown allowed him to "regress into childhood". He performed at numerous local parties, political functions, charitable events, and children's hospitals. Sometimes Gacy would remain in his clowning garb after a performance and briefly drink at a local bar before returning home. Gacy remarked: "You know ... clowns can get away with murder” when he was questioned about his clown avatar.  He time and again told everyone around him that clowns can get away with anything. They can touch people and murder them and no one will know cause they have a mask on. No one will know who it was.

Conclusion 

His actions were driven by desire and not a lack of control. He knew what he wanted to do. He planned it. He found ways to not get caught. He calculated his moves. His disregard for societal bonds, suppression of sexual identity, and anti-social personality traits created the infamous monster POGO THE CLOWN. He was shown more mercy than none of his victims received. His final spoken words were reported to be "Kiss my ass".

All this might be proof enough to say that he wasn't insane.

P.s. - It was later discovered that those 4 bodies were thrown away in a nearby river because his basement had no space left!

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PRIYAL AWASTHI