Case overview
John Wayne Gacy (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994) was an American serial killer and sex offender who sexually assaulted and killed at least thirty-three young men and boys between 1972 and 1978 in Norwood Park Township, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. The investigation into the disappearance of Des Plaines teenager Robert Piest led to Gacy's arrest on December 21, 1978. [1]
Gacy had previously been convicted in 1968 of sodomizing a teenage boy in Waterloo, Iowa, and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, but served eighteen months. On returning to the police station later that day, Gacy denied any involvement in Piest's disappearance and repeated that he had not offered him a job. Gacy was brought to trial on February 6, 1980, charged with 33 murders. [2]
