Original subtitles

they're the world's most infamous serial

killers it was the largest numbers of

deaths attributable to a single mass

murder in American history here it was

all American boy killed all American

Girls but what drove them to commit

their horrific crimes the victims had

been cut open and their organs had been

removed was it nature her father was

reportedly a sex offender he's the most

deranged fellow I ever met or nurture

the father stood and broke the mother's

fingers one by one in front of the

children

[Applause]

John Wayne

gasey a sadistic serial killer that

fooled even his closest friends and

neighbors this is a hard driving very

hard working individual I was astounded

a pillar of society with a shocking

secret we took a screwdriver into a

little crack in the floor and when we

did the whole floor lifted

up he would become one of the most

prolific serial killers in American

history they asked him well why why did

you do this stuff I was afraid they

would exposed me he said they were all

just human trash anyway but was John

Wayne gasy a product of his upbringing

or was he born to kill

[Music]

John Wayne gasy was born in Chicago in

1942 the only son of Marian and John

gasy

Senior John gasy was a son of a

bluecolor worker a mother who was a

pharmacist his biological father drank

alcohol but continued to work he was

considered a functioning

alcoholic from what I understand uh he

was was physically abused by his father

and his father was often not available

or was

intoxicated his father was also known

for uh abusing gase's mother in fact

engaging in uh physical fights with her

uh that gasy must have witnessed now

clearly those sorts of things have an

impact on a person's development and the

way they look at the

world the young John was close to his

mother but to his father the overweight

unathletic boy was a

disappointment one that he made little

effort to

hide his father would come home he would

go down into the basement into his

Workshop not interact with anyone in the

family but had this special thing about

his son whom he felt should be

better uh more like the father become a

business person become someone who was

admired in the community gas's father

regularly called him stupid a mama's boy

and a

[ __ ] his father frequently told him

that he was a failure he wouldn't amount

to anything so again you you think of

how someone growing up with that kind of

verbal abuse and emotional abuse would

develop as an

adult John entered his teenage years and

began to complain of body problems

headaches faintness dizziness which the

father must have seen as a

weakening uh that this was not a strong

person this was not a person who could

stand up and be tall and be successful

at school the young gayc continued to

disappoint he entered serially high

schools and to great disappointment to

his father he tended to fail and there

were reasons for failure perhaps put

forward I mean he he was ADHD he he had

real problems

concentrating despite his failures John

gasy Jr was getting a reputation as a

bragard he tell fanciful stories and

could confidently talk himself out of

trouble at 11 years old gasy was struck

on the head by a swing resulting in a

series of

blackouts his father accused him of

Faking at age 16 he began taking

medication for a heart

ailment gasy was seen as weaker than

other

teenagers these conspired but overriding

most of these excuses for his failure

was the basic fact that John Wayne gasy

was very good at producing

justifications and excuses for why he

failed age 20 and without qualifications

gasy left Chicago and struck out on his

own he traveled to Las Vegas where he

found a job cleaning up in a Mory

he entered the world on a onetoone basis

he no longer as it were were living

living in the shadow of his family and

particularly his father he kind of felt

a bit of a

release working in there and sweeping up

was probably not the kind of high status

job but it was a job and he attained on

his own and it was a job that he managed

to hold

down the work was low paid and menial

gasy often worked alone with only dead

bodies for company

a number of serial killers will go

through a variety of experiences which

will mean that they come into close

proximity with um dead bodies in gas's

case we know that he acted as uh a

janitor in a Mory we have a kind of

familiarization with dead bodies a

familiarization that would take away the

taboo of being around a dead body

John Wayne gas's new life in Las Vegas

didn't last long after only 3 months he

used what little money he'd saved to

return to

Chicago there he enrolled in a business

college and for the first time gasy

began to flourish he'd always had the

gift of the gab and he soon discovered a

flare for

[Music]

salesmanship casy suddenly realized

there was something that gave him esteem

it's something that made him stand up in

the world where he could as it were

stand shoulder toos shoulder and even

beyond that with those individuals

around

him by the age of just 21 gas's business

talents had won him the position of

manager at a shoe store he realized that

his abilities his acting abilities his

his charm and disarm abilities that most

kind of inherent Psychopaths seem to

have this cold indifference actually

works for you in

interactions he then found his success

and he found his Career Success could

even match the expectations of his

[Music]

father in September 1964 gasy met and

married his co-worker Marlin

Meyers Marlin's father saw promise in

his ambitious new son-in-law and

appointed him the maner manager of his

three fast food franchises in

Iowa John and Marlin began a new life in

watero together they had two

children gasy was now a family man a

rising star in the local business world

and a popular member of the

community on the surface it was a

storybook

existence gasy was a role model he was a

role model of what a businessman should

be he should be involved in all these

political organizations all of these

business

organizations um he should be the

upstanding citizen in his small town but

it really had no meaning for him

otherwise if it had he wouldn't have

needed to go into the remainder of what

he did for the rest of his

life what John Wayne gasy would become

would shock his Suburban neighbors to

their core

after a childhood plagued by illness and

failure John Wayne gasy now had a wife

two children and was the successful

manager of a chain of fast food

Outlets the gases appeared the perfect

nuclear

family but behind the respectable facade

John Wayne Acy had begun to inhabit a

world at odds with the straight laced

image of Midwestern

Suburbia he got started abusing teenage

boys sexually and there are a few

chilling incidents where he actually

threatens some of these young men that

we didn't injure or kill anyone as far

as we

know in

1967 gasy lured 16-year-old John tuler

to his home

they watched pornographic movies drank

and played

pool then without warning gasy forced

teller onto a bed at knife Point

handcuffed him and started to choke

him in the case of John toy he followed

the usual getting them drunk and showing

pornography and then turning suddenly

and using violence or threat and in this

case a knife um to force that person

into handcuffs into a power submissive

role and then to actually inflict sexual

torturous sexual behavior taunting

choking um threats to that individual um

who would generally speaking in many

occasions not report

this but teller did report his

ordeal and other boys would

follow gasy was

arrested the 26-year-old family man and

bright light of the community was

charged with sodomy and sentenced to 10

years in

Anamosa it's a high-walled

institution there are armed guards on

the towers and very restricted movement

inside the compound of the prison fellow

inmate Ray Cornell became gas's close

friend it was rigorous as prison I think

should be it was dangerous there were

numerous murder attempts while I was

serving the two years that I was there

on at least one occasion I witnessed a

person stabbed to death was not a very

nice place to

be a convicted homosexual sex

offender gasy should have been high on

the prison Hit

List John told everyone that he was

serving time for showing pornographic

movies to teenage

boys John was very careful never to

reveal in the fact that he in fact was

in there for molesting or attempting to

molest uh teenage

boys with the truth behind his crimes

successfully hidden gasy showed the same

ambitious streak as he had as a free man

only this time he was striving to be a

pillar of a very different

Community Richard navely was a prison

counselor at the time he came into

contact with inmate gasy he had a small

little sign that he wore that was very

much like the name tags that the

employees wore which said John gasy

first cook and you're a man of some

Authority here what what is your title

well I'm first cook in the kitchen and I

run the uh the morning meal and the

afternoon meal in the kitchen John how

long you been here I've been here now a

year and about 2 weeks he kind of got

himself ingratiated uh into the system

uh he was very uh uh responsible very

adult in his style he was older than the

average

inmate he was able to try to develop a

position and uh he was pretty successful

in in in doing

that but his friend Ray Cornell

witnessed another site John Wayne gasy

during an encounter with an openly gay

convict known as Mr

connect Mr connect and some of his

friends were in the lower yard of the

prison playing basketball and the ball

got loose and went rolling past

John and John got the ball and threw it

as hard as he could and connect not

showing a lot of good judgment uh then

said missed me missed me now you got to

kiss me and John went after

it just for a second I think I saw just

a glimpse of what his victims saw at the

end of their lives because he had every

intention of going after Gary connect

and hurting him badly or killing

him I think I saw the

monster at Christmas 19 1969 gasy

received news that would affect him

profoundly we were sitting in the lower

yard in the card playing area when a

guard came down and got John and took

him up to the security office gas's

father had died from

therosis and the authorities were not to

permit him to attend the funeral when I

saw him again the following morning in

the chow hall um he was a wreck

he requested permission to visit his

father and I I suppose make amends with

him my suspicion is that uh when his

father died that was difficult because

uh what it means is that you can never

repair this

relationship people always want the

approval of their parents no matter how

old they

are he talked about his father

over the next several days and he also

talked about how deeply hurt he was at

the fact that he would not be going over

to Chicago to see his father

buried but in 1970 less than 2 years

after his conviction gas's Model

Behavior paid off you mind my asking how

long do you plan to take up residence

here well I hope to be getting out

sometime in May well

good well since interesting about gas's

prison experiences as a result of the

sodomy charges is firstly he's released

very quickly his sentence was 10 years

he was out after 18 months he was able

to convince people that his behavior

wouldn't be repeated but within that 18

months he rises to the top of the prison

hierarchy despite the fact as a sex

offender one would have expected him to

be at the bottom of the prison hierarchy

so so what we're seeing here is the

skills that actually underly gas's uh

Behavior over a long period of time

skills that allow other people to gain

confidence in him to see him as

responsible to see him as trustworthy of

course ultimately he would abuse that

responsibility he'd abuse that trust

in 1970 gasy now divorced returned to

his home City of Chicago eventually

settling into the quiet Suburban

neighborhood of

Norwood leaving his past in Iowa gasy

continued his Ambitions to be seen as an

important valued pillar of the local

community he married divorce Carol Hoff

and she and her two children moved into

his home there was an indomitable spirit

in gayy he really did think he was

beginning to become invulnerable and

that he could rise again and simply

getting married was just another

strategic plan as far as gasy was

concerned there was no real sexual

intent in this marriage it was

convenience as in Iowa gase's image as

the perfect Suburban neighbor was a mere

facade in 1971 he was charged by Chicago

Police with disorderly conduct after a

teenage boy complained that gasy had

picked him up at a bus station and

forced him to commit a sexual

act the case was dropped when the boy

failed to appear in

court in 1972 gasy was charged with

battery when a young man complained he

had been forced to perform oral sex

after gasy had told him he was a

sheriff's deputy the case never went to

trial Timothy Jack McCoy was just 50

years old when he was picked up by gasy

at a Chicago bus station in

1972 after spending the night together

gasey stabbed him to death gasy would

later claim the killing was accidental

and in

self-defense many murderers commit a

murder because of the force of

particular circumstances at a particular

point in their life but crucially the

vast majority of murderers are

overwhelmed psychologically by the fact

they've taken another person's life and

they never want to repeat that

experience because they understand how

difficult that has been not just for the

victim for the victim's family but also

for themselves sadly a small number of

murderers want to continue to behave

like that because they found that

experience visceral vital exciting

sexy gasy had his first taste of murder

it would be far from his love

in 1970 after serving time in prison for

molesting teenage boys John Wayne gasy

remarried and began building a new life

in

Chicago but his image as a loving family

man and generous neighbor was a sham

in

1972 he'd picked up 15-year-old Timothy

McCoy for sex and killed

him gasy would not be arrested for the

murder of the

teenager as far as the rest of the world

was concerned the 15-year-old had simply

disappeared and to the local community

John Wayne gasey seemed ever more the

perfect Suburban neighbor

The Neighbors on the black liked him he

was a he was a very friendly man he

would give these tremendous uh outside

parties for 100 to 200

people gasy regularly entertained his

neighbors by dressing up as a clown and

Performing magic tricks gasy was the

kind of person that not knowing how evil

he was you would like to have him in

your community he was active in the JC's

which is the junior Chamber of Commerce

and he was a volunteer for the political

party of his choice and he was very well

thought of in a very small world of his

[Music]

community in 1974 gasy established his

own painting decorating and construction

business hiring a string of young men to

carry out the work his Charisma and

bravado ensured there was no shortage of

potential employees

the boys knew John Wayne gasy he was a

big name in town and when he walked in

he was John he had the big car outside

he had the money everybody knew he he

was wealthy he had a big business and

when he approached boys that were 14 15

16 years old making minimum wage and he

was promising them almost double salary

just to to work in a construction site

and help them build uh these boys jumped

jumped at the chance gase is upair

standing image as generous neighbor

successful businessman and do gooder in

the community meant his motives for

employing many of the young men went

undiscovered I find it very interesting

that people have a Hollywood image of

the serial killer as being this rather

scary man that's going to pop up from

behind a bush and attack and kill

whereas in fact serial killers by and

large are very well socialized into

their community often holding down very

responsible jobs within the community

often seen as being pillars of the

community and indeed gasy is almost

living out a fantasy that he must have

had about being a pillar of the

community so here's somebody living out

the fantasy of normality albeit all the

time we know he's also a closet

homosexual who's engaging in sodomy with

young men that he's able to convince to

engage in sexual activity with him

perhaps through the status that he had

buying those sexual

Services by the mid-70s behind closed

doors gas's wife began complaining of

his violent mood swings he'd lost

interest in marital sex and was keeping

homosexual pornography around the house

she divorced him and moved

out gasy began activ cruising Chicago's

city streets looking to pick up young

men from gay districts known pickup

spots and areas where waes and Strays

would

congregate gasi was able to actually use

one of his roles that of a pseudo police

officer he had the wherewithal in terms

of you know a radio and he would often

hide behind a badge and have you know

bits of what looked like police

paraphernalia

he would pick them up here cruising the

streets in a car that had a very large

light on it as the police often did and

he would be able to stop people using

that as if he were a police officer

picking up Strays taking them home

torturing

them in 1975 boys began

disappearing some had been selling sex

on the streets some were young Runaways

some were connected with his

construction business gas's technique of

of charming and disarming his um victims

was pretty much similar to the way that

he actually engaged um people in a

legitimate business way he would keep

them entertained with his verbal Rapport

and be able to actually charm them

quickly and rapidly into situations that

they could not escape from and once he

had got them into a position where he

felt that he was totally power he would

change he would change very quickly and

the twinkl of an eye he would become the

commanding frightening torturous

monster the young men would frequently

be

drugged handcuffed subjected to repeated

rapes and terrifying ordeals of

torture then they would be

strangled he always picked the kind of

attractive guy that he could never be

himself um but these individuals became

less individualistic as far as he's

concerned they became more and more

objects mean the more they became simply

objects for him to do with as he wished

the more horrific and torturous their

experience was within his

[Music]

company gasy seems to me to fall into to

the criteria of the hedonistic serial

killer in other words the person who

kills simply for the sexual thrill of

killing in particular strangling his

young victims and sodomizing

them rumors circulated amongst the gay

community about the dangers of a large

man with a liking for violent sadistic

sex but despite an ever increasing

number of Disappearing young men they

were simply assumed to have left town or

run away with no bodies discovered they

were chalked up as just another of the

thousands of missing persons reported in

the city each

year the police tend to call young kids

of that kind blue dross they tend to

call them that as a way of saying they

don't matter as much as kids from a

normal background so we don't give them

as much attention we also know because

of their um sexuality that often that

means the police don't take enough

notice of the uh violence in uh gay

men's

lives even when police were alerted to

gas's sadistic Behavior they failed to

act on a night in March

1978 27-year-old Jeffrey Ral was lured

into gase's car by his offer to share a

joint

he was chloroformed driven to gas's

house and subjected to prolonged

agonizing sexual

torture after being repeatedly drugged

he eventually awoke sprawled under a

statue in Chicago's Lincoln Park despite

reporting the incident gasy remained at

large gas's protection from

investigation and prosecution was this

established good good citizen that he'd

managed to fabricate in the community

where he felt to some degree he was

pretty much invulnerable from

accusations from Young lads who were

probably not thought of very well in the

community he also knew that it was

pretty difficult for someone to make

accusations uh of homosexual nature and

of of someone who would suddenly want to

torture someone this was out of context

particularly out of context given his

standing

but John Wayne gasy was about to make a

fatal

mistake when gayy stopped targeting

young gay homeless men who weren't

really part of the community but instead

targeted Robert Past who was an

All-American high school kid with a good

family who were going to report him as

missing who were going to say how is the

police investigation going it was only

by choosing that type of victim that

really was the unraveling of

gay 15-year-old Robert past was

considered the archetypal cleancut

All-American

boy popular with his peers and loved by

his close

family on December the 11th

1978 he was working his regular job in a

pharmacy saving money towards

College he was looking forward to

joining his mother's birthday

celebrations that evening

[Music]

when she came to collect him at 9:00

p.m. he asked her to wait for a moment

while he went to talk to a man who was

in the parking lot about an offer of a

construction

job he did not

return chief of detectives Joseph

kenak received the missing person's

report this is where Robert pce worked

the boy's mother came came here to pick

him up and when she arrived the boy told

her that he wanted her to wait inside so

he could go outside to talk to someone

about summer work and once the boy went

out the the front door he was never seen

again the owners of the

drugstore told us that they had a

contractor who was to do repair work

inside of their their Pharmacy they

supplied us with some information

pertaining to his telephone number and

through the phone number we were able to

determine his full name and

address and that's that's the first time

we ever knew the name John Wayne

gas detectives headed to the

businessman's home to question him

hoping they would find the missing

15-year-old safe and unharmed

Casey had a diamond shaped window in his

front door and the front part of his

house was dark but there was a street

lamp on the sidewalk in front of his

residence and as uh I stood in front of

his door knocking on it uh with the

reflection of the light into the window

I could see a face staring back at us

[Music]

then the face faded in into the darkness

of the

house and as we walked along the side of

the house and looked inside of a window

we could see Casey sitting in a chair

watching television drinking a

beer it was an uncomfortable feeling

being inside his residence and he

was uh

belligerent uh

uncooperative and seemed too uh he

seemed

nervous suspecting gasy knew more than

he was revealing detectives obtained a

search warrant and discovered a

concealed void beneath the

house the crawl space was actually

hidden by a secret trap door in a closet

and one of my investigators found that

and pointed that out to

me we took a a screwdriver into a little

crack in the floor and PRI it up and

when we did the whole floor lifted up

and that led us into the crawl space and

I went down there with a flashlight and

looked around and everything was dry and

solid there was no

evidence teenager Robert past was

nowhere to be

found detectives placed gasy under

24-hour

surveillance when we started our

surveillance uh

gy initially responded by telling many

of his friends that we were FBI agents

that we were

bodyguards but ultimately what happened

is he really started to break down

psychologically in the sense that he

couldn't maintain his day-to-day facade

of being Mr Nice Guy or a businessman

because every time he went out his front

door there was a police car sitting

there waiting to follow him

around despite finding no bodies at his

house the police had discovered a stash

of personal possessions that appear to

have been collected as

trophies we had started to find case

reports based on pieces of ID we found

on the first search warant and

identified those little pieces of

identification as being missing person

persons who were former employees of

gasey the mounting evidence convinced

detectives that they should begin

digging in the craw space under gas's

house prosecuting attorney Robert Eagan

was one of the first on the

scene the first body was

excavated and everyone was kind of

standing around waiting for the

excavation there was a lot of water in

the CW space as a matter of fact the

body had to be taken up literally Out of

Water the evidence technician had to

reach down and feel a rib cage and then

pull the rib cage up out of the

water the parts were put into a body bag

and as that was taking place the

evidence technician that was doing the

excavation was feeling down under the

water and he he yelled out to us and we

everybody kind of turned around to see

what he was wor he and he said I I've

got another rib cage down

here beneath the unassuming Suburban

home detectives had made a discovery

that would see it become one of the most

infamous houses in American

history in 1978 the search for

15-year-old Robert past had led

detectives to the home of John Wayne

gasy a businessman and pillar of the

local

community there they discovered the

remains of a decomposing body in a

hidden crawl space beneath the

house but that was only the beginning

the evidence technician that was doing

the excavation he yelled out to us and

he said i' I've got another rib cage

down

[Music]

here the second set of remains was

merely the tip of the

iceberg body after decomposing body was

being

[Music]

Unearthed gasy kept the bodies of his

victims under the house it's an ideal

way to

remember where his victims were it's an

ideal way of keeping control over those

victims even after they've died

a total of 29 young men were discovered

buried on gas's property 27 of them in

the cruel space beneath his

home in police custody gasy began to

confess he admitted to strangling all

but his first

victim he would choke them with a toric

as they were sexually

assaulted he referred to this as his

rope

trick he he claimed some victims

convulsed for an hour or two before

dying when he investigation started the

neighbors uh essentially were to shock

beyond belief because most of the

neighbors even at that point in time

still said John John would never do

anything to harm anybody uh my son

played by his house uh he's always had

parties for the neighborhood he was a

nice guy a good businessman so the the

neighbors were just totally

shocked I was astounded this is a hard

driving very hardworking individual this

is a guy who appeared to have the social

norms and the social values of the

average middle

American right down to the ground I

certainly did not anticipate anything

like that when I found out I was

stunned but none of the bodies under the

house was 15-year-old Robert

past his whereabouts were finally

discovered in April

1979 Robert had been killed on the night

of his

abduction with no space left under his

house gasy had thrown the teenager's

body from a bridge into the Dez plains

River three other boys had suffered the

same fate

on February the 6th 1980 37-year-old

John Wayne gasey stood trial for the

murder of 33 young

men well the defense argued that he was

insane because he couldn't control his

actions I mean obviously he couldn't

control his actions he killed 33 people

that we know of but as an insanity

defense in a legal courtroom that's not

going to hold up

prosecutor William kungl was convinced

he could prove gasy had been San and

fully aware of his

wrongdoing he had underlined passages

and read in his family

bible uh indicating his knowledge of his

own guilt as a

Catholic

uh the blasphemers the idolators the

abusers of themselves with mankind shall

not inherit the kingdom of God he had

that underline he had the Illinois

statute book with the paper clips and

underlining on the sexually dangerous

person's act you know exactly what he

was doing and he even knew what the

consequences of it

was so he never showed any remorse never

any Contrition

no emotion it's what psychiatrists call

a flat AFF

effect very

narcissistic well he was all the

[Music]

mattered on March the 13th 1980 John

Wayne gasy was found guilty and

sentenced to serve 12 death sentences

and 21 natural life

[Music]

sentences they asked him why why did you

do this stuff and he said well there

were several reasons uh with some of the

kids I was afraid they would expose me

others threatened to expose me so I I

had to kill them he said and they were

they were all just human trash

anyway that was his

reason on May the 10th

1994 after 14 years on death row John

Wayne gasy was executed by lethal

[Music]

injection gasy remains one of a

America's most prolific serial

murderers but what drove him to Snuff

out the lives of 33 young

men was the belittling and abuse at the

hands of his alcoholic father the

Catalyst was the blood clot on his brain

from his childhood accident with a swing

the

trigger or was John Wayne gasey simply

born to

[Music]

kill I don't think there's anything in

gas 's background that suggests that he

was born to kill my sympathy for gayy

circumstances is that homophobia is a

very difficult cultural phenomenon to

overcome and as a gay man gasy must have

felt it was very difficult to be open

about his

sexuality and whilst we must never

accept

responsibility for the deaths that gayy

caused what we should do is analyze

cultures that regards one gender as

Superior to another and one sexuality as

Superior to

another he clearly lacked a conscience

had uh no feeling towards others that he

was very callous and cold and

calculating I can only conclude that

people are born with this deficit and

there's no way we can change that we

can't teach someone to develop a

conscience if it's not

there so just imagine yourself if you

lacked a conscience the sorts of things

that you could get away with without

feeling bad it's a conscience that makes

most of us

behave because we'd feel bad

if you were suddenly freed of that think

of what you might

[Music]

do forensic psychologist Dr Helen

Morrison spent 600 hours in the company

of the serial

killer and after his death was given

permission by gase's family to have his

brain

examined there were no obvious

abnormalities to him those men and those

boys were Vermin they just need needed

to be extinguished for no reason other

than the fact that they needed to be

gotten rid

of

99% of Serial murderers are male and

this is around the world it covers all

cultures it covers all socioeconomic

groups it covers all religious groups it

covers any type of place that you can

imagine in the world and yet they are so

like they've been cut out with a cookie

cutter they are so exactly the same so

we have to assume that there is some

genetic Foundation it has to be a

mutation John gasy was definitely Born

To Kill

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a

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