1 00:00:17,767 --> 00:00:21,479 My question would be to you right off the bat is why, 2 00:00:21,521 --> 00:00:22,981 after so many years of silence, 3 00:00:23,023 --> 00:00:25,275 never having a media interview and people have said 4 00:00:25,316 --> 00:00:27,402 that you have given them interviews in years past 5 00:00:27,444 --> 00:00:30,030 Well, that’s hogwash. That’s strictly hogwash. 6 00:00:30,071 --> 00:00:33,700 I’m constantly told that I, I’m misquoted 7 00:00:33,742 --> 00:00:35,535 constantly saying that I said this 8 00:00:35,577 --> 00:00:36,995 and I said that that’s not happened. 9 00:00:37,037 --> 00:00:38,621 So that’s pretty well established on this. 10 00:00:38,663 --> 00:00:40,832 This is the first time you’re speaking publicly 11 00:00:40,874 --> 00:00:42,292 about your case. 12 00:00:42,334 --> 00:00:44,210 Right. I’ve always felt 13 00:00:44,252 --> 00:00:45,837 that my attorneys were handling it 14 00:00:45,879 --> 00:00:48,298 and they said to keep a low profile and stay away from it. 15 00:00:48,340 --> 00:00:53,219 And, uh, in light of all that has been used 16 00:00:53,261 --> 00:00:54,679 against me in the media, 17 00:00:54,721 --> 00:00:57,098 they’ve created this fantasy monster image 18 00:00:57,140 --> 00:00:59,267 and it’s been going on for the last 12 years 19 00:00:59,309 --> 00:01:01,353 and I’ve ever had no comment. 20 00:01:01,394 --> 00:01:03,521 And I had no need to talk to the media 21 00:01:03,563 --> 00:01:06,399 for the simple reason that they were looking for sensationalism 22 00:01:06,441 --> 00:01:07,901 and they were looking for the monster. 23 00:01:07,942 --> 00:01:10,153 When you say fantasy monster image, 24 00:01:10,195 --> 00:01:11,863 what are you referring to by that? 25 00:01:11,905 --> 00:01:15,617 Well, the idea that I’m a homosexual thrill killer 26 00:01:15,658 --> 00:01:20,580 and all that, that garbage and they painted this image of me 27 00:01:20,622 --> 00:01:23,875 that, like I stroll down the streets 28 00:01:23,917 --> 00:01:27,170 and stalked young boys and slaughtered them. 29 00:01:27,212 --> 00:01:29,464 Hell, if you could see my schedule, my work schedule, 30 00:01:29,506 --> 00:01:31,925 you know damn well that I was never out there. 31 00:01:31,966 --> 00:01:33,259 Well you, you were 32 00:01:33,301 --> 00:01:35,136 now, you were indicted, convicted and sentenced 33 00:01:35,178 --> 00:01:38,890 on thirty-three counts of homicide. Is that correct? 34 00:01:38,932 --> 00:01:40,934 That’s correct. 35 00:02:18,722 --> 00:02:21,349 Police digging under a house in Des Plaines, Illinois, 36 00:02:21,391 --> 00:02:22,976 found four more bodies today. 37 00:02:23,018 --> 00:02:26,187 The owner of the house, a man named John Wayne Gacy, 38 00:02:26,229 --> 00:02:27,480 is suspected of having killed 39 00:02:27,522 --> 00:02:29,566 as many as thirty two teenage boys 40 00:02:29,607 --> 00:02:32,777 and burying most of them under and around his house and garage. 41 00:02:32,819 --> 00:02:34,988 But the story, of course, is far from over. 42 00:02:35,030 --> 00:02:37,949 Investigators know there are bodies or parts of bodies 43 00:02:37,991 --> 00:02:40,744 still to be dug out of this muddy crawl space. 44 00:02:40,785 --> 00:02:42,871 Police have been answering hundreds of telephone calls 45 00:02:42,912 --> 00:02:44,831 from the families of missing teenage boys 46 00:02:44,873 --> 00:02:46,416 all over the country. 47 00:02:46,458 --> 00:02:49,169 Before the murders, Gacy was well-respected in his community. 48 00:02:49,210 --> 00:02:50,879 He was active in local politics 49 00:02:50,920 --> 00:02:53,631 and even dressed up as a clown to entertain children. 50 00:02:53,673 --> 00:02:59,763 He’s a very good neighbor and we socialize with him. 51 00:02:59,804 --> 00:03:01,097 In December 1978, 52 00:03:01,139 --> 00:03:04,309 the disappearance of a 15 year old boy led police 53 00:03:04,351 --> 00:03:06,394 to Gacy’s suburban Chicago home. 54 00:03:06,436 --> 00:03:07,854 In the weeks that followed. 55 00:03:07,896 --> 00:03:11,274 Police found 29 bodies buried in shallow graves 56 00:03:11,316 --> 00:03:13,193 under his home and near it. 57 00:03:13,234 --> 00:03:16,738 Police also found four bodies in nearby streams. 58 00:03:16,780 --> 00:03:21,326 You see bodies in your sleep, you see him in your sleep. 59 00:03:21,368 --> 00:03:23,328 It’s just too much. 60 00:03:31,252 --> 00:03:35,423 It was December of 1978, 61 00:03:36,508 --> 00:03:39,094 I was getting ready to do my laundry 62 00:03:39,135 --> 00:03:40,637 and I was watching TV. 63 00:03:40,679 --> 00:03:42,806 Today, police found four more bodies 64 00:03:42,847 --> 00:03:45,266 in John Gacy’s suburban Chicago home. 65 00:03:45,308 --> 00:03:46,768 And saw the news flash 66 00:03:46,810 --> 00:03:50,605 about bodies being found under a house in Chicago. 67 00:03:50,647 --> 00:03:52,899 One of John Gacy’s neighbors said all of this 68 00:03:52,941 --> 00:03:54,609 is like a nightmare. 69 00:03:54,651 --> 00:03:56,903 And I was dumbfounded. 70 00:03:56,945 --> 00:04:00,323 It’s like, could one person do this? 71 00:04:01,533 --> 00:04:07,831 I probably first wrote to him in 83, 84, 1988, 72 00:04:08,498 --> 00:04:10,667 John finally responded to one of my letters, 73 00:04:11,084 --> 00:04:14,754 and from there we started corresponding 74 00:04:14,796 --> 00:04:16,464 and talking on the phone. 75 00:04:16,881 --> 00:04:19,467 I thought I was gonna do either a book 76 00:04:19,509 --> 00:04:21,177 or, you know, a short film. 77 00:04:21,845 --> 00:04:26,224 But my interest was more on a personal level. 78 00:04:26,266 --> 00:04:27,976 I wanted to ask him 79 00:04:28,935 --> 00:04:30,562 why? 80 00:04:30,603 --> 00:04:33,940 I started recording my phone calls with Gacy 81 00:04:33,982 --> 00:04:37,027 simply because I couldn’t take notes very fast. 82 00:04:37,068 --> 00:04:40,447 This call is subject to being monitored and recorded. 83 00:04:40,905 --> 00:04:45,660 Hang up to decline or dial five five to accept. 84 00:04:51,791 --> 00:04:53,877 By the end of 88? You know, 85 00:04:53,918 --> 00:04:58,506 we were talking sometimes four and five times a week. 86 00:05:17,650 --> 00:05:23,823 In January of 1989, I flew into St. Louis 87 00:05:24,991 --> 00:05:29,162 and went to Menard Correctional Facility, 88 00:05:29,204 --> 00:05:31,873 which is in the very southern tip of Illinois. 89 00:05:32,415 --> 00:05:37,629 And I started visiting him, which I did every three months 90 00:05:37,671 --> 00:05:41,758 for three days at a time. For six years. 91 00:05:43,051 --> 00:05:46,554 Gacy’s the one who wanted an interview. And, 92 00:05:46,596 --> 00:05:49,808 Of course, the Department of Corrections 93 00:05:49,849 --> 00:05:53,728 didn’t want that at all. They didn’t want to give Gacy 94 00:05:53,770 --> 00:05:57,732 any more attention than they had to and they didn’t 95 00:05:57,774 --> 00:05:59,317 You know, who am I am nobody. 96 00:05:59,359 --> 00:06:02,362 And then, oddly enough, Gacy said oh well you have 97 00:06:02,404 --> 00:06:05,156 to talk to my good friend who works at the FBI. 98 00:06:06,700 --> 00:06:09,327 And I said, who’s that? And he goes, Robert Ressler. 99 00:06:09,369 --> 00:06:12,747 Bob Ressler helped establish the FBI’s behavioral unit 100 00:06:12,789 --> 00:06:14,916 that investigates serial killers. 101 00:06:14,958 --> 00:06:16,960 I think Mr. Gacy enjoys control. 102 00:06:17,002 --> 00:06:20,088 He enjoys power and dominance over other people. 103 00:06:20,130 --> 00:06:23,925 These are some of the base criterias for a serial killer. 104 00:06:23,967 --> 00:06:27,846 Robert Ressler was a special agent at the FBI. 105 00:06:28,304 --> 00:06:31,683 He basically coined the phrase serial killer. 106 00:06:32,642 --> 00:06:34,060 Bob grew up in Chicago 107 00:06:34,102 --> 00:06:37,647 and he was in Chicago when Gacy was arrested. 108 00:06:38,982 --> 00:06:42,819 So he was involved from the very beginning. The FBI academy, 109 00:06:43,278 --> 00:06:46,906 reached out to many serial killers to do interviews, 110 00:06:46,948 --> 00:06:50,493 kind of to educate students back at the academy. 111 00:06:51,161 --> 00:06:55,040 And Bob did most of those interviews. 112 00:06:57,334 --> 00:06:59,127 In 1989, 113 00:06:59,169 --> 00:07:01,254 I contacted Bob. 114 00:07:16,644 --> 00:07:18,104 I said, would you be interested 115 00:07:18,146 --> 00:07:20,148 in doing an interview? Because that may be the way 116 00:07:20,190 --> 00:07:22,692 the Department of Corrections will say yes. 117 00:07:29,282 --> 00:07:30,158 So that’s how it started. 118 00:07:35,830 --> 00:07:39,292 Ressler and Gacy taped their interview 119 00:07:39,334 --> 00:07:43,505 in the morning of May 4th, 1992. 120 00:07:43,546 --> 00:07:46,424 It must have been a big deal for them to bring John 121 00:07:46,466 --> 00:07:48,760 from one secure area to another. 122 00:07:49,260 --> 00:07:52,681 There are a couple shots where it’s like, you know, 123 00:07:52,722 --> 00:07:54,974 a scene from a Christmas Carol 124 00:07:55,016 --> 00:07:57,602 dragging the chains, walking through. 125 00:07:58,228 --> 00:08:02,774 It was frightening. 126 00:08:08,780 --> 00:08:10,532 We used the warden’s office, 127 00:08:10,573 --> 00:08:15,370 he very generously gave us his office to do the interview in. 128 00:08:15,412 --> 00:08:16,871 Yeah, I was going to ask you 129 00:08:16,913 --> 00:08:19,124 in so far as sound goes, if I’m down with my head, 130 00:08:19,165 --> 00:08:21,376 does that hurt your sound quality? 131 00:08:21,418 --> 00:08:24,254 No, it’s OK. Just don’t, try to move around too much. 132 00:08:25,714 --> 00:08:28,008 If you break into song give em a cue. 133 00:08:28,049 --> 00:08:30,051 I aint gonna break into any song. 134 00:08:30,093 --> 00:08:32,137 John’s sitting there at the table 135 00:08:32,178 --> 00:08:36,307 with his little stack of information and I said, 136 00:08:36,808 --> 00:08:39,436 so can can we take the handcuffs off? 137 00:08:40,145 --> 00:08:42,105 And the warden looks at the guard. 138 00:08:42,147 --> 00:08:45,442 The guard looks at the warden and they go, Yeah, why not? 139 00:08:46,443 --> 00:08:50,363 First time I had ever seen John without handcuffs. 140 00:08:50,405 --> 00:08:53,575 And so then I immediately said to the cameraman, 141 00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:58,538 anything that starts to get slow or dull cut to his hands. 142 00:08:59,164 --> 00:09:00,874 There’s going to be a tell there somewhere. 143 00:09:00,915 --> 00:09:02,959 And we’ll go into the lead in as to 144 00:09:03,001 --> 00:09:06,046 as you know, you were at 1978. 145 00:09:06,087 --> 00:09:07,839 Yeah. You were present. Yeah. 146 00:09:08,340 --> 00:09:09,758 OK, that’s that’s the way I’d like to start. 147 00:09:09,799 --> 00:09:11,301 And I’d like to kind of go 148 00:09:11,343 --> 00:09:13,011 Well what do you got there? Let’s see your list. 149 00:09:13,053 --> 00:09:14,346 I’d just like to go through the generalities, 150 00:09:14,387 --> 00:09:15,764 maybe talk about the background of the thing. 151 00:09:15,805 --> 00:09:18,725 The the, uh, the original case. 152 00:09:18,767 --> 00:09:22,187 John is a master manipulator. 153 00:09:22,645 --> 00:09:25,398 He comes across as 154 00:09:25,815 --> 00:09:28,151 so damn normal. 155 00:09:28,777 --> 00:09:30,987 Uh, bleeping of the language. 156 00:09:31,029 --> 00:09:34,616 I will watch the language. He’s going to try. 157 00:09:34,657 --> 00:09:37,118 John does tend to slip into 158 00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:37,827 Well I, 159 00:09:37,869 --> 00:09:39,120 I call it as I see it, 160 00:09:39,162 --> 00:09:40,538 and some people can’t understand that. 161 00:09:40,580 --> 00:09:41,998 We’re learning so much now 162 00:09:42,040 --> 00:09:44,459 that we would never have known at the time. 163 00:09:44,501 --> 00:09:45,627 Are you going to talk first? 164 00:09:45,669 --> 00:09:47,295 Yeah, I’ll kind of introduce 165 00:09:47,337 --> 00:09:48,838 Parts that I missed 166 00:09:49,673 --> 00:09:54,427 or didn’t know about. Or didn’t want to think about. 167 00:09:55,095 --> 00:09:58,056 This should be the definitive story 168 00:09:58,682 --> 00:10:00,183 and not just about Gacy, 169 00:10:00,225 --> 00:10:03,478 but it’s about the families that were affected, 170 00:10:03,520 --> 00:10:04,771 the victims. 171 00:10:05,647 --> 00:10:07,607 Hopefully making some sense 172 00:10:07,649 --> 00:10:09,401 about some of the loose ends. 173 00:10:10,360 --> 00:10:12,362 It takes time for history to happen. 174 00:10:14,030 --> 00:10:16,700 All right, so whenever the hell they’re ready. 175 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:28,169 In 1978, when the Gacy story broke, 176 00:10:28,211 --> 00:10:30,380 I was a general assignment reporter 177 00:10:30,422 --> 00:10:34,009 and a weekend anchor at ABC Seven in Chicago. 178 00:10:35,260 --> 00:10:40,724 Chicago was a dream job for me. Reporters, news people, 179 00:10:41,224 --> 00:10:44,019 the people that the folks of Chicago 180 00:10:44,060 --> 00:10:45,395 invited into their homes 181 00:10:45,437 --> 00:10:48,106 every night were treated very, very well. 182 00:10:48,148 --> 00:10:51,693 And if you go back to the days of the front page 183 00:10:51,735 --> 00:10:53,987 when journalism was king in Chicago 184 00:10:54,029 --> 00:10:55,697 and there were eight newspapers, 185 00:10:56,114 --> 00:10:59,492 Chicago was the epicenter of great news coverage. 186 00:11:07,917 --> 00:11:10,587 I remember the moment very, very well. 187 00:11:11,212 --> 00:11:15,383 I walked into my apartment on East Randolph Street in Chicago 188 00:11:15,425 --> 00:11:18,345 and the phone was ringing. I picked up the phone 189 00:11:18,386 --> 00:11:21,264 and it was the person who would become a major source 190 00:11:21,306 --> 00:11:23,600 for this story for years to come. 191 00:11:24,392 --> 00:11:30,398 The source said get to 82- 13 West Summerdale right away. 192 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:35,487 I guarantee it’ll be worth it. And that began one of 193 00:11:35,528 --> 00:11:38,281 the most incredible stories I’ve ever covered. 194 00:11:41,451 --> 00:11:43,036 82 13 West Summerdale 195 00:11:43,078 --> 00:11:46,247 is in a neighborhood called Norwood Park Township, 196 00:11:46,289 --> 00:11:49,793 just outside of the community of Norwich on Chicago’s West Side. 197 00:11:50,460 --> 00:11:52,337 I’ve been given very, very sketchy information 198 00:11:52,379 --> 00:11:54,089 about what I was about to walk into. 199 00:11:54,130 --> 00:11:57,175 It was something about bodies buried. 200 00:12:00,053 --> 00:12:02,597 So it’s now 11:30, 12 at night, 201 00:12:02,639 --> 00:12:05,308 there’s no newscast until the next morning. 202 00:12:05,350 --> 00:12:09,354 This was well before the days of the internet and Twitter 203 00:12:09,396 --> 00:12:12,107 and getting something quickly on the internet 204 00:12:12,148 --> 00:12:13,900 before anybody else got to it. 205 00:12:15,276 --> 00:12:16,820 1978 206 00:12:17,237 --> 00:12:20,532 was a time when there were murders in Chicago, 207 00:12:20,573 --> 00:12:24,828 but there were more drug related murders, gang related murders. 208 00:12:25,203 --> 00:12:26,913 That neighborhood wasn’t one you 209 00:12:26,955 --> 00:12:29,374 usually associated with violence. 210 00:12:29,416 --> 00:12:31,626 It was a working class neighborhood 211 00:12:31,668 --> 00:12:34,462 which was basically quiet most of the time. 212 00:12:35,505 --> 00:12:37,590 So to have something like that out 213 00:12:37,632 --> 00:12:41,136 there was certainly unusual, if not unheard of. 214 00:12:42,637 --> 00:12:45,807 December in Chicago is not fun for anybody. 215 00:12:45,849 --> 00:12:47,559 And this was a cold December, 216 00:12:48,184 --> 00:12:50,687 but you can endure almost anything 217 00:12:51,104 --> 00:12:53,023 if the story is big enough. 218 00:12:55,358 --> 00:12:59,320 This was something the likes of which I had never seen. 219 00:12:59,362 --> 00:13:01,573 That from now until the day I die, 220 00:13:01,614 --> 00:13:03,450 I will be able to remember 221 00:13:03,491 --> 00:13:07,203 and be able to feel and touch and see and smell. 222 00:13:17,172 --> 00:13:18,923 When I got to the scene, 223 00:13:18,965 --> 00:13:20,884 I believe I was the only reporter there, 224 00:13:20,925 --> 00:13:22,510 but as the night wore on, 225 00:13:22,552 --> 00:13:26,014 word started to get out and others arrived. 226 00:13:29,100 --> 00:13:31,603 By morning, the story had started to come out. 227 00:13:32,562 --> 00:13:35,315 The first name to surface was Rob Piest. 228 00:13:35,357 --> 00:13:37,776 He was the trigger to the whole investigation. 229 00:13:38,693 --> 00:13:42,405 Rob Piest was working at a pharmacy in Des Plaines 230 00:13:42,447 --> 00:13:44,616 when all of a sudden he disappeared. 231 00:13:46,242 --> 00:13:48,328 Joe Kozenczak and his fellow detectives 232 00:13:48,370 --> 00:13:49,829 on the Des Plaines police force 233 00:13:49,871 --> 00:13:51,831 weren’t out to make history or write the book 234 00:13:51,873 --> 00:13:54,751 on serial killers on December 12th, 1978. 235 00:13:55,251 --> 00:13:57,504 They were just looking for a missing boy. 236 00:13:58,254 --> 00:14:01,925 As I was looking through the police reports on December 12th, 237 00:14:02,967 --> 00:14:08,098 I noticed the missing persons case report of a young boy. 238 00:14:09,474 --> 00:14:13,228 People say policemen have a gut instinct. In this case, 239 00:14:14,229 --> 00:14:15,563 that’s how I’d have to describe it. 240 00:14:15,605 --> 00:14:18,316 I just felt there was something in this case 241 00:14:18,358 --> 00:14:21,611 that we should look at closer. 242 00:14:21,653 --> 00:14:24,406 I was with the Des Plaines Illinois Police Department. 243 00:14:24,989 --> 00:14:27,534 I started there in 1972. 244 00:14:28,910 --> 00:14:30,954 I got a call from Captain Kozenczak 245 00:14:30,995 --> 00:14:33,248 on the 13th of December. 246 00:14:34,165 --> 00:14:36,543 Rob Piest, 15 year old boy from Des Plaines 247 00:14:36,584 --> 00:14:39,504 had gone missing under unusual circumstances. 248 00:14:40,380 --> 00:14:43,717 Late in the day and the 11th of December, 249 00:14:43,758 --> 00:14:46,720 his mother had come to his place of employment, 250 00:14:47,095 --> 00:14:49,222 which was a pharmacy in Des Plaines, 251 00:14:49,264 --> 00:14:52,100 picking him up at the end of his workday. 252 00:14:53,476 --> 00:14:55,353 Rob Piest had come out and spoke with his mom 253 00:14:55,395 --> 00:14:57,689 and said, hey, listen, I’ll be done in a few minutes. 254 00:14:57,731 --> 00:15:00,150 I’ve got this contractor that I want to talk to. 255 00:15:00,775 --> 00:15:04,362 I understand he’s hiring and I could probably 256 00:15:04,404 --> 00:15:06,531 make substantially more than I’m making here. 257 00:15:06,573 --> 00:15:08,324 So if you don’t mind, I’ll just be a few minutes. 258 00:15:08,366 --> 00:15:11,161 I’m going to go talk to this guy and I’ll be right back. 259 00:15:11,202 --> 00:15:12,912 He was pretty excited about it, 260 00:15:12,954 --> 00:15:15,248 and I told him there’d be no problem 261 00:15:15,290 --> 00:15:16,541 that I’d wait for him. 262 00:15:17,292 --> 00:15:19,627 And that was the last I saw of him. 263 00:15:20,712 --> 00:15:21,838 A little after 9:00, 264 00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:23,715 mom was waiting for him to return. 265 00:15:23,757 --> 00:15:25,342 He didn’t return. 266 00:15:25,383 --> 00:15:27,177 After Rob didn’t show up, 267 00:15:27,218 --> 00:15:29,262 Mr. and Mrs. Piest searched all around 268 00:15:29,304 --> 00:15:31,806 Des Plaines frantically looking for him. 269 00:15:32,974 --> 00:15:35,685 Rob Piest was very, very close to his family. 270 00:15:35,727 --> 00:15:39,189 They were going to celebrate the mother’s birthday that night. 271 00:15:39,230 --> 00:15:41,566 And at that point, the Piest family launched 272 00:15:41,608 --> 00:15:43,276 a full court press 273 00:15:43,318 --> 00:15:46,821 into the disappearance of a child 274 00:15:47,614 --> 00:15:51,659 who to them was inconceivable to have disappeared. 275 00:15:52,327 --> 00:15:55,455 We knew something was wrong. So from there, 276 00:15:55,497 --> 00:16:01,002 we went to the police and filed a missing persons report. 277 00:16:02,295 --> 00:16:04,631 Missing persons back in that era, 278 00:16:04,673 --> 00:16:07,509 and even now are pretty much a dime a dozen. 279 00:16:07,550 --> 00:16:09,177 We’ll get a call of a missing person 280 00:16:09,219 --> 00:16:12,430 and they most likely have run away previously 281 00:16:12,472 --> 00:16:14,224 or had problems in school 282 00:16:14,265 --> 00:16:16,351 or with the family or something like that. 283 00:16:16,393 --> 00:16:18,436 It was totally different with Rob Piest. 284 00:16:18,478 --> 00:16:20,855 I mean, he was like a really good kid. 285 00:16:21,523 --> 00:16:24,109 He enjoyed school. He enjoyed his family. 286 00:16:24,526 --> 00:16:27,529 So it was really unusual for him to go missing. 287 00:16:28,321 --> 00:16:30,365 When the police report was being taken, 288 00:16:30,824 --> 00:16:34,786 the desk officer overheard the mother make a statement 289 00:16:35,412 --> 00:16:36,579 to the father saying, 290 00:16:36,621 --> 00:16:39,290 I wonder who the contractor guy was. 291 00:16:39,332 --> 00:16:40,625 That, to me 292 00:16:40,667 --> 00:16:43,628 and he just jumped out like, who is this? 293 00:16:43,670 --> 00:16:46,006 And they did a little background work on this. 294 00:16:46,047 --> 00:16:47,674 Find out that the contractor 295 00:16:47,716 --> 00:16:50,885 that was there was a gentleman by the name of John Wayne Gacy 296 00:16:50,927 --> 00:16:54,347 and his expertise is he remodels pharmacies. 297 00:16:54,389 --> 00:16:55,974 Now, give me kind of 298 00:16:56,016 --> 00:16:58,435 just an overview of the business that you eventually established. 299 00:16:58,476 --> 00:17:00,562 The construction work. Is this self-taught? 300 00:17:00,603 --> 00:17:03,356 The construction and maintenance work? 301 00:17:03,398 --> 00:17:04,858 I started doing painting, 302 00:17:04,899 --> 00:17:08,278 and then I started doing wallpapering and decorating. 303 00:17:08,319 --> 00:17:12,157 And inside of three years PDM, which is painting, 304 00:17:12,198 --> 00:17:13,616 decorating and maintenance, 305 00:17:13,658 --> 00:17:15,660 was doing a million dollars a year. 306 00:17:15,702 --> 00:17:16,661 And that was- 307 00:17:16,703 --> 00:17:18,204 and I only had four employees. 308 00:17:18,246 --> 00:17:19,247 And that was the business you were in 309 00:17:19,289 --> 00:17:20,832 at the time of the arrests? 310 00:17:20,874 --> 00:17:22,250 That’s correct. 311 00:17:22,292 --> 00:17:25,295 PDM in nineteen seventy four became a corporation 312 00:17:25,795 --> 00:17:28,548 and then I owned PDM Contractors Corporation. 313 00:17:28,590 --> 00:17:32,594 I own PDM Plumbing, PDM Concrete and PDM Decorating. 314 00:17:33,261 --> 00:17:35,180 And then I branched off with another partner 315 00:17:35,221 --> 00:17:36,931 into Raphco Construction. 316 00:17:38,016 --> 00:17:41,770 And from there we were doing strictly drugstores. 317 00:17:42,228 --> 00:17:44,564 John was successful in his, you know, 318 00:17:44,606 --> 00:17:46,900 remodeling business of drugstores. 319 00:17:46,941 --> 00:17:50,570 He was very good at chatting up the proprietor, 320 00:17:50,612 --> 00:17:53,448 suggesting how to lay, you know, lay out the store 321 00:17:53,490 --> 00:17:56,826 so that people would see more products and buy something. 322 00:17:56,868 --> 00:17:58,078 And, you know, 323 00:17:58,119 --> 00:18:00,789 he hired teenagers to do the work. 324 00:18:03,792 --> 00:18:06,920 I worked for John’s business PDM contractors 325 00:18:06,961 --> 00:18:14,969 in the summer of 1975 and then sporadically into 76. 326 00:18:16,012 --> 00:18:20,100 He was a decent boss. He’d like to joke around, 327 00:18:20,141 --> 00:18:23,603 he was a little bit heavyset, so he kind of had, you know, 328 00:18:23,645 --> 00:18:28,608 the aura of being jovial and joking around 329 00:18:28,650 --> 00:18:32,153 and seemed to not take things too seriously. 330 00:18:33,238 --> 00:18:35,490 When I was working there, I think there was about four 331 00:18:35,532 --> 00:18:38,284 or five of us that were working for him 332 00:18:38,785 --> 00:18:42,539 and the age was all sixteen, which was how old 333 00:18:42,580 --> 00:18:47,669 I was up to about 19 or 20 for the older guys. 334 00:18:48,253 --> 00:18:52,382 I think everyone was in about that four or five year age span. 335 00:18:53,174 --> 00:18:56,344 I think he utilized young boys 336 00:18:56,386 --> 00:18:59,389 or adolescent boys in his business 337 00:18:59,431 --> 00:19:02,517 because, yes, they were cheaper than if he hired perhaps 338 00:19:02,559 --> 00:19:05,812 a real carpenter, a union carpenter. 339 00:19:05,854 --> 00:19:09,232 He was always looking for inexpensive labor. 340 00:19:10,358 --> 00:19:11,901 And, you know, young boys provided 341 00:19:11,943 --> 00:19:15,780 that. At least at that time that’s what we thought. 342 00:19:18,533 --> 00:19:20,660 You know, thinking back, yes, I should have been 343 00:19:20,702 --> 00:19:24,539 much more unnerved and afraid, but I wasn’t. 344 00:19:25,790 --> 00:19:28,543 Part of his success in that was his demeanor, 345 00:19:29,377 --> 00:19:31,921 you know, people can put on two different fronts. 346 00:19:33,381 --> 00:19:35,550 Because obviously, he was a monster. 347 00:19:45,935 --> 00:19:47,645 When the investigators started out, 348 00:19:47,687 --> 00:19:49,230 they learned from the Piest family 349 00:19:49,272 --> 00:19:52,275 that Rob was going to go talk to John Gacy about a job, 350 00:19:52,776 --> 00:19:54,986 and that’s the last he had been seen. 351 00:19:55,028 --> 00:19:56,905 Well we were just in shock. 352 00:19:56,946 --> 00:20:00,116 We couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. 353 00:20:00,992 --> 00:20:02,827 We didn’t know what happened to him. 354 00:20:03,370 --> 00:20:08,249 We knew it was not of his own choosing because he loved us. 355 00:20:08,291 --> 00:20:09,793 He loved his home. 356 00:20:09,834 --> 00:20:12,712 If there was any way for him to come home, he would. 357 00:20:13,380 --> 00:20:15,423 So we knew something really had happened. 358 00:20:15,465 --> 00:20:17,509 We had no idea at that time 359 00:20:17,550 --> 00:20:19,678 it would turn into something like this. 360 00:20:21,930 --> 00:20:24,057 When you’re on a story like this, 361 00:20:24,516 --> 00:20:26,518 in addition to covering who, 362 00:20:26,559 --> 00:20:30,897 where, when, why, what happened, you also start to say, OK. 363 00:20:32,065 --> 00:20:33,525 Who else knew about this? 364 00:20:33,566 --> 00:20:35,235 Did the guy do anything before? 365 00:20:35,735 --> 00:20:37,404 Is there a police record? 366 00:20:37,445 --> 00:20:39,447 Is there something we can find out? 367 00:20:40,490 --> 00:20:42,659 We started to call this person 368 00:20:42,701 --> 00:20:44,369 to find out what was going on, 369 00:20:45,120 --> 00:20:47,997 and he gave his name as John Wayne Gacy, 370 00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:53,461 and stated that he didn’t know anything about any missing kids 371 00:20:53,503 --> 00:20:56,923 from the drug store. He was a little, 372 00:20:59,050 --> 00:21:02,220 defensive and based on that, 373 00:21:02,762 --> 00:21:05,265 we wanted to pursue him a little further. 374 00:21:08,018 --> 00:21:10,979 We were trying to do some background record checks, 375 00:21:11,021 --> 00:21:14,482 but in 1978, you know, it’s not like it is today. 376 00:21:14,524 --> 00:21:17,235 instantaneously, you get a criminal history, 377 00:21:17,277 --> 00:21:18,653 you can find out everything you want. 378 00:21:18,695 --> 00:21:21,990 In 1978, the Chicago Police Department 379 00:21:23,199 --> 00:21:26,244 had a file called the Alpha File, 380 00:21:26,286 --> 00:21:27,871 and they would, 381 00:21:27,912 --> 00:21:32,751 based on what you told them, search these files by hand. 382 00:21:33,793 --> 00:21:35,879 We called Chicago Police Department. 383 00:21:36,671 --> 00:21:38,882 And said we’re trying to find out more about this guy 384 00:21:38,923 --> 00:21:40,967 we’re looking at, can you help us? 385 00:21:41,634 --> 00:21:44,012 Do you have any criminal history 386 00:21:44,054 --> 00:21:45,221 on him on record? 387 00:21:45,263 --> 00:21:47,849 And this Police officer said 388 00:21:47,891 --> 00:21:50,894 the guy’s on parole to Chicago 389 00:21:51,478 --> 00:21:55,899 from the state of Iowa. He served prison time. 390 00:21:55,940 --> 00:21:59,486 He was convicted of sodomy of a young boy. 391 00:22:00,820 --> 00:22:03,448 And the hair stood up on the back of our necks. 392 00:22:05,158 --> 00:22:08,370 When they found that he had been arrested in Iowa 393 00:22:08,411 --> 00:22:10,789 for sexually molesting a young boy. 394 00:22:11,748 --> 00:22:14,125 That obviously threw some flags up. 395 00:22:14,167 --> 00:22:17,253 They put together a couple of detectives later that evening 396 00:22:17,295 --> 00:22:22,384 and went looking for Gacy. And when they got to his home. 397 00:22:23,426 --> 00:22:24,844 He was getting ready to leave. 398 00:22:24,886 --> 00:22:26,554 Now they did not search the house at that time 399 00:22:26,596 --> 00:22:27,722 or look through the house. 400 00:22:27,764 --> 00:22:32,060 No, according - afterwards, 401 00:22:32,102 --> 00:22:34,229 they’re claiming that they came to the front door of the house 402 00:22:34,270 --> 00:22:36,773 and knocked on the door and that I hid from them. 403 00:22:36,815 --> 00:22:38,149 Why didn’t you let them in at that time 404 00:22:38,191 --> 00:22:40,110 when they’re knocking at the front door? 405 00:22:40,694 --> 00:22:42,195 There was no way I could have heard them, 406 00:22:42,237 --> 00:22:44,989 I was way in the back of the house, in the rec room, 407 00:22:45,031 --> 00:22:46,866 on the telephone. When they walked, 408 00:22:46,908 --> 00:22:49,160 finally walked around the side of the house, 409 00:22:49,202 --> 00:22:51,663 I could look out the picture window, see them there, 410 00:22:51,705 --> 00:22:52,956 because I was on the phone 411 00:22:52,997 --> 00:22:54,416 and they could see me clearly, too, 412 00:22:54,457 --> 00:22:56,001 sitting on the couch on the telephone 413 00:22:56,042 --> 00:22:57,502 because I was talking to my sister 414 00:22:57,544 --> 00:22:59,671 in regards to a death in our family. 415 00:22:59,713 --> 00:23:03,008 So I told her that I would call her back, 416 00:23:03,591 --> 00:23:05,010 got up, went to the door 417 00:23:05,051 --> 00:23:07,220 and he introduced himself as Kozenczak and Pickell 418 00:23:07,262 --> 00:23:12,058 and they wanted to come in and talk to me about Robert Piest. 419 00:23:12,100 --> 00:23:14,853 And I told them that I had not had any conversation with him, 420 00:23:14,894 --> 00:23:18,064 but I said, if you want to talk to me, then come back there. 421 00:23:19,399 --> 00:23:21,526 We just pushed him a little. 422 00:23:22,152 --> 00:23:24,070 We said, we need you to come in the police station, 423 00:23:24,112 --> 00:23:27,532 give us a witness statement about what you did see 424 00:23:27,574 --> 00:23:31,536 when you were at the drugstore and he said, I don’t have time. 425 00:23:31,578 --> 00:23:33,246 I can’t I can’t do that now. 426 00:23:33,288 --> 00:23:35,749 And they wanted me to come down to the police station. 427 00:23:35,790 --> 00:23:38,460 OK, well, I didn’t have time because I was doing work 428 00:23:38,501 --> 00:23:40,086 for the county and stuff like that. 429 00:23:40,128 --> 00:23:43,715 As soon as we left Gacy’s house, 430 00:23:43,757 --> 00:23:46,217 he attempted to flee from the area, 431 00:23:46,259 --> 00:23:52,057 running to his car and driving away at a high rate of speed. 432 00:23:53,516 --> 00:23:55,226 Now who does that right? 433 00:23:55,268 --> 00:24:02,025 I had decided, based on Gacy’s actions- trying to run from us, 434 00:24:02,901 --> 00:24:04,778 and his attitude in the house, 435 00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:08,448 that I was going to try to get a search warrant. 436 00:24:12,035 --> 00:24:13,912 Went into the police station finally on the next day 437 00:24:13,953 --> 00:24:17,207 after- this was after Kozenczak and Pickell were at the house. 438 00:24:17,624 --> 00:24:19,668 They had asked me to come in 439 00:24:19,709 --> 00:24:22,087 and give me an account of my whereabouts. 440 00:24:22,128 --> 00:24:24,089 When Gacy came into the station, 441 00:24:24,130 --> 00:24:26,633 it was my job to entertain him for a couple hours 442 00:24:26,675 --> 00:24:28,968 because he was only there for to be interviewed. 443 00:24:29,010 --> 00:24:31,596 We couldn’t detain him, but we didn’t want him to leave 444 00:24:31,638 --> 00:24:33,556 until we got the search warrant. 445 00:24:34,557 --> 00:24:36,393 So for two hours I sat there with him 446 00:24:36,434 --> 00:24:40,188 and I quickly analyze and figure out this guy was 447 00:24:40,230 --> 00:24:44,567 a blowhard that had a big ego. So I just started feeding it. 448 00:24:44,609 --> 00:24:47,779 He’d tell me about how successful at business he was 449 00:24:48,321 --> 00:24:50,740 and how he took care of the neighborhood. 450 00:24:50,782 --> 00:24:52,951 He was the go to guy in his neighborhood. 451 00:24:52,992 --> 00:24:55,704 And I would ask him, you know, about people he knew. 452 00:24:55,745 --> 00:24:57,831 And he started telling me that he knew this guy, 453 00:24:57,872 --> 00:25:00,333 he knew that guy, uh, politician, 454 00:25:00,375 --> 00:25:04,087 so I would just act like I was really impressed 455 00:25:04,129 --> 00:25:06,172 and he was just going nuts telling me all about that. 456 00:25:06,214 --> 00:25:07,966 So it was no problem keeping him there. 457 00:25:08,008 --> 00:25:09,843 The thing of it is, is that, 458 00:25:12,012 --> 00:25:16,182 on that same day, they held me there for nine hours 459 00:25:16,224 --> 00:25:17,809 and while holding me there for nine hours, 460 00:25:17,851 --> 00:25:19,310 they executed a search warrant. 461 00:25:19,352 --> 00:25:22,313 The first search warrant was executed on December 13th. 462 00:25:22,981 --> 00:25:24,482 That is the search warrant where they claimed 463 00:25:24,524 --> 00:25:27,110 they went through the house looking for Robert Piest. 464 00:25:27,152 --> 00:25:29,070 It was written up to be looking for Robert Piest 465 00:25:29,112 --> 00:25:31,031 and Robert Piest wasn’t there. 466 00:25:32,949 --> 00:25:34,909 Gacy lived in an unincorporated area 467 00:25:34,951 --> 00:25:37,328 of Cook County called Norwood Park. 468 00:25:37,370 --> 00:25:40,081 The location of his residence was significant 469 00:25:40,123 --> 00:25:41,875 because he lived a stone’s throw away 470 00:25:41,916 --> 00:25:44,377 from the Nisson Pharmacy in Des Plaines, 471 00:25:44,419 --> 00:25:46,129 where Rob Piest was working. 472 00:25:47,088 --> 00:25:50,133 The first search warrant was an attempt 473 00:25:50,175 --> 00:25:54,304 to find Rob Piest alive and we didn’t find that. 474 00:25:54,804 --> 00:25:58,600 The first search did not give us any direct information 475 00:25:58,641 --> 00:26:00,894 in relation to where Rob Piest was. 476 00:26:03,396 --> 00:26:05,940 They didn’t find any bodies in the Gacy house, 477 00:26:05,982 --> 00:26:09,277 but they did find things that really didn’t belong there, 478 00:26:09,319 --> 00:26:13,323 such as a class ring with the initials of somebody 479 00:26:13,365 --> 00:26:14,824 that was not John Wayne Gacy. 480 00:26:15,325 --> 00:26:17,952 And they found a variety of pornography. 481 00:26:17,994 --> 00:26:20,372 They found up in the attic some shackles, 482 00:26:20,413 --> 00:26:23,875 and they also found up in the attic under some insulation, 483 00:26:23,917 --> 00:26:27,212 two books, one of which was titled The Gay Love Letters, 484 00:26:27,253 --> 00:26:29,923 and the other book was Pretty Boys Must Die. 485 00:26:29,964 --> 00:26:33,802 These are very, very odd things to have. 486 00:26:33,843 --> 00:26:35,804 In the trash can in the kitchen 487 00:26:35,845 --> 00:26:38,431 they found a film receipt that originated 488 00:26:38,473 --> 00:26:41,184 from Nisson Pharmacy where Rob Piest had worked. 489 00:26:42,435 --> 00:26:43,895 It had no one’s name on it at 490 00:26:43,937 --> 00:26:47,190 all it had was a number on it. So we really had no idea 491 00:26:47,232 --> 00:26:49,401 what the film was about or who it belonged to. 492 00:26:49,442 --> 00:26:51,152 We assumed it probably belonged to Gacy, 493 00:26:51,194 --> 00:26:54,239 but they recovered that just in case. 494 00:26:58,493 --> 00:27:01,371 We found driver’s licenses from two other individuals, 495 00:27:02,706 --> 00:27:04,666 so that was what we found, 496 00:27:04,708 --> 00:27:07,085 but nothing to lead us to Robert Piest, 497 00:27:07,127 --> 00:27:11,131 so we had to leave the house and let Gacy back in. 498 00:27:11,881 --> 00:27:13,591 My job at the time 499 00:27:13,633 --> 00:27:17,971 was to start digging into his past and his company’s past. 500 00:27:19,764 --> 00:27:21,808 Gacy had been married in Iowa. 501 00:27:22,475 --> 00:27:25,937 He had two children out there 502 00:27:25,979 --> 00:27:28,481 at the time that he went to prison 503 00:27:29,149 --> 00:27:32,193 and as soon as he was paroled, he headed back to Chicago. 504 00:27:35,905 --> 00:27:38,950 By checking missing persons reports from the area 505 00:27:39,534 --> 00:27:41,161 and a specific age, 506 00:27:41,202 --> 00:27:43,705 we started seeing that several other people 507 00:27:43,747 --> 00:27:45,665 that had worked for him were missing. 508 00:27:46,958 --> 00:27:48,626 These individuals were young men that were 509 00:27:48,668 --> 00:27:50,128 being reported missing 510 00:27:50,170 --> 00:27:52,839 and have not been seen for several months. 511 00:27:54,174 --> 00:27:56,468 We find out that the driver’s licenses 512 00:27:56,509 --> 00:27:57,844 that were found in his house 513 00:27:57,886 --> 00:28:00,263 seemingly were related to missing persons. 514 00:28:01,181 --> 00:28:02,932 After the first search warrant, 515 00:28:02,974 --> 00:28:06,353 when the police officers brought back the class ring, 516 00:28:06,811 --> 00:28:10,273 which had initials inside of it- J.S., 517 00:28:10,315 --> 00:28:11,691 we were able to find out 518 00:28:11,733 --> 00:28:15,070 this ring belonged to a fellow by the name of John Szyc 519 00:28:16,363 --> 00:28:20,158 and, and then checking with his family, 520 00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,411 finding out that, in fact, Szyc is missing. 521 00:28:26,873 --> 00:28:28,833 We would sit there in 522 00:28:28,875 --> 00:28:30,627 the Des Plaines Police Department 523 00:28:30,669 --> 00:28:35,382 and just say, what in God’s name are we sitting on top of? 524 00:28:47,352 --> 00:28:50,647 We saw that Gacy had a long record, 525 00:28:50,689 --> 00:28:53,358 there were red flags all along the way 526 00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,444 that for some reason nobody paid attention to. 527 00:28:57,737 --> 00:29:00,865 You know, they say where there’s smoke, there’s fire. 528 00:29:00,907 --> 00:29:04,035 In this case, there was a blaze out of control. 529 00:29:04,828 --> 00:29:06,371 It was in so many different districts 530 00:29:06,413 --> 00:29:10,542 and some were more diligent than others in pursuing it. 531 00:29:11,001 --> 00:29:14,087 I think they did look the other way many times. 532 00:29:14,129 --> 00:29:18,216 But the fact that he got away with it for so long. 533 00:29:19,926 --> 00:29:21,886 Is he entirely to blame? 534 00:29:24,347 --> 00:29:29,853 Or is there something faulty with the system? 535 00:29:32,355 --> 00:29:35,358 Our primary focus, our only focus was watching Gacy. 536 00:29:35,817 --> 00:29:38,778 You’re hoping you’re going to find this kid alive someplace, 537 00:29:38,820 --> 00:29:42,198 you know, whatever it may be that, you know, return him home. 538 00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:46,619 But it was quite apparent, you know, just days into it 539 00:29:47,203 --> 00:29:50,749 that Rob Piest might have been the victim of a homicide. 540 00:29:52,876 --> 00:29:55,045 We felt it very urgent 541 00:29:55,086 --> 00:29:58,798 that we keep an eye on Gacy no matter what, 542 00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:00,467 let’s not lose him. 543 00:30:00,508 --> 00:30:01,926 From the very get-go 544 00:30:01,968 --> 00:30:05,889 We had a team of undercover police officers, 545 00:30:06,431 --> 00:30:10,060 four of them working 12 hour shifts 546 00:30:10,101 --> 00:30:12,228 that were supposed to be tailing him. 547 00:30:14,939 --> 00:30:16,858 I start the surveillance 548 00:30:17,442 --> 00:30:19,361 shortly after the first search warrant. 549 00:30:20,195 --> 00:30:22,072 Right away, we’re thinking, hey, you know, 550 00:30:22,113 --> 00:30:24,407 if he’s not being held against his will Rob Piest, 551 00:30:24,449 --> 00:30:25,992 you know, the worst case scenario 552 00:30:26,034 --> 00:30:27,786 is that he’s been killed 553 00:30:27,827 --> 00:30:30,288 and there’s a possibility that there’s more than one victim. 554 00:30:30,330 --> 00:30:31,748 So I’m thinking to myself now, 555 00:30:31,790 --> 00:30:33,792 what am I doing out here by myself? 556 00:30:34,918 --> 00:30:36,461 And I went back that day. 557 00:30:36,503 --> 00:30:38,421 I said, listen, it’s probably a good idea if we grab 558 00:30:38,463 --> 00:30:41,132 one more guy for the night shift to be my partner. 559 00:30:41,716 --> 00:30:45,095 And that’s how my partner, Mike Albrecht became involved. 560 00:30:45,136 --> 00:30:47,430 We weren’t necessarily given any instructions. 561 00:30:47,472 --> 00:30:50,266 We’re just told watch Gacy. I mean, you had a suspect 562 00:30:50,308 --> 00:30:53,812 in a could be a homicide case, so you got to watch him. 563 00:30:53,853 --> 00:30:56,356 The police had focused in on you 564 00:30:56,398 --> 00:30:58,066 as being the suspect in the missing boy. 565 00:30:58,108 --> 00:30:59,359 and eventually, uh 566 00:30:59,401 --> 00:31:00,694 well they were following me around 567 00:31:00,735 --> 00:31:01,861 Following you? 568 00:31:01,903 --> 00:31:02,987 yeah, constantly. 569 00:31:03,029 --> 00:31:04,948 And on December 13th, 570 00:31:05,490 --> 00:31:07,909 I had made a statement to the police department. 571 00:31:07,951 --> 00:31:12,205 And from that date forward, they were had me 572 00:31:12,247 --> 00:31:14,207 under surveillance. The only trouble is, 573 00:31:14,249 --> 00:31:16,668 is that the Mickey Mouse way they were doing it, 574 00:31:16,710 --> 00:31:19,504 they had two cars following me day and night 575 00:31:19,546 --> 00:31:21,631 and they had trouble keeping up with me. 576 00:31:21,673 --> 00:31:23,633 So I used to go out to the car in the morning 577 00:31:23,675 --> 00:31:27,012 and tell them where I was going, so in case they got lost. 578 00:31:27,429 --> 00:31:30,557 because at the time I was doing five construction jobs 579 00:31:31,141 --> 00:31:32,809 in five parts of the city. 580 00:31:33,685 --> 00:31:36,312 So in essence, I was all over the place. 581 00:31:36,896 --> 00:31:40,275 But this was like Keystone Cops trying to follow me around. 582 00:31:40,900 --> 00:31:42,152 Gacy did know he was being surveilled 583 00:31:42,193 --> 00:31:43,486 right from the get-go. 584 00:31:43,528 --> 00:31:47,282 On the very first day of my surveillance 585 00:31:48,033 --> 00:31:49,492 when I was just being relieved, 586 00:31:49,534 --> 00:31:52,662 Gacy came up to us and asked if we were the police, 587 00:31:52,704 --> 00:31:53,830 and we responded, 588 00:31:53,872 --> 00:31:55,248 well, with Des Plaines, you know, 589 00:31:55,290 --> 00:31:57,834 and we’ve been told to keep an eye on you, 590 00:31:57,876 --> 00:31:59,502 and that’s what we’re doing. 591 00:31:59,544 --> 00:32:03,548 So one of us would be parked in front of Gacy’s house 592 00:32:03,590 --> 00:32:05,425 and the other one right on the corner 593 00:32:05,467 --> 00:32:07,677 because if Gacy wanted to go out the back 594 00:32:07,719 --> 00:32:08,845 we’d be able to watch that. 595 00:32:08,887 --> 00:32:12,098 That first night was kind of uneventful, 596 00:32:12,140 --> 00:32:14,142 and we spent most of the night at Gacy’s house. 597 00:32:14,184 --> 00:32:17,062 But then, you know, he started going places at night. 598 00:32:20,106 --> 00:32:22,192 And a third day of the surveillance, 599 00:32:22,233 --> 00:32:25,070 we released the surveillance team about midnight 600 00:32:25,111 --> 00:32:29,074 over at a place called the Moose Lodge in Des Plaines, 601 00:32:29,657 --> 00:32:32,869 and Gacy was in the Moose Lodge at that time. 602 00:32:33,745 --> 00:32:37,207 So Mike and I being in unchartered waters 603 00:32:37,248 --> 00:32:38,792 thought hey, you know 604 00:32:38,833 --> 00:32:42,170 it’d be a lot easier if we would just go inside. 605 00:32:42,212 --> 00:32:44,255 He already knows that we’re here. 606 00:32:44,297 --> 00:32:46,132 So Mike and I both went in the Moose Lodge 607 00:32:46,174 --> 00:32:49,052 and we saw Gacy right away and he saw us walk in. 608 00:32:49,094 --> 00:32:52,305 We sat at a table, maybe three tables away from Gacy. 609 00:32:53,098 --> 00:32:55,392 And a short time later, 610 00:32:55,433 --> 00:32:58,770 the waitress approaches us with two beers and says, 611 00:32:58,812 --> 00:33:01,898 these beers on the gentleman over there pointing to Gacy. 612 00:33:01,940 --> 00:33:03,233 About halfway through our beer 613 00:33:03,274 --> 00:33:06,903 we sent Gacy a beer, so we reciprocated. 614 00:33:07,487 --> 00:33:11,282 And when it was time for him to leave, he got up. 615 00:33:11,324 --> 00:33:12,909 The place was just starting to close up. 616 00:33:12,951 --> 00:33:14,411 And he walks past us and he says, 617 00:33:14,452 --> 00:33:16,246 hey, would you guys like to go to breakfast somewhere? 618 00:33:16,287 --> 00:33:18,373 Right around the corner was a place called 619 00:33:18,415 --> 00:33:20,125 the Pot and Pan Restaurant. 620 00:33:20,166 --> 00:33:23,712 And so we went in there and Gacy went and he sat down 621 00:33:24,421 --> 00:33:26,756 and we were kind of sitting off the corner 622 00:33:26,798 --> 00:33:28,008 a little bit away from him 623 00:33:28,049 --> 00:33:29,926 and started talking back and forth 624 00:33:29,968 --> 00:33:31,594 he says why don’t you guys come on and sit down with me? 625 00:33:31,636 --> 00:33:33,388 So from that point on, 626 00:33:33,430 --> 00:33:35,306 when he went into a public place, 627 00:33:35,890 --> 00:33:38,059 we would go in there with him. 628 00:33:39,561 --> 00:33:42,731 And we get into all kinds of conversations 629 00:33:42,772 --> 00:33:47,736 about what we’re doing, why we’re following him, 630 00:33:48,319 --> 00:33:52,657 and he talks about his business and how successful he is, 631 00:33:52,699 --> 00:33:56,286 and he told us why he hired young kids. 632 00:33:56,327 --> 00:33:58,496 He says, you know, I got to tell you from experience, 633 00:33:58,538 --> 00:34:01,499 I know if I’ve hired a guy that’s been around the block 634 00:34:01,541 --> 00:34:03,793 a few times, it’s hard for me to train him 635 00:34:03,835 --> 00:34:06,463 because he’s used to doing it a certain way. 636 00:34:06,504 --> 00:34:09,257 I hire these young kids that don’t have any experience. 637 00:34:09,299 --> 00:34:11,843 I can train them right from right from the start 638 00:34:12,260 --> 00:34:14,137 how to do it the way I want it done. 639 00:34:14,179 --> 00:34:16,806 He was, you know, a real braggart 640 00:34:16,848 --> 00:34:21,186 and he would imply all his contacts that he had 641 00:34:21,227 --> 00:34:22,187 in the city of Chicago. 642 00:34:23,730 --> 00:34:25,648 He had a lot of friends out of Chicago Police Department. 643 00:34:25,690 --> 00:34:29,152 He would just at times give you kind of tidbits of what he had, 644 00:34:29,194 --> 00:34:31,071 about all his contacts. 645 00:34:31,780 --> 00:34:34,324 He never really said, oh, well, they’ve done this for me. 646 00:34:34,366 --> 00:34:37,452 It’s more like planting a seed that if he needs help, 647 00:34:37,869 --> 00:34:39,537 he knows where to go to get it. 648 00:34:40,580 --> 00:34:43,500 Well, because of his political connections, 649 00:34:43,541 --> 00:34:46,878 John felt he had Teflon coating, he could get away with anything. 650 00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:50,340 That’s what I’ve learned is like, oh my God, 651 00:34:50,382 --> 00:34:55,637 there’s a whole tractor trailer load of details 652 00:34:55,679 --> 00:34:59,557 about Chicago politics that I never even considered. 653 00:35:00,684 --> 00:35:02,894 Everything in Chicago was based on politics 654 00:35:02,936 --> 00:35:04,312 back in the 70s. 655 00:35:04,354 --> 00:35:05,730 The mayor was in charge 656 00:35:05,772 --> 00:35:08,733 and he was at the top, top rung on the ladder. 657 00:35:09,150 --> 00:35:10,527 But as it filtered down, 658 00:35:10,568 --> 00:35:13,780 you had all these workers, precinct workers. 659 00:35:13,822 --> 00:35:15,990 Gacy was one of those 660 00:35:16,032 --> 00:35:19,244 foot soldiers out in Norwood Park Township. 661 00:35:19,994 --> 00:35:23,873 Gacy was a politician. He told local Democratic officials 662 00:35:23,915 --> 00:35:26,042 that he wanted to run for office someday. 663 00:35:26,084 --> 00:35:27,377 He was very friendly, 664 00:35:27,419 --> 00:35:32,215 forthcoming hail fellow well met type of guy. 665 00:35:32,257 --> 00:35:34,551 John Wayne Gacy was also Pogo the clown 666 00:35:34,592 --> 00:35:36,302 who loved to make kids laugh. 667 00:35:36,845 --> 00:35:39,347 He was married twice, divorced twice, 668 00:35:39,389 --> 00:35:42,100 and had two children. A Democratic Party 669 00:35:42,142 --> 00:35:44,602 precinct worker with political connections. 670 00:35:44,644 --> 00:35:46,521 His neighbors knew him as Johnny. 671 00:35:46,563 --> 00:35:48,898 He had big parties every year at his house. 672 00:35:49,357 --> 00:35:50,650 There were several groups 673 00:35:50,692 --> 00:35:52,694 of people that went to these parties, 674 00:35:52,736 --> 00:35:54,904 from the neighbors to young men and boys, 675 00:35:54,946 --> 00:35:58,199 employees who thought that maybe he was the key 676 00:35:58,241 --> 00:36:00,243 to a job or money or whatever. 677 00:36:00,285 --> 00:36:04,205 Gacy’s parties were also for the political operatives 678 00:36:04,247 --> 00:36:06,624 of the area of Norwood Park Township. 679 00:36:06,666 --> 00:36:10,754 Gacy would do anything he could to ingratiate himself 680 00:36:10,795 --> 00:36:12,255 with the power structure 681 00:36:12,297 --> 00:36:16,176 because he wanted to rise within the democratic institution 682 00:36:16,217 --> 00:36:17,761 in the city of Chicago. 683 00:36:17,802 --> 00:36:20,305 So he had his picture taken with all these dignitaries. 684 00:36:20,347 --> 00:36:23,016 Rosalynn Carter was in Chicago last May 685 00:36:23,058 --> 00:36:24,684 for a Polish observance. 686 00:36:24,726 --> 00:36:28,021 There was a parade and one of the parade coordinators 687 00:36:28,063 --> 00:36:29,773 was John Wayne Gacy. 688 00:36:29,814 --> 00:36:32,359 Gacy also attended the private reception 689 00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:33,985 where there’s a picture of them meeting 690 00:36:34,027 --> 00:36:37,364 the first lady was taken. The emblem on Gacy’s jacket 691 00:36:37,405 --> 00:36:39,824 indicates he had Secret Service clearance 692 00:36:39,866 --> 00:36:43,328 even though he was convicted of a sex offense in 1968. 693 00:36:43,995 --> 00:36:45,622 There’s that one photograph of you Rosalynn Carter. 694 00:36:45,663 --> 00:36:47,290 Um, yeah Mrs.Rosalynn Carter. 695 00:36:47,332 --> 00:36:49,167 Well, the Secret Service tries to cover it up 696 00:36:49,209 --> 00:36:52,170 and said, well, we don’t know how he got into the picture. 697 00:36:52,212 --> 00:36:54,506 Hell, I was in charge of the reception. 698 00:36:54,547 --> 00:36:56,257 I had to stand at the door and let them know 699 00:36:56,299 --> 00:36:57,550 which politicians were allowed in 700 00:36:57,592 --> 00:36:59,761 and which ones weren’t, the thing it is. 701 00:36:59,803 --> 00:37:02,889 But the uh, the Secret Service wanted to cover up 702 00:37:02,931 --> 00:37:04,140 and make it sound like that 703 00:37:04,182 --> 00:37:06,226 I had no business there. I was cleared 704 00:37:06,267 --> 00:37:07,852 and I was with Secret Service at the time 705 00:37:07,894 --> 00:37:10,146 and setting up the parade route and everything, 706 00:37:10,188 --> 00:37:11,731 because I used to set up the parades 707 00:37:11,773 --> 00:37:13,608 for the Polish alliance. 708 00:37:13,650 --> 00:37:15,735 And then for three years in a row 709 00:37:15,777 --> 00:37:18,697 I had to set up the parades to run. 710 00:37:19,322 --> 00:37:20,615 And, you know, that’s a big feat, 711 00:37:20,657 --> 00:37:23,368 getting 20,000 Polish people 712 00:37:23,410 --> 00:37:25,537 to go in one direction at one time. 713 00:37:28,289 --> 00:37:29,791 A lot of times you’ll go to a story 714 00:37:29,833 --> 00:37:32,335 and say oh I was suspicious of him. 715 00:37:32,377 --> 00:37:33,837 Not in this case. 716 00:37:33,878 --> 00:37:39,634 Gacy used the aura of being politically connected 717 00:37:39,676 --> 00:37:42,929 to deceive people into thinking, you know, 718 00:37:42,971 --> 00:37:44,681 let’s leave this guy alone 719 00:37:44,723 --> 00:37:47,726 because it may come back to haunt us later on. 720 00:37:47,767 --> 00:37:51,521 He manipulated public officials to think he was just a guy 721 00:37:51,563 --> 00:37:53,523 who was on the make politically 722 00:37:53,565 --> 00:37:57,360 and he fooled everybody every step of the way. 723 00:38:04,367 --> 00:38:06,536 When we were following Gacy, 724 00:38:06,578 --> 00:38:10,373 we had to kind of remind each other once in a while 725 00:38:10,415 --> 00:38:12,667 what we were involved in and not get taken in by this guy 726 00:38:12,709 --> 00:38:15,253 because he was a B.S.er and he, very boastful 727 00:38:15,295 --> 00:38:17,839 and try to get your confidence and all that kind of stuff. 728 00:38:17,881 --> 00:38:19,174 He was very likable 729 00:38:19,215 --> 00:38:23,345 and Mike and I are like better kind of, you know, 730 00:38:23,386 --> 00:38:24,846 keep our guard up with this guy. 731 00:38:24,888 --> 00:38:27,432 Even though you have a tendency to put your guard down 732 00:38:27,891 --> 00:38:31,227 because of the way he talked and acted and befriended us. 733 00:38:31,686 --> 00:38:33,563 He acted like such a normal guy. 734 00:38:33,605 --> 00:38:36,107 He says, I don’t know if you guys are following me 735 00:38:36,149 --> 00:38:38,735 because of this missing person that they were asking about. 736 00:38:38,777 --> 00:38:40,862 But I have nothing to do with this kid. 737 00:38:40,904 --> 00:38:42,322 I’ve never seen him. 738 00:38:42,364 --> 00:38:45,158 He says I’ll I’ll help you on the search you know. 739 00:38:45,658 --> 00:38:46,868 But I got to tell you, 740 00:38:46,910 --> 00:38:48,870 I’m not involved with this at all. 741 00:38:49,913 --> 00:38:52,665 Now, he was showing some odd behavior. 742 00:38:52,707 --> 00:38:55,418 You know, personality changes, if you would. 743 00:38:55,460 --> 00:38:56,836 You know, he’d seem real friendly 744 00:38:56,878 --> 00:38:59,297 and then all of a sudden he’d be aggravated 745 00:38:59,839 --> 00:39:02,759 and then he would he would have this 746 00:39:03,927 --> 00:39:06,763 real unusual look on his face, you know, 747 00:39:06,805 --> 00:39:09,891 like almost like a beaten man, you know, 748 00:39:09,933 --> 00:39:13,436 and aggravated scary looking face. 749 00:39:14,104 --> 00:39:15,522 But, you know, we’d get him out of the car 750 00:39:15,563 --> 00:39:16,898 and shake him by the shoulders 751 00:39:16,940 --> 00:39:18,566 and tell him hey if you don’t knock it off, 752 00:39:18,608 --> 00:39:20,276 you know, we’re going to have to arrest you 753 00:39:20,318 --> 00:39:22,529 for reckless driving or something like that. 754 00:39:22,570 --> 00:39:24,572 And then all of a sudden he’d be fine 755 00:39:24,614 --> 00:39:26,282 and he’d be like that for a couple hours 756 00:39:26,324 --> 00:39:28,076 and then he’d go nuts again. 757 00:39:28,118 --> 00:39:30,662 Police have been watching John Gacy’s suburban Chicago 758 00:39:30,704 --> 00:39:32,372 home for the past 10 days. 759 00:39:32,914 --> 00:39:35,834 They became suspicious when 15 year old Robert Piest 760 00:39:35,875 --> 00:39:38,920 disappeared after he allegedly was last seen with Gacy. 761 00:39:38,962 --> 00:39:40,839 We were just so engrossed with this. 762 00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:42,966 I mean, we thought of nothing else. 763 00:39:43,633 --> 00:39:44,968 Nothing in the entire I mean, 764 00:39:45,010 --> 00:39:46,761 it was only a 10 day surveillance, 765 00:39:46,803 --> 00:39:48,763 but I mean, it’s all we lived and breathed. 766 00:39:48,805 --> 00:39:51,641 We didn’t have a thought about anything else. 767 00:39:53,476 --> 00:39:55,228 During this time, the investigators 768 00:39:55,270 --> 00:39:59,607 were interviewing Michael Rossi and David Cram, 769 00:39:59,649 --> 00:40:02,610 who were basically very loyal, longtime employees, 770 00:40:02,652 --> 00:40:04,279 young kids, you know, in their 20s. 771 00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:05,822 Mike Rossi and David Cram 772 00:40:06,197 --> 00:40:08,783 they did odd jobs for him, you know, and helping him 773 00:40:08,825 --> 00:40:10,952 on a construction job and stuff like that. 774 00:40:10,994 --> 00:40:13,455 So they were his workers. They worked for him. 775 00:40:13,872 --> 00:40:15,331 And each time they’d interview them 776 00:40:15,373 --> 00:40:16,958 and they interviewed them multiple times, 777 00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:18,960 they would give just a little more information. 778 00:40:19,002 --> 00:40:22,297 Telling the investigators that they had been in a crawlspace 779 00:40:22,339 --> 00:40:26,009 and been ordered to dig some trenches. 780 00:40:28,428 --> 00:40:30,472 They said Gacy had them 781 00:40:30,513 --> 00:40:33,641 dig trenches down in the crawl space 782 00:40:33,683 --> 00:40:35,643 and the reason for these trenches 783 00:40:36,061 --> 00:40:38,396 ostensibly given to Rossi and Cram 784 00:40:39,105 --> 00:40:43,360 were to make holes to put in drain pipe 785 00:40:44,319 --> 00:40:46,613 Captain Kozenczak and the investigators, 786 00:40:46,654 --> 00:40:48,615 now they’re starting to find out 787 00:40:48,656 --> 00:40:51,326 that there is an odor down in the crawl space, 788 00:40:51,368 --> 00:40:55,205 and Gacy has always put it off to a sewage issue down there. 789 00:40:56,122 --> 00:41:00,460 And when a smell would erupt from the crawlspace, 790 00:41:00,502 --> 00:41:02,003 Rossi and Cram, they were told 791 00:41:02,045 --> 00:41:04,214 to throw lime down to cover the smell. 792 00:41:04,255 --> 00:41:07,676 The subdivision where the Summerdale house is located 793 00:41:07,717 --> 00:41:09,344 is built on a clay field. 794 00:41:09,386 --> 00:41:12,138 And when it rained, the rain would come down from both ends 795 00:41:12,180 --> 00:41:14,974 and would flood from from one house to the other. 796 00:41:15,016 --> 00:41:16,851 The crawlspace would fill up with water. 797 00:41:16,893 --> 00:41:22,148 In 1976, I asked a landscaper, I said, what do you do for 798 00:41:22,774 --> 00:41:26,486 for that sour odor of clay? And he said spread white lime, 799 00:41:26,528 --> 00:41:28,863 just regular masonry lime on the ground. 800 00:41:28,905 --> 00:41:30,365 He said, it’ll sweeten up the clay 801 00:41:30,407 --> 00:41:31,908 and you won’t have that odor. 802 00:41:31,950 --> 00:41:34,411 Sort of like what charcoal does in filtering things. 803 00:41:34,452 --> 00:41:37,205 That’s why the lime was spread in the crawlspace. 804 00:41:37,247 --> 00:41:39,374 How much the lime was spread down there eventually? 805 00:41:39,416 --> 00:41:43,962 Uh, I think seven or eight hundred pounds of it. 806 00:41:45,296 --> 00:41:48,550 We actually went into the crawlspace the first time. 807 00:41:48,591 --> 00:41:50,844 But if you’re looking for a freshly dug grave, 808 00:41:50,885 --> 00:41:52,721 you’re going to look for a mound of dirt. 809 00:41:52,762 --> 00:41:54,431 Well, there was no mounds of dirt there, 810 00:41:54,472 --> 00:41:57,434 so we did didn’t look any further. 811 00:41:58,601 --> 00:42:02,647 But now with Rossi and Cram digging these trenches in there 812 00:42:02,689 --> 00:42:04,274 we’re putting two and two together 813 00:42:04,315 --> 00:42:07,193 or as crazy as he’s starting to act and his background, 814 00:42:07,235 --> 00:42:08,903 you know, 815 00:42:08,945 --> 00:42:11,156 that’s starting to come to the thoughts of these investigators 816 00:42:11,197 --> 00:42:13,700 that maybe he’s got a dead body down there. 817 00:42:23,168 --> 00:42:26,212 The first search warrant was executed on December 13th. 818 00:42:27,005 --> 00:42:31,259 However, what is strange is you had 20 trained officers 819 00:42:31,301 --> 00:42:33,011 that came into that house, 820 00:42:33,053 --> 00:42:35,889 supposedly went down in the crawl space, crawled around. 821 00:42:35,930 --> 00:42:38,016 There was no mounds of dirt. There was no odor. 822 00:42:38,058 --> 00:42:39,684 There was no nothing. 823 00:42:39,726 --> 00:42:42,604 I never feared anybody going down that crawl space. 824 00:42:43,772 --> 00:42:45,065 Now, the team is starting 825 00:42:45,106 --> 00:42:46,941 to put a little bit of pressure on Gacy 826 00:42:46,983 --> 00:42:51,237 and he seems very agitated, so we’re starting to get to him 827 00:42:51,279 --> 00:42:53,031 and we can tell. 828 00:42:53,073 --> 00:42:54,991 When we first started the surveillance, 829 00:42:55,033 --> 00:42:57,952 Gacy seemed to be able to operate like on three 830 00:42:57,994 --> 00:43:01,414 or four hours sleep. But as the investigation went on 831 00:43:01,456 --> 00:43:03,124 and he was becoming more and more worried, 832 00:43:03,166 --> 00:43:05,126 he was getting virtually no sleep. 833 00:43:05,752 --> 00:43:07,295 And it was very visible, 834 00:43:07,337 --> 00:43:10,090 you know, his body language and his posture, everything, 835 00:43:10,131 --> 00:43:11,716 he looked horrible. 836 00:43:11,758 --> 00:43:16,012 He was just transformed from this effervescent guy 837 00:43:16,596 --> 00:43:18,598 to a beaten man. 838 00:43:19,849 --> 00:43:23,812 The police wanted to get a second search warrant. 839 00:43:23,853 --> 00:43:26,272 The main obstacle was there was already a search warrant 840 00:43:26,314 --> 00:43:27,482 that had been executed. 841 00:43:27,524 --> 00:43:29,693 So we needed fresh probable cause. 842 00:43:30,276 --> 00:43:32,070 The probable cause for the second warrant 843 00:43:32,112 --> 00:43:35,990 was an amalgamation of about two or three pieces of evidence. 844 00:43:37,158 --> 00:43:40,495 One was a class ring that Gacy probably should not have had. 845 00:43:41,246 --> 00:43:44,791 Another item of evidence found in the Gacy house 846 00:43:44,833 --> 00:43:47,252 was a photo slip, the kind 847 00:43:47,711 --> 00:43:49,838 when people used to take pictures with film, 848 00:43:49,879 --> 00:43:51,923 not in Rob Piest’s name, 849 00:43:51,965 --> 00:43:55,051 but in the name of a young lady named Kim Byers 850 00:43:55,552 --> 00:43:57,220 who worked at the drug store. 851 00:43:58,179 --> 00:44:02,100 Kim Byers worked at the cash register at the Nisson pharmacy, 852 00:44:02,892 --> 00:44:04,310 and she was at the front of the store 853 00:44:04,352 --> 00:44:06,062 right by the front door. 854 00:44:06,104 --> 00:44:08,898 Kim Byers was going to step outside and have a break, 855 00:44:08,940 --> 00:44:11,985 and she borrowed Rob Piest’s coat. 856 00:44:12,027 --> 00:44:14,154 And just before she went outside, 857 00:44:14,195 --> 00:44:17,991 she took her film and was having the film processed, 858 00:44:18,033 --> 00:44:22,287 got a receipt, put the receipt in the pocket of Piest’s coat. 859 00:44:23,121 --> 00:44:26,166 That’s the same receipt that we found in Gacy’s trash. 860 00:44:26,207 --> 00:44:29,044 So that tied Piest to Gacy’s house. 861 00:44:30,503 --> 00:44:32,464 The third thing, as I recall, 862 00:44:33,131 --> 00:44:36,509 was a conversation I had with the police officers 863 00:44:37,218 --> 00:44:41,514 and they were doing surveillance of Gacy. 864 00:44:41,556 --> 00:44:43,058 It was very, very cold that winter. 865 00:44:43,099 --> 00:44:46,311 And that’s an important fact because they would 866 00:44:46,353 --> 00:44:49,647 sit right outside of his house in the unmarked police car. 867 00:44:49,689 --> 00:44:53,276 Gacy, who was full of hubris and arrogance, 868 00:44:53,318 --> 00:44:55,945 would sometimes invite them in to use the restroom 869 00:44:56,446 --> 00:44:58,907 and warm up the second surveillance team, 870 00:44:58,948 --> 00:45:01,284 which was Bob Schultz and Ron Robinson. 871 00:45:02,410 --> 00:45:04,913 They pretty much did the same things that we did. 872 00:45:04,954 --> 00:45:06,206 You know, they followed him, 873 00:45:06,247 --> 00:45:09,709 they had conversations with Gacy. 874 00:45:09,751 --> 00:45:11,670 They stayed with him wherever. 875 00:45:11,711 --> 00:45:13,630 This particular day 876 00:45:13,672 --> 00:45:15,799 Gacy says to Schultz and Robinson 877 00:45:16,424 --> 00:45:18,843 he says hey you guys want to have dinner at my place? 878 00:45:18,885 --> 00:45:20,220 And they looked at each other and said 879 00:45:20,261 --> 00:45:22,889 sure. 880 00:45:22,931 --> 00:45:25,934 So they follow Gacy over to his house, 881 00:45:27,060 --> 00:45:29,979 go in there, Gacy is starting to prepare dinner for them. 882 00:45:31,398 --> 00:45:34,484 And while they’re in there Schultz says hey, 883 00:45:34,526 --> 00:45:35,985 I got to go to the bathroom. 884 00:45:36,027 --> 00:45:39,406 So Bob went into the bathroom and what happened then, 885 00:45:39,447 --> 00:45:41,991 while he was in there, the heat kicked on. 886 00:45:45,704 --> 00:45:51,209 And when the heat kicks on, Shultz smells this horrific smell 887 00:45:52,293 --> 00:45:55,296 that he said he could only equate to the county morgue. 888 00:45:57,173 --> 00:45:59,968 He thought that the odor reminded him 889 00:46:00,010 --> 00:46:03,805 of what he had smelled in his experience 890 00:46:03,847 --> 00:46:07,058 as a patrolman, the odor of decaying flesh. 891 00:46:08,685 --> 00:46:13,064 When I heard that, I said, I think we have probable cause. 892 00:46:16,401 --> 00:46:19,237 After I prepared the search warrant 893 00:46:19,279 --> 00:46:21,906 with the police officers from Des Plaines, 894 00:46:22,615 --> 00:46:25,702 it was already getting into the late afternoon, early evening. 895 00:46:26,327 --> 00:46:28,955 So I went home, I had dinner with my grandmother, 896 00:46:28,997 --> 00:46:33,293 went back to my place, fell asleep and all was fine 897 00:46:33,335 --> 00:46:36,463 until about 5:00 in the morning when I received a telephone call 898 00:46:36,504 --> 00:46:39,341 from Assistant State’s Attorney Mike Corkell, 899 00:46:40,675 --> 00:46:43,094 who told me, get your ass out of bed 900 00:46:43,136 --> 00:46:45,013 and over to the police station. 901 00:46:45,513 --> 00:46:47,349 We found bones. 902 00:46:50,435 --> 00:46:51,644 I made several trips 903 00:46:51,686 --> 00:46:53,438 to the house during the excavation. 904 00:46:54,481 --> 00:46:58,193 The stench in there was overwhelming. 905 00:46:59,486 --> 00:47:03,448 The police officers would wear kerchiefs 906 00:47:03,490 --> 00:47:05,408 around their nose and mouth. 907 00:47:07,202 --> 00:47:12,582 And I remember seeing what they put in body bags. 908 00:47:13,667 --> 00:47:16,544 I had seen crime victims before, dead people, 909 00:47:16,586 --> 00:47:19,214 but nothing like this. 910 00:47:20,715 --> 00:47:23,843 In hindsight, everything is very, very clear, 911 00:47:23,885 --> 00:47:25,387 but as you’re going through it, 912 00:47:25,428 --> 00:47:27,889 you’re trying to figure out how could he take victim 913 00:47:27,931 --> 00:47:31,309 after victim from the same streets and not get caught? 914 00:47:31,976 --> 00:47:34,020 And the only answer you come to 915 00:47:34,062 --> 00:47:36,314 is that someone was looking the other way. 916 00:47:36,731 --> 00:47:38,483 This man could have been stopped.