All language subtitles for Very.Scary.People.S01E02.WEBRip.x264-ION10

They paint the image
that I was this monster.

I don't believe in hitting...
Hitting children.

And I don't believe
in spoiling a child, either.

I always felt, if you serve other people,

it'll come back to serve you.

I've always believed that way
with generosity.

Welcome to "very scary people."

I'm Donnie wahlberg.

For most of the 1970s, John Wayne Gacy

had everyone in Chicago fooled.

He was known as a model citizen
and a pillar of his community,

but he was living a double life,
a life no one knew about.

John Wayne Gacy had managed to become

the most prolific serial killer
of his time,

without anyone noticing.

But at the end of 1978,
Gacy's secret life

would be revealed
for all the world to see.

Here is part 2 of
"evil secret."

It was December 11, 1976.

My brother had planned to go out
with his girlfriend,

and he spent part
of the evening with her.

And he said to her that he was
gonna see her the next morning.

We were worried the next morning
because he didn't come in,

knock on our door, and say,
"hey, mom, I'm home."

And my mother kept saying,
"there's something wrong.

There's something wrong."

So my mother called the police.

This was in the '70s, when
a lot of teenage boys ran away.

So police just didn't take
their disappearances seriously.

And they said to my mother,
"well, what do you want us

to do about it?
Kids run away all the time.

You just got to give it time.
They'll be back."

That's why John Gacy got away
with it for so long...

Nobody was looking for these kids.

But like almost all criminals,
he got stupid, got lazy,

got to the point where he was
just plain careless.

Robert piest was a great kid.

Everybody had just great things
to say about him.

He went missing after
his shift at the nisson pharmacy,

and Gacy was the logical suspect

because he was the last one
known to have seen Rob piest.

Gacy drove him to his house,

knowing full well the owners
of the drugstore

knew that Gacy was the one
who was with piest.

That's when everything began to
fall apart for John Wayne Gacy.

And he, of course,
denied ever having left with Rob.

The police searched Gacy's house

and find possessions of other
local boys who had gone missing.

They found some property,
some jewelry, driver's licenses,

whatever it may be.

We were pretty well set in
our minds that he was guilty.

And he was... at least,
he was a person of interest

to take a real good, hard look at.

The scariest thing about John Gacy,

the absolute scariest thing,

is that he was not a scary guy at all.

Everyone that
they talked to just swore up

and down that Gacy was, like,

the best guy that they
ever knew, just a great guy.

He was gregarious and outgoing.

"He'd give you the shirt off
his back" kind of guy.

John was actually rather
well-liked by his neighbors.

He was the guy that would be out there

when it snowed, plowing their sidewalks.

This guy was so nice.
And he was trusted.

He wanted to make people laugh,

and he particularly wanted to help kids.

And he became a clown.

And he did a lot of functions for charity

that involved him
dressing up as the clown.

That was the good side of him.

Then, the other side of the coin was,

"my god, how many disappearances
was he involved in?"

Then one day, they got their answer.

After cops searched Gacy's
house, he calls his lawyer

and says he wanted to
talk about Rob piest.

One day he called me.

He said, "it's very,
very important I talk to you.

I have to tell you something."

Gacy sits down,
and he tells me the same old...

About Robbie piest, vehemently,
unequivocally denied.

I took the newspaper
with Robbie piest's picture.

I threw it in front of him,
and I said, "look at this kid.

John, look at him. He's a good
kid. He's missing."

He looked at the picture.

He said, "you know what?
This boy... this boy's dead."

I said, "what do you mean?"

He goes, "I've been a judge, jury",

and executioner of many, many people.

Even now my hair stands up on end

thinking of hearing those words.

He said, "I'm gonna tell you the
whole story from the beginning.

It started in 1972.

I was cruising around"...

He's cruising the greyhound bus station,

and he sees a kid
that looks kind of on his own.

And he talked to him and said,
you know, "you look lost,"

or something like that.

He'd cruise around Chicago,

looking for young men to have sex with.

He had just enough charm to be
able to pull up to the curb,

roll the window down, and said,
"hey, you looking for a job?"

Or, "you want to take a ride?"

Gacy took that guy to his house.
They had sex.

And the boy came into the bedroom

with a knife in his hand.

Gacy went to the kitchen,

and he saw that the table
had been set for two

and the boy had been
making breakfast for him.

That's why he had the knife in his hand.

But John said, "what are you gonna do

when a guy comes into
your bedroom with a knife?"

After the first young man
that he killed with a knife,

there was blood all over.

This obviously wasn't
an efficient way to do things.

And he said it took so long
to clean up the house

after he stabbed him to death.

Gacy described how, from then on,

he would trick his victims
into putting on handcuffs.

While they're struggling to
get out of handcuffs,

he would put a rope around their neck

and turn it with a hammer handle.

And they would be convulsing
on his floor.

Didn't bother him in the least.

Didn't bother him talking him about it.

Six hours went by
with Gacy spilling his guts,

going through his victims one by one.

He had such a memory.

He had just an exhaustive memory,

the way he said he handled each victim.

How he killed them, what he did to them.

What was your initial emotional response?

I aged so much that night.

It was the longest night of...
Of my life.

Never showed any remorse,

as if they weren't people at
all. That's how he felt.

He was just... it was phenomenal.

But the cops would soon discover
for themselves

just how deep this went.

They started tearing up the flooring

and working in the crawl space.

This morning,
police searched Gacy's home.

They became suspicious when 15-year-old

Robert piest disappeared

after he allegedly
was last seen with Gacy.

They started tearing up the flooring

and working that way in the crawl space.

It was probably
like a lot of other crawl spaces

that people have.

It was just dirt and Clay.

And the very first dig with the shovel,

they struck a human bone.

So, it was at that time that
I arrested John for murder.

Two bodies were removed by police,

who then stopped their search
for the day.

But they are emptying this house
of its contents this evening

so that the search for more
bodies can continue tomorrow.

When I saw on the news that John Gacy

had murdered all those people,

I was so overwhelmed,
you couldn't put it in words.

I could not believe that
a friend that I grew up with

could end up doing such
a terrible, terrible thing.

John and I grew up back
in the early '50s,

on the northwest side of Chicago.

We both went to the same school.

When Johnny and I met,
we became best friends.

Johnny was the most incredible
person you'd ever want to meet.

John's mother was incredible.

Both of his sisters
loved Johnny very much.

We had dreams and hopes,
like anybody would.

He wanted to be the next governor.

But John had a hard rock to climb.

His father laid on him constantly.

There are a lot of stories
about his childhood

that are supposed to somehow explain

how he got to be the way he is.

If anything can be pointed to,

it's the relationship with his father.

Gacy's history as a kid
started with his father

looking at his newborn son
and naming him John Wayne.

He wanted John Wayne.

And what he got, unfortunately,

was a sickly, overweight,
sort of clumsy kid

who didn't have a lot of friends,

played with his sisters
primarily, was teased,

and did get beat up a few times.

My dad was domineering, in fact.

He had a different set of values,

but also a very stern individual.

Many occasions I would
be present where Mr. Gacy...

"Johnny, you're so damn
stupid and dumb."

He'd say,
"but, dad, I am smart."

"No, you're not.
You got no sawdust up

in that head of yours."

And I think that's probably
where you first hear the words

that echo through John's life...

"Dumb and stupid."

At times, he would be
very physical with John.

My dad drank a lot,
and when he drank a lot,

yeah, he was abusive
to my mother and to me.

His father... he would come home
from work,

drink in the basement.

And quite often when he emerged,
he was drunk.

He would take a razor strop
and... and beat him quite often.

'Cause of all the abuse,
the name-calling,

Johnny lost himself.

He lost everything that he once
believed in as a boy,

and dreams and hopes.

I saw it happen.

That affected Gacy.

His psychological motivation in life

was to try to please his dad.

When Johnny was a little boy,

he had another trauma in his life.

He was molested by a contractor.

John's father knew a contractor.

John was always interested in building.

He'd ask Gacy, "would you want to go out

and look at a couple of
work site that I'm working on?

And then I'll take you
to get some ice cream."

He would take Gacy out,
and he got him to one his sites.

And what he wanted to show him
was a wrestling hold.

The hold involved putting Gacy's
face down in his crotch

and holding it there.

It happened a few more times.

Each time, the wrestling hold
got held a little bit longer

and got a little more emphatic.

He never told his father that
the contractor had molested him.

He knew he'd get whipped for it.

One night, Johnny invited
me over, and I said, "what is it?"

He said, "I want
to show you something."

"Will you go in my closet?"
"For what?"

He said, "I want you to pull
that shopping bag out."

I pull out the shopping bag,

and there were women's attire
sitting in the bag.

He said, "how would I look
dressed up as a woman?"

I was astounded.

And we never, never talked
about it ever again.

I think it was '64 that he claimed he had

his first homosexual experience.

He was drinking at a friend's
house, woke up,

and they "got into it,"
is the way he put it.

And the man was
performing oral sex on him.

And Gacy said, "well, I felt bad
to ask him to stop,

and, besides, I liked it.

And when he finished, I did it to him,"

and that was, according to him,

the first time he'd ever been with a man.

But then something happened.

It was, I think, a major
psychological blow to him.

I remember driving to his house,

and there were so many cars around

because this had leaked out.

It had turned into a
circus, an amazing spectacle.

John Wayne Gacy was also pogo the clown,

who loved to make kids laugh.

His neighbors knew him as
"Johnny," the life of the party.

He was a very good neighbor,
and we socialized with him.

But John Gacy had been living
a lie since childhood.

And he realized he had to hide
his feelings from everyone.

John had inclinations that
his father found disgusting.

He knew his father hated homosexuals.

His father would have absolutely,

positively killed him.

So John Wayne Gacy did what
everyone did back then.

He got married, he had two kids,

and he kept his secret life a secret.

He was living in
Iowa, and he was working for kfc.

He had a normal job.
He was a member of the jaycees.

He had a wife.
He had a normal life.

He wanted to show his dad
that he should be proud

of what he's doing in his life.

I think his dad might even have said,

"John, I was wrong about you."

That was a very
significant moment for John

because he had sought his
father's approval all his life.

There was some evidence
during those years

that John was gonna be
a normal, suburban guy.

But then after finally
winning his father's approval,

something happened.

It turned out that John Gacy's normal,

suburban life wasn't
as normal as it seemed.

He was living a secret life
no one else knew about,

where he was seeking out
young men for sex.

So, he gets involved with a boy
in Waterloo,

the son of someone he knows,
and he molests him.

And the boy goes to the police.

And Gacy is charged with sodomy.

So what Gacy does is find another kid

and offer to pay off his car loan

if he will bully the other boy
out of testifying.

So, Gacy's accomplice takes the other boy

out to a cornfield somewhere and sprays

mace in his face and beats him up

and tells him not to testify
and leaves him.

When the boy makes it back
to civilization,

he goes to the police and
tells them what has happened.

So Gacy is charged
with three other felonies

related to beating this kid up,

but these charges are ultimately dropped

when Gacy pleads guilty to sodomy.

He had a 10-year jail sentence
for the sodomy conviction.

He did very well in jail.
He was a model prisoner.

He helped other prisoners
in the jail community.

In 1969, his father passed away
of cirrhosis of the liver.

It was, I think, a major
psychological blow to him.

His father died believing
that his son was a total failure.

He in prison for this horrendous charge.

He was exactly what he had
called him all of his life.

This was obviously devastating for Gacy,

but then he caught a break.

They paroled him
because of his good behavior.

He was out in 18 months.

He's free to start a new life.

1971, John, bought a house
just north of Chicago,

at 8213 west summerdale Avenue.

Gacy lived in a real populated
area, single-story homes,

brick homes, you know, older homes.

Working-class, striving
for middle-class neighborhood,

hardworking men and women.

He met an old high-school
girlfriend that he had dated...

Carole.

She had two children,
two little girls of her own.

He and Carole eventually and
really very quickly got married.

But it's not long before Gacy

is back to pursuing his secret life,

and Carole starts to suspect something.

I was finding a lot of books
in the house of nude men.

He would not have much to do with me.

We hardly had any sex.

And he found it very difficult
to have anything to do with me.

He did a lot of masturbating,
which I knew about.

And it wasn't long before
their marriage falls apart.

After Carole moved out with the girls,

John had the house
at 8213 summerdale to himself.

John actually called
those years from '76 to '78

his cruising days.

John Wayne Gacy
had sex with hundreds at least...

And maybe more... kids.

But he wasn't looking for victims,

he was looking to have sex with someone

that wouldn't tell on him.

Because more than anything else,
Gacy did not want people

to find out
that he was homosexual, period.

Maybe the kid just offhandedly said,

"you don't want your neighbors
to know about this, do you?"

I mean, anything that would
give him the idea

that these kids might tell on him

could result in the kid's death, easily.

The kids who died were the ones
that made him feel

that he was gonna be found out,
for whatever reason.

Police today found six more bodies

under the John Gacy house,

all appearing to have been
teenaged boys and young men.

It was two years from
when my brother disappeared.

We were sitting in front of the TV,

and they were bringing the
bodies out, and my mother said,

"your brother can be
one of those guys."

Welcome back to
"very scary people."

When police descended
on John Wayne Gacy's home

and began searching for the
bodies of missing young men,

they were hoping to find
the remains of Rob piest,

but instead what they found
was a crime scene

beyond anything they had imagined.

And as the public watched
the terrifying story

unfold on television,

families of missing young men
waited on pins and needles

to find out if their loved ones

were among the victims.

Cook county
sheriff's police and des plaines

detectives had this house
under surveillance

for about two weeks.
Last night about 9:00 pm,

officers armed with warrants
entered the house,

arrested its owner, 36-year-old
contractor John Gacy.

They suspect there are
several more bodies buried here.

It's suspected because
of the looks of the area

down in the crawl space.

There are some other mounds
and appears to be more there.

I had never seen anything
like this before.

I had never heard anything
like this before.

I had never experienced
anything like this before.

The evidence technicians...

They were digging with spoons
to get all the evidence.

And really, that was
an archeological dig.

It was a very slow process.

Are you men
sifting by hand through the dirt

to catch any kind of a trace
of evidence, hair, teeth?

Yes, for the most part, yes.

So you've got
about half or three-quarters

of this crawl space yet to go through?

I would say about three-quarters.

What I'll never forget was the stench.

It just overwhelmed
a person's olfactory sense.

This was a mass graveyard.

They were slowly
but surely pulling out bodies

and transporting them
with the paddy wagon

back to the medical examiner's office.

But when the body bags were brought up,

they were almost limp.

Bodies weren't brought up.

Gelatinous material was
all that was left.

Sure, the bones, to the extent
they existed, teeth,

sometimes skulls.

On our job, we see a variety
of horrific things,

but this was out of the norm.

Police today found six more bodies

under the John Gacy house,

all appearing to have been
teenaged boys and young men.

We were sitting in front of the TV

and they were bringing the
bodies out and my mother said,

"your brother can be
one of those guys."

It was two years from
when my brother disappeared.

Nine bodies, identities unknown,

victims of a man who probably
did not know their names.

Gacy was the headline every day
for the next two or three weeks.

How many bodies were taken out
of the house that day,

how many the next day,
and so forth, on and on.

It was new year's Eve.

Cops ring the doorbell,
and they tell you to sit down.

They said, "we just want you
to know your brother

is identified
with the Gacy case."

My brother was the fourth body

that was recovered from the home.

It is very, very devastating,

but it was a relief to know it's over.

So you have two years of,
like, "could it?

Would it? Maybe.
Could be. I don't know."

It's finality.

Gacy's home has become
a tourist attraction.

Every day for a week, outsiders came here

to see bodies
brought out of Gacy's house.

His neighbors will never forget that.

You see bodies in your sleep.

You see him in your sleep.

It's just too much.

And the police have found, at last count,

27 bodies buried
under his house and garage.

He actually ran
out of room in the crawl space

and he had no more room
to put any bodies down there.

I think one was buried
under the barbecue grill,

one under the garage floor.

What we didn't know...

And didn't know for some months...

Was where was Rob piest?

Rob piest, Gacy's last victim,
wasn't found on Gacy's property.

Gacy told police he disposed
of his body elsewhere,

along with many others.

Well, he essentially
ran out of room under his house.

And he thought
it'd be best to start throwing them

off the bridge
into the des plaines river,

a fair distance away from where he lived.

We started at the 55 bridge
over the des plaines river.

We worked two boats
on the north side of the river,

two boats on the south side
of the river. No luck.

The search went on for
months, but nothing was found.

And so then the following spring,

the searchers focused
on a different area.

It turns out that,
within eyeshot of that bridge,

there is a nuclear plant
where they had a dam.

And that's where some of
the bodies actually got tied up

and were found.

Including the body of Rob piest.

And it wasn't until
his body was recovered

in the des plaines river
that the mystery was solved.

It was an emotional
time for relatives of the victims.

The 36-year-old contractor went to court

in an emotion-packed trial.

Nobody ever thought
even in their wildest dreams...

...that this meek person who was

so all involved in his community,

in his work, could have done
the crimes that he committed.

People just can't believe

that this is the John Gacy that we knew.

The John Gacy that we knew was just

a warm, wonderful,
public-spirited person.

And to see this now,
it's just unbelievable.

You didn't expect it from him.
I had... he was a nice guy.

Gacy was very charming.
He was manipulative.

He was witty,
and he was very intelligent.

And you wouldn't know
he was a serial killer

unless you knew what he did.

I don't know how he went about it,

to tell you the truth, if he did.

And I would never... this is something

that I would
never even think of him doing.

The 36-year-old contractor went to court

in an emotion-packed trial.

My defense was that he was not
guilty by reason of insanity

because he was suffering
from a severe mental disease.

As a result of that mental disease,

he cannot appreciate
the criminality of his act,

nor conform his conduct
to the requirements of law.

In order to be found not guilty
by reason of insanity,

the defense has to prove that Gacy

doesn't know the difference
between right and wrong

at the time that
he committed these offenses.

My role in the trial of John Gacy

was to serve as a defense expert
in regards to his mental state.

And I was to try to explain, had
he been in contact with reality?

Had he not been in contact with reality?

And I tried to explain that this
person was not really a person.

That was rebutted by the state

arguing that he was methodical
in what he did,

and he wouldn't have buried the
bodies if he was truly insane,

and he wouldn't have kept
doing it over and over.

And we had parents that had to testify.

It was just heart-wrenching,
to say the least.

My parents both had to take the stand.

And the weirdest thing of all
is when we had to identify him

and you lean over and you say,
"yes, that is him."

That to me was the hardest thing,

knowing that that's the guy that
did what he did to my brother.

John Gacy...
He sat there calmly.

He looked neat.

He didn't seem to get upset
about anything.

During the closing arguments,

the prosecution reminded
the jurors of the victims

by tossing their pictures
into the crawl space

set up in the courtroom.

And he just continued to do that.

And that was a very, very powerful thing.

It took the jury less than two hours

to reject the defense argument
that Gacy was insane

and to find Gacy guilty
of murdering 33 young men

during a 7-year killing spree.

Gacy showed absolutely no emotion

as all the murder counts were read,

but he winked before he left
the courtroom.

It was an emotional time
for relatives of the victims,

and many like Ken piest,

whose brother was killed, want revenge.

- There's only one solution now.
- What is that?

I want to see him go to the chair.

And eugenia godzik,

mother of another victim,
tearfully agreed.

I hope he does get the electric chair.

Then that'll make everybody feel better.

I'm sure it'll make the other
mothers feel better, too.

A jury which found
John Gacy guilty of murder

then recommended the death penalty.

I believe the death
sentence was the best thing for him.

There's no way that he could
have been rehabilitated.

It's like, "you know what?
One less for the state. Sorry."

There, at one minute after midnight,

28 witnesses will watch
as a lethal injection

cuts off his breathing
and stops his heart.

He took our 33 babies over 14 years ago,

and it's time to go.

The one-time clown,
party lover, and mass murderer

now sits on death row, waiting.

If you want to know what my life is like,

I log it every day,
for the last 12 years.

All you got to do is ask.
I can tell you everything.

I can tell you the first meal
they served me here

- because I do it daily.
- What do you do all day?

Every phone call, everything that I do.

Every time an officer's
around me, it's logged.

Every movement that I make
is in the book here.

I remember asking him
why he kept all that.

"I just want this in case
I have to go back to trial,

and I will prove
my innocence."

Not long after Gacy
confessed to dozens of murders,

he changes his story
and says that he's innocent.

Gacy had concocted this elaborate idea

that someone else
had committed these murders.

When they paint the image
that I was this monster who...

Who picked up, like, these
altar boys along the street

and swatted them like flies.

I said, "this is ludicrous."

And I said, "but you confessed."

And he said, "that was meaningless.

I had to confess.

They got me in a place
where my lawyer said,

'you better confess, '
so I did."

And Gacy had plenty of theories

as to who committed these murders.

We have always contended
there was others involved.

At the time of my arrest,
there was three of the suspects,

all employees of p.D.M.
Contractors, all with keys

to the house on summerdale.

He said, "12 people
had keys to my house."

Any one of them could have been
using it as a burial ground.

Because I travel a great deal,

they're coming in when I'm not there,

"and they're burying bodies
in my crawl space."

Why would John Wayne Gacy
confess and then recant?

That's a question that will
puzzle shrinks

and people who have looked
into this matter forever.

For over a decade while on death row,

Gacy stays busy
and maintains his innocence.

Since he went to jail in 1980,

Gacy's produced hundreds of works.

His style is called "art brut".

Art brut is the art
of the criminally insane.

Here is the hi-ho series.
And that is self-explanatory.

It's the seven dwarfs.
I've done an array of paint...

A different... a variation of paintings,

and I do more or less
whatever people want.

Gacy appealed
his conviction multiple times

over the course of 14 years,

only to be turned down every time.

If people don't want to
know the truth and the honesty of it,

if they want to be convinced
they're brainwashed

into what they believe, then fine.

Then go ahead and kill me.

But vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord,

because you will have executed

somebody that didn't commit the crime.

Earlier today,
a helicopter transferred Gacy

to stateville prison.

There, at one minute after midnight,

28 witnesses will watch
as a lethal injection cuts

off his breathing and stops his heart.

For his last meal, Gacy orders a bucket

of Kentucky fried chicken,
which is really fitting,

considering he worked
there back in the day.

If we look, well, some good distance now

from the walls of the prison,
perhaps we see others gathered.

There you see a candlelight vigil,

those folks holding the candles

those who oppose the death penalty.

But they were far outnumbered,
outnumbered by the t-shirts

that read "no tears
for the clown."

He took our 33 babies over 14 years ago,

and it's time to go.

Given the hour here,
now 12:04 local time,

the execution of John
Wayne Gacy should be,

we are told, now underway.

First step, of course
is he's strapped to a gurney.

A saline solution iv starts,

and then eventually
the three killer drugs.

When Gacy was given a chance
to give a final message,

he said these words...
"Kiss my ass."

John Wayne Gacy was pronounced
dead at 12:58 am.

We're happy to report
to the victims' families

and to the hundreds of people
that his horror reached out to

and whose lives were affected
for all time,

justice has finally been served.

The punishment didn't
really fit the crime.

It was too easy for him.

And I know that's terrible,

but I'm really sorry that
he really didn't get to suffer.

It took 14 years in the making
for this to come to an end.

This should have happened
a long time ago.

My mother had passed away by that time.

And her one wish was she wanted
to push the button

to have him die.

And I just remember
looking at my husband,

saying, "it's finally over.
It's over."

I think that was the universal opinion,

that this man got what he deserved.

The memories of those who were there

will soon be all that remains.

John Wayne Gacy's house
was long ago torn down.

A new one now stands in its place.

And the address had been burned forever

into Chicago's collective
consciousness...

8213 west summerdale.

When all is said and done,
Gacy had a broken brain.

I think floating around within him

were all sorts of impersonations...

Pogo the clown, John Wayne Gacy
the painting contractor,

John Wayne Gacy the husband,

John Wayne Gacy the pedophile,
John Wayne Gacy the killer.

He was an amalgamation
of all of these things.

He was probably the best con man
this world has ever known.

He was the worst of evil.

If you believe you've lived your life

the right way, then you do not
have nothing to fear.

I've had confession.
I have communion.

And I am at peace with myself.

In the end, police recovered
33 of John Wayne Gacy's victims.

But back then, investigators weren't able

to identify eight of the bodies.

Then in 2011, more than
30 years after Gacy confessed,

the cook county sheriff's office
in Chicago re-opened the case.

Using advances in forensics
and DNA technology,

they identified two
more of Gacy's victims,

providing at least some closure
to those families.

To this day, detectives continue
working to identify

the remaining six victims.

I'm Donnie wahlberg.

Thanks for watching.