Conversations With a Gay Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes

We here at Cybersocket like to keep things light, ya know? I like to keep it casual and full of whimsy! And on the topic of whimsicality, one of the oldest comedic art forms in existence is clowns, which is why I figured writing about a world-famous, internationally-known clown would be the perfect article to round out this beautiful Spring week! Clowns juggle, they wear silly makeup, and sometimes… SOMETIMES… they even drug, rape, and sadistically murder at least 33 gay men during the course of almost an entire decade. Shit…this is gonna get dark quickly, isn’t it? Netflix just dropped the trailer for their new documentary, Conversations With a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes and let me just say…whoa.

From Academy Award nominee and Emmy Award winner Joe Berlinger, Conversations With A Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes is the second in what seems to be shaping up to be another franchise for Netflix, following the wildly successful Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. Premiering on April 20th, the documentary features tapes of Gacy discussing his crimes in his own voice, in addition to new interviews with his friends, associates, and a number of men who almost became statistics in his horrific spree.

If you’re not familiar with Gacy, let me first clarify that he is not the same person as John Wayne the iconic film actor, a fact Michele Bachmann once needed clarification on. He was born in 1942 in Chicago, IL and, as many serial killers turn out to be, was a prominent member of his community. An established part-time clown in the area, Gacy performed under the stage names “Pogo the Clown” and “Patches the Clown,” appearing at numerous functions that included children’s hospitals and various charity events. In 1971, he created a construction company, PDM Contractors shortly before his first murder–the PDM stood for Painting, Decorating, Maintenance. A real jack of all trades, eh?! He entered local politics at first by simply helping out. He offered the services of his PDM employees to clean and organize the Democratic Party’s headquarters for free. Taking a kind eye to these acts of civic goodwill, Norwood Park Township offered him a place on their Street Lighting Committee, where he quickly moved up to Precinct Captain. His political career didn’t stop with just small town committees, though. In 1975, Gacy was selected to be the Director of Chicago’s iconic Polish Constitution Day, the largest Polish parade outside of Poland. He would hold this position until his arrest on December 21, 1978. But surely someone who had been sadistically murdering young men and boys for a decade wouldn’t get top-tier access, right? Well, Gacy would not only meet and be photographed with then-First Lady Rosalynn Carter, but he was also given the high-level “S” clearance by the Secret Service, a fact that would become a major source of embarrassment for the agency.

All of these facts are even more awful when you remember that in 1968, Gacy was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping a teenage boy, a crime for which he would only serve 18 months. What’s even more fascinating about all of this is that at the time of almost all of his crimes, Gacy was married to a woman. Actually…two women. Gacy had a five year marriage to Marilyn Myers, who he met while working at a shoe store, from 1964 to 1969. After he was convicted of his 1968 rape, Gacy moved back to the Chicago suburbs, a stipulation of his parole. Here is where he met and subsequently married Carole Hoff from 1972-1976.

I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty of the nature of his crimes, because trust me…they are *horrific*. One quick example is that he would drown his victims and repeatedly resuscitate them, so that he could keep torturing them over and over. Netflix’s chilling logline for the doc says, “He dined with the powerful. He preyed on the vulnerable. Beneath a smiling exterior was the horrifying darkness of a sadistic serial killer.” Oof. It’s no wonder so many people find clowns to be so incredibly creepy.

What’s going to make this documentary so chilling, is that almost all of the tapes have never been heard before, at least certainly not by the general public. It’s one thing to read articles about murderers, or to see a trial of one, but it’s an entirely different beast when you hear the chilling calm in the tambor of their voice, as a serial killer talks about who they are and what they’ve done, as well as why they loved doing it. Someone who is testifying in their defense on the witness stand will very likely talk about things in a very matter-of-fact way, that lays out answers only to the questions asked. But when you listen to recordings of the killers talking casually—and often passionately—about what they’ve done, it suddenly becomes even more sinister. "Clowns can get away with anything. Clowns can get away with murder.” Gacy says on one tape. Saying on another, “I’m a power person; I enjoy power. Nobody else had the guts to pull off what I pulled off,” before chuckling like he got away with a low-level Ponzi scheme.

Gacy was eventually arrested in connection with the disappearance of Robert Piest, a Des Plaines teenager who had gone missing. Charged with 33 murders, Gacy was eventually convicted of his crimes in 1980, which, at the time, was the most amount of homicides covered in a single trial in American legal history. Gacy was sentenced to death by lethal injection. He spent the next 14 years at Menard Correctional Center, before being executed on May 10, 1994.

If you don’t have a stomach for the deeply macabre subject materials, then two things: 1.) Sorry… I should have given you more of a warning at the beginning of this article, and 2.) You may want to skip this documentary. But if you’re as fascinated as I am by one of the most deranged humans to ever walk the earth, then you’ll want to check out Conversations With a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes, premiering April 20th on Netflix. Check out the trailer below.

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