John Wayne Gacy (20 page)

Nonetheless, the members of the investigation team wanted into that house; and they wanted into that house before Friday, before the hearing on the TRO, and they were willing to do whatever it took to accomplish that goal. Therefore, they literally drove the complaint for search warrant over to the home of Judge Marvin J. Peters on Thursday night and had him sign the search warrant at 7:15 p.m. The gamble paid off, by the way. The complaint for search warrant read as follows:

There was a reason for the urgency in obtaining the search warrant of Mr. Gacy’s home other than the impending hearing on Friday morning—a good reason. John Wayne Gacy had been arrested.

_________________

J
OHN
G
ACY LEFT
my office early on Thursday morning, very much against my advice and the advice of Leroy Stevens. He hurried out past Albrecht and Hachmeister and tore off southbound on Prospect Avenue, with an unmarked squad in tow and others on the way. Everyone involved in the case seemed to sense that this day would be different from the past several days, different from any other day of the investigation. Radios were squawking, and plans were being thrown together concerning this particular day.

Gacy drove in his inimitable style, speeding through populated areas and school zones like they weren’t there, all at a time when the town of Park Ridge was waking up, moving about, people rushing to work, school buses picking up small children.

John’s first stop was the Shell gas station, where he had his business account. The owner, John Lucas, was a friend and business associate. It was clear from a distance that John was not himself. He was walking around stoop shouldered and hollow, obviously in some sort of funk. Something was wrong. Albrecht and Hachmeister didn’t know what happened during the night in my office, but they were sure it was something significant.

“It’s over,” Gacy said to Lucas. “Those guys are going to kill me.” He said this while pointing to the boys from Des Plaines.

“What the fuck are you talking about, John? You don’t look so good, ya know? What’s wrong with you?”

“My life is over, man … my life is over. Listen, don’t take no more charges on my account … unless it’s me, ya hear me? No more charges.”

Gacy started popping pills as soon as he left the office, Valiums, and they were starting to kick in. It wasn’t enough that he was
hungover as hell, that he had been drinking all night long, and that he hadn’t fully slept it off. Now he was gulping down pharmaceuticals like candy. He walked up to Lucas’s employee, the kid that was pumping his gas, Lance Jacobson. Gacy stuffed a plastic baggy full of joints into Jacobson’s pocket—in plain sight of the Deltas.

“Take these. I don’t need them. Take them, Lance.”

Jacobson tried to give the baggy back to Gacy more than once, but he wouldn’t take it. He, Jacobson, didn’t feel like getting busted by one of the obvious cops that went everywhere Gacy went; so he gave the baggy to his boss, hoping his boss would know what to do with it. Lucas, treating the baggy like a hot potato, then gave the baggy to Officer Hachmeister of the Delta Unit. He was shaking his head and repeating, “There’s something wrong with Gacy. There is something wrong with Gacy …” Dave Hachmeister put the pot in his pocket as he watched Gacy hugging everyone he could and saying very final “good-byes.” It looked like Gacy was going on a very long trip and he was saying bon voyage.

Albrecht and Hachmeister were angry with Gacy for blowing through school zones at 60 mph.

“I’m gonna bust you on just the principle of it, John! Now you slow the fuck down in areas with kids and pedestrians,” Hachmeister was screaming.

Gacy was hurt. “You guys have to stop yelling at me. This is the end, and you know it.” Gacy, stooped and deflated, mumbled another rather fatalistic statement. “This is my last day. This is it … you guys know that.”

Albrecht was convinced that Gacy was telling them that he intended to commit suicide. That would not do. This guy was going to face the music, no easy way out for him. Albrecht was going to see to that. He walked over to his car and got on the radio. Other members of the investigation team were on their way. That made him feel a little better. He had no intention of letting the past eight days of his life be a wasted effort.

Gacy’s next stop was his house on Summerdale. He didn’t stay long. Then he drove to his friend Ron Rohde’s house. There, more farewells took place, complete with tears, hugs, and pats on the back. The members of the surveillance team were watching Gacy completely self-destruct. In some ways, it was sad. This glad-handing, gregarious pol (Chicago for
politician
) of a guy had been reduced to a sniffling, sad excuse for a man, trudging about in a Valium-induced haze, acting out fond adieus like the world was coming to an end. This all simply reinforced the idea on the part of several of the Deltas that Gacy was planning something drastic. He looked like a man on a mission whose time was short.

Gacy’s driving was becoming erratic. He left the Rohde home and traveled to David Cram’s apartment, where Mike Rossi was in the process of quitting his employ with Gacy. On his way there, Gacy could have been arrested for the way he was driving, which was nothing new, of course; however, it was markedly worse than usual. There was some true concern that he would commit suicide by bridge abutment.

Rossi was unloading equipment and tools in some sort of futile effort to cut his ties with John. This was a joke. Rossi had quit many times in the past. It never lasted. It didn’t this time either. Before long, Rossi was in Cram’s house with John. They all seemed to be planning whatever destination Gacy had in mind. The Deltas could see Gacy in tears, animated, acting like a person in great grief.

The next stop for this pathetic, sad train with Gacy leading the way was Di Leo’s Restaurant on the Northwest Side, Gacy’s home turf. There he met Leroy Stevens. Once again, Gacy showed signs of a man that was living his last hours on earth. He hugged everyone that he knew, often with tears flowing. He said it again and again, “It’s over for me.” “They’re gonna kill me.” “This is it for me.” He did not seem to be in his right mind. He was not himself. This was clear to Albrecht, Hachmeister, and the others. After all, these were guys that had been with him every minute of every day for the past week and a half. They had eaten with him, drunk with
him, partied with him. They could see him coming undone. More and more, the Deltas were convinced that Gacy intended to take his own life.

When Gacy left the restaurant, his car was rocketing north on Milwaukee Avenue, like he was a man possessed; only now, Rossi was doing the driving for him.

“If he is going where I think he is, we may have a problem.” It was Albrecht’s voice coming over the radio speakers. “His father is buried in that cemetery, Maryhill Cemetery. It is straight ahead on Milwaukee, at about Dempster Avenue. He always said he wanted to be buried there. Maybe he is going there to die, ya know? Why else would he be traveling on Milwaukee, of all roads? Anyway, that sounds like him, the morbid son of a bitch.”

The radios crackled with the concern of officers that had put their all, their everything into an investigation that was now threatening to end without closure, without Gacy having been brought to justice. If he killed himself, they might never find Rob Piest or see any kind of conclusion to the other leads that they had unearthed regarding a number of other missing young boys.

After hearing the concerns of his men, with the frantic efforts to finish and present the complaint for search warrant ongoing back at the station, Lieutenant Kozenczak finally gave the order to attempt to arrest Gacy if they saw an opportunity. Any reason would do at this point.

However, they needed an actual reason. Sure, any reason would do, but what would that reason be? What did they actually have on him? They could stop him and give him a ticket for his driving, that was sure. But wait, he wasn’t even doing the driving. They could give Rossi a ticket. Of course, that would not do. They needed a solid arrest to be able to hold Gacy while the search warrant was executed.

These guys were so used to watching Gacy break laws for which they could not arrest him because of the larger nature of their investigation, they were getting rusty.

It was Albrecht that suddenly remembered the pot that had exchanged hands at the gas station.

___________________

T
ERRY
S
ULLIVAN STOOD
in the makeshift investigation’s command room at the Des Plaines police headquarters, listening to the squelch of many radios and the metallic, anticipation-filled voices of the members of the surveillance team, all of whom had arrived on scene for an event that was the culmination of a great deal of hard work, long hours, and a lot of patience. All four Deltas—Albrecht, Hachmeister, Robinson, and Schultz—together with their boss, Wally Lang, were in hot pursuit of the car driven by Rossi and carrying John Gacy at breakneck speeds through suburban traffic on north Milwaukee Avenue.

Terry had a decision to make. The complaint for search warrant was a few short hours from being completed. He had spoken to Judge Marvin Peters, the judge that had signed the first warrant, in an effort to smooth the process of getting this new search warrant signed. Terry had actually gone through the draft language of the complaint to ensure that the judge had no problem with it and that a finding of probable cause would be forthcoming. It was further decided that, if necessary, the complaint could be brought to the judge’s home that evening and he would sign it there. Once signed, the members of the search team would be free to search Gacy’s home, including his crawl space.

Sullivan was convinced that such a search would turn up evidence sufficient to charge Gacy with murder or, at a bare minimum, kidnapping. The warrant was drawn up on the basis of murder, however. And everyone involved with the investigation, including Terry Sullivan, just knew that this was going to be the basis of Gacy’s eventual arrest. That was the unfortunate truth of the matter. No one believed that Rob Piest was still alive.

Sullivan was hearing the excited voices of his men stepping all over one another, speaking at once, and claiming that they were convinced that Gacy was going to off himself before an arrest could be effectuated, and maybe take Mike Rossi with him. He also
had the hearing on my petition for TRO up in court the following morning, which could throw a monkey wrench into this whole damn thing—jeopardize the authorization of the warrant and put the investigation back to square one.

Should he give the order to arrest Gacy or wait until the search warrant was executed and new evidence would undoubtedly be discovered?

When he heard that Gacy had transferred marijuana to young Lance Jacobson and that the said transfer had actually been witnessed by a couple of Deltas, that was quite enough. Delivery of marijuana is a felony even if no money changes hands. One need not sell marijuana to commit the crime; they need only to deliver it. An arrest on felony charges would allow the police to hold Gacy for a significant period of time while the final steps to procuring the warrant were being taken.