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Authors: Judge Sam Amirante

John Wayne Gacy (9 page)

BOOK: John Wayne Gacy
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5

G
ACY SAT ACROSS
from me, well back in his chair, ankle on a knee, casually recounting the events of the past few days as if he thought all of this was a huge inconvenience, an imposition on his busy day. He certainly didn’t come off as a person with a guilty conscience. I had interviewed hundreds of individuals that were suspects of a crime during my years at the PD’s office, maybe thousands when you think about it, several a day for five years. Often, the guilty ones lean forward on the desk with a sense of urgency, practically begging you to believe them. Their eyes often dart around as though someone is about to break in and grab them.

Gacy, on the other hand, had relaxed. He and I could have just as easily been discussing last weekend’s football game or the state of the economy, rather than what was, in point of fact, the closing of a net around him from which he would never be freed. There was something, though—something that gnawed at me. The guy just couldn’t seem to get through a sentence without mentioning how this was all related in some way to how he knew that big-shot politician or another rich and famous guy. It seemed such a non sequitur, as if he really did not understand the gravity of the situation. He was detached, disconnected. There he sat, implicated in the disappearance of a human being, under suspicion for perhaps
kidnapping, abduction, or worse; and he was nonchalantly going on and on about his political connections. He wondered aloud more than once why Chief Alfano, the chief of police in Des Plaines, had let this go on as long as it had. He knew the chief well, according to him. They had met at some function or at one of the many fund-raisers he attended. Eventually, the chief would surely put a stop to all this nonsense. It was as if he thought he was insulated from all potential harm because he had once shaken the hand of the chief of police of the City of Des Plaines, Illinois. He mustn’t have read the papers too closely. In the state of Illinois, governors routinely wind up doing time.

He recounted with great specificity the entire tale regarding his two visits to Nisson Pharmacy and his visit to Northwest Hospital to attend to his dying uncle Harold. He gave me the addresses and the life histories of his aunt Leone, her daughter, and her brother, told me how he went to comfort them on Monday night, all of it very plausible and very much verifiable. He mentioned Phil Torf and his brother, Larry. He told me about Linda with the dark hair and glasses at the pharmacy and the short kid that he had asked about shelving in the back. He even told me that he had failed to meet with his business associate, Richard Raphael, and that he agreed to meet him and Gordon Nebel, whom he called Uncle Gordon, at 7:00 a.m. the following day. He left out the events that took place between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m. He also told me that he left the pharmacy alone.

Gacy mentioned that he thought that the interest the police had in him might be related to drugs. He said that he did have a conversation with Phil Torf about the fact that Phil claimed to have grown some good pot on the roof of a building that he owned at Devon Street and California Avenue in the city. He was worried that some of Torf’s employees had heard this discussion. However, he had spoken to the coppers on the phone, and they had been to his house twice now, and this had never come up.

“Speaking of the cops having been to your house,” I chimed in, “why don’t you tell me about that?”

“Which time?” Gacy asked blandly, as if the police go to everyone’s house.

“Both. Start with the first time,” I said.

“OK, I was sitting in my rec room watching TV when I hear a knock on the front door. I was expecting one of my guys, one of my foremen, Mike Rossi, and he would not normally go to the front door, but I still thought it must be him, so I didn’t answer the door. I knew he would eventually figure it out to come to the back. I had to take a piss, so I did. When I finished, there was a knock on the back door. I did wonder what the fuck was up, cuz Rossi would normally just let himself in. I answered the door, and it was two cops. One says his name is Kozenczak. I let them in. No big deal. They say they are looking for some kid. I told them everything that I just told you. That’s not good enough for them … so we argue a little bit, nothing to get upset about. They say they want me to come to the station to give a statement. I told them I was waiting for a call from my mom in Arkansas. It’s a long-distance call, I say. She’s gonna call collect. Her fucking brother-in-law just died, her sister’s fuckin’ husband … and I can’t go.”

“Did they say that they were going to arrest you?” I asked.

“Hell, no. They were just being cops, trying to intimidate me. Fuck them. I woulda called Bob Martwick or Chief Alfano before I would have left with those two assholes. They didn’t know who they were talking to. I know people. It was OK, though. They were just doing their job. I told them that I would come down to the station later, and that seemed to satisfy them. So they left. Then a few minutes later, Rossi walks in. I didn’t know it, but they had Mike cooling his heels out front the whole time with two other coppers—”

“They sent four cops to your house, four detectives?” I interrupted, a bit incredulously.

“Yeah … why?”

“Well, that would be a little unusual, John—not that it means anything, necessarily, but it’s a little bit unusual to send out four police officers, especially four ranking police officers, to take a simple statement from a potential witness.” I was taking notes, wondering. This was a bit strange.

“Yeah, well, that was the first night they put a car outside the house. The fucking thing stood out like a sore thumb. They had a car parked just down the block. Rossi and I saw it.”

“I see … did they stay there all night?”

“No, they left after a while.”

“Did you go in to the station to give a statement?”

“Yes … but … well, Rossi had some pot with him, and after all the commotion, we decided to get high. Plus, I had a few drinks and a Valium or two. So I didn’t make it into the station until about 3:30 a.m. or so. By that time, no one was around to take the damn statement. So they told me to come back in the morning. Hell, I thought cops worked all night.”

“That was smart,” I said sarcastically. “Did you go in the next day?”

“Yeah, I woke up early, made some calls for work and some regarding the funeral arrangements. I went to get a haircut, but there was a line, two people were in front of me. I don’t like to wait around, so I went over to Democratic headquarters to use the phone over there. I called the Des Plaines police and got connected to Kozenczak. I asked him if he still wanted me to come in. He said that he did. Why, I don’t know. But I went right over. I got there about eleven thirty or so. I thought this was all a total waste of time. What else could I tell them? I had already told them everything I knew.”

“They like to get you on the record. They like to get a statement in writing.”

“I guess … Anyway, they put me in a conference room with a cop named Jim, the same one that was with Kozenczak the night
before at the house. I told them everything that I have told you, the whole story, step-by-step. Now, it was getting late. I had been there for over two fucking hours! I was starting to get pissed. I had a meeting at the funeral home. I had jobs going on that had to be checked. I had shit to do. They let me use the phone. I guess they thought that was enough. But sometimes they would all leave, and I was locked inside this room … locked in!”

“Did you feel like you were under arrest?”

“Fuckin’ A. Wouldn’t you?”

“Did you ask to leave? Did you tell them that you had pressing matters to attend to?”

“Sam, after a while I was screaming at these guys. I’m not some kind of pussy. I’m not a fruit picker. I know my fuckin’ rights. At one point, an assistant state’s attorney, Terry Sullivan, came into the room and grabbed me by the arm. He said something about how they were not done taking my statement and that it wouldn’t be much longer, that I should be patient. Patient? Patient! It was going on three goddamn hours!”

“OK, OK, what happened next?”

“I called Leroy Stevens. He’s a lawyer that has represented me on my corporate matters, a few other things too. Nothing big.”

“Then what?”

“Leroy called Sullivan and told him to let me leave.”

“I take it that this didn’t work?” I knew that a call from a lawyer would not have rattled Terry in any way. As I said, he was a tough prosecutor.

“Right …” This time, it was Gacy that dripped sarcasm. Then he went on. “They had me locked in a room, no fuckin’ bathroom in there, I might add, for so goddamn long that I finally laid down on the floor. I was going to take a fuckin’ nap. Then a couple hours later, Stevens gets there. By then, they had me in another room, where they were telling me to sign my statement and a waiver of my rights.”

“Did you sign those documents?”

“I told them to get Stevens in there.”

“That was smart. What happened next?”

“Well, there was a bit of an argument about that, but, finally, Stevens told me to go ahead and sign the fuckin’ thing and—”

“He did what?” I interrupted. This surprised me. I tried not to let on. It was not my practice to second-guess other lawyers. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t in that room.

“First he asked me if I knew anything about this whole matter … anything at all about this missing kid, other than what I had already told them. I said no. Then he told me to sign the fuckin’ thing so that we could be on our way. Why? You wouldn’t have advised that?”

“I have no idea what I would have done. I wasn’t there. But normally, I would not recommend that a client give a voluntary statement or sign a waiver. I like to let the police and the prosecutors do their jobs themselves. Why do it for them? They are professionals, right? They don’t need our help.”

“What difference does it really make?”

“Look, John, everybody has heard about the scheming, low-life criminal defense attorney, using trickery and loopholes to get their dirty, rotten bad-guy clients off, scot-free, thereby unleashing them into our society again to prey on the defenseless. All of the TV cop shows and
Dirty Harry
–style movies put forth that message. And unfortunately, many people believe it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love those movies, and nobody wants the bad guys in those movies caught and punished more than I do. I root for those cops and those prosecuting attorneys. But I live in the real world, and in that real world, it’s not so cut-and-dried. What nobody hears about is that, sometimes, the prosecution does the same goddamn thing. Don’t forget, prosecutors are lawyers, and lawyers like to win. They have plenty of tricks and loopholes in their own repertoire. And one of those tricks is to get some poor unsuspecting innocent sap
to give a written statement in the very early stages of the investigation, often under a great deal of duress and pressure; have them sign their name to it; and stick it in a file. Then a year and a half later, during the trial, if that poor sap, now the defendant, changes one word of their story as written in that statement, they wave it in their face and call them a liar, right in front of a jury. My job is to make sure that does not happen to the people I represent. So normally, I advise against giving any kind of statement. However, there are exceptions to every rule. Plus, and one cannot diminish this fact, not every lawyer represents his client in exactly the same way. Who’s to say who is right or wrong in their approach? One thing is sure in this case, however—you already signed the fucking statement. So the point is moot, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so …” At this point, Gacy sat up and put his hands on the other side of my desk. He seemed to fidget a bit, ever so slightly. He was starting to lean forward out of his chair.

“What else happened while you were in there?” I asked.

“Well, they had taken all of my personal possessions, my wallet, my keys—everything that I had in my pockets. When they gave everything back to me, they did not give me my keys. That’s when they told me and Stevens that they were searching my house, that they had a search warrant to do so.”

“Did they show you or Mr. Stevens the warrant?”

“No … and then the motherfuckers told me that they were going to hold my car—confiscate my fucking car! I asked them how the fuck I was supposed to get home, and they all just looked at Stevens. Then, when I get home, I find out that they grabbed my pickup too. This shit is getting out of hand, don’t you think, Sam? What are my options here? Do I have any?”

“They are following up on what they believe to be leads regarding their case. However, the mere fact that they have not arrested you tells me that they have nothing solid. It may be time for us to sue them, to go on the offensive. This is harassment, plain
and simple, unless you are not telling me something. Have you left anything out, John?”

“I have told you everything that I can recall, Sam, everything.”

I looked at my knew client for a very long minute and then said, “OK, John, let’s try to figure out what is making these guys so sure that you have something to do with this kid’s disappearance. I want to know everything about you, not just what happened in the last three or four days. I need prior arrests, prior employment, prior marriages, family life—everything.”

Over the next several hours, he went on and on about his life. I learned a lot about my new client.

John Wayne Gacy was born to the union of John Stanley Gacy and Marion Elaine Skow/Robinson on Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1942, at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. His parents remained married until the death of John Stanley on Christmas Day, December 25, 1969. He grew up under the thumb of a domineering father of Polish heritage, a hardworking, hard-drinking man with a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality, who was the dispenser of harsh corporal discipline, sometimes for no known reason, and whom John Jr. spent his entire life trying to please without success.

John was a sickly, flabby, uncoordinated kid who was unable to perform at sports, unable to bond with the kids his age, and unable to shake his own nagging, overwhelming belief that he was an outsider and a misfit. This low self-image was routinely and continuously reinforced by that domineering, uncompromising dad, a man who would routinely refer to his son a dumb and stupid sissy, a fag, a fruit picker, or worse.

BOOK: John Wayne Gacy
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