John Wayne Gacy

Netflix's latest true crime documentary Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes looks at one of America's most prolific serial killers.

Gacy was convicted of murdering at least 33 young men and boys, with 26 bodies being found in his crawl space. After being surveilled by police officers and interviewed a second time, Gacy confessed to killing approximately 30 people to his criminal attorney and lawyer, saying that he had been "the judge, jury and executioner of many, many people" and revealing that Robert Piest was dead. When Gacy was named as the contractor who had been in the pharmacy, Des Plaines officers visited Gacy at his home – however, he claimed that he had not offered Piest a job. Gacy served 18 months of his sentence and was granted parole with 12 months' probation in 1970 on the condition that he moved back to Chicago and lived with his mother. Police obtained another search warrant and searched Gacy's home, finding human remains of four victims in his crawl space and arresting Gacy for murder. Born in 1942, Gacy grew up in Chicago and went on to marry his first wife Marlynn Myers in 1964, with the couple living in the Iowa town of Waterloo, where Gacy managed several Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants.

New doc reveals never-before-heard recordings of John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer clown who raped, tortured and strangled 33 young men before buying them ...

Antonucci was one of the lucky few who managed to slip the shackles in a wrestle with Gacy. 'And then he said this quote which will always stick with me. Gacy told his lawyers that he thought homosexuals were 'sick and weak' and said that he was open with Carole about his bi-sexuality. He committed most of his crimes between 1976 and 1978, and referred to this time as his 'cruising years.' Gacy's first killing was a boy he picked up at the Greyhound bus station and brought back to his house in January 1972. 'Pogo was John's own creation, from the style of the makeup to the way he acted. After the two tussled, Gacy fatally stabbed the teenager and left him to die in the bedroom. During that time, he became a powerful inmate in his position as head cook, and increased the prison's Jaycee chapter from 50 to 650 members. Eventually Vorhees reported the incident to his father and Gacy was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison. Gacy retells the story of how he picked up the hitchhiking teenager and brought him back to his house. He buried 29 bodies in the crawl space beneath the house he shared with his wife and kids and dumped four in a nearby lake when he ran out of space. Gacy was a gregarious and boastful pillar of his community. As a perpetual disappointment to his father, Gacy was constantly beaten and ridiculed as a 'sissy,' who would 'probably grow up queer.'

True crime documentary series on Netflix, Conversations with a Killer: John Wayne Gacy, publicizes recordings of U.S. serial killer John Wayne Gacy who ...

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The split between the public John Wayne Gacy and the private one is among the most chilling in true crime history. Gacy, who lived and killed in Illinois in ...

There’s a period, from Gacy to Dahmer, of angry white men going on a serial-killing spree in a reaction to the social values of the time. He took advantage of the fact that when these crimes were reported to the police, they didn’t listen, or they didn’t understand the concept that a man could rape another man. There were serial killers who didn’t have these kinds of patterns or upbringings, and I don’t think it explains everything. I think it’s very important for the audience — so that it’s not just another story — to be grounded in the horror, the fact that there were 26 bodies under the crawlspace and three other bodies on the property, and four bodies in the river. We think we can protect ourselves because we can see that serial killer across the street. Gacy took advantage of the fact that a lot of young gay men had to leave their homes because they weren’t accepted. You know, I think they acted heroically so it’s not those cops in the show, criticizing per se, but law enforcement in general just had a terrible attitude towards this case. Back then, to be gay, in the ’70s, it was still being talked about as if it was a sickness. The 60 hours of audio footage comes from a recorded conversation between Gacy and a member of his defense team, whose family came forward with the materials following the success of Berlinger’s “Ted Bundy Tapes” documentary. IndieWire: There’s been a number of John Wayne Gacy specials and books. The split between the public John Wayne Gacy and the private one is among the most chilling in true crime history. Berlinger, who also helmed the “Cecil Hotel” and “Times Square Killer” specials for the streamer, gains access to an astounding trove of new archival materials and shares that audio and video in his latest Netflix serial killer X-ray series.

John Wayne Gacy remains the stuff of nightmares, a symbol of evil with the dress-up-like-a-clown twist to ensure his enduring place in the true-crime genre.

There are also interviews with relatives of those killed, and one survivor of Gacy's attacks. In a 1994 New Yorker article He merely defends himself.

Just hearing Gacy's voice doesn't really add much to an understanding of what motivated him or the hideous nature of his crimes.

In a 1994 New Yorker article (the year Gacy was executed by lethal injection), writer Alec Wilkinson summed up the challenge of interviewing him, noting, "Talking to Gacy requires patience. Otherwise, there's not much that's really new here, with Peacock's "John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise" having covered similar territory just last year. There are also interviews with relatives of those killed, and one survivor of Gacy's attacks.RELATED: John Wayne Gacy victim No. 5 identified by Cook County Sheriff In a 1994 New Yorker article (the year Gacy was executed by lethal injection), writer Alec Wilkinson summed up the challenge of interviewing him, noting, "Talking to Gacy requires patience. But Netflix provides both a wider platform, and the project comes with a somewhat more contemporary hook amid ongoing efforts continue to identify Gacy's victims, some of whom remain unknown. "Conversations With a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes" finds the wispiest hook to add to that filmography, drawing from 60 hours of unearthed audio sprinkled throughout this three-part Netflix docuseries.

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When asked about Robert Piest at this time, the serial killer confirmed he had lured him to his house and strangled him before alongside sleeping Piest's body that evening. Shortly after the remains of his victims were found in the crawl space, he was arrested. The store owner, Torf, informed police it was likely to be Gacy who had offered the boy a role, and Gacy was later interviewed by police. During the search, a receipt which indicated the victim had been inside of the property was uncovered. It was his Mother’s birthday on the day the teen was reported missing, and it is said she had arrived to drive her son home so the family could celebrate her birthday together at approximately 9pm. though the killer is best known performing at events and children’s parties as ‘Pogo’ in his infamous clown costume.

Director Joe Berlinger talks to ET about his latest, true-crime docuseries, 'Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes.'

“So, I give those police all the credit in the world.” According to Martha Fourt, an Illinois-based LGBTQ+ advocate, “To be gay in the 1970s, it was a different world. Similarly to other killers at the time, Gacy took advantage of the trust people had in him. Despite committing such heinous crimes, the three-part docuseries shows how Gacy was able to get away with it – and that was largely due to the way he looked and acted in society. It was just this fascinating insight into the mind of a serial killer,” he says. “But also the tapes materialized.”