The Last 24 Hours of John Wayne Gacy —he Killer Clown Executed for Killing 33 Teen Boys…..

In Rockford, Illinois today, jury selection begins for a mass murder trial that will actually be conducted in Chicago. It’s been more than a year since the murders were discovered, but Chris Kelly reports. Emotion in the case remains high. >> May the 10th, 1994, Stateville Correctional Center, Illinois. It is just after midnight.

 The execution chamber is cold, bright, and silent. The kind of silence that feels heavy in the air. Behind the glass window, reporters, prison officials, and a few family members of victims sit waiting. Outside the prison, more than 1,000 people stand in the dark. Some hold signs. Some laugh and cheer.

 Others wear shirts that say, “No tears for the clown.” And Gayy must go. They came to watch a nightmare finally end. Inside the chamber, strapped to the gurnie, lies 52-year-old John Wayne Gayy, the killer clown, the man who murdered 33 boys and young men. For his last meal, he asked for a bucket of KFC chicken, a dozen fried shrimp, French fries, fresh strawberries, and a diet coke.

 When the warden asks for final words, Gayy lifts his head, looks toward the witness window, and says calmly, “Kiss my ass.” The team begins the lethal injection, a seditive, flows into his arm. Then a drug to stop his muscles, and finally, the chemical meant to stop his heart. It should take only a few minutes, but something goes wrong.

The chemicals thicken inside the tube. The line clogs. Nurses scramble. The blinds slam shut. For 10 long minutes, no one can see what is happening. Gasey lies there still waiting. When the blinds reopen, the injection continues. 18 minutes after it began, John Wayne Gayy is pronounced dead. But how did it come to this? How did a man who dressed as a clown to entertain sick children become one of America’s most evil serial killers? To understand what happened in that execution chamber, we need to go back, back to 1972,

back to a quiet neighborhood in Chicago where teenage boys started disappearing. back to a ranch house at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, where beneath the crawl space, a nightmare was buried in the dirt. John Wayne Gayy was born on March 17th, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois. He was the second of three children.

 His father was John Stanley Gayy, a World War I veteran who worked as a machinist. His mother was Marian Elaine Robinson. To the outside world, they looked like a normal workingclass family. But inside that home, young John lived in fear. His father was an alcoholic. He drank whiskey every night after work.

 When he drank, he became violent. He beat Jon with a leather belt. He called him stupid. He called him a [ __ ] He told Jon he would never amount to anything. Young John tried everything to make his father proud. He joined the Boy Scouts. He worked hard in school. He helped his mother with chores. Nothing was ever good enough.

 When John was 11 years old, he was hit in the head with a swing at a playground. The injury caused blood clots in his brain. For years afterward, he suffered from blackouts and seizures. His father did not believe the illness was real. He called Jon weak. He said the boy was faking it for attention. Jon was close to his mother.

 She protected him when she could, but she could not always stop his father’s rage. Jon learned to hide his feelings. He learned to smile even when he was hurting inside. He learned to be two different people. One for the world to see and one he kept hidden. In December 1969, John Stanley Gayy died of cerosis of the liver. John Wayne Gayy was 23 years old.

He did not cry at the funeral. Later he would say that his father’s death was a relief, but he would also say he never got the approval he wanted. That wound never healed. Despite his troubled childhood, Gayy appeared to be successful as a young man. He was friendly. He was ambitious. He dressed well. He joined community organizations.

But beneath that polished surface, something dark was growing. By 1966, John Wayne Gayy seemed to have everything. He had married a woman named Marlon Meyers. Her father owned several Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Waterl, Iowa. Gayy became a manager at three of those restaurants. He was good at the job. He worked long hours.

 He was respected in the community. Gayy threw himself into civic life. He joined the Jes, a leadership organization for young men. He organized charity events. He dressed up as a clown for children’s parties at the local hospital. People liked him. They thought he was a hard worker and a good neighbor.

 But in 1968, everything collapsed. A 15-year-old boy named Donald Voorhees told police that Gayy had sexually assaulted him. Voorhees worked at one of the KFC restaurants. He said Gayy had invited him to his house, given him alcohol, and attacked him. Other teenage boys came forward with similar stories. Gayy had been targeting young employees. He offered them money.

He showed them pornography. He forced them into sexual acts. Gayy was arrested. He told police the boys were lying. He said they wanted money from him. He even paid another teenager to beat up Donald Vohees, hoping to scare the boy into staying quiet. That plan failed. In December 1968, John Wayne Gayy was sentenced to 10 years in the Iowa State Men’s Reformatory at Anamosa.

 His wife Maron was devastated. She had not known about any of it. She filed for divorce while he was behind bars. Gayy never saw her again. But prison did not change John Wayne Gayy. If anything, it taught him to be more careful. He was a model inmate. He worked hard. He joined the prison JC’s chapter. He followed every rule.

 After just 18 months, he was released on parole in June 1970. He moved back to Chicago. He bought a small ranch house at 8213 West Somerdale Avenue in the Norwood Park Township. He started a construction business called PDM Contractors. PDM stood for painting, decorating, and maintenance. The business did well. Gayy hired teenage boys to work on his crews.

 He paid them cash. Many of them were runaways or kids who needed money. In July 1972, Gayy married again. Her name was Carol Hoff. She was a divorcee with two young daughters. She had known Gayy in high school. She thought he had changed. She thought he was a good man who had made a mistake in Iowa.

 To his neighbors on Summerdale Avenue, Jaci was friendly and helpful. He threw big parties in his backyard. He invited everyone. He cooked hamburgers and hot dogs. He dressed up as Pogo the Clown for neighborhood block parties. Parents thought he was wonderful with children. But inside that house, something terrible was beginning.

The first murder happened in January 1972, 6 months before Gayy married Carol. His name was Timothy Jack McCoy. He was 16 years old. He was traveling by bus from Michigan to Omaha, Nebraska. He had a layover at the Chicago Greyhound station. Timothy was alone. He had nowhere to sleep for the night. John Wayne Gayy picked him up at the bus station.

 He offered Timothy a place to stay. He said he could sleep on the couch and catch his bus in the morning. Timothy agreed. What happened next? Gayy would later describe to police in detail. He said he woke up in the middle of the night and found Timothy standing in his bedroom doorway holding a kitchen knife.

 Gayy said he wrestled the knife away and stabbed the boy in self-defense. He said it was an accident. He said he panicked. But investigators never believed that story. They believed Gayy invited Timothy into his home with the intention to kill him. They believed the knife was an excuse. What is certain is this.

 John Wayne Gayy strangled Timothy Jack McCoy to death in his house on Summerdale Avenue. He dragged the body to his crawl space and buried it in the dirt beneath his living room. And then he went to work the next day like nothing had happened. Years later, Gayy would say that killing Timothy gave him a feeling he had never experienced before.

 He said it made him feel powerful. He said it made him feel in control for the first time in his life and he wanted to feel it again. Between 1972 and 1978, 33 young men and boys disappeared in the Chicago area. Most were teenagers between 14 and 21 years old. Some were runaways living on the streets. Others were kids trying to earn money for college or to help their families.

 They all had one thing in common. They crossed paths with John Wayne Gayy. Gayy had a system. He found his victims in three main places. Some he picked up at the Greyhound bus station in downtown Chicago, looking for runaways with nowhere to go. Others he found on street corners in the Boytown neighborhood where young gay men gathered.

 Many he hired through his construction business, offering them jobs and good pay. His method was always the same. He was friendly. He was charming. He offered opportunity. He told boys he could give them construction work that paid $10 an hour, good money in the 1970s. He told them they could start right away.

 All they had to do was come to his house to fill out paperwork. Once they were inside 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, Gayy became someone else. He offered them alcohol or marijuana. He talked about sex. Then he would show them what he called a magic trick. He would take out a pair of handcuffs and demonstrate how they worked.

 He would say, “The trick is you can get out of these if you know how.” He would put the handcuffs on the boy’s wrists. Then he would smile and say, “The real trick is you can’t get out at all.” What happened next was torture. Gayy would rape his victims. He would beat them. He used a rope tied in a special knot.

 He called it his rope trick to strangle them slowly. He told some of his victims that he was killing them for God. He told others that this was their punishment for being gay or for being runaways. He watched them die. Then he would drag their bodies to the crawl space beneath his house. The crawl space was less than 3 ft high.

 It was dark and damp. The ground was dirt. Gayy would dig a shallow grave, lay the body down, and cover it with lime to speed up decomposition. Then he would go upstairs, take a shower, and go to sleep. His wife, Carol, lived in that house during some of these murders. She slept in the bedroom above the crawl space.

 She would later tell police that she smelled something terrible in the house. Gayy told her it was a sewage problem. He told her dead animals had crawled under the house and died. He told her the smell was moisture in the crawl space. She believed him or she wanted to believe him. In March 1976, Carol divorced Gayy.

 She told the court that their marriage had problems. She said Gayy had become distant and cold. She said he disappeared at night and she did not know where he went. She did not know about the bodies under her feet. She did not know she had been sleeping above a graveyard. After the divorce, Gayy lived alone in the house.

 Now there was no one to question him, no one to wonder why he came home at 3:00 in the morning. No one to ask about the smell. The killing increased. John Bkovich was 17 years old when Gayy murdered him in July 1975. He had worked for PDM Contractors. He disappeared after going to Gayy’s house to collect his paycheck.

 His parents reported him missing. Police questioned Gayy. He said John had come to the house, gotten his money, and left. Police believed him. John Butkovich’s body was found years later in the crawl space buried beneath the concrete floor of Gasey’s garage. Daryl Samson was 18. He disappeared in April 1976 after telling friends he was going to a job interview.

 His body was found in the crawl space. Randall Refett was 15. Michael Bonan was 17. William Carol was 16. James Hackinson was 16. Rick Johnston was 17. Kenneth Parker was 16. Michael Marino was 14 years old. 14 years old. By 1977, the crawl space beneath Gayy’s house was running out of room. 26 bodies were buried there, decomposing on top of each other. The smell was overwhelming.

 Gayy poured lime and concrete in some areas to try to contain it. When neighbors complained about the odor, he told them the same story about sewage problems. When there was no more room in the crawl space, Gayy changed his method. He started driving to the I55 bridge over the plains river. He would weigh down the bodies and throw them into the dark water.

 Five victims ended up in that river. Frank Landingan was 19. James Mazara was 20. Timothy O’or was 20. William Kindred was 19. The fifth victim from the river was never identified. He remains unknown to this day. For six years, John Wayne Gayy murdered young men and boys without consequence. Police questioned him more than once when boys disappeared, but they never looked deeper.

 The victims were often runaways or gay youth. In the 1970s, police did not always investigate those cases aggressively. Families of missing boys were told to wait. They were told their sons would probably come home on their own. But in December 1978, everything changed. A 15-year-old boy named Robert P disappeared after his mother watched him walk out of a pharmacy to talk to a contractor about a job.

 She knew exactly who he had gone to meet. She gave police a name, John Wayne Gayy. December 11th, 1978. Robert Jerome P was 15 years old. He was a good student at Maine West High School. He worked part-time at Nissen Pharmacy in Delplains, Illinois to save money for a car. His family was close. His mother, Elizabeth, knew where he was at all times.

 That evening, Robert was working at the pharmacy. It was his mother’s birthday. She came to pick him up when his shift ended at 9:00. As they were about to leave together, a contractor came into the store to talk to the owner about some remodeling work. The contractor mentioned he was looking to hire teenage boys for his construction business.

 He said he paid $5 an hour, good money for a high school student. Robert’s eyes lit up. He told his mother, “Wait a minute. I want to talk to this contractor about a summer job. Elizabeth Peace said, “Okay.” She waited in the car. Robert walked outside with the man. He should have been gone 5 minutes. He never came back.

 Elizabeth Pest waited 15 minutes, then 30. She went back inside the pharmacy. Robert was not there. She asked the owner, “Where did my son go?” The owner told her the contractor’s name was John Wayne Gasey. He owned PDM Contractors. He had just left. Elizabeth Peace knew something was wrong. Robert would never just leave without telling her he would never make her wait on her birthday.

She drove straight to the Delane police station and filed a missing person report that night. This time police listened. Robert Past was not a runaway. He was not a street kid. He was a straight A student with a loving family and a part-time job. His mother had the name of the last person who saw him. When police ran a background check on John Wayne Gayy, they discovered his conviction in Iowa for sodomy with a teenage boy.

 Within 24 hours of Robert P’s disappearance, two detectives knocked on the door of 8 to West Somerdale Avenue. Lieutenant Joseph Cousin Jack and Detective Raphael Tovar stood on Gayy’s front porch on December 12th. When Gayy opened the door, they smelled something immediately. The house rire of decay. It smelled like rotting meat.

 Gayy was calm and friendly. He invited the detectives inside. He said yes. He had been at the pharmacy the night before. He said yes. He had talked to Robert Ped, but he said the boy never came to his house. He said Robert must have run away or gotten lost. He offered the detectives coffee. The detectives looked around the house.

It was neat and clean. There were photographs on the walls of Gayy dressed as Pogo the clown at children’s parties. There were civic awards and certificates. Everything looked normal except for the smell. Gayy said the smell was a sewage problem. He said a pipe had broken in his crawl space and moisture was causing mold.

 He said he had a plumber coming to fix it. The detectives wrote down his story and left, but they did not believe him. Police obtained a search warrant 2 days later. On December 13th, officers searched Gayy’s house looking for any evidence that Robert P had been there. They found a receipt from Nissen Pharmacy in Gayy’s garbage.

 They found books about homosexuality and about sex with young boys. They found handcuffs. They found driver’s licenses and identification cards belonging to other young men. They found a class ring from Maine West High School that did not belong to Gayy. The ring belonged to John Sik, a teenager who had disappeared in January 1977.

Gay said the boy had sold him the ring before leaving town. Police did not believe that either. While detectives gathered evidence, they put Gayy under 24-hour surveillance. Two officers followed him everywhere he went. Gayy knew he was being watched. At one point, he invited the surveillance team into a restaurant and bought them dinner. He joked with them.

 He asked if they were getting bored following him around, but behind the friendly mask, Gayy was panicking. On December 18th, he told his lawyer he needed to confess something. He said there had been bodies in his crawl space, but that they were all gone now. He said he had removed them. His lawyer told police. Police obtained another search warrant, this time specifically for the crawl space.

On December 21st, 1978, investigators entered the crawl space beneath John Wayne Gasey’s house. They brought flashlights and shovels. The smell was so strong that some officers vomited. They wore masks, but it did not help much. They began to dig. The first body was found within minutes. It was buried in a shallow grave beneath the living room floor.

 The investigators kept digging. They found another body, then another, then another. By the end of the day, they had found multiple graves. By the end of the week, the number was staggering. The crawl space was a mass grave. Bodies had been buried on top of bodies. Lime had been poured over them. Some were wrapped in cloth. Some were just placed in the dirt.

The decomposition was so advanced that identifying the victims would take months of forensic work. In total, investigators found 26 bodies buried in the crawl space. Three more were found buried under concrete in the garage. One was buried beneath the driveway. Five more bodies were recovered from the Delplain’s River. 33 victims.

33 young lives ended in that house. The media descended on Norwood Park Township. News cameras filled the street. Reporters interviewed neighbors who stood in shock. They had lived next door to a serial killer. They had been to his parties. They had smiled at him and waved hello. Some of their own children had played in his yard.

 One neighbor said, “He was the nicest guy. He helped everyone. How could we not know?” The excavation of 8213 West Summerdale Avenue took weeks. Investigators worked carefully to preserve evidence and to treat the victim’s remains with dignity. Each body was photographed, documented, and removed.

 Forensic teams tried to identify the victims using dental records and any personal items found with the bodies. Some victims were identified quickly. Others took years. Some have never been identified. To this day, there are unidentified victims of John Wayne Gasey. While Cruz dug bodies from his crawl space, John Wayne Gayy sat in a police interrogation room and he started to talk.

 On December 22nd, 1978, after more than 12 hours of questioning, John Wayne Gayy confessed to murder. He did not confess to all 33 at once. He started slowly. He admitted to killing around 30 people. He said he could not remember exact numbers. He said many of the murders happened during blackouts and he did not have clear memories of them.

 Investigators did not believe the blackout story. Gayy was calm during the confession. He spoke in a flat, emotionless tone. He described the murders like he was describing a routine task. He told detectives where he had buried each body. He drew diagrams of the crawl space showing the locations of graves. He was helpful and cooperative. He told them about the rope trick.

 He explained how he would tie a rope around a victim’s neck, then twist it with a wooden handle like a tourniquet. He said he would watch as the boys struggled and died. He said it usually took several minutes. When detectives asked why he did it, Gayy gave different answers. Sometimes he said the victims had threatened him or tried to rob him.

Sometimes he said they wanted money after sex and he got angry. Sometimes he said he was cleaning up the streets of homosexuals and runaways. Sometimes he said he did not know why. When asked about Robert Past specifically, Gayy admitted he had killed him. He said Robert had come to his house on December 11th.

 He said he had strangled the boy and put his body in the trunk of his car. He said he later drove to the I55 bridge and through Robert’s body into the deplaines river. Divers were sent to search the river. On April 9th, 1979, Robert P’s body was recovered. His mother finally had her son back. Throughout the confession, Gayy showed no remorse. He did not cry.

 He did not apologize. When one detective asked, “How could you do this to these boys?” Gayy shrugged and said, “That’s the question, isn’t it?” The trial of John Wayne. Gayy began on February 6th, 1980 in Cook County, Illinois. The courtroom was packed every single day. Media from around the world covered the trial.

 It became one of the most publicized murder cases in American history. Gayy pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His defense team argued that no sane person could commit such horrific crimes. They brought in psychiatrists who testified that Gayy suffered from multiple personality disorder. They said he had a violent alternate personality that committed the murders while his normal self was not in control.

 They said he was mentally ill and belonged in a psychiatric hospital, not on death row. The prosecution argued the opposite. They said Gayy was fully aware of what he was doing. They pointed out that he held down a successful business while committing the murders. They showed that he carefully planned how to lure victims and hide evidence.

 They argued that a truly insane person could not have hidden his crimes for six years. The evidence was overwhelming. The prosecution presented photographs of the crawl space. They showed the handcuffs and the rope. They presented testimony from young men who had survived encounters with Gayy, boys who had escaped before he could kill them.

These survivors described in detail how Gayy had attacked them, how he had used the handcuff trick, how they had fought back and managed to get away. Families of the victims testified about their sons. They showed photographs of smiling teenage boys. They described the pain of not knowing what had happened for years, of hoping their sons were still alive somewhere.

 They described the horror of learning the truth. The jury heard all of it. 12 people sat and listened to weeks of testimony about rape, torture, and murder. They looked at photographs of bodies pulled from the crawl space. They listened to John Wayne Gayy describe his crimes in his own voice through recorded confessions. The defense called Gayy to the witness stand. He testified for several hours.

He cried at times. He said he was sorry. He said he did not remember killing most of the victims. He said he had blackouts. He said there were other people involved in some of the murders, unnamed contractors who had access to his crawl space. The prosecution tore apart his testimony during cross-examination.

They showed contradictions in his story. They pointed out that he had given police detailed information about the murders, including where bodies were buried, which would have been impossible if he had truly blacked out. On March 13th, 1980, after deliberating for only 1 hour and 50 minutes, the jury returned with a verdict. Guilty.

 On all 33 counts of murder. The courtroom erupted. Some people cheered. Families of victims cried with relief. Gayy sat quietly, showing no emotion. At sentencing, Judge Louie B. Geripo addressed Gayy directly. He called the crimes the most heinous and shocking he had ever encountered. He said Gayy had shown no remorse, no compassion, and no humanity.

 Judge Geripo sentenced John Wayne Gayy to death. 12 death sentences, one for each victim for whom prosecutors had sought the death penalty. The other murder convictions carried life sentences. Altogether, Gayy received 12 death sentences and 21 natural life sentences. Gayy was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

 He was transferred to Manar Correctional Center to await execution on death row. He would wait 14 years. Manard Correctional Center sits along the Mississippi River in southern Illinois. Death Row is located in a separate unit of the prison. John Wayne Gayy was assigned to a single cell measuring 6 ft by 10 ft. The cell had a narrow bed, a toilet, a sink, and nothing else.

 For 14 years, this was his home. Death row inmates spend 23 hours a day in their cells. They get 1 hour for recreation, which usually means walking alone in a small outdoor cage. They eat meals in their cells. They have limited contact with other prisoners. It is designed to be isolating. But Gayy was not like most death row inmates. He was talkative and social.

 He made friends with guards. He wrote letters constantly, hundreds of letters to reporters, to lawyers, to people who were fascinated by serial killers. He gave interviews to anyone who asked. He seemed to enjoy the attention. He never admitted guilt. In every interview, he maintained that he was either innocent or that other people were responsible for some of the murders.

 He said police had framed him. He said his confessions had been coerced. He said the bodies in his crawl space were planted by a conspiracy of contractors and police officers working together. No one believed him. Over the years, Gayy became something of a celebrity in the true crime world. Books were written about him. Documentaries were made.

 His name became synonymous with serial killing. He was the killer clown, a figure that represented pure evil hiding behind a friendly face. And then Gayy discovered painting. In the late 1980s, John Wayne Gayy began creating oil paintings in his death row cell. Prison officials allowed it as part of an arts program for inmates.

 Gay had never painted before, but he threw himself into it. He painted many subjects, skulls, landscapes, historical figures, but his most famous paintings and most controversial were his self-portraits as Pogo the clown. These paintings showed Gayy in full clown makeup, bright colors, a big smile, white face paint, and red lips.

 Some paintings showed Pogo waving. Others showed Pogo surrounded by balloons. They looked cheerful and innocent, like something you might see at a child’s birthday party. But everyone who looked at them knew the truth. These paintings were created by a man who had raped and murdered 33 young men and boys. Gayy signed each painting with his name.

 He sold them through a dealer on the outside. Collectors bought them. Some people were fascinated by serial killer memorabilia. Others saw the paintings as investments. The prices ranged from a few hundred to several thousand. The sales were extremely controversial. Victim’s families were outraged. They said it was obscene that Gayy was profiting from his crimes, even indirectly.

 They said every painting was an insult to the memory of murdered boys. One victim’s mother said, “He took my son’s life. Now he wants to make money painting clowns. It makes me sick.” Illinois passed a law in response. The law said criminals could not profit from their crimes through book deals, artwork sales, or media appearances.

Any money Gayy made from his paintings was supposed to go to a victim’s compensation fund. But enforcement was difficult and some money likely reached Gay anyway. Today, Gayy’s paintings still exist. Some are in private collections. Some have been displayed in galleries as examples of murderabilia, a term for items connected to famous murders.

 After Gayy’s execution, a group of victims families bought several of his paintings and burned them in a public bonfire. They wanted to erase his legacy. But the most famous Pogo painting was never destroyed. It remains in a private collection somewhere, a disturbing reminder of John Wayne Gasey’s evil. While his paintings circulated in the art world, Gasey’s legal team filed appeal after appeal.

They argued that his trial had been unfair. They said the jury selection was biased because of intense media coverage. They said the evidence from the crawl space had been collected improperly. They said Gayy’s confession should not have been admissible because he had been under psychological duress.

 Every appeal was denied. In 1985, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld Gayy’s conviction and death sentence. In 1988, the US District Court rejected his habius corpus petition. In 1991, the US Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling. In 1993, the US Supreme Court declined to hear his case. Gayy was running out of legal options.

During these years, he gave numerous interviews. He spoke with reporters from major newspapers and television networks. He appeared in crime documentaries. He wrote long letters explaining his version of events. He always maintained he was innocent or that he was being used as a scapegoat. In one interview, Gayy said, “I’m not a monster. I never killed anyone.

 The police put those bodies there. In another interview, when asked if he felt any remorse for the victims, Gayy said, I can’t feel remorse for something I didn’t do. The interviewer then asked, but you confessed to the murders. Gayy replied, I was tired. They kept me in that room for hours. They told me what to say.

 When psychologists interviewed Gayy, they found him to be intelligent, manipulative, and completely lacking in empathy. He showed all the classic signs of psychopathy. He was charming when it suited him. He lied constantly. He felt no guilt. One psychiatrist who evaluated Gayy said, “He is one of the most dangerous individuals I have ever assessed.

 He has no conscience. If he were released tomorrow, he would kill again. On March 4, 1994, Gayy’s final appeal was rejected by the Illinois Supreme Court. There were no more legal options, no more delays. The state of Illinois scheduled his execution for May 10th, 1994. After 14 years on death row, John Wayne Gayy had reached the end.

 May 10th, 1994. John Wayne Gayy woke up in his cell at Stateville Correctional Center for the last time. It was just after dawn. Guards brought him breakfast, but he did not eat much. He drank coffee. During the morning, Gayy met with his lawyer for the final time. They had no more legal arguments to make. The conversation was brief.

 Gay also met with a Catholic priest. He was raised Catholic. Though he had not practiced the faith seriously in decades, the priest offered him last rights. Gay accepted. At noon, prison officials brought Gayy his last meal. He had requested a bucket of Kentucky fried chicken, 12 pieces of original recipe fried chicken.

 He also asked for a dozen fried shrimp, a pound of French fries, fresh strawberries, and a large diet coke. The irony was not lost on anyone. Gayy’s first job out of prison in Iowa had been managing Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. His first murder conviction had come while he was working at KFC. Now, 26 years later, he was eating KFC as his last meal. Gay ate everything.

 He finished every piece of chicken, every shrimp, and every French fry. He drank the entire diet coke. Then he sat in his cell and waited. Outside the prison, crowds were gathering. By late afternoon, more than 1,000 people had assembled on the road leading to Stateville. Some held signs that read, “No tears for the clown.

” and Gayy’s Last Dance and Justice for the 33. Others wore t-shirts with slogans mocking Gayy. Some people brought coolers and lawn chairs, turning the execution into a tailgate party. The atmosphere was celebratory. Inside the prison, the mood was different. 47 witnesses had been selected to watch the execution.

 They included family members of victims, state officials, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and media representatives. They sat in a viewing room, separated from the execution chamber by a glass window with blinds that could be drawn closed. At midnight, guards came to Gasey’s cell. It was time. They escorted him to the execution chamber.

 Gay was calm. He did not resist. He walked without being forced. Some guards later said he seemed almost relieved that it was finally over. The execution chamber at Stateville is a small clinical room. The walls are painted pale green. Fluorescent lights hum overhead. In the center of the room sits a white gurnie with leather straps. At 12:36 a.m.

, John Wayne Gayy was led into the chamber. He was wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants. Guards strapped him to the gurnie, his wrists, his ankles, his chest. He did not struggle. The warden stepped forward and asked, as required by law, “Do you have any last words?” Gayy turned his head toward the glass window where the witnesses sat.

 His face was expressionless. He looked at the families of the boys he had murdered. He looked at the reporters. He looked at the state officials who had come to watch him die. He said three words, “Kiss my ass.” Those were John Wayne Gayy’s final words. The warden stepped back. Behind a wall, the execution team began their work.

 They could not be seen by the witnesses. An IV line had already been inserted into Gayy’s arm. The first chemical, sodium thopental, an anesthetic, was pushed into the line. This drug was supposed to render Gay unconscious within seconds. Then came pancerium broomemide, a paralytic that would stop his breathing. Finally, potassium chloride would stop his heart.

The entire process was supposed to take about 7 minutes. But at 12:40 a.m., something went wrong. The chemicals stopped flowing. The IV line had clogged. The execution drugs, which need to be mixed carefully and injected at specific temperatures, had begun to solidify inside the tubing. Gayy lay on the gurnie, his eyes open or closed.

 No one could tell if he was conscious or not. The warden immediately ordered the blinds closed. The witnesses could no longer see into the execution chamber. Behind that curtain, the execution team was scrambling. They needed to replace the entire IV line and start over. They worked quickly but carefully.

 Executions are supposed to be humane. A prolonged, painful death would violate the ETH amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In the witness room, people sat in silence. Some family members held hands, some cried, some prayed. Outside, the crowd waited. Word spread that something had gone wrong. 10 minutes passed, then 12, then 15.

Finally, at 12:50 a.m., the blinds reopened. A new IV line had been inserted. The execution resumed. The chemicals began flowing into Gayy’s bloodstream again. This time, they worked. At 12:58 a.m., John Wayne Gasey was pronounced dead. 18 minutes from start to finish. 7 minutes longer than planned.

 7 minutes of uncertainty behind closed blinds. When word reached the crowd outside that Gayy was dead, people cheered. They honked car horns. Some set off fireworks. T-shirts that read Gayy’s last dance were sold as souvenirs. It was a celebration. Inside the prison, the witnesses filed out quietly. Some family members spoke to reporters.

 Michelle P, Robert P’s sister, said, “It’s finally over. He can’t hurt anyone else now.” Another family member said 18 minutes was too quick. He should have suffered more. The botched execution became a source of controversy. Medical experts and anesthesiologists criticized the execution team’s training.

 One anesthesiologist said, “This was IV101, basic stuff. The chemicals need to be mixed properly and kept at the right temperature. This never should have happened.” The Illinois Department of Corrections, conducted an internal review. They concluded that the IV line had been positioned incorrectly, which caused the chemicals to flow too slowly and solidify.

They updated their protocols for future executions. John Wayne Gayy’s body was cremated. His ashes were given to his family. Years later, his sister said she scattered them in an undisclosed location. She did not want the site to become a shrine or a target for vandalism. His paintings remain in circulation.

Some were destroyed in the 1994 bonfire organized by victim’s families. Others are still bought and sold by collectors. The house at 8243 West Summerdale Avenue was demolished in April 1979. The lot remained empty for years. Eventually, a new house was built on the property. The current owners have said they often get curiosity seekers knocking on their door wanting to see where Gayy lived.

 John Wayne Gayy remains one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. His name is taught in criminal justice classes. His case is studied by psychologists. The image of Pogo the clown has become a cultural symbol of evil hiding behind a friendly mask. The case changed how law enforcement handles missing persons reports.

 After Robert P’s disappearance, many police departments reformed their policies. They stopped dismissing runaway reports so quickly. They started taking missing persons cases more seriously, especially involving vulnerable youth. Advocacy groups for LGBTQ youth also point to Gayy’s crimes as an example of how marginalized young people are often overlooked when they disappear.

 Many of Gayy’s victims were gay or questioning their sexuality. In the 1970s, these boys were often ignored by police and society. The case highlighted the need for better protections for all missing children, regardless of their background. 28 of Gayy’s 33 victims have been identified. Five remain unknown. Even today, forensic investigators continue to work on identifying the remaining victims using DNA technology.

 Families still wait for answers. The victim’s names deserve to be remembered. They were sons and brothers. They had dreams. They had futures. Their names include Timothy McCoy, John Butkovich, Daryl Samson, Randall Refett, Samuel Stapleton, Michael Bonan, William Carroll, James Harkinson, Rick Johnston, Kenneth Parker, Michael Marino, William Bundy, Gregory Godzick, John Sik, John Prestige, Matthew Bowman, Robert Gilroy, John Mauy, Russell Nelson, Robert Winch, Tommy Bowling, David Talsma, William Kindred, Timothy O’or, Frank Landingan,

James Mazara, and Robert Pest. Five more victims have no names. They are listed only as victim number in official records. They died alone and were buried in unmarked graves. Their families may still not know what happened to them. On May 10th, 1994, after 18 minutes of botched execution, the killer clown took his last breath.

But the horror of what happened in that house on Summerdale Avenue will never be forgotten. Justice was served, but for the families of 33 murdered boys, the pain never ends. This has been true crime matters.