Gacy was insane and out of control at the time of the killings and pointed to the testimony given by experts during the trial. After the closing arguments and the testimony of over a hundred witnesses over a period of five weeks, the jury was left to make their decision.

It took only two hours of deliberation before the jury came back with its verdict. The courtroom was filled with silence and everyone within stood at attention when the jury marched in with its verdict. The silence was broken when the court clerk read, "We, the jury, find the defendant, John Wayne Gacy, guilty..." Gacy was found guilty in the deaths of thirty-three young men and as Sullivan said, he had the "singular notoriety of having been convicted ofmore murders than anyone else in American history." Gacy received the death penalty and was sent to Menard Correctional Center where, after years of appeals, he eventually was killed by lethal injection.

Bibliography

This feature story is primarily drawn from the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, plus the following books:

Cahill, Tim, Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer (1986).

Linedecker, Clifford L., Man Who Killed Boys (St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1994).

Mendenhall, Harlan, Fall of the House of Gacy (Mass Market Paperbacks, 1998).

Sullivan, Terry and Peter T. Maiken, Killer Clown (Mass Market Paperback, 1997)

Charles Nemo

JOHNNY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE! (Four Visits to Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy) by Charles Nemo.

Introduction

Just after midnight on May 10, 1994, American serial killer (1) John Wayne Gacy was executed by lethal injection at the