time, working in a mortuary in Las Vegas. He returned home to attend a local business college and began selling shoes. At the age of 22, he married a woman whose father owned a chain of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Waterloo, Iowa. Gacy became a successful manager of his father-in-laws business and a socially-active citizen. He joined the local Jaycees (17) and held key offices and received numerous honors as a Jaycee.

In 1968 he began a tortuous ten-year downward journey of criminality that would culminate in his arrest as a serial killer. Although he claimed to have been framed, he was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to molesting a teenager employed in the restaurant he managed. His wife divorced him. Gacy was an exemplary prisoner andwas paroled after only 18 months, returning to Chicago to become a cook and later to open a construction and remodeling business and become a small-time local politician.

His next arrest in 1971 involved a teenagers accusation that Gacy had tried to force him to engage in sex, but the charge was dismissed when the youth failed to appear in court. He remarried but soon ceased sexual relations with his wife. Gacy had become active in community affairs as a Democratic precinct captain and as a clown ("Pogo" or "Patches") at childrens parties and hospitals. He hosted large parties at his home for local dignitaries and neighbors. Gacy answered comments by his wife and others about the peculiar smell in the home by saying that there was a lot